harmony

  On 1/27/2022 at 4:14 AM, vkxwz said:

I think its less about questioning subforum artists and more about how that "questioning" is putting some rules developed by a small group of people hundreds of years ago, above things that are actually more important. In the end the most important things are what the music makes you feel and communicates to you, and the theory should be a means to that end. So when someone comes in and says no this music (which achieves those goals exceptionally well) is actually "incorrect" because they disobey the rules whos goal is to achieve those more significant goals, it just feels like you are missing the point. You're doing a disservice to yourself if you value what music theory has to say about a piece of music over your own experience of it.

once again, this is not what i said. you're really misinterpreting my posts and taking this a bit far tbh "doing a disservice to yourself" lol wtf

all i was ever saying is that it's about context. ae, and any musicians, are free to do whatever they want. that's a given, and some might say it's a luxury granted us by all the musical progress up to this point.

but there's a difference between choosing a selection of dissonant notes, and using an existing system (major/minor/modal) which is prone to certain so-called "mistakes". obviously they learned what major and minor scales are etc. they've programmed all this stuff into their algorithms. but there's this one area where things overlap a little and you end up with certain dissonances that some people are going to notice and some are not.

my point all along is just to point out that this exists and to demonstrate the concept behind it. not trying to make this a big judgment about ae or to have people challenge each other about how to appreciate them.

  On 1/27/2022 at 4:38 AM, toaoaoad said:

but there's a difference between choosing a selection of dissonant notes, and using an existing system (major/minor/modal) which is prone to certain so-called "mistakes". obviously they learned what major and minor scales are etc. they've programmed all this stuff into their algorithms. but there's this one area where things overlap a little and you end up with certain dissonances that some people are going to notice and some are not.

this is entirely reasonable, but there is an underlying premise of how things are supposed to be done. autechre could both have scales programmed into The Rig, The System and also put in "wrong" notes. so if you're meaning to illustrate how it's wrong in the context you mapped out, ok cool that's quite interesting. but that's a little bit of house keeping or whatever that still leaves open questions about intent and the much different context The Brothers operate within. 

part of me is annoyed by this for completely unrelated reasons - lately i've been so depressed at how gross youtube has become, for instance. and how popular podcasts are. specifically how both of these are just people explaining shit, how every video and episode is like a class presentation on a pop culture topic. JUPITER 8 IS THE BEST POLYSYNTH HERE'S WHY, TWIN PEAKS IS THE BEST ART HERE'S WHY, TOP FIVE REASONS THIS CHORD IS THE MOST BEST ONE. honestly i'm so over all these explainers. just let me sit in my parent's basement listening to pads

  On 1/27/2022 at 4:50 AM, Alcofribas said:

this is entirely reasonable, but there is an underlying premise of how things are supposed to be done. autechre could both have scales programmed into The Rig, The System and also put in "wrong" notes. so if you're meaning to illustrate how it's wrong in the context you mapped out, ok cool that's quite interesting. but that's a little bit of house keeping or whatever that still leaves open questions about intent and the much different context The Brothers operate within.

at the end of the day it's about personal taste, and if i haven't made that clear yet then i am now.  personally yeah these notes grate on me a little, in some cases and maybe not in some others. i have my own personal experiences and soul journeys and dark nights of the soul with autechre's music, make no mistake about that. and i said a few posts back that i'm not trying to convince anyone not to like something, particularly not our beloved ae.

but rather in the interest of this being an actual post about harmony and not just a B.T. shitpost, and also cause i was bored this afternoon, i decided to go off a little about harmony and stuff.  it all came together because a) this is personally interesting to me because i am both a music nerd and an ae fan and occasionally these things challenge each other, and b) because i find it curious that they like to make these statements about being uneducated or whatever (sorry for shitty paraphrase); statements like that, plus the "magic" aspect fans attribute to their music, hero worship etc, would make it seem as if they reinvented music itself, where in fact they are very much using the existing harmonic system. sometimes, anyway, like on SIGN. sometimes they do have more abstract/atonal harmonies, a lot of the stuff on NTS is quite ambiguous for example.  but in these situations where their programming does seem to be based on traditional harmony, and these dissonances - mistakes or not - pop up, people go "oh it's because they are above all of that" and it turns into this massive value judgment where people are being oppressed by these old systems etc which is a big fucking lol considering we're talking about a single fan on an idm forum talking about something he noticed.

  On 1/27/2022 at 4:38 AM, toaoaoad said:

once again, this is not what i said. you're really misinterpreting my posts and taking this a bit far tbh "doing a disservice to yourself" lol wtf

all i was ever saying is that it's about context. ae, and any musicians, are free to do whatever they want. that's a given, and some might say it's a luxury granted us by all the musical progress up to this point.

but there's a difference between choosing a selection of dissonant notes, and using an existing system (major/minor/modal) which is prone to certain so-called "mistakes". obviously they learned what major and minor scales are etc. they've programmed all this stuff into their algorithms. but there's this one area where things overlap a little and you end up with certain dissonances that some people are going to notice and some are not.

my point all along is just to point out that this exists and to demonstrate the concept behind it. not trying to make this a big judgment about ae or to have people challenge each other about how to appreciate them.

