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I'm a programmer with a degree in musicology as well. This ain't it. I'm reading your comment with a certain disdain for analysis and theory, which I get - a

I'm a programmer with a degree in musicology as well. This ain't it. I'm reading your comment with a certain disdain for analysis and theory, which I get - a lot of people come out scarred from music theory training, and I'm sorry someone hurt you that way. But music theory is fundamentally a way to talk about music. Nobody is trying to "sell" you anything, but it does become much easier to work together as musicians when we share a language we can use to talk about the music. "Take it from the candenza", "a bit more ritenuto", etc. is just more efficient and precise than "take it from the place where it goes dun-dun-dunnnn", or "go more slowly-like". Seriously, you're doing yourself a huge favor as a musician and broadening your conceptual thinking about music by learning this stuff.

coldtea 11d ago
>I'm reading your comment with a certain disdain for analysis and theory, which I get - a lot of people come out scarred from music theory training, and I'm sorry someone hurt you that way. I'm fine with contentional music theory training. Know my music theory, had official music training, been at it for some decades. It's not the purpose of this. Traditional music theory training or a jazz theory book wont tell you about harmonics and timbre. It wont tell you how come we divided the octave like this, and things this tries to tackle. It was written to serve a fundamentally different purpose. A purpose which apparently familiarity with regular music theory makes most blind to. It's like someone wanting to learn about acoustics, and someone given them an earful about diatonic chords and how to read notation. It's simply not what they want to now about. Or it's like someone wants to know about the chemistry of cement or the physics behind structural engineering, and people try to tell him all about construction and construction terms. Not what he is interested in knowing, even if it's essential for building a house, just like music theory is essential (or at least useful) in playing and composing music. >But music theory is fundamentally a way to talk about music. Nobody is trying to "sell" you anything, but it does become much easier to work together as musicians when we share a language we can use to talk about the music. That's neither here nor there. The purpose of TFA is not for musicians to talk about music with one another, or to help someone analyze that this piece of music is in that key or uses that mode, and modulates there, or that "this chord here is used as a chromatic mediant", or borrowed chords, or counterpoint, and all that. >"Take it from the candenza", "a bit more ritenuto", etc. is just more efficient and precise than "take it from the place where it goes dun-dun-dunnnn", or "go more slowly-like". That's explicitly NOT what TFA wants to be useful for.

coldtea 11d ago

>I'm reading your comment with a certain disdain for analysis and theory, which I get - a lot of people come out scarred from music theory training, and I'm sorry someone hurt you that way. I'm fine with contentional music theory training. Know my music theory, had official music training, been at it for some decades. It's not the purpose of this. Traditional music theory training or a jazz theory book wont tell you about harmonics and timbre. It wont tell you how come we divided the octave like this, and things this tries to tackle. It was written to serve a fundamentally different purpose. A purpose which apparently familiarity with regular music theory makes most blind to. It's like someone wanting to learn about acoustics, and someone given them an earful about diatonic chords and how to read notation. It's simply not what they want to now about. Or it's like someone wants to know about the chemistry of cement or the physics behind structural engineering, and people try to tell him all about construction and construction terms. Not what he is interested in knowing, even if it's essential for building a house, just like music theory is essential (or at least useful) in playing and composing music. >But music theory is fundamentally a way to talk about music. Nobody is trying to "sell" you anything, but it does become much easier to work together as musicians when we share a language we can use to talk about the music. That's neither here nor there. The purpose of TFA is not for musicians to talk about music with one another, or to help someone analyze that this piece of music is in that key or uses that mode, and modulates there, or that "this chord here is used as a chromatic mediant", or borrowed chords, or counterpoint, and all that. >"Take it from the candenza", "a bit more ritenuto", etc. is just more efficient and precise than "take it from the place where it goes dun-dun-dunnnn", or "go more slowly-like". That's explicitly NOT what TFA wants to be useful for.