Chords and single notes

[Brankis]

no offense but this is a very immature response, im guessing you are probably a bit young

its cool to be all idealistic about art but to say "scale theory is bullshit" is a pointless statement. music theory and scales are not exactly the same thing you know. scales are beautiful beacons of solid mathematics that are a blueprint for your harmonic structure. there are a million different scales but those perfect intervals are always present and that's the magic.

how you use this is up to you and this is where i agree that classical theory is not so much important. but to ignore harmonic structure is a very amateurish way to look at it

the point being with electronic music you could write in the same key your whole life and the tracks could sound completely different because of the timbres. that's where the creative part comes in finding the interesting timbres to utilize the harmonic structure of the scale to its fullest, most blissful potential...

it is a very dangerous illusion some people have that techno is somehow any different than other "real" music... we are not that special im sorry

i don't think my age is relevant.

yes the post was perhaps a little edging onto shock value side, but I mean everything that I say and have experiences to justify it.

the mathematics of musical interactions... yes I have no reason to dislike that. it's fascinating and applyable and deep.

but as far as the classical theory goes... i dunno. I haven't really given it enough time to really back up everything I say... but to my mind it offers more traps than springboards, creatively speaking.

It has no method for representing scales outside of a narrow set of quite poorly chosen intervals. (ok some of the big obvious small number ones are great... but imo it sounds really crappy on the more 'complex' intervals.)

It has no method for considering the tonality in atonality as far as I'm aware. Always seemed kinda 'true' or 'false'.


Ahh I dunno... i've got to that point of just defending myself and my points of view which doesn't really help anything. I think one day I might delve a little depper into some theory (and of course ignore all the shite parts). But right now I've been having so much more success from listening to how intervals sound and working with tonal movements just from thinking about shapes... rather than verbal assignments and paint by numbers interactions.

To each his own I guess.

(edit) I should apologise a little for being a little too drastic with my words. Instead of 'scale theory is bullshit', i should say that I think scale theory can be dangerous. Its the same as my views on religion... there can be some great material, but it can be dangerous to get sucked too far in and use someone elses system of belief instead of relying on finding your own way. Western classical theory has a very narrow scope I feel, and I think that it can be very important to remember that it's not the only way to express yourself musically, and not the only way of representing musical information.

dude dont stress, from your writing you are obviously talented and passionate.

think of it like the blueprints for a building. you can make the most innovative looking building ever but the building still needs to stand up straight!! its a structure thing, you can go as far out of the box as you want

[steevio]

its a structure thing, you can go as far out of the box as you want

i think what oblioblioblio was trying to say though was that its not a case of in or out of some box, its not either or.
alot of it comes down to conditioning, we are exposed to 12 tet from the day we're born, and as a result anything outside of the box sounds weird to us, so we avoid exploring. we are so conditioned that even the mathematically perfect harmonic series sounds wrong to us.

[Roqqert]

its a structure thing, you can go as far out of the box as you want

i think what oblioblioblio was trying to say though was that its not a case of in or out of some box, its not either or.
alot of it comes down to conditioning, we are exposed to 12 tet from the day we're born, and as a result anything outside of the box sounds weird to us, so we avoid exploring. we are so conditioned that even the mathematically perfect harmonic series sounds wrong to us.

depends on culture. Non-west countrys are easy going with harmonic/melodic minor and 7/8 rhytms. We prefer the 6/8 or 4/4 ionic and aeolic

[steevio]

its a structure thing, you can go as far out of the box as you want

i think what oblioblioblio was trying to say though was that its not a case of in or out of some box, its not either or.
alot of it comes down to conditioning, we are exposed to 12 tet from the day we're born, and as a result anything outside of the box sounds weird to us, so we avoid exploring. we are so conditioned that even the mathematically perfect harmonic series sounds wrong to us.

depends on culture. Non-west countrys are easy going with harmonic/melodic minor and 7/8 rhytms. We prefer the 6/8 or 4/4 ionic and aeolic

yes, i meant 'we' as 'in the west', pertaining to 12 tet.

[Roqqert]

sorry my fault

[oblioblioblio]

its not a case of in or out of some box, its not either or.

totally. and I think WEstern Classical theory can really lock you into that mindset of 'correct' versus 'incorrect'.

To me, totally 'tonal' music can sound most inharmonic.... too sugary.

The most 'tonal' sounds that I've heard would technically be classified as atonal by some theorists.

And also I really dislike the idea of representing tonal information verbally like gmDim9, etc etc... to me, it's maths and physics, then translating into personal feelings. And to condense this information into a set of interactions and rules. It can be helpful to get a hande on things, but there is so much more to explore and to me, it's more fun to explore it like that free from the rules.

[oblioblioblio]

I think another of the reasons that I stayed away from a lot of theory, was that a lot of theorists and musicians that i respected gave me reasons to do so.

For example, Wendy Carlos, one of the most talented composers (and theorists) of our time totally rejected traditional theory on one of her most innnovative and expressively brilliant pieces, the album 'the beauty in the beast'.

It totally backs up the theory of people being very conditioned against different intervals... the album was out of print and is only recently easy to find again.

my favourite tracks on it are 'a woman's song' and the title track 'the beauty in the beast'.

One album and it completely shatters a very big pile of theory. The notes associated with it are worth reading http://www.wendycarlos.com/+bitb.html


Many many many more exmaples of tradional theoretical limiations being succesfully cast aside. Roots UNderground track dub 'Makka Root' with out of tune piano sounding more perfectly in tune than many other things I've heard bfore.

Also there's a great sounding Animal Collective album where they tuned every instrument used to a recording of a piano from a friends house that had naturally drifted out of tune over some years that they liked the sound of. There was a storey relayed by one of the members of band about the piano retuner that came to tune their studio piano to the recording of the old one... once finished he said... 'there you are... it's now perfectly out of tune' (!!!)

But, sure, take what you need from classical theory. There is bound to be something decent, but remember that it is just one interpretation.

[kristofason]

I think im just gonna throw my 'Music Theory for dummies' book that i bought in the bin..borin as fook anyway!