What my musical instruments have taught me | Hacker News Reader

What my musical instruments have taught me

newyorker.com

99 pointsjvandonsel41 comments

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https://archive.ph/AZxLm

You're doing the lords work right here. Thank you.

Amen

Just in case someone is not aware of this extension, here it is:

https://gitlab.com/magnolia1234/bypass-paywalls-chrome-clean

The performance by Lanier is not playable from the internet archive. It’s worth opening up the original link for that performance. I had no idea Jaron Lanier was such talented musician and performer.

I took piano lessons as a kid through my late teens, and then didn't touch a piano until 20 years later...about a month ago.

I've been on a work sabbatical, and realized that I really loved playing back then, and that part of bringing balance back to my life might involve bringing music back into the picture.

When I got the piano, I started easing myself back into the basics. But occasionally, I'd try to play some of the very technical pieces I'd learned as a kid. It felt as if I'd forgotten everything about playing them.

I stopped trying, and refocused on learning new things. About a week into this, I sat down, and just played the technical thing without thinking about it. It was always there, and I hadn't done anything to relearn it, it just was somewhere beyond the circuitry that typically fires.

Shortly after this came flowing out of my fingers, a flood of memories surfaced that shed light on issues of my childhood. My memory of that time period is mostly non-existent (trauma/abuse that I've been working through for many years), so having any glimpse into it is pretty surprising.

Also disturbing, as it turns out, but it gave me something to work with where before there had only been pain and a sense of feeling lost.

There's something magical about closing your eyes, and feeling the keys, and the keys becoming an extension of your thoughts and feelings in that moment, and feeling like you can spill your emotions onto the keyboard, and these beautiful sounds come out.

I don't doubt that music reconnected some pathways that haven't been active for awhile. I'm trying to be more careful about playing music I learned back then though...

Yeah this is cool. I took up classical Guitr again and was expecting this to happen, and it was really cool feeling my memory inbox ping

That was a lovely comment to read - thanks for that. I've been trying to get into learning music lately, as a change from programming. I'd love to be as familiar with an instrument to be able to work as instinctively as you describe.

Thank you! For all of the complications of that time in my life, I’m grateful for the piano lessons.

I definitely think it’s a worthwhile thing to spend time on, and part of what got me to dive back in was looking at the amount of time I was spending on things like Factorio and Rocket League. Honing my aerial goal shooting skills endlessly was starting to feel not very useful, and I realized it was mostly the challenge that I enjoyed, and that I could find that challenge elsewhere.

Playing instinctively started to happen once I had some good muscle memory established for basic scales/chords/progressions. I hated practicing these as a kid, but they really do unlock possibilities. From there, a few basic techniques can start an improvisation, and the chords/scales/progressions take over.

A little bit every day adds up over time.

Highly recommend the book 'The Body Keeps The Score', which touches on a lot of what you're bringing up here. Thanks for sharing that.

https://www.besselvanderkolk.com/resources/the-body-keeps-th...

I’ve had this book for years, but had some difficulty confronting the subject matter until more recently.

I’m a few chapters in now, and it has been very illuminating. I don’t think it’s coincidental that I started a yoga practice earlier this year, and it’s helped me move emotions through my body that I previously didn’t know how to handle.

Thanks for mentioning it here. This is a good reminder to finish reading it.

Took about 7 years out of the piano. After starting again I found the same issue. It was frustrating and awkward to try to play old pieces. I kept one because it was just the right level to re-engage.

After a few weeks of playing things started to come back and old pieces would just flow from the fingertips if I let myself go and stopped overthinking things.

If I rationalize it, there's what your brain thinks, what your eye sees, what you want to play and what your body is doing. And once I'm warmed up these are all connected better and when in the flow state I can dig out old muscle memory from 15-20 years ago

The body knows how to do stuff. The more I pay attention, the more I realize that I (the thinking I) don’t get involved in most of it.

This has been a very liberating realization.

Really cool to hear that you’ve had a similar experience.

Yep. Don't know if you're a programmer but I think it's ultimately abstraction.

When you watch kids learn to walk it's super difficult. It's a whole body act and requires a bunch of coordination/timing of the core with the legs and hips.

Similarly with piano if you start having to do things like arpeggios or scales very fast, you no longer have time to be 100% cognizant of the minutiae of what you're doing and the higher level action takes over.

As a programmer I love to analyze and overthink so I enjoy physical activities as they ground me and remind me to let go and trust myself.

Yeah, I've written code my whole life, and spent most of it focused almost exclusively on that analytical way of thinking.

