PaulDavisThe1st

8 ms·

1.
by PaulDavisThe1st 5d ago
That's not what "tuning" means. Yes, fretless string instruments, the human voice, instruments like the trombone are all capable of being played with arbitrary or semi-arbitrary pitch. But they are still either tuned in som
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by PaulDavisThe1st 6d ago
I have some great news: you're a nerd ! :)) ... or is it geek, i can never remember the difference ...
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by PaulDavisThe1st 6d ago
Note that in historical Byzantine musical culture, there are no absolute pitches at all. Their notational form is entirely intervals from some arbitrary root note. Similarly, in Carnatic and Hindustani classical traditions, the note names (
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by PaulDavisThe1st 6d ago
You're saying its not possible to tune a piano to an arbitrary set of 88 pitches?
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by PaulDavisThe1st 6d ago
One of the best examples of a clear issue with metaphorical thinking came from discussions about the plaque installed on Pioneer 10. Some clever people thought up the idea of using a pulsar map to define where the sun/earth were. Some
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by PaulDavisThe1st 6d ago
Then I suppose your reply should have said "all of them" ?
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by PaulDavisThe1st 7d ago
Excuse for who? The nurse? The hospital administration? The hospital owners? The insurance company?
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by PaulDavisThe1st 9d ago
there's the artinoise re.corder which is blown and fingered but only generates MIDI (via bluetooth).
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by PaulDavisThe1st 9d ago
That's fair ... among music theorists. Almost nobody else would ever say that "A is a pitch class". Just like nobody would ever say "a Chihuaha is a class of dogs", even though that's just as true. They'd
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by PaulDavisThe1st 9d ago
"A" is the name of a note. So is "Sa" and so is "Ke" (in different traditions). They all denote a specific pitch, though precisely which pitch they denote is not always clear (e.g. among traditions in which all
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by PaulDavisThe1st 9d ago
You're reading things into what I wrote that are not there. I have not suggested that any particular stance towards people who are not close to you is virtuous. What I wrote is not "code for" anything. If your core values are
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by PaulDavisThe1st 9d ago
Ah, sure, OK. There are "notes as the name of certain pitches", and "notes as things musicians play". The former is a relatively simple concept, the latter much less so. I do see that the vast majority of the wikipedia a
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by PaulDavisThe1st 10d ago
I really don't know what you're referring to, no.
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by PaulDavisThe1st 10d ago
TFA is titled "Music Theory for Programmers".
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by PaulDavisThe1st 10d ago
But TFA is called "Music Theory for Programmers". It's not called "Music Theory for Music Students".
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by PaulDavisThe1st 10d ago
> The point is to make music. Is it? Why?
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by PaulDavisThe1st 10d ago
Oddly, or perhaps predictably, or both, most of them still converge on the same basic pitch classes. The example I'm most familiar with is Carnatic and Hindustani music, where there are theoretically 22 tones per octave, and in fact th
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by PaulDavisThe1st 10d ago
What would you call the topic of "why are there 12 notes to the octave?" "why is the perfect fifth the most consonant chord?" "why do we use equal temperament?"
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by PaulDavisThe1st 10d ago
No, people don't "hear semitones differently" but ... practicing musicians from one culture will choose to use semitones, quartertones and microtones differently, and a listener with a lot of musical exposure will notice this
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by PaulDavisThe1st 10d ago
> The derivation of scales from acoustic principles is not in theory books; it's in acoustics books. And this is correct because ... ? There are whole subsectors of "music theory" that cover precisely this sort of thing, e
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by PaulDavisThe1st 10d ago
Tell me more about the other properties.
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by PaulDavisThe1st 10d ago
> And these conventions are for example different between western and traditional indian, arabic or chinese music. TFA does acknowledge that it only really covers western music. But on top of that, the other musical cultures you mention
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by PaulDavisThe1st 10d ago
> It's as if a physics student tries to derive medicine "from first principles" by starting at atoms and thinking hard. It doesn't work and won't fix your appendix It might not help develop a cure for your append
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by PaulDavisThe1st 10d ago
What is meant here is that there are different musical cultures around the world, and if you grew up in one that, for example, prominently uses quarter-tones/microtones (e.g. a lot of music from Arabic and Indian cultures) then we know
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by PaulDavisThe1st 10d ago
"Music of the Whole Earth" by David Reck is pretty good, too.
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by PaulDavisThe1st 10d ago
I am missing the part where TFA said that the goal was to help with "basic song writing". And what is "distracting level of nerdery" to someone can be the key that helps unlock a deeper level of understanding to someone
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by 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 sc
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by PaulDavisThe1st 10d ago
Do you think the Egyptians called it Europe? When do you think people began calling "America" "America", and why? Or referring to the largest continent as "Africa" ? I understand what your point was. I was thin
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by PaulDavisThe1st 11d ago
> Europe existed far before the EU and will continue to exist after the EU finally comes to an end. First clause: indisputable. Second clause: maybe, maybe not. Europe hasn't always existed as a concept, and its longevity is unknown
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by PaulDavisThe1st 11d ago
I have indeed. I think that the gap between the MAGA crowd and, say, Santa Fe progressives, is much deeper than the one between Wilders and some progressive NL equivalent. It might be as wide, but depth matters too. The USA contains a lot o

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