Music theory is not logical

Chords, scales, harmony, melody, etc.
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jancivil wrote:
slipstick wrote:It's around the point that people start talking about C# and Db as though they're different notes and then talking about a B# when anyone can see that the next note up from B is C and there's no such thing as a B# that you realise that the OP was pretty much right.
Not at all. First of all, a seven-note scale having seven letter names is normal.

C# D# E# F# G# A# B#.
Same 'logic' as C D E F G A B.
What's your problem with that?

The next note up from B flat is C? There's your logic. It's nonsense. You don't like enharmonics is all. Wouldn't surprise me if, because sharps all you see in the DAW piano roll then F G A A# C D E is a perfectly good representation of F major scale to you. If not, well you're inconsistent.
The whole thing (i.e. intro to theory) is, quite clearly, logical. The thing that makes it confusing is hidden complexity.

Most modern music, especially pop music, is extremely simple in harmonic terms. It rarely ventures into harmonic territory with remote modulations, and often uses lots of incidental chromatic alterations in an otherwise very simple harmonic framework. The distinction between c sharp and d flat has little practical import in such a harmonic framework.

I am not saying distinctions like this are unimportant. I love complex tonal harmony, and know that enharmonic relations can have deep theoretical importance in this context. I am simply saying that, if a whole musical culture regards the piano roll in Fruity Loops as ontologically fundamental, convincing them of the importance of enharmonic note spellings is an uphill battle of Gettysburg dimensions.

I think the best approach is to link to music that embodies or evinces the glories of complex and sophisticated tonal harmony: music from Wagner and Debussy to John Coltrane and Sun Ra.

People need to have a compelling reason to develop hard to acquire skills that are unintuitive to them. If hearing the music doesn't plant the seed of curiosity, incomprehensible (to them) lectures on the importance of enharmonic note spellings are unlikely to be more successful.

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It's a paraconsistent system, surely.

Because it's descriptive. It's an attempt to categorize our ancestral ape screams, or at least those we find pleasing, and give us predictive capacity.

In fact, notions of prescription, proscription, ought, should... are all built on question-begging that there's some weird component of Humans that is magically contra causal while simultaneously being causal.

So yeah. No.

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herodotus wrote: People need to have a compelling reason to develop hard to acquire skills that are unintuitive to them. If hearing the music doesn't plant the seed of curiosity, incomprehensible (to them) lectures on the importance of enharmonic note spellings are unlikely to be more successful.
Heh. Far be it from me to hope to persuade the common clay of the new west of KVR who are posting here, but some who have not made that choice yet should be given an option in a thread, rather than believe some nonsense which is 'plain for all to see'.

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herodotus wrote: I am simply saying that, if a whole musical culture regards the piano roll in Fruity Loops as ontologically fundamental, convincing them of the importance of enharmonic note spellings is an uphill battle of Gettysburg dimensions.
:hihi:

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jancivil wrote:
herodotus wrote: I am simply saying that, if a whole musical culture regards the piano roll in Fruity Loops as ontologically fundamental, convincing them of the importance of enharmonic note spellings is an uphill battle of Gettysburg dimensions.
:hihi:
Well, I can say that Hebrew language is not logical either. Strange symbols, and people read from right to left? What's the logic of that?

And what about Japanese? Even stranger symbols and people read vertically, in columns? What's the logic of that?
Last edited by fmr on Fri Jun 29, 2018 11:09 am, edited 1 time in total.
Fernando (FMR)

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herodotus wrote:...I am simply saying that, if a whole musical culture regards the piano roll in Fruity Loops as ontologically fundamental, convincing them of the importance of enharmonic note spellings is an uphill battle of Gettysburg dimensions.
This.

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StudioDave wrote:
herodotus wrote:...I am simply saying that, if a whole musical culture regards the piano roll in Fruity Loops as ontologically fundamental, convincing them of the importance of enharmonic note spellings is an uphill battle of Gettysburg dimensions.
This.
Music is a language. People can learn to speak a new language by just listening, but to really get deep in the knowlede, you need to study grammar, syntax and cultural backgrounds. You either do that or you'll never have a real knowledge of the language, just a superficial one. It may be enough to speak, even to write (as long as you keep it simple) but not enough to "know" it.
Fernando (FMR)

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What is not logical is people trying to shoehorn descriptions and prescriptions that evolved and were made in the context of some musical practices into totally different contexts and practices where those same "theories" are not useful at all.

If someone is just adding squares with a mouse in a piano roll to make EDM tracks for sale, then I'd adivse them to use set theory and to think of intervals in terms of semitones and integers. A major chord is just [0,4,7] a minor chord is [0,3,7], a fifth is always 7, a major scale is always [2212221]... problem solved!... Use the "theory" that best fits your "practice".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set_theory_(music)
Last edited by Musicologo on Fri Jun 29, 2018 3:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Play fair and square!

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fmr wrote:
StudioDave wrote:
herodotus wrote:...I am simply saying that, if a whole musical culture regards the piano roll in Fruity Loops as ontologically fundamental, convincing them of the importance of enharmonic note spellings is an uphill battle of Gettysburg dimensions.
This.
Music is a language. People can learn to speak a new language by just listening, but to really get deep in the knowlede, you need to study grammar, syntax and cultural backgrounds. You either do that or you'll never have a real knowledge of the language, just a superficial one. It may be enough to speak, even to write (as long as you keep it simple) but not enough to "know" it.
I am not so sure. I have known too many musicians with limited theory knowledge who made interesting and sophisticated music.

Of course, these people tend to be skilled performers, and well versed in chord names, key names, and other practical bits of theory knowledge. More importantly, they all listened to and learned from a great deal of sophisticated and intelligent music, and internalized its principles.

