I''m reading up on #musictheory and being a visualized person I tried to visualize the relation between major and minor scales based on a lot of articles out there.
#bitwig has a nice feature where you can layer #midi clips, so this turned out pretty nice.
Green: Major scales
Orange: Minor scales
Grey: Their relative Major/Minor
"The circle of fifths is arguably the most helpful way of visually organizing Western music theory’s 12 chromatic pitches for learning. Seeing the notes laid out in a circle will help you unlock an understanding of how major and natural minor scales are organized, and also how they are related to each other. ..."
After a long wait I'm happy to announce that #Empirical#Musicology#Review just published our #data report on ~260 fully annotated #piano pieces from the long 19th century 🎉 I donate this #violin#plot to the @vagina_museum 😏 Thanks to our collaborators, annotators, and to my co-authors!
"OK children, gather round. We're going to play a very exciting piece of #Music today! The key is H Moll. The time signature is aksak, though halfway through we're switching to a foliseng in jhaptal. The balungan goes (begins singing) sa ga re do si la so ding deng knong 6 5 6 1 tsu ro ro-meri rast, though feel free to do some hiljainen haltioituminen, as long as it fits within the isometric pulse. Any questions?” #MusicTheory#Ethnomusicology#Humour
You can tune any instrument to any arbitrary frequency for center-c and as long as all the notes are of the same relative difference between them the melodies will generally work and harmonize. As long as all the instruments are synced it will sound ok in a band too.
In modern day we have a definition of what frequency center C is. But I have to wonder, how do we know the modern day frequency for middle-C is anywhere near the frequency used historically. In fact, when even was the idea solidified at all?
This is what happens when I'm studying music theory and have a stray thought about a potentially fun play on words, then realize it's best done with pictures, then spend a few hours wrestling the images I need out of #Midjourney, then learn several new tricks with the Gimp image editor while figuring out how to lay out and label the images the way I've been imagining.
I am willing to go a long way for a good joke. Hopefully this one is. 🙂🎶
This evening I've been thinking about ways to feel a 5/4 time signature. One common pattern is long-long-short-short. For example, "Take Five" does this while also dividing the longs. The "Mission Impossible" theme does it straight.
Then I realized that long-long-short-short is Morse code, -- .., which spells...MI! Some Googling indicates that nobody knows if the "Mission Impossible" theme's composer did this intentionally. I really hope he did. 🙂🎵
Finally published the draft I have been researching for the last 2 weeks or so, to rewrite the messy #Wikipedia article about the Ukrainian Dorian scale (known as Mi Sheberach in #klezmer or #cantorial music) into something I consider more well-rounded, structured and coherent.
I admit I am stronger on #MusicHistory than #MusicTheory so feel free to let me know if you think I got something wrong on the the theory side! #FolkMusic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_Dorian_scale
A #musicTheory soapbox moment…
Just been thinking about how we define #microtonality: notes that fall outside of the tonal framework.
But in that case, 17, 24, 31, 36, 53, 72 TET or any other system of #MusicalTemperament isn't #microtonal, because all the pitches are defined, whereas in 12TET a neutral 2nd would stand out as “falling outside the framework”, which does make it microtonal. Relating everything to Western 12TET, which isn't perfect, is problematic IMHO. #musicology#ethnomusicology
#Romanian or #Moldovan music folks, help me out if you are out there, does this mode or scale (very common in your folk music) have a particular name or names in Romanian? I'm trying to rewrite the crap wikipedia article about it from a more cross-cultural perspective and this aspect is defeating my keyword searches. I know it in a Jewish context as Mi Sheberach, altered dorian or Ukrainian dorian. #Moldova#RomanianMusic#MusicTheory#MoldovanMusic
I was messing around at a piano, and a harmonic move (which I know theoretically and practically should sound fine) sounded weird.
Turns out I had voiced it with parallel fifths, and playing it again with a different voicing totally solved the problem!
I've always known some arguments for avoiding parallel fifths (only in certain settings, ofc), but this is the first time I've played something and really HEARD an issue with it.
Here's a great video about what happened when Wendy Carlos explored what might become possible if you didn't insist on the octave being a perfect 2:1 frequency ratio. Enjoy! 🙂🎵
I should really have gone to bed an hour ago, but I'm falling ever deeper into the rabbit hole of the Lydian Chromatic Concept. Suddenly I have strong opinions about an arcane music theory dispute from 70 years ago that I hadn't even heard of until last week. Send help! 🙃🎵
Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana, recomposed #percussion version by Bernhard Schimpelsberger in 5/4 time. Also a fair bit of konnakol/solkattu, South Indian percussion syllables, and assorted bits of rhythmic wizardry in here that's deliberately trying to make you loose track. It's rather feindishly done. #Music#Cover#MusicTheory https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzQucIOEIuo