harmony

[exitonly]

1 minute ago, Alcofribas said:

i honestly can't follow this. if ae make music with these notes and they like it, the fans like it, how can you state that this can't be done and doesn't work? are you saying that music is wrong and would be corrected if the notes were changed? this is wild, to me. madness

 

[ArtificialDisco]

21 minutes ago, Alcofribas said:

i honestly can't follow this. if ae make music with these notes and they like it, the fans like it, how can you state that this can't be done and doesn't work? are you saying that music is wrong and would be corrected if the notes were changed? this is wild, to me. madness

I would just be better. Like if something is poorly mixed. We might overlook it because the music is really good, but it's still poorly mixed and every once in a while you'll go "shit, this is hurting my ears, I wish someone would have fixed this."

[toaoaoad]

29 minutes ago, Alcofribas said:

i honestly can't follow this. if ae make music with these notes and they like it, the fans like it, how can you state that this can't be done and doesn't work? are you saying that music is wrong and would be corrected if the notes were changed? this is wild, to me. madness

ultimately no, at the end of the day "there are no wrong notes" and i think i said that in my post: people listen to this music and hear nothing wrong with it and that's fine. and this particular "mistake" or dissonance is extremely common, and to my ear it is obvious when it is used intentionally or when it signals a gap in someone's knowledge, the latter being far more common.

my point was more so about artists using the existing western major/minor/modal systems, writing music that is based on these systems, but at the same time saying "oh we don't use any of that". it's clear with SIGN for example that the intention is to use rich harmony and melodies, even counterpoint in some cases (as with Oversteps)... this is traditional stuff. why are they saying they don't use or understand it if they're using it? why not just learn to do it right? so idk it's obviously a nitpicky thing and i can understand why no one wants to hear this shit, and i'm certainly not trying to convince anyone not to enjoy autechre's music.

and yes, it does sound better when you don't use harmonies and melodies that essentially create a 3-semitone clash in a piece that is otherwise adhering to major/minor/modal rules. the more dissonance you're using, the more it will create a logic of its own, but if everything else is major/minor and then suddenly you have this note in there... well yeah maybe that sounds cool to you, and that is what happens over time - this note in particular: since it's so common, i think represents where we are currently, i guess in that regard it's actually the hippest note there is. we're already at a stage in history where "there are no wrong notes" but i think it's useful to take an interest in how we got here.

[exitonly]

19 minutes ago, toaoaoad said:

why not just learn to do it right?

pretty sure autechre did what they set out to do

[toaoaoad]

you're missing the point but that's ok. no idea how brian managed to rope me into this lol you sly devil

[Zephyr_Nova]

3 hours ago, brian trageskin said:

 

very nice! oneohtrix would approve. 

Thanks! He might. I think I did this one in 2013 and was not yet familiar with his work. But yeah, the processed female vox give it a similar aesthetic. My main influence on this album was Paulstretch, hahaha...

[Alcofribas]

I think ultimately there is a conflation of different judgements happening that lead to assertions about what sounds better, what can and can’t be done, what is right, etc. that I just don’t really relate to. 
 

I don’t listen to SIGN and think wow man these guys aren’t doing it right. that seems really out of touch with the artistic vision and creative processes autechre is all about. I get that it’s “wrong” according to the well-established theory but I just have to so what? 
 

I also take issue with some one suggesting a poorly mixed record would just sound better if mixed different. I think this reveals a totally different perspective on rules than I possess. it’s all about the purpose of the record in question, the way artists work within their limits and how despite their ignorance they make beautiful tunes. it’s ridiculous to think that “Twoism” for instance would be “better” if it was less muddy, if they recorded it through a perfect master channel or whatever. in fact, the shiftiness of the mix is part of its beauty.

evaluating art, connecting with it, really does warrant an open mind. if you’re set on what art is supposed to be doing, yeah I guess it’s gonna look wrong when something doesn’t line up with that. but what’s the fun in that?