The thing that Piano (and Yoga) has helped me see is how much intelligence is not of the thinking/analytical variety.

I've gradually transitioned from seeing analytical thought as the only "valid" way of looking at the world to analytical thought being another tool in a toolbox and just one aspect of intelligence.

How does my heart know how fast to beat? How do my vital organs function? Certainly not because I'm thinking about it :)

I find musical instruments one of the better human technological achievements - with way more inherent upside than downside. That ranges from log drums and bamboo flutes to the latest software based virtual instrument and includes natural spaces like a cave, canyon or cathedral, and audio effects from a guitar pedalboard to software plugins.

A crazy blend of physics, math, emotion and culture, craft and engineering that can bring joy (or tears) for beginners and virtuosos. Players and listeners.

Something that can be experienced with a large crowd, a small group or in total solitude.

A musical instrument can have mythical qualities bestowed by incredible craftsmanship or be a mass produced piece of crap. Yet even the latter can speak to you on some level in the right context.

The incredible upside of software instruments and audio effects is, that I can experience virtual sonic spaces that are close approximations of real instruments and acoustic spaces that are totally out of reach for me - or something that’s never been heard in the natural world.

Musical instruments are amazing!

I was forced to play the trumpet and french horn, did jazz band over the summer, all that stuff.

It added a rich appreciation for music that I've grown into. Programming and technical analysis drain me, music energizes me. Can't live without it.

I don't play nearly as many instruments, but I find every instrument has something to teach. Examples:

* A melodica is quite fun for a keyboard player because you learn about breath control and its relationship to phrasing.

* The bass side buttons of many accordions are arranged based on the circle of fifths, so you'll be learning that well if you haven't yet.

* Fingering isn't nearly as obvious or standardized on a chromatic button accordion as on a piano keyboard because so many choices are available. There are multiple useful ways of playing something as simple as a scale, and I have fun exploring them.

How would you compare the relationship between breathing and phrasing, with the relationship between bowing (eg on a violin) and phrasing? I have musical experience with the latter but not the former.

The buttons on an accordion are usually chords, right? Is it the root then which is arranged in a circle of fifths? Or I guess if it's the same chord shape it's all of the notes in the cord too?

For accordions, my experience is there are 5-7 rows (each manufacturer varies) per column. The first row is actually the minor 6th (a 3rd below) the second row, which is the note the column is based on.

The following rows in the column are usually a minor, major, minute 7th, major 7th, then sometimes augmented or diminished or MM7.

The root note on the 2nd row is arranged in a circle of 5ths, usually the middle corresponds to middle C (denoted by an indentation)

This is my experience with the LHS of piano keyboards.

1st row is major 3rd above, not below, the root (2nd row). This setup makes it easy to play root-3rd-5th bass lines of major chords.

Ah, right, i was thinking the column back 1st row (what i get for having insomnia and typing without thinking). I sit corrected

For a breath instrument I will usually take a breath between phrases. For an accordion I often switch direction there. But sometimes I need to adjust this to be practical.

It seems similar to speaking? Sometimes people will talk about saying something "breathlessly."

The bass and chord buttons on a Stradella bass (the most common kind) both go in a circle of fifths, so the root and major chord are next to each other, for example. There is a second bass row with the major third, and for French accordions sometimes a third bass row.

"Today, tech companies promise to create algorithms that can analyze old music to create new music. But music is ambiguous: is it mostly a product to be produced and enjoyed, or is the creation of it the most important thing? If it’s the former, then being able to automate the production of music is at least a coherent idea, whether or not it is a good one. But, if it’s the latter, then pulling music creation away from people undermines the whole point. I often work with students who want to build algorithms that make music. I ask them, Do you mean you want to design algorithms that are like instruments, and which people can use to make new music, or do you just want an A.I. to make music for you? For those students who want to have optimal music made for them, I have to ask, Would you want robots to have sex for you so you don’t have to? I mean, what is life for?"

A lot of things that I know how to do now seemed impossible at some time: driving a unicycle or even a bicycle... playing piano with two hands!? Impossible!

We all have memories of that moment when something "clicked" and we just "got it", but most of us forget about when we did not know!

My point is: even though a particular musical piece (or any other creative activity really) may look impossible, who knows, after enough practice, it may "click" and become as easy as walking! The fact that someone was able to do the thing, means it must be doable :-).

Interesting article. The study on this topic can be basically found in a community called NIME. https://www.nime.org/

One of the most popular concepts there is `embodied music cognition`.

