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Post subject: A vote for more theory
Posted: Sat Jun 17, 2017 5:32 am
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Oh boy, you’re overflowing me with sentences like,
“I hate my vegetables” or
“I better drown than learn swimming”.

You can do most of the things in life
simply because you’ve learned it.

There’s quite a way from crawling
to participating in the the N.Y. marathon.
What comes in between is technique,
some call it theory.

Do not underestimate one’s effort to reach a certain goal:
I do not know much about SRV, but he definitely put some effort in learning a tune like “Machine Gun”.

Classical string quartets play Hendrix
and I’m quite sure there’s a tuba player somewhere out there who can play
“All along the Watchtower”, the solo included.

In my bop quartet we used to play “Donna Lee”
by Charlie Parker.
This is a Tour de Force on the guitar,
I learned it anyway,
because there was a 3:1 vote for it.

I later auditioned for a big band,
they challenged me with “Boogie Down”
by Al Jarreau.
This is how you learn to groove dependently.
Same with E, W & F.

One of the best funk bands I have ever heard was the studio band in the Letterman Show.
I remember one time when they showed Joan Jett
how good her hit “I love R & R” could sound.

Same with the Johnny Carson studio orchestra:

The guest was John McLaughlin, he’d chosen “Cherokee”.
The band let him fiddle for 2 choruses
then they nailed him to the wall,
mostly horn players, unfair.
Obviously he did’nt like that,
a newspaper later wrote,
he didn’t have had a chance to warm-up.

So, it is one thing to drive to Wal-Mart on saturdays
and another riding the Paris/Dakar rallye.

Here’s an offer for calculation:

Replace notation by numbers:

In rhythm the smallest value 1 is the fastest note.

In intervals 1 is a semitone, 2 a whole-tone,
3 a minor third or a #9, 4 a major third etc.
+ means the interval rises, - it is decending.

Same applies to chords...

In the meantime read about permutations,
I know this is math, but in a very simplified way,
I will come back to this later


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Post subject: Re: A vote for more theory
Posted: Mon Jun 19, 2017 7:56 pm
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"more theory"
http://forums.fender.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=34223

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Post subject: Re: A vote for more theory
Posted: Tue Jun 20, 2017 12:38 am
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OK, thanks, I dug that.
There's more information needed here and I will work it out,
due to the fact this site is not moderated but has a time-out feature


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Post subject: Re: A vote for more theory
Posted: Tue Jun 20, 2017 1:09 am
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At 1st, there was silence, and there still is, ‘cause in the universe there
is no media to resonate so there is silence.

Then, after the big bang, and some years later, coconuts fell from a palmtree.
This was rhythm and man copied this event.
Soon they found out, different proportions create different sounds.
And now there was pitch.

Building a knife from a piece of stone became more of an easy task
if they worked on the stone rhythmically, ‘cause there is something
in the stone, today called a resonant frequency.

One day, a little man got tired of throwing stones and spears at prey,
so he took a flexible piece of wood applied a string to it and was now able
to trow sharp pieces of wood over a long distance.
As a side effect, this string produced pitches like pling, paling, palung.
They asked the little man what his name was, and he said:
Hendrix - The rest is history


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Post subject: Re: A vote for more theory
Posted: Tue Jun 20, 2017 1:44 am
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3000 years ago in ancient Greece, there lived a man named Pythagoras.

He liked to smoke cigars and when the box, made of cedar, was empty,
he did not throw it away, but thought of a purpose.

So he put two strings on it, tuned them to the same pitch
and came up with the ground-breaking sentence:

“Two string pitches sound harmonically to each other,
if the lengths of the strings relate to each other in a simple equation”

Thus, 1:1 same pitch on 2 strings - prime - identical pitch - proof.

Then he applied a movable bridge under one of the strings,
next step, in the middle of one string:

Ratio 1:2 - octave - next proof

The same principle applies to air in a tube, horns, saxes…

In another part of the world, man invented a musical instrument -
kalimba, the earliest piano plus the balaphone,
the birth of polyharmony and polyrhythm

Now learn about the overtone row at wiki


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Post subject: Re: A vote for more theory
Posted: Tue Jun 20, 2017 2:20 am
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So, Pythagoras defined not only the musical foundation of today’s
western world, but also the cent (lat. centum = 100) -system.

My neighbour runs a repair shop for saxophones and right now someone
is checking out his horn which might have been in an accident with a truck.

He’s testing the octaves of every note 1st, intonation,
before switching to fifths, fourths etc.
Obviously he knows what to listen for.

Interlude:

Here comes the cultural clash.
Due to the fact, although the wheel was already invented,
information took a very long time to reach other parts of the world,
even centuries, different concepts aside of the Pythagorean system
were found and established.
In Asia the gamelan whole-tone scale (no fixed pitches),
in India, the Vina, which later became the Sitar, tablas etc.,
In the arabic world - North-Africa - maquams

So, let’s concentrate on western harmonic concepts based on the
Pythagorean centum system, difficult enough for now,
as you will see in a momentum


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Post subject: Re: A vote for more theory
Posted: Tue Jun 20, 2017 3:22 am
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From silence, which, as we do know today, took most of the time
in what, the non-existence to the existence of the universe,
Was there even anything like time ahead of the universe at all ?

Anyway, the big bang changed everything.
Suddenly there was mass, dimensions and time.