[toaoaoad]

23 minutes ago, Alcofribas said:

I don’t listen to SIGN and think wow man these guys aren’t doing it right. that seems really out of touch with the artistic vision and creative processes autechre is all about.

that's definitely not what i was saying, and as a devoted fanboy myself i'm horrified to be treading such delicate ground. but for someone who has formal training and is an autechre fan, these are considerations that do come up. if you're not affected by it, that's great.

but i'd rather move on from autechre now, that quote was just the jumping off point for a bigger discussion at least in my own rambling bullshit here, which i have tried to sum up and hopefully will appease my boo brian.

all previously accepted dissonances in a major/minor harmony up to this point only create a clash of only two semitones, for this example say the #11 in a lydian scale. going up in fifths this is the last remaining note of the scale, so even tho it creates a clash with the 5, it still sounds consonant because it fits into the harmony we're using. you go up one more fifth to arrive at the flat 9, and now you have a crunch where the tonic, flat 9 and natural 9 are all trying to fit into the same harmony. this is what is created by the so called "mistake" i'm talking about.

usually the way people arrive at this harmonic realm when composing is by mistake when they decide to do modal interchange with the harmony but not the melody. say you're writing a song in d minor and everything's going along fine. you decide to borrow an e flat chord from the phrygian mode, very common choice. but your melody continues to use notes from the original minor scale, in this case the only "bad" note being the natural 2 (e), which would be replaced by a flat 2 (e flat) in d phrygian. harmonically speaking, you're creating a context where d, e flat and e are all existing within the same harmony, and that clash is going to usually sound shitty. two notes a semitone apart have been fine up to this point but now you're asking for three. at the same time, our ears know how to justify that, usually following the melody, and most people don't really notice. but its place in a new realm of harmony with a heavier density of dissonance is what makes it sound "wrong". learning to solo over changes drills this kind of stuff into your head: the wrong note is any note that creates a clash of three semitones in the harmony.

final note, when i say three semitones i actually mean three notes separated by a semitone, which i think technically might be "two semitones" but this is already hurting my brain, i can only imagine how you all feel

 

Edited January 27, 2022 by toaoaoad

[brian trageskin]

@nikisoko fair enough, maybe the basics of particle physics are simpler than i thought (i'm not reading or watching this either way, couldn't give a shit about particle physics lol). 

i guess i see what you mean now. you're saying i shouldn't expect to have a discussion on whatever topic with a person who isn't equiped to discuss it. you're basically saying the folks here are baboons, got it (just kidding). ok let's move on.

[zlemflolia]

4 minutes ago, toaoaoad said:

that's definitely not what i was saying, and as a devoted fanboy myself i'm horrified to be treading such delicate ground. but for someone who has formal training and is an autechre fan, these are considerations that do come up. if you're not affected by it, that's great.

but i'd rather move on from autechre now, that quote was just the jumping off point for a bigger discussion at least in my own rambling bullshit here, which i have tried to sum up and hopefully will appease my boo brian.

all previously accepted dissonances in a major/minor harmony up to this point only create a clash of only two semitones, for this example say the #11 in a lydian scale. going up in fifths this is the last remaining note of the scale, so even tho it creates a clash with the 5, it still sounds consonant because it fits into the harmony we're using. you go up one more fifth to arrive at the flat 9, and now you have a crunch where the tonic, flat 9 and natural 9 are all trying to fit into the same harmony. this is what is created by the so called "mistake" i'm talking about.

usually the way people arrive at this harmonic realm when composing is by mistake when they decide to do modal interchange with the harmony but not the melody. say you're writing a song in d minor and everything's going along fine. you decide to borrow an e flat chord from the phrygian mode, very common choice. but your melody continues to use notes from the original minor scale, in this case the only "bad" note being the natural 2 (e), which would be replaced by a flat 2 (e flat) in d phrygian. harmonically speaking, you're creating a context where d, e flat and e are all existing within the same harmony, and that clash is going to usually sound shitty. two notes a semitone apart have been fine up to this point but now you're asking for three. at the same time, our ears know how to justify that, usually following the melody, and most people don't really notice. but its place in a new realm of harmony with a heavier density of dissonance is what makes it "wrong". learning to solo over changes drills this kind of stuff into your head: the wrong note is any note that creates a clash of three semitones in the harmony.

final note, when i say three semitones i actually mean three notes separated by a semitone, which i think technically might be "two semitones" but this is already hurting my brain, i can only imagine how you all feel

 

do you think a sufficiently knowledgeable mathematician and music theorist could come up with an alternative totality of music theory which makes it so that these choices aren't bad, but are instead good for some weird jargon reason?  for me ae is about delayed gratification and sometimes grossness, to draw contrast to the goodness. maybe if you used pitch modification in audacity to show the edits youre suggesting and let us hear it would be clearer what oyu mean

Edited January 27, 2022 by ilqx hermolia xpli

[toaoaoad]

10 minutes ago, ilqx hermolia xpli said:

 for me ae is about delayed gratification and sometimes grossness, to draw contrast to the goodness.

yeah, i like this and i agree. i think if they were also theoretical wizards their music might actually lose something. like it would be too over the top. it has a certain humility this way.

 

Edited January 27, 2022 by toaoaoad

[exitonly]

2 minutes ago, toaoaoad said:

yeah, i like this and i agree. i think if they were also theoretical wizards their music might actually lose something. like it would be too over the top. it has a certain humility this way.

no matter what, we would be listening to different music from them. its weird to say that you like their tracks but they should also learn to do this thing that would cause them to write different tracks. they are writing what they want, how they want. i dont think they are secretly trying to reach perfect tonal hamonic resolutions in their music and just falling short. it would be a different thing. that thing might also be good, but not the same thing.

[exitonly]

13 minutes ago, brian trageskin said:

@nikisoko fair enough, maybe the basics of particle physics are simpler than i thought (i'm not reading or watching this either way, couldn't give a shit about particle physics lol). 

i guess i see what you mean now. you're saying i shouldn't expect to have a discussion on whatever topic with a person who isn't equiped to discuss it. you're basically saying the folks here are baboons, got it (just kidding). ok let's move on.

im saying its stupid to come into a place and say "here is this thing i know. you dont know it but you should and if you dont i will consider you inferior until you do". Its inherently an oppressive way of interacting with another person. I know things you dont know. Im not here to tell you that you need to know them in order to go about your life.

[toaoaoad]

7 minutes ago, nikisoko said:

 its weird to say that you like their tracks but they should also learn to do this thing that would cause them to write different tracks.

also definitely not what i was saying. i think a lot of people just want to jump in and defend ae and that's cool. still missing the point

edit: actually yeah wow this warrants an edit to say holy shit that's quite the twisting of my words there lol. you're way out of line. being a fan doesn't mean loving all their tracks, for one...

Edited January 27, 2022 by toaoaoad

[Alcofribas]

1 minute ago, toaoaoad said:

also definitely not what i was saying. i think a lot of people just want to jump in and defend ae and that's cool. still missing the point

I think if you are making a general point about harmony and rules thereof, sure you’re spot on. but when it’s applied to characterize autechre’s choices as “mistakes” or loses some of its merit. for me, anyway. 

there is a ton of stuff about autechre that makes me uncomfortable. I legit have gone through many experiences wondering if I even like what I’m hearing, only coming to an intense enjoyment and appreciation after getting through certain awkward and even terrifying elements. this is a big part of my experience in their music, how some things are just very unsettling, off, uncanny, etc. so I’m not convinced that a certain note that “doesn’t belong” is a mistake they’ve made. and we all know that sean would be like “nah mate it sounds mental” if you brought this up to him. 
 

“mistakes” are totally fine to me anyway. like, I really like how the dude sings “manufested” instead of “manifested” in that Disclosure song. he didn’t know how the word was pronounced, but it sounds cool!

[IOS]

st epreo transcription brian pls

[toaoaoad]

4 minutes ago, Alcofribas said:

I think if you are making a general point about harmony and rules thereof, sure you’re spot on. but when it’s applied to characterize autechre’s choices as “mistakes” or loses some of its merit. for me, anyway.

yeah. i try to put these loaded words like "mistake" and "wrong" in quotes because it's not necessarily my personal opinion, but just the general points about harmony.

how this got turned into a discussion about ae...  it started with that quote where they're saying they don't understand music or whatever. and so i'm just saying, that's cool, you do you. but noticing that the music does in fact use the existing western system of harmony.

from there, my rant about the semitone thing was not really about ae anymore because it's something i've heard across genres. i'm not trying to say they need to go back and fix a note or whatever lol

[Alcofribas]

but like, this thread is doomed from the first trollish post. we can’t discuss art openly because we have to adhere to discussing harmony understood as something belonging to a specific canon and pedagogy. we can use examples of how the electronic artists celebrated on here do it “wrong” according to this methodology, but we can’t speak broadly about art beyond this bc the thread will always get trolled back to “but this is the theory thread”

i don’t really get why Brian et al use “theory” in such a combative way. it’s such a boring discussion. I remember playing aphex at conservatory in 2002 and this guy from the classical department literally plugged his ears and told me to turn it off. He said he couldn’t stand music with “such repetitive rhythms.” (Vordhosbn was the track in question lol). Later in the evening after a concert he was raving about a musical “genius” he had just discovered and had I heard of him...Steve reich. Like come on man. It’s just that his pedagogical environment had taught him how to appreciate Reich’s repetition, but had nothing to say about teh phex