How can we define music and musical instruments?

In many cases, we tend to pre-assume the music we discuss is just the combination of melody, rhythm and timbre, but how about sound-based music?

The author tends to have a negative attitude towards digital instruments, but I can share that I feel amazing when I created this piece together with the instruments:

https://github.com/chaosprint/Packing

My performance video can be found here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYu55YZJH_s&t=102s&ab_channe...

Now I am fully engaged on live coding:

https://youtu.be/iKj7IibG0OU

The main takeaway is that these digital music making tools offer a unique embodied experience while I feel tired of physical instruments.

Very interesting, thanks for sharing.

After reading the article, I'm struck by a single thought: while that was imaginative and at points interesting, what did the writer actually say? It was a little like the sticky guy at the coffee shop who keeps talking, changing subject multiple times without finishing any, and won't let you get a word in edgewise: you like him well enough, but the conversation was for his own benefit, not yours.

I have a hard time using Google Maps when driving these days, especially on vacation - I prefer to take the scenic route, but google’s got no eye for it.

Very nice, I have a long history with piano, strings, woodwinds, percussion and digitals.

I would like to try the oud especially with the long picks that are sometimes used by mandolinists in Europe. Intonation is different on different fretless instruments, violin, cello, bass guitar, my fretless Strat vs say pedal steel.

I'm sorry but who else feels this chap is overrated?

People focused on him enough to know who he is, track his career, and follow him?

how is he qualified to talk about music in the new yorker? he is just jamming with his buddies.

he has no clue about software musical instruments and what they enable. he uses an early looper or wav editing program and compares that to playing a cello. wtf. smh.

Dude has a Wikipedia entry. It may shed some light on your questions, which I’m sure you’re asking in good faith.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaron_Lanier

well put together indeed.

>how is he qualified to talk about music in the new yorker? he is just jamming with his buddies

People "jamming with their buddies" are a huge category of people enjoying music. If you have writing skills and can put your musical experiences into words (which he has), you don't need a degree from Berklee to do it. In fact if you had one, or was a professional recording artist or such, you'd be the wrong person to cover the music enthusiast's perspective.

>he has no clue about software musical instruments and what they enable

Nor does he need to. Early loopers and wav editing are just fine - and more than capable tools. Burial wrote his entire genre defining masterpiece in a wav editing program, having no idea about "software musical instruments and what they enable".

how people dealt with computers when they were new?: its just a(nother) tool. software musical instruments? its just an instrument. these people were not the creators of these instruments, they were not programmers. they couldnt most cases program. their opinions have currency because they are successful/good in the older forms of the art.

like another poster said above, livecoding is a form of music making that is truly native to computing and offers genuinely unheard of sounds and ways to organise them.

bytebeat more so!

the trouble with most computer software making sound is they ape the analog world so end up as 'tools' and traditional musicians looking to take advantage of the computer run into them and think thats what software/computer is capable of and they compare that with their stradivariuses etc. whats gonna come on top?

i'm not even going into the possibilities of AI here...

>the trouble with most computer software making sound is they ape the analog world so end up as 'tools'

That's great too. Not everything has to be deprecated and replaced by a computer-based version.

And there's nothing wrong in using the computer as a mere tool for your musical output, as opposed to it being the focus of it. Experiment with digital music capabilities is just an option, not some necessary goal.

Computers were made as tools, not as dictators of what we should do and how we should do it.

some of us dont see our relationship with the computer as one with a dictator. looks like you have been hurt by a computer bad. we see it as bicycle for the mind.

>some of us dont see our relationship with the computer as one with a dictator

And yet you scolded people using it as a simple means to an end, and not rushing to adopt advanced functionality. Sounds dictatorshipy enough to me.

>looks like you have been hurt by a computer bad

Looks like you're using pop psychology BS to win arguments via ad hominems. Did it ever work for you?

>we see it as bicycle for the mind.

Bicycles didn't made walking bad or obsolete. Nor did cars made bicycles obsolete. In the same vein, the presence of advanced DAW functions and plugins doesn't mean using the computer as a more convenient multi-track machine doing simple wave editing, or using a basic looper is "wrong", and they should get called out for it.

If a simple wave editor was the kind of vehicle they needed, that's their deal, and the output can be as good as anything done with advanced DAW magic.

the point was the chap went only so far as using simple and early audio editing tools to come to a grand conclusion that digital/software instruments cant transcend the abstraction (his phrase) real instruments played by a human being could.

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