There’s even a theory the universe in itself is only a frequency
swinging in a pythagorean value and once its energy is consumed
it will stop expanding.
Nobody has the slightest idea right now, what will happen then…

So, in the meantime let’s get to a point:

From silence to a frequency is the 1st step.

Let’s consider silence as a tool to organise rhythm.

An event, a tone is happening by plucking a string for example,
or it is not audible, thus silence, a pause.

Do not get sophistic here, your pet dog hears frequencies
you will never be capable of, a bat is nearly blind like an insect
but flies at high-speed sending out notes which are reflected
so this may be considered as a different form of “seeing”
and whales are able to communicate across oceans,
so to the relative nature of perception,
a totally different subject in philosophy,
although it led to the invention of ear-destroying
processor-controlled PA-systems which we have to deal with today.

Tones, notes can be measured in attack, frequency, pitch,
velocity, loudness, duration and release time,
when the note fades into silence again.
This is the ADR section in a synth, btw.
Silence can be measured by duration only.

So, silence may be represented by the value Zero (0),
while a note may represent a value 1.

This is obvious, but answers a former question
of how to calculate music


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Post subject: Re: A vote for more theory
Posted: Tue Jun 20, 2017 4:21 am
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Silence and pitch-duration are relative values in notation,
that’s why it seems so hard to notate music.

Compare a Bach composition to a Hendrix or Zappa transcription
and you will immediately notice the difference.

Another jump in time:

J.S. Bach was a composer in Barock, although a genius in music theory,
a listener who knew things about music, most of us don’t,

anyway, what you put in is what you get out.

His favourite instrument, if he had any, was the Harpsichord.
A harpsichord is a piano-like instrument where a pluck or a hammer
hits one or more strings from underneath,
thus allowing to bend the string(s).

Then came along the Silbermann Brothers.
They used to build organs around the globe which still can be heard and played today and they also built a piano based on what is called:
Well-tempered tuning.
This concept ignores the pythagorean comma - wiki,
and tunes fifths as close as possible so to allow for
12 major and 12 minor tonalities

Check out a piano somewhere, immediately you will notice how the strings
start to vibrate uncontrollably. This is the pythagorean comma,
it is not possible to tune a piano in natural tuning
according to the overtone row
Anyway, this led to toe Bach comosition:
"The Well-tempered Piano".

I am getting a little tired of all that theory so here’s one thing you can use:

Blues in G:

G7 - C7 - D7: Substitute any chord with it’s tritone and the progression now lies inside three frets which enables you to add a bass line easily


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Post subject: Re: A vote for more theory
Posted: Thu Jun 22, 2017 5:25 am
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For those who might be interested in the roots of the blues,
Arte.fr is showing a documentation in the next 5 days:

http://www.arte.tv/de/videos/067806-000 ... m-kalthoum


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Post subject: Re: A vote for more theory
Posted: Thu Jun 22, 2017 8:04 am
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Solid Body Love Songs wrote:


Many people prefer a Tele, the Strat has a longer scale.
I wonder how you got that title, maybe by referring to how often you change which strings?
No sweat, read on


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Post subject: Re: A vote for more theory
Posted: Thu Jun 22, 2017 8:24 am
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I am still overwhelmed watching that doku at arte.fr
about Oum Kalthum.
I constantly had the feeling, she was singing the blues like Bessie Smith, until the moderator stated:
"This is the core of the blues, Egypt in Africa".

Now, I still wonder how to notate such events.

To become a professor of science, you have to deliver a book to a bunch of people who may or may not be qualified to judge such work of efford.

There is a book by Isam el Mallah entitled:
Music and Notation.
It cost me a fortune due to the relative small interest
of the public for such piece of work.
I bought it anyway...
Obviously, it can be found in the Library of Congress.

Starting again at rhythm, you can either look at musical events from a binary, or ternary point of vie, etc.


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Post subject: Re: A vote for more theory
Posted: Thu Jun 22, 2017 8:45 am
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Shape of things to come -

The Illinois enema bandit
( - I heard it on the news) -

Another jump in time:

In 1917, a big year for sociological change around the globe, many artists left their russian home and immigrated to the U.S.

Among them Joseph M. Schillinger who became an assistant to Lew Theremin, inventor of the Theremin
(see Hitchcock - The Birds) and Nicholas Slonimsky, a gifted composer who later performed in concert with
the Mothers of Invention, which,
besides standing ovation led him to the sentence:
"I reached an age of absurdity in my life".

Schillinger on the other hand formulated some groundbreaking works like:
The Mathematical Basis of the Arts and The Art of Music, in 2 volumes.

Enough, enjoy and read


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Post subject: Re: A vote for more theory
Posted: Thu Jun 22, 2017 4:19 pm
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And now, at present, there's a pattern in the movie "Matrix".

He, the composer, did not invent it, but it shows up in 1000
of movies, it became a pattern of 6 notes.

Have you guessed it yet?
To locate it again means I would have to watch the trilogy
over again which I did last week - boring.

And, I am also bored of players who sit on their sofa,
waiting to get fed by a fool like me

No chance, get your butt up,
so we can start a qualified discussion


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Post subject: Re: A vote for more theory
Posted: Thu Jun 22, 2017 7:28 pm
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"Qualified" in what sense?

I think you're an order of fries short of a Happy Meal.

:lol:

Arjay

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