[toaoaoad]

2 minutes ago, Alcofribas said:

 we can’t discuss art openly because we have to adhere to discussing harmony understood as something belonging to a specific canon and pedagogy. we can use examples of how the electronic artists celebrated on here do it “wrong” according to this methodology, but we can’t speak broadly about art beyond this bc the thread will always get trolled back to “but this is the theory thread”

I mean, people are free to talk about whatever they want here lol who's stopping you? why frame it like this as if you're being oppressed somehow?

if anything it's more like the taboo here is questioning anything about the subforum artists, shaking that pedestal in any way lol

[Alcofribas]

28 minutes ago, toaoaoad said:

I mean, people are free to talk about whatever they want here lol who's stopping you? why frame it like this as if you're being oppressed somehow?

if anything it's more like the taboo here is questioning anything about the subforum artists, shaking that pedestal in any way lol

1. I’m talking bro, I’m not oppressed. I’m referring to the condescending way Brian talks about music theory. See the OP for reference. 
 

2. people say this a lot - that it’s taboo to criticize the various Brothers on here - but I see constant criticism in nearly every sub forum. so...idk m9

Edited January 27, 2022 by Alcofribas

[vkxwz]

3 minutes ago, toaoaoad said:

I mean, people are free to talk about whatever they want here lol who's stopping you? why frame it like this as if you're being oppressed somehow?

if anything it's more like the taboo here is questioning anything about the subforum artists, shaking that pedestal in any way lol

I think its less about questioning subforum artists and more about how that "questioning" is putting some rules developed by a small group of people hundreds of years ago, above things that are actually more important. In the end the most important things are what the music makes you feel and communicates to you, and the theory should be a means to that end. So when someone comes in and says no this music (which achieves those goals exceptionally well) is actually "incorrect" because they disobey the rules whos goal is to achieve those more significant goals, it just feels like you are missing the point. You're doing a disservice to yourself if you value what music theory has to say about a piece of music over your own experience of it.

[Alcofribas]

also fwiw, I take no issue with what you’re saying here. I just have a different way of framing things, I suppose. 

[brian trageskin]

Just now, nikisoko said:

im saying its stupid to come into a place and say "here is this thing i know. you dont know it but you should and if you dont i will consider you inferior until you do". Its inherently an oppressive way of interacting with another person. I know things you dont know. Im not here to tell you that you need to know them in order to go about your life.

how about the arrogance of the ignorant who claims they don't need to learn theory? there are no words to express how idiotic this position is. a little humility is what they need imo (i'm more or less repeating what toad said elsewhere). so no, i don't think it's stupid to be honest with them and tell them the truth, which is that i'll eat any of these clowns for breakfast when it comes to chord progressions and melodies - and i don't even know much about harmony lol (hell, i don't even write music lol). the truth hurts but it also heals, and i'm here to help them grow up.

Spoiler

[zlemflolia]

the bobtechre quadruplets are by all means among the most successful non-mainstream musical artists in living memory, somehow sculpting masterpieces out of samples from a laundromat in disrepair.  no decayed old idiot in the ground can disrupt this fact.  ae's music theory is much more advanced from them.  its called the lushness principle

[Alcofribas]

5 minutes ago, brian trageskin said:

how about the arrogance of the ignorant who claims they don't need to learn theory? there are no words to express how idiotic this position is. a little humility is what they need imo (i'm more or less repeating what toad said elsewhere). so no, i don't think it's stupid to be honest with them and tell them the truth, which is that i'll eat any of these clowns for breakfast when it comes to chord progressions and melodies - and i don't even know much about harmony lol (hell, i don't even write music lol). the truth hurts but it also heals, and i'm here to help them grow up.

  Reveal hidden contents

sure but while you’re learning the “truth” about chords, these clowns will be making sick beats and lush pads that fill my pants with cummies

4 minutes ago, ilqx hermolia xpli said:

the lushness principle

the lushness principle