Comment by stackghost
14 hours ago
Suffers from the same problem that all music theory texts seem unable to avoid: they require the reader to simply accept a bunch of random facts to memorize with no context.
Example: memorize the major scale as a series of whole and half steps but we won’t provide you with any context or motivation for why this is so.
Similar: in a major scale all notes are played and none are skipped or repeated. Except if your scale goes D–E–F#–G, in which case you skip F. The only way for this to be correct is apparently we consider F and F# to be the same note for purposes of scales even though this directly contradicts a previous section.
I was expecting a “21st century” music theory reference to have an emphasis on building intuition. Music theorists are apparently allergic to good pedagogy.
> Example: memorize the major scale as a series of whole and half steps but we won’t provide you with any context or motivation for why this is so.
I recommend "What Makes Music Sound Good?" by Prof. Dmitri Tymoczko: https://dmitri.mycpanel.princeton.edu/files/pdfs/MUS105hando...
There is a part near the beginning where he derives the diatonic scale from first principles. (There is a sequel as well, and a book if you prefer to read it in book form)
>There is a part near the beginning where he derives the diatonic scale from first principles.
I skimmed through the whole article and only found some brief mention of Helmholtz, which no clear route from his research to the scale.
As a better derivation, I recommend this paper by William Sethares:
https://sethares.engr.wisc.edu/paperspdf/consonance.pdf
Or the informal summary version:
https://sethares.engr.wisc.edu/consemi.html
But note that Sethares's work assumes the Plomp and Levelt curve is correct, which is only approximately true. In practice there is also "higher order beating", which causes additional dissonance at ratios close to small integer ratios. This means the most accurate model of dissonance combines Sethares's approach with ratio complexity as in just intonation. This is backed by listening tests:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-45812-z
The best informal overview and demonstration for this concept I know of is this Youtube video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqxfE2nfGhY
Note also that there's a strong cultural/training component to dissonance perception. To minimize this you should ignore the preferences of musicians and only ask untrained listeners.
Yes, this is what has always blocked me from learning even basic music theory.
I get that maybe it's just the way it is, perhaps the underlying logic is so complex that it would be counterproductive to present it up front. I'm not saying that the theory should adapt to my pet peeves. But I'm very prone to learn things by understanding first principles and building from there. Having to memorize scales where suddenly you need to skip keys or use black keys without much apparent logic is a real deterrent for me considering it's something I learn as a hobby.
This is also the reason why I like algebra, calculus, etc. but dislike statistics... in algebra or calculus you start from first principles and work up from there understanding everything. In statistics (at least the way I was taught) you are shown the formula for the probability density of the Gaussian distribution and need to accept it as an act of faith.
The problem is that understanding everything from first principles is often the longest and least efficient road to learning the things that are actually useful.
Psychoacoustics is interesting, but it's not something that really helps you become a better musician for at least a couple of _decades_ of your journey. For the vast majority of students, it's a complete waste of time.
It's extremely unlikely that you learnt algebra or calculus from first principles, either. You started from the other end, learning the tools and skills to put it to good use, and then dove deeper with those tools already under your belt. Musicianship is no different.
what you seem to look for is a book about psychoacoustics. but even on that level you'll just have to accept that for some unknown reason humans consider certain pitch ratios as pleasant and even those that sound unpleasant have their place to express dissonance and tension and it's culturally dependent also. eventually there will be first attempts at a general music theory of which the western key based frameworks are special cases.
Depends on your stats class. The one I took in college started from first principles, and was focused on proofs.
You might enjoy this unfinished project of mine: https://fakestory.acjay.com/
It's the culmination of years spent chasing an explanation of where all this stuff came from.
Highly informed by Tymoczko, who was mentioned in a sibling reply, and a bunch of other thinkers on the topic.
I will check it out, thank you.