Expand  

Well how about we discuss a specific example in an ae track. Sorry if i was being offensive, something about the way you say "mistake" and "some people are going to notice and some are not" just rubs me the wrong way with this stuff, but if youre just talking about how using these systems in that specific way results in a particular sound that you subjectively interpret as coming from a lack of knowledge then you are entitled to your opinion.

  On 1/27/2022 at 5:16 AM, vkxwz said:

Well how about we discuss a specific example in an ae track. Sorry if i was being offensive, something about the way you say "mistake" and "some people are going to notice and some are not" just rubs me the wrong way with this stuff, but if youre just talking about how using these systems in that specific way results in a particular sound that you subjectively interpret as coming from a lack of knowledge then you are entitled to your opinion.

First immediate example that comes to mind is F7. We're in G# minor but they do a fair bit of modal interchange. Mostly what gets me is when I'm still hearing A#s in the melody when the harmony has shifted to A, borrowed from phrygian. It's more noticeable in the last section when things quiet down a bit.

Does it matter? No.

What is making me most uncomfortable about this conversation is the way people seem to feel personally attacked by the things I'm saying. This is such a touchy subject I'm realizing now, it's no wonder Brian chooses to just be outright aggressive rather than tiptoeing around people's feelings as I've been doing lol. Again, I've been very careful to put loaded words like "wrong" and "mistake" in quotes because these terms are only being used to refer to the existing system in place, the system which S&R are ostensibly very much using to make this music apart from these few stray notes, but do not necessarily reflect my own views - I never like it when people use subjective terms to refer to objective phenomena, like when people say "the weather is supposed to be nice tomorrow".

  On 1/27/2022 at 5:26 AM, toaoaoad said:

First immediate example that comes to mind is F7. We're in G# minor but they do a fair bit of modal interchange. Mostly what gets me is when I'm still hearing A#s in the melody when the harmony has shifted to A, borrowed from phrygian

haha whaaaaaaaaaaaat the fuck does this mean

*hits bong*

EDIT:  Fuck me, I went back and read my original post about ae where this all started and I guess it did actually sound pretty judgmental haha.    Say what you want and clean up the mess after, I guess eh

Sorry bros

  On 1/27/2022 at 5:26 AM, toaoaoad said:

I've been very careful to put loaded words like "wrong" and "mistake" in quotes

not true dude come on

im not seeing a ton of people in here taking it personally, nor does it seem like an especially touchy subject. I think it just rubs people on a music forum the wrong way when anyone comes around saying they know what’s right and wrong and what the correct way of doing things is supposed to be. IME I’ve only heard this from total plebs or music theory snobs, otherwise most people intuitively understand that music is chill and lush and you can do what you want. 
 

I get that theoretical issues are extremely valuable and interest and command a great deal of knowledge accumulated over centuries that is very powerful. but the tone of the posts on this topic here tend to be pretty snooty - just take a look at how locked and loaded the OP was, how this thread is an off shoot of another thread about melodies where there was very consistent “just learn theory you dumbass” posts. so I personally don’t see that the topic is dealt with here in a compelling way. Sure, there’s gonna be fanboy shit arguing every single sound in ae is an original piece of genius but there’s far more interesting discussion to be had between the two poles of this music is perfect and this music is theoretically retarded. 

  On 1/27/2022 at 5:26 AM, toaoaoad said:

I never like it when people use subjective terms to refer to objective phenomena, like when people say "the weather is supposed to be nice tomorrow".

OTOH, I love to hear the weather is gonna be nice. that sounds lush

  On 1/27/2022 at 6:11 AM, Alcofribas said:

not true dude come on

yeah as I just said above I went back and read my earlier post and realized that it was actually pretty inflammatory after all. i have a pretty shit attention span and didn't go back and cross-reference myself as i went on, no excuse for that really.

tbqh i've got no argument left and hopefully this series of posts will just get buried in the rest of watmm. i suck at getting involved in debates online and that's why i try to avoid it. sometimes i get bored and/or provoked and get into situations i later regret

  On 1/27/2022 at 6:16 AM, toaoaoad said:

yeah as I just said above I went back and read my earlier post and realized that it was actually pretty inflammatory after all. i have a pretty shit attention span and didn't go back and cross-reference myself as i went on, no excuse for that really.

tbqh i've got no argument left and hopefully this series of posts will just get buried in the rest of watmm. i suck at getting involved in debates online and that's why i try to avoid it. sometimes i get bored and/or provoked and get into situations i later regret

I think you have a lot of great points and lay them out in a totally reasonable way. Personally, I get my hackles up when people start saying “you can’t do that” in art. And I get that you’ve qualified that throughout the discussion and I agree with those clarifications. 
 

brian eno said that when he worked with frípp, fripp was always getting triggered and telling him “wtf you can’t play that note” and eno was just like “lmao.” i think they nevertheless made some amazing records together so I don’t see some kind of irreconcilable conflict between different disciplines.   

