Comment by shirleyquirk | Hacker News Reader

Comment by shirleyquirk | Hacker News Reader

I grew up in a family of classical musicians, got a degree in music, and was briefly a professional classical musician myself. So my advice may be very out of touch with the experience of someone learning for the first time, but my experiences learning beyond European classical music theory left me feeling insulted.

The basics of music theory are presented as though they are the foundations upon which all subsequent music is derived. In fact, teaching scales and chords is like teaching that the electron orbits the nucleus - a 'simplification'. There _are_ real psychoacoustic truths, alongside equally fascinating historical forces, that underpin music theory.

Learn the language and idioms of music theory, by all means, but don't think of it as being in any way true. Its a syncretist cargo cult of hacks and rules of thumb handed down by centuries of men with dubious motives.

I recommend Adam Neely on YouTube, he illustrates music theory concepts clearly, engagingly, and with an appropriate skepticism for received wisdom.

Here's his discussion of some more political criticisms of music theory: https://youtu.be/Kr3quGh7pJA

I recommend Sethares' _Tuning, Timbre, Spectrum, Scale_ to anyone interested in the underpinnings of why some notes sound good together and others don't.

[2]https://www.researchgate.net/publication/287019948_Tuning_ti...

The pianist Charles Rosen mentioned a longstanding error when most pianists play Chopin's B-flat minor sonata: when they repeat the exposition they begin from the Doppio movimento, instead of the very beginning. Rosen's argument is pretty persuasive, and it's really head-scratching why pianist continue to make this mistake for so long. My impression was that most classical musicians aren't very bright, at least the pianists are no smarter than tenors :). More seriously, it is lamentable that critical thinking is not exactly encouraged when learning an instrument, and many are happy to play what they were told to without thinking. Although I note with some optimism that after nearly 200 years things are looking up for the Chopin sonata, during the latest Chopin competition, all contestants went back to the very beginning when they played the repetition of the exposition.

I find that at least the musicology literature is much more sceptical about received wisdom. Iconoclasts like Richard Taruskin (R.I.P.) have become mainstream figures, and I don't think you can possibly look at music theory (specifically for Western literate music in the classical tradition) entirely innocently after reading through some of his work, not least his massive tome on music history. Hopefully the average university student who took a music course semester or two are better informed now thanks to Taruskin and others like him.

I've never been persuaded by Rosen's account of that repeat. Most accomplished pianists are plenty bright and have read their Rosen, but don't necessarily agree with everything he has to say. (His preference for the early Schumann editions, for instance.)

Rosen did mention that persistent error eventually harden into tradition, and we get used to anything, and what we are used to becomes what feels right. On the other hand I have never heard that Chopin sonata before I read Rosen's arguments, so starting the repeat from the beginning feels right for me.

In any case the evidence seems incontrovertible to me. The majority of the earliest sources support the reading, Brahms felt it was correct. The end of the exposition prepares for the Grave perfectly both in terms of rhythm and harmony, and the Grave appears in the development so it's clearly not a separate introduction. Are there any evidence for the other reading other than "we've always done it like this"?

Also a classically trained, now jazz, musician and agree with all of this.

Neely is good. I'd also recommend Music Matters on YouTube. His style is very easy to understand once you know the basics of notes and chords. He explains many of the different ways chords can fit together. His Bach 'tear downs' are absolutely fantastic.

https://www.youtube.com/@MusicMattersGB

I second the Music Matters recommendation. The way he explains things and walks through the creation of various harmonies I find very illuminating.

Your experience is insightful. It reminds me of a section from The Principia Discordia (not that I wouldn't recommend the rest of the book):

With our concept making apparatus called "mind" we look at reality through the ideas-about-reality which our cultures give us. The ideas-about-reality are mistakenly labeled "reality" and unenlightened people are forever perplexed by the fact that other people, especially other cultures, see "reality" differently. It is only the ideas-about-reality which differ. Real (capital-T True) reality is a level deeper that is the level of concept.

We look at the world through windows on which have been drawn grids (concepts). Different philosophies use different grids. A culture is a group of people with rather similar grids. Through a window we view chaos, and relate it to the points on our grid, and thereby understand it. The ORDER is in the GRID. That is the Aneristic Principle.

Western philosophy is traditionally concerned with contrasting one grid with another grid, and amending grids in hopes of finding a perfect one that will account for all reality and will, hence, (say unenlightened westerners) be True. This is illusory; it is what we Erisians call the ANERISTIC ILLUSION. Some grids can be more useful than others, some more beautiful than others, some more pleasant than others, etc., but none can be more True than any other.

I think when you're advanced enough to have been a professional musician the criticisms of classical theory are more useful than when you're struggling to produce or reproduce music you enjoy, or even recognize what theoretical underpinnings other people are using. Learning about electron orbits is pretty useful to recognize basic chemistry stuff - going straight to quantum theory is probably not a good way to learn.

but fair nuff.

"they are the foundations upon which all subsequent music is derived"

I had the impression music theory was used more to analyze existing music, and less so to create it.

Introductory-level music theory is usually taught to beginners learning an instrument. Simple scales, chords etc. The YouTubers I've watched recently all add the caveat that this is 'western' music theory and other cultures have different preferences.

> I had the impression music theory was used more to analyze existing music, and less so to create it.

Of course it should be. But it's sometimes taught otherwise.

It can be both. For instance you can choose to work within a particular framework when composing and arranging, and this will lubricate some aspects of the process, and give you the confidence that you can actually do it. I'm not a composer myself, but the two bands I'm in both play some original jazz compositions and arrangements. I imagine that trying to come up with a new chart, completely ab initio would be a phenomenal chore. And possibly unplayable. One that we played last night for the first time is about 50 pages of music all told.

Perhaps another explanation is that in between analyzing and creating is the "trick" of borrowing from the past, that is a staple of virtually all creative endeavor.

But people have told me that theory won't help you write catchy melodies. Those come from somewhere, and some people are just good at it. But filling out the 19 parts of a big-band arrangement involves that framework.

For context, I was a casual guitarist for many years before deciding to finally start learning music theory through jazz piano lessons about a year ago (which I highly recommend btw).

I think it's important to look at theory as descriptive and not proscriptive. Music is fundamentally heard, but having a common written/spoken language with well-defined terminology, structures, idioms, etc. allows musicians to communicate more clearly - eg. "sixteen bars of I VI V I in C major" vs actually playing it.

Yeah it's a shame that music theorist haven't pursued more of a "natural sciences" approach. As Neely says music theory is more like music conservation of a specific style. But the harmonic series, Coltrane, Barry Harris, etc... they seem to be more making discoveries than inventions.

I mean, it's useful if you need to quickly express something to a fellow musician, like, "just give me a I-IV-V Gm four bars loop".

Everything goes quickly out of the window once you get into the production side of things, of course.

Adam Neely link is fascinating. Thanks for that. The things one learns on HN eh? ;)

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