We recently had a long discussion about this. I come from the “music theory makes a lot more sense once one understands that 2:1, 3:2, 4:3 sound really whole and good to the human ear, 5:4 has a little more tension, and 6:5 has even more tension” school of thought [1] but for other people it is a distraction from understanding basic stuff like “this is a minor scale”. See here for the long discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49541888
[1] I understand ancient scales were 3-limit instead of 5-limit scales, and that modern equal temperament has thirds which significantly deviate from 5:4 and 6:5, but once polyphony became a thing, 5-limit temperament made a lot more sense because they reduce beating.
Man that top comment is such a combination of "sneering to show off" and completely wrong that I'm shocked I'm not on reddit.
Recommending The Jazz Theory Book to someone starting from scratch, especially someone self studying, is like recommending CLRS or TAOCP to someone who asks "I'm curious about learning the basics of algorithms and data structures, any good books for self study?" And of course that happens all the time too. Chapter 1 is "here's what intervals like major 3rd and perfect fifths are", Chapter 2 is "here's the major scale and all its diatonic modes and ii-V-I progressions", Chapter 3 is "here's how you might use the Phyrigian mode to play over a Sus flat-9 chord" (pg 48).
Recommending Schoenberg and Messiaen as steps to get a sufficient surface of topics covered for "music theory" is performance art in its own regard. Bravo!
Yeah, that guy tried to argue that Grade 5 ABRSM [1] is “very basic”. Like, excuse me no. “Very basic” is knowing the notes in a major key, and knowing the I IV V chord progression, as well as a basic 4/4 rhythm (8th note hi hats, quarter note kick drum, snare on alternating quarter notes).
I IV V chord progressions and major scales are basic enough I can explain them in a 400 word post from first principles (where no music theory exists except the assertion that the human ear finds the pitch ratios of 2/1, 3/2, 4/3, 5/4, and 6/5 pleasing to the ear, that the human ear wants at least three notes in a chord, and that the human ear wants at least three chords in a progression).
Those books get very complicated very quickly, and cover music that only a relatively few people actually listen to. It was pure gatekeeping, and I’m disappointed people pointing that out were voted down. Not a good moment for Hacker News. It would be like me recommending Lisp or Forth for one’s first programming language.
[1] https://www.abrsm.org/sites/default/files/2023-09/music-theo...
> I come from the “music theory makes a lot more sense once one understands that 2:1, 3:2, 4:3 sound really whole and good to the human ear, 5:4 has a little more tension, and 6:5 has even more tension” school of thought
Ah, well, that makes sense. I come from the "music theory is a quintessentially rigid, British-Schoolroom-coded subject that emphasizes rote memorization over actual understanding" school of thought. The musical equivalent to Americans requiring their children to recite the Pledge of Allegiance before they can even understand what the words mean.
The student seeking to build their understanding asks: why is the order of sharps FCGDAEB? Why is the mode with a sharp 4th note the Lydian mode?
Music theory responds: Because fuck you, that's why.
Some subjects are hard. Music notation is mathematical notation that is optimized for ease of consumption by notation experts. It is not optimized for learning.
Same with many activities. Pedagogy and real-world use are different goals. Result is a confusing and horrible learning curve.
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Yes, I was hoping for something different, but as best I can tell this is a slight rehash on more of the same.
Ableton's teachings are far more interesting in my opinion, even if extremely more limited.
A better way to think about it is that all letters in the musical alphabet are represented in a musical scale. Some are sharp or flat
D major: D E F♯ G A B C♯
D minor: D E F G A B♭ C
Db major: D♭ E♭ F G♭ A♭ B♭ C
Db minor: D♭ E♭ F♭ G♭ A♭ B♭♭ C♭
Sure, I knew what they meant. But if they are sloppy with their terminology on the knucklehead stuff then it doesn’t bode well for the esoteric stuff to follow.
My point was not to showcase my confusion, rather to reinforce the fact that music theory texts are just generally low quality, and music theory as a field seems to be okay with that.
but it doesnt say that. you paraphrased the book in a way that makes it look sloppy but it was your paraphrased version which is sloppy. if you read through the book when it defines this stuff, it introduces accidentals as "characters that can be placed before notes to raise or lower them" and then in the section on the major scale it says "All major scales use the notes of the musical alphabet in order; no notes are skipped and no notes occur twice." i dont think this is ambiguous