For when I get bored and want to talk about music...

[Maniakkid25]

So, it's probably time I use this thread for what I originally wanted to do: complain about how music is weird! Today's subject is "25 or 6 to 4" by Chicago, a classic 70s rock song about the trials of writer's block at ungodly hours of the morning (Oh, I have been there...)!



So, this song is actually really easy to figure out...ON PAPER! If you ask anyone what the chords are, they go A minor, F major (I hear F Major7, but that's not important), E major. Very simple chord progression that puts us firmly in the key of... CRAP ALL! See, I mentioned before that Minor scales have a bit of a weirdness to them, and this is where that comes in: There's more than one Minor scale. Actually, there's, like, ten of the bastards, but we're focused on three today.

So, Natural Minor is the Aeolian mode, no fancy gimmicks. 1, 2, b3, 4, 5, b6, b7, all in order. Good stuff. Then there are two variants that are widely used in Western-inspired music: the Harmonic Minor, and the Melodic Minor. See, them fancy composers back a few hundred years ago were all like "You know, this Minor scale is nice and all, but it doesn't have that strong V chord that pulls really hard back to the tonic chord!" In Natural Minor, the v chord is minor, not major. So, they just decided to make it a Major chord, and turn that b7 into a normal 7. This creates a weird as hell interval right at the end of the scale called an "augmented 2nd", which is really just a Minor 3rd, but who's keeping track? Melodic Minor is what happens when different composers looked at Harmonic Minor, and said "I like what you did there, but that new interval sucks. How about raising the 6th as well so that we don't have to deal with that?" And lo, it was so.

So, back to our song, we've got a i minor, bVI major, and then a V major! A minor is A C E, F Major is F A C, and E major is E G# B. Ah, A, B, C, E, F, G#? I don't need that D to know that that's gonna be A Harmonic Minor! Great! We have our key!

OR DO WE?!

Yeah, we've been ignoring that bassline this entire time, and I can show you exactly what that is, but I need to explain another style of notation: Tabs. Tablatures, or "Tabs", is a way of notating how to play a fretted stringed instrument (e.g. guitar) if you don't know how to read music. See, rather than noting down what note to play, you instead write down the position of the hand. These are noted by using a number, indicating what fret you should press on the string to get the desired note. So, 0 would mean play the string open, 1 would mean press the first fret, and so on. This, along with the tuning of the guitar, means that you have almost all the information to play those instruments. Tabs lack a standardized form of rhythm information, though, so it's not really used in professional circles, simply because music notation makes it completely obsolete.

So, let's check that bassline!



UUUUUH, WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!

So, in order to get what note you are playing, you take the string of the guitar, and you could up half-steps until you reach the number indicated. In this example, we first have a 5 on the E string. E is 0, so F, F#, G, G#, A! Ah, A is our first note. 3 is two half-steps down, so G#, G is our next note (which is troublesome, but Harmonic and Natural Minor can often just flow between each other, so there's nothing wrong with the G being there), then F#?! Uh, to note, the notes of A Harmonic Minor are A, B, C, D, E, F, and G#. So what the hell is that F# doing here?!

This is what I was talking about before with how Rock music breaks a lot of standards of music theory: this note is an anomaly! The entire song just repeats itself on this basic setup, those chords I mentioned before playing the entire time, giving us an A minor, an A minor/G (the slash indicates what note is lowest in the chord), an A minor/F# (which is actually F# half-diminished, but who cares at this point?), F major, then E, before repeating back on that A minor. And in the context of the song, NOTHING SOUNDS WRONG! Seriously, listen to it! Not only does it not sound like anything's wrong, the riff actually sounds like it would BREAK if you took out that F#! There is a way of explaining this, but it doesn't totally work in this case because of the intervals used.

Sometimes, in songs, you will hear a constantly ascending or descending line, usually either the highest or lowest note, while the underlying chord remains the same. A rather good and obvious use of it is in Bohemian Rhapsody. At the line "Didn't mean to make you cry", you can hear the bass descending, but the chord stays the same. These moments actually have a term: Line Cliche. When you use a Line Cliche, however, it's ALWAYS in half-steps, and the jump from A to G is a whole step, so what the hell? Well...I got nothing. You could make the argument that it's mixing Harmonic and Melodic Minor, but that creates all sorts of nightmarish scenarios, and then you'd have to explain the ascending brass line that goes straight up C Lydian, which has nothing to do with A Minor in the slightest! And over an Am/G, no less! This song is a nightmare for classical harmony, but in Rock Music? This is easy: we're just Vamping on the A minor, then hitting that classic V-I progression.

