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The author admits that this article applies to only a specific flavor of music theory, and says that it only covers a small part of it. The article even mention

by pprotas 11d ago

The author admits that this article applies to only a specific flavor of music theory, and says that it only covers a small part of it. The article even mentions at the end it does not cover some of the topics you think are missing. The article is not a comprehensive syllabus of all elementary music theory, and it does not claim to be. I believe you are being too harsh, as this approach to understanding music feels much more intuitive to some (like the author, and myself), compared to traditional music education.

xiaoyu2006 11d ago
I would not call it harsh. The author don't even bother to assemble sentences themselves. And a title "Music Theory for Programmers" imply it is comprehensive even at an elementary scale.
- gjvc 10d ago
  "implies"
- mcluck 10d ago
  The title does not imply it's comprehensive. If anything, a title like that suggests that it's only scratching the surface. If I read an article like "Haskell for C# Developers" I would not expect to be an expert in Haskell at the end. I would expect to have enough intuition to begin actually learning the language properly
sambapa 11d ago
Because such posts get tiring after a while. Strong dunning kruger and all that.
iainctduncan 10d ago
PhD Candidate in music and computer science and gigging jazz musicain here. It is not too harsh. Articles like this confuse people who interested in learning a topic more than they help. Yet another case of programmers thinking "I'm a programmer so I should blog about this thing I barely know anything about as if I'm an expert, what could possibly be the downside?"
- PaulDavisThe1st 10d ago
  How does it confuse people? There is "western music theory" ala Schenker, voice leading, serialism etc (to mention a couple of names that some people might have heard of) but that describes things to do once you've got a scale and chord system. This is "12T music theory", describing how you might get to a scale and chord system. I don't see how it is confusing. You can spend a lot of time doing "western music theory" without ever understanding most of what is in this article, that is certainly true. But the fact this this outlines a bunch of stuff that undergirds what a composing (or improvising) musician might consider "music theory" doesn't invalidate it, or make it confusing, IMO.
  - iainctduncan 10d ago
    "Music theory" has a near universally accepted meaning. This article is not about that, it's about what we all call in music academia acoustics and digital synthesis (which of course I know you know as I know your work). The derivation of scales from acoustic principles is not in theory books; it's in acoustics books. I've taken numerous theory courses and also taken university acoustics courses and digital synthesis courses, so I can certainly comment on what was taught where! If people go here and think they are learning music theory and then want to go on, they will be frustrated by not finding what they want, they will have issues communicating with others in the field, and they will lose credibility by not knowing the standard nomenclature. That kind of redefinition of standard terms is not good pedagogy. Look, it's like me writing an introduction to "colour theory" and then writing about something else that eventually leads to how we see colour. I'm not debating that the article has useful content – it does – but it's title and framing is misleading, which is a disservice to the new student. I happen to personally believe everyone getting into music theory would be well served by knowing more acoustics and that this is useful material. But muddying the waters by using terms in weird ways is off. And when you write about a field and use the wrong terms, you lose credibility. Sorry, I don't trust authors who can't be arsed to use the standard nomenclature for a topic, it really doesn't make them sound trustworthy.
    - bonzini 10d ago

by pprotas 11d ago

xiaoyu2006 11d ago

I would not call it harsh. The author don't even bother to assemble sentences themselves. And a title "Music Theory for Programmers" imply it is comprehensive even at an elementary scale.

gjvc 10d ago
"implies"
mcluck 10d ago
The title does not imply it's comprehensive. If anything, a title like that suggests that it's only scratching the surface. If I read an article like "Haskell for C# Developers" I would not expect to be an expert in Haskell at the end. I would expect to have enough intuition to begin actually learning the language properly

sambapa 11d ago

Because such posts get tiring after a while. Strong dunning kruger and all that.

iainctduncan 10d ago

PhD Candidate in music and computer science and gigging jazz musicain here. It is not too harsh. Articles like this confuse people who interested in learning a topic more than they help. Yet another case of programmers thinking "I'm a programmer so I should blog about this thing I barely know anything about as if I'm an expert, what could possibly be the downside?"

PaulDavisThe1st 10d ago
How does it confuse people? There is "western music theory" ala Schenker, voice leading, serialism etc (to mention a couple of names that some people might have heard of) but that describes things to do once you've got a scale and chord system. This is "12T music theory", describing how you might get to a scale and chord system. I don't see how it is confusing. You can spend a lot of time doing "western music theory" without ever understanding most of what is in this article, that is certainly true. But the fact this this outlines a bunch of stuff that undergirds what a composing (or improvising) musician might consider "music theory" doesn't invalidate it, or make it confusing, IMO.
- iainctduncan 10d ago
  "Music theory" has a near universally accepted meaning. This article is not about that, it's about what we all call in music academia acoustics and digital synthesis (which of course I know you know as I know your work). The derivation of scales from acoustic principles is not in theory books; it's in acoustics books. I've taken numerous theory courses and also taken university acoustics courses and digital synthesis courses, so I can certainly comment on what was taught where! If people go here and think they are learning music theory and then want to go on, they will be frustrated by not finding what they want, they will have issues communicating with others in the field, and they will lose credibility by not knowing the standard nomenclature. That kind of redefinition of standard terms is not good pedagogy. Look, it's like me writing an introduction to "colour theory" and then writing about something else that eventually leads to how we see colour. I'm not debating that the article has useful content – it does – but it's title and framing is misleading, which is a disservice to the new student. I happen to personally believe everyone getting into music theory would be well served by knowing more acoustics and that this is useful material. But muddying the waters by using terms in weird ways is off. And when you write about a field and use the wrong terms, you lose credibility. Sorry, I don't trust authors who can't be arsed to use the standard nomenclature for a topic, it really doesn't make them sound trustworthy.
  - bonzini 10d ago