Autechre Musical Theory

[kcinsu]

well, the technical can be very important... but nothing like how you are thinking about it (beta waves).

 

the truth is, aphex really is just a great musician.

 

people don't seem to like that, as its too vague a concept. people like to see hard evidence.

 

people have searched for concrete techniques that make music great, for hundreds of years. look at bach. probably one of THE most analyzed composers ever. its been dissected to a level beyond the bone... but bachs music is still greater than anyone who tries to mimic him... he just was an amazing musician.

[kcinsu]

its because they have certain functions and tendencies, within tonal music, that numbers don't properly convey.

 

if you get into post-tonal theory, its ALL numbers, and is quite the mind fuck after awhile.

 

just reading up on messiaen's modes of limited transposability, fantastic idea

 

something i am definitely gonna have a mess about with

 

Hmmm, I haven't heard of that. Google doesn't give too many results, but from what I did found, it seems to fit with pitch set theory, breaking down components of a scale to the interval.

 

Got a good link, or is this a book?

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modes_of_limited_transposition

 

the first mode is essentially the wholetone scale: C, D, E, F#, G#, A#, C; transposing this mode up a semitone gives C#, D#, F, G, A, B, C#. Transposing this up another semitone would give D, E, F#, G#, A#, C, D which is exactly what we started with.

 

there are a limited number of scales like this

and there is also 303

 

now why on earth did a google search not get me to this!

 

ok, gonna go read

[kcinsu]

I'm 29 years old, married with five kids, and I have four degrees from an Ivy League institution in the US. Hardly your typical 'fanboy'. I take my music very seriously, and Aphex Twin happens to be at the top of my list.

 

In my defense.

 

well, you don't need to be defensive... and if you do, I don't see how that defends you? :)

[pcock]

honestly www.music-theory.net is really good. goes into pretty much everything.

[kcinsu]

ok, that's just a very fancy title. its not even called anything these days... its just common knowledge that those scales can only be transposed a certain number of times.

 

composers of the 20th century loooooved stuff like that, and symmetrical scales etc

[pcock]

honestly www.music-theory.net is really good. goes into pretty much everything.

 

wow i should have checked this before going on i,t when i went on it last time i remember it being chocker blocker with atonal mathematic articles and everything you ca imagine, seems to have been turned into a rudimentary trainer.

[Guest hahathhat]

will someone please write me a technical definition of love

[kcinsu]

will someone please write me a technical definition of love

 

it is thoroughly documented here:

 

[chenGOD]

a) people do use numbers all the time when they're talking about intervals. For example, which of the following extensions is generally not used with a m7chord: 9, 11, or 13?

 

b) that messiaen stuff is just symmetrical dominant and symmetrical diminished scales...

[Guest Rook]

lol @ aphex having a psychology degree or whatever.

 

and also lol at suggesting Messiaen and symmetrical scales for a guy who wanted like basic music theory.

[zazen]

because its far more organized to use terms instead of numbers, and it really isnt too difficult. about 300 times easier than learning french, a month and you could be fluent in music tbh.

 

thats true, I could learn all the daft names pretty quickly I suppose.

 

It just frustrates me a bit that all the notation and terminology has evolved rather than been designed. It seems a bit sub-optimal to me.

 

things I would change:

- the basic note names (C, C#, D, D#) are named based on the C-major scale, which seems a bit daft because thats just one of the multitude of modes and keys one could choose to use. I think it would have been simpler if the 12 semitones had neutral names.

- Its clearly useful to have a relative naming-convention for the notes within a particular key/mode, starting with the base note, but the scale-degree terminology of Tonic, Supertonic, Mediant, Subdominant, Dominant, Submediant, Leading Tone is unnecessarily complicated. Why is the submediant higher than the mediant ffs?

- Interval names: they have numbers in them, but the wrong numbers as far as I am concerned. So identical notes are a "first" apart, the interval known as a Fifth is actually 7 semitones. This comes about because they are counting the gaps on the musical stave, rather than the actual sonic gaps. They then have to add another layer of terminology (diminished, augmented etc) to deal with the gaps that the staves dont show.

- The roman numerals for Chords (I, II, III, IV etc) are not too bad, but they basically duplicate the scale-degree terminology, because the chords are based on the scale degrees. So its redundant.

 

its because they have certain functions and tendencies, within tonal music, that numbers don't properly convey.

 

I can see that some of the names carry information about the role that the note plays ('dominant') etc, but when you have a piece of music that modulates between different keys and modes (which is most music, these days) it gets very complicated because the simple numerical relationships between the notes are obscured by all the jargon.