  On 1/27/2022 at 6:16 AM, toaoaoad said:

yeah as I just said above I went back and read my earlier post and realized that it was actually pretty inflammatory after all. i have a pretty shit attention span and didn't go back and cross-reference myself as i went on, no excuse for that really.

tbqh i've got no argument left and hopefully this series of posts will just get buried in the rest of watmm. i suck at getting involved in debates online and that's why i try to avoid it. sometimes i get bored and/or provoked and get into situations i later regret

your own child that you birthed from the loins of your fingers, abandoned and squandered off the edge of the front pages in this manner.  such is the fate of the thread less than well received, perhaps incorrectly

@Alcofribasyeah it's easy to get riled up on the internet too. the OP is inflammatory as hell lol and i've been part of some of those other threads too. watmm really does seem to be the wrong place for this type of discussion, which is unfortunate but maybe not idk. part of me wants to get into this stuff while at the same time i'm aware that it's just not the place.

my personal experience is getting a good five years of piano as a kid, getting heavily into electronic music in my teens and doing my own thing musically with what i had learned, and then getting a formal university music education in my 20s. so there's this kinda layering of my own musical building blocks: the basics, then free lushness, then more training. i don't worship the western system or anything, i know there's way more than that out there. and i know that electronic music is a very punk/diy art form, anyone can pick it up, which i think is great. there's a "tradition" in electronic music too and part of that involves saying fuck it to a lot of these concepts. so i have an appreciation for that alongside the other stuff and it's a big part of my own history and development of taste etc.  education really can ruin music for some people unfortunately, but it doesn't have to. i had a few years feeling lost and frustrated and whatever, overthinking music. i don't write particularly complex music now... i don't really want to. to be honest what interests me more than anything is rhythm. so there you go lol

slightly OT, but then again not

Ae F7 sounds nothing like an F7, so a different title would have perhaps been more appropriate imo.

Opposition brings concord. Out of discord comes the fairest harmony.

- Heracleitus

https://www.72note.com/aristoxenus/heraclitus.html

  On 1/27/2022 at 3:31 AM, IOS said:

st epreo transcription brian pls

that reminds me, i tried to transcribe cedar city by plaid at least twice, and quickly quit because the massive reverb made this harder than i expected. i might give it another go.

Consonance and dissonance live together in perfect harmony.

 

  On 1/26/2022 at 1:48 AM, brian trageskin said:

i think it's kinda weird how people here don't seem to care much about harmony.

That's pretty funny coming from you. The last time I tried to discuss harmony in moderately theoretical terms on here, you replied with a half assed meme to the effect that music theory is a fool's errand, directly discouraging me from any further explorations. Just can't be bothered with your posting style - the melody thread is another example.

This thread is good for all the Alcofribas posts, though.

  On 1/27/2022 at 6:16 AM, toaoaoad said:

yeah as I just said above I went back and read my earlier post and realized that it was actually pretty inflammatory after all. i have a pretty shit attention span and didn't go back and cross-reference myself as i went on, no excuse for that really.

tbqh i've got no argument left and hopefully this series of posts will just get buried in the rest of watmm. i suck at getting involved in debates online and that's why i try to avoid it. sometimes i get bored and/or provoked and get into situations i later regret

i was trolling’ a bit myself. definitely a thread making me question my life choices lol. anyway, all good here…. and im definitely not trying to say you or anyone else has to like ae’s entire catalog!

Hey guys 

c major is pretty neet, learned it today.

  On 1/27/2022 at 3:18 PM, psn said:

This thread is good for all the Alcofribas posts, though.

the lushness principle

  On 1/26/2022 at 11:56 PM, toaoaoad said:

the thing about AE tho is their lack of "traditional knowledge" is very apparent in a lot of their music; even programming their melodic algorithms they overlook certain clashes of notes that are not quite "yeah i thought this clash sounded cool" but rather just, oh they didn't know that when you shift to a phrygian chord in a minor key you can't play the natural second over it (this is probably THE most common "wrong note" i hear in music across genres btw)... and i say wrong note because it doesn't work as an intentionally broken rule, it just doesn't, it sounds like shit every single time.  

Can you post an example of this? Eg. Track and timestamp? Thx

Ideally one example of how it should sound and one example of how it shouldn't if it's not too much effort lol thx