I don't know how common this is. I wouldn't recommend it as a learning program to a beginner or anything like that. I just thought it was worth mentioning.

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Musicologo wrote:What is not logical is people trying to shoehorn descriptions and prescriptions that evolved and were made in the context of some musical practices into totally different contexts and practices where those same "theories" are not useful at all.

If someone is just adding squares with a mouse in a piano roll to make EDM tracks for sale, then I'd adivse them to use set theory and to think of intervals in terms of semitones and integers. A major chord is just [0,4,7] a minor chord is [0,3,7], a fifth is always 7, a major scale is always [2212221]... problem solved!... Use the "theory" that best fits your "practice".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set_theory_(music)
I have used set theory in a musical context and found it enlightening, but it is even more abstract than classic theory. And it certainly isn't a substitute for chord names, chord inversions, scale names and the like. Finally, it has little use as a form of musical notation.

I feel about traditional theory and notation the way Churchill felt about democracy:
Churchill wrote:Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…

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The best jazzer in my home town, as far as I knew, George Shaw knew nothing of formal theory.
He didn't read. He internalized something, as you say of chord names and what worked. This is a talent issue.
Paul McCartney knew none of it, the same thing. But these people are doing 'music theory' in that they have observed what works and have a totally consistent working relationship of melody to harmony.

I, as soon as I started in fifth grade in band class on the leased trumpet, read with complete ease and once I found that C instruments sheet music I got at the store was not right for the Bb horn, I figured that out. I didn't take a course until I was 18. And me, I needed the part writing discipline. So people as individuals may be quite different in aptitude.

There is no excuse for getting shirty about B# (and E# or Cb etc), though. It's argument from ignorance and it's a bit aggro.

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Musicologo wrote:What is not logical is people trying to shoehorn descriptions and prescriptions that evolved and were made in the context of some musical practices into totally different contexts and practices where those same "theories" are not useful at all.
Agreed.
Musicologo wrote: If someone is just adding squares with a mouse in a piano roll to make EDM tracks for sale, then I'd adivse them to use set theory and to think of intervals in terms of semitones and integers. A major chord is just [0,4,7] a minor chord is [0,3,7], a fifth is always 7, a major scale is always [2212221]... problem solved!... Use the "theory" that best fits your "practice".
I disagree entirely with this. A major chord is a quality of third determination. It has a 'major' sound because of that quality. Minor is identifiable by ear as minor; and the ear can easily be married to the {simple} naming*. Triads are thirds. It's been said here 'it's all cultural', well, this is.

I don't know what about 'squares with a mouse' leads to pure abstraction. That strikes me as non sequitur.
Music is context and context determines the vocabulary. *It's a language, set theory is totally abstract.

As to suiting a practice, abstracting into sets may well be useful for dodecaphonic serialism. I didn't use it.
The one composition elective I took at CCM was all about write something following certain strictures from the 2nd Viennese School. I dropped it, 'this is kind of stupid'. CF: Frank Zappa's remarks about it, being ensured 'correctness' by getting the numbers in your rows properly. But I have some pretty good fraudulent dodecaphony, I worked hard for that grade before I decided being graded on this sort of exercise was not quite right. I know from atonal and I know how tonal conditioning is hard to subvert completely. CF: Schoenberg finally. You can't think the same way, which does reinforce the statement at top I concur with.

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jancivil wrote: I disagree entirely with this. A major chord is a quality of third determination. It has a 'major' sound because of that quality. Minor is identifiable by ear as minor; and the ear can easily be married to the {simple} naming*. Triads are thirds. It's been said here 'it's all cultural', well, this is.
I remember someone (probably some gospel musician) saying something along the lines of... pick a root and a [minor or major] third and you have a [minor or major] chord and then you just add a bunch of other notes for flavour depending on taste.

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MIDI grids usually have neither sharps nor flats. They are just grids. The same if I program a sequence in an arpeggiator or a list in Lisp for the computer to play it. The only thing that matters is the shape in the visual grid. Therefore, it's much easier to know the distances in semitones from one rectangle to the other (or from one key to the other in a 12 TET keyboard). If I click with the mouse and put a note there, I know that if i put another on the 4th square above and then another on the 3rd square above that, I get the sound of a major chord. It's really counting squares, pretty much like it would be paiting by numbers.

MIDI pitches go from 0 to 127, C4 being 60. Therefore If I want C major fundamental state in 4th octave, I know that i want pitches 60,64,67. If I want Eb minor I'd want 63,66,70, etc... ANY collection of pitches with the format [x,x+4,x+7,(x+12)] it's a major chord in fundamental state. You can define the set for all kinds of chords, and then you have an elegant tool to produce or classify ANY aggregate in your piano roll, no hassle.

At least that's how I see the practice of composing music in a piano roll or using lists. It's counting squares (or keys). Therefore set theory is the most elegant and useful way to describe chords and scales within that practice which seems what OP was doing in the first place.
Play fair and square!

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jancivil wrote:There is no excuse for getting shirty about B# (and E# or Cb etc), though. It's argument from ignorance and it's a bit aggro.
No. It's a recognition that what people coming new to this sort of thing often find illogical and confusing is enharmonic equivalence of differently named notes and intervals. There is a logic there but it is necessary to get some way into Western music theory before any sense is at all apparent.

Coming to it fresh it doesn't seem very logical that the same note on piano or guitar or DAW piano roll might be called C or B# or Dbb. And an interval consisting of A plus that note might be called a minor third or an augmented second (but what is it called if it's A + Dbb ?) and so on. Same two keys/frets/squares, same sound, different names. The logic is not easy for people to spot.

Failing to recognise this demonstrates ignorance, maybe not of music theory, but of people.

Steve

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