 

To me, all of this is like a QWERTY keyboard - an inferior standard that stays forever because everyone has got so used to it.

 

(That said, I'm obviously still going to have to use it, the same way I have to use qwerty)

[pcock]

if you were to learn it you would realise that those ideas are , without trying to be offensive, silly and confusing. the existing system makes much more sense, i dont even know exactly what you mean.

[zazen]

i dont even know exactly what you mean.

 

thats because you've learnt it! you dont have my outsiders perspective : )

[pcock]

i think all musicians should have to learn to read sheet music at least, simply because it is so beautiful. like a work of art to accompany the music. check dis

 

Scriabin_Sonata_No.5.pdf

[Guest greenbank]

i'm with zazen on quite a lot of this (although my understanding of music theory is considerably less) and also: flats - not necessary, they can all be described as sharps.

why do some keys contain the same notes as each other? i don't actually understand the difference, i think of subsets of the possible pool of notes (so usually a subset of A-G including all sharps (and flats if you want to call them that)) so i see A major and F minor as the same for example (they contain exactly the same notes), what makes one different from the other? logically i think different names would be necessary if the order counts but does it? if i use all these notes (those contained in A major) in lots of different orders in a tune is it switching between different keys?

[pcock]

well the reason you have sharps and flats essentially boils down to it being much easier to distinguish between different key signatures spontaneously on sight, depending on which key you are in or modulating through.

[zazen]

so i see A major and F minor as the same for example (they contain exactly the same notes), what makes one different from the other?

 

(I think you mean A Major and F# Minor?)

 

I can help with this one:

Each Major Key has a corresponding Minor Key with the same notes in it (e.g. C Major has the same notes as A Minor)

Which key you are 'in' depends on the emphasis:

 

Most music makes heavy use of the first note of a key (what they call the tonic). Also the triad chord that starts with the first note of the key (what they call the 'I' chord)

So if you're tune uses the notes ABCDEFG and has a lot of C's and a lot of C-E-G chords then its probably C Major

If it uses ABCDEFG and has a lot of A's and a lot of A-C-E chords then its probably A Minor.

 

More generally: If you imagine taking all the notes from your tune (or a part of the tune thats all in one key) and plotting a frequency graph (with note along the x axis and frequency on the y axis) the peaks on the frequency curve would suggest one particular key over another.

[Guest iep]

flats - not necessary, they can all be described as sharps.

 

not really. unless you only use instruments with perfect 12-tone temperament. consider a violin - A# won't sound like Bb. Bbb won't be a G## on a cello, or ANY other instrument that isn't strickly 12T. there is this enharmonic discrepancy, and it allows very subtle intonations. it alters the focus of the pitch.

[zazen]

also: flats - not necessary, they can all be described as sharps.

 

This is true a lot of the time but not all the time.

 

I think this harks back to before the 'equal tempered scale' became widespread.

 

In some of the other (and older) ways of tuning instruments, A-sharp would not be the same a B-flat, but these days it mostly is, _especially_ in electronic or midi-based music.

 

That said, I want to mess around with the Cent values on synths and try some music in Just Intonation at some point, to see if it sounds very different.

 

edit: toned down in response to iep metaphorically hitting me over the head with a violin

[pcock]

if you change the bass note you will dramtically alter the sound of a chord, far more than if you alter any note above it. the bass note, or root, is the most important note.

[Guest Rook]

lol the note names aren't "gender neutral" lol

 

 

 

seriously, if you people actually learned the system, you would learn that you need sharps and flats. They are not redundant, they are different notes. They only sound the same on a piano.

 

 

And if you study music theory back to like Pythagoras and people like him, the fact that the C major scale is absent of sharps and flats is because of the frequency of the pitches in the scale.

 

 

The terminology is necessary because it transcends all notes and is universal.

 

 

Chord terminology is completely different from intervals.

 

 

And if you study twelve tone theory, the intervals are in the structure that you mention. (meaning that the fifth of the scale would be considered the seven.)

[zazen]

By bitching about it, I'm actually learning quite a lot of it : )

[Guest Rook]

lol

[Braintree]

This thread is hilarious.

[oyster]

Just read over my posts from last night, pretty lol.

 

Okay now that I've gotten some sleep, I think what I was trying to say is that Aphex and other good musicians must have a good grasp on the emotional element of music, even if it's just "oh if I add some ambient reverb here it'll sound more sad" or something like that. Well I geuss I still don't know what I was trying to say. BETA waves lol.