Chords and single notes

mizzdirekt · Post by **mizzdirekt** » Wed Apr 14, 2010 10:56 pm

God this is irritating to read. There is tonal music and there is atonal music. If you are producing atonal music so be it. If you are playing tonal music you are using music theory if you understand it or not...and judging by responses, you probably don't realize it. So this is where electronic music is at. 1/3 of the people making techno are doing it to impress girls and have more friends. 1/3 of you are doing it to get high and make some scrap. half of the last of you are so fucked up by today's society you don't have the focus to learn what you are sooooooooo passionate about, but are more than ready to blow your college fund on a synthesizer. That leaves about 15% of the producers out there worth my time... I think it might be time to actually elevate my music and pick up some church music books.

steevio · Post by **steevio** » Wed Apr 14, 2010 11:12 pm

mizzdirekt wrote:There is tonal music and there is atonal music.

are you saying that tonality and atonality cannot be mixed in a musical form?

techno ?

mizzdirekt · Post by **mizzdirekt** » Wed Apr 14, 2010 11:29 pm

If you know the rules first steevio... people who know music can hear it instantly. If you're just putzing around people can hear it immediately. It has no purpose or direction...and no history....and it's obvious from the start. Where are all the musical examples?

mizzdirekt · Post by **mizzdirekt** » Wed Apr 14, 2010 11:30 pm

I gotta go do dishes. Have fun with this, cause I know what I'm listening to...do you?

steevio · Post by **steevio** » Wed Apr 14, 2010 11:38 pm

mizzdirekt wrote:If you know the rules first steevio... people who know music can hear it instantly. If you're just putzing around people can hear it immediately. It has no purpose or direction...and no history....and it's obvious from the start. Where are all the musical examples?

not sure what youre saying bro,

tonal ? atonal ? must be one or the other ?

musical examples of what ?

not trying to start a debate, just confused by your statement.

techno can be almost entirely atonal percussion heavy, or highly melodic and pretty much anything in between.

mizzdirekt · Post by **mizzdirekt** » Thu Apr 15, 2010 1:22 am

yeah, you seem like a nice guy and I'm not targeting you. I just disagree with almost everything happening in the scene right now. I should have given up the ghost when Ron Murphy passed...the day techno died...moving on in life now...hoping the music will return one day. Have fun doing what ever you guys do.

steevio · Post by **steevio** » Thu Apr 15, 2010 1:25 am

mizzdirekt wrote:yeah, you seem like a nice guy and I'm not targeting you. I just disagree with almost everything happening in the scene right now. I should have given up the ghost when Ron Murphy passed...the day techno died...moving on in life now...hoping the music will return one day. Have fun doing what ever you guys do.

its still there bro, its just buried.

maybe obscured is a better way of putting it.

oblioblioblio · Post by **oblioblioblio** » Thu Apr 15, 2010 1:39 am

Brankis wrote:
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.