To "vamp" in music parlance is to repeat a chord or set of chords. Usually, when you "vamp", you aren't playing more than two chords. In this case, it's one chord. See, remember when I said I heard FMajor7? That's not a coincidence; A minor is A C E, and FMajor7 is just A minor with an F on the bottom. So, really, it's Am, Am/G, Am/F#, Am/F, E, and back around we go. Very jazz-y, actually. In fact, if we managed to fit in a B minor chord before the E, it would fit perfectly as a jazz tune! So why this mishmash of notes? Well...it sounds cool. Blues and its children (which is basically all popular music today) don't really care for your fancy classical theory, but just what sounds good in the moment, and hey, that sounded good, so let's run with it. You can dissect it classically, but it's a bit of a round peg in a square hole. Yeah, you can make it fit, but that doesn't mean it belongs there.

So, yeah, another weird as hell song for music theory, because it was scratching at my brain, so I figured I'd complain about it for a bit.

[Moonface]

So, let's check that bassline!



UUUUUH, WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!

So, in order to get what note you are playing, you take the string of the guitar, and you could up half-steps until you reach the number indicated. In this example, we first have a 5 on the E string. E is 0, so F, F#, G, G#, A! Ah, A is our first note. 3 is two half-steps down, so G#, G is our next note (which is troublesome, but Harmonic and Natural Minor can often just flow between each other, so there's nothing wrong with the G being there), then F#?! Uh, to note, the notes of A Harmonic Minor are A, B, C, D, E, F, and G#. So what the hell is that F# doing here?!

Took me a bit to get my head around this (nothing of your fault, it's just a lot of information to process with zero prior knowledge or experience), but I'm still confused on half steps here. I get that a 3 means G since it's the third note in the sequence of notes on the E string (like how A is 5), but I don't get how two half-steps leads to G# before you mention G. Or were you going backwards from A in this explanation to get to 3 by going A >> G# >> G? Writing it out now it's probably that but I've gone this far so I'll just post this for the sake of being sure. XD

[Maniakkid25]

Yes, going backwards from A. So, you count from 5, then go 4, then 3. The 5 is an A, a half step from that is G# (4), and then G (3). The very nice thing about frets is that it's all chromatic (meaning "all notes are one half step from the next note"), so once you know one number on one string is X note, you can reverse engineer every other note for that string. I was trying to keep the counting going for the sake of keeping the explanation similar throughout (note how I count up half steps to get to A in the first place), but I just gave more confusion, I guess.

[Moonface]

While not practical for reasons you've said already, does every instrument have the ability to be translated into tabbed music like a guitar does or can it only work for fretted instruments? Like a piano isn't fretted but can music played on one only be read in one way or does it get an alternative like fretted instruments can?

[Maniakkid25]

I suppose you can theoretically do it, but what would be the point when music notation exists? The reason tabs exist is very simple: a lot of guitarists are self-taught, and haven't been trained in music theory. But fretted instruments are at an advantage for this notation, because they always end at 0 for open. There is no "open" position on a keyboard unless you're talking about something extremely different. As another example, Trumpets have an "open" position (none of the valves are pressed down), but that can be multiple notes depending on the situation (that is, you are changing the set-up of your lips and mouth to play higher or lower). With guitar tabs, if you see a 0 on the bottom string, that can only be one note (which is whatever that guitar is tuned to at that moment, usually E). So, for a piano tab to exist, you need to find a way to make a completely new system that illustrates where you are on the keyboard at any point, and at that point, why not just learn music notation, which carries the added benefit of being translatable to any instrument you can ever play?

The thing about music notation is it's just like any other language: once you know the "words", you can translate ANY piece of music you will ever see in your life (unless it was written before music notation existed). Sure, you might see some fancy symbols, but even professionals don't memorize all of them; you memorize the ones that are common, and look up anything beyond that. For example, I was reading Chopin's Nocturne no. 9 op. 2 (the only Nocturne that anyone knows), and there is a symbol called a Turn in it. I didn't recognize it, so I literally just typed in "list of music symbols", and read until I found it. This is no different from typing an unfamilar word into google for definitions. When I said in the opening post that after reading this, you can read Mozart, that wasn't a joke! As long as you don't get stunned by the barrage of information, and take it piece by piece, you can read Mozart!

[Moonface]

Man time flies like crazy. It doesn't feel like almost four months have passed since I was last in here. XD

So you talk about how you can learn to read any music once you know the language, but I'm curious if it's possible to also listen to music and translate it into the "written" language?

Also, have you ever heard of the term "synesthesia"?

[Maniakkid25]

Ah, synethesia. Where colors have a taste and numbers have a sound. Yes, I have heard of it. I do not have it myself, though I can imagine it could be helpful in some creative processes in a limited fashion.

For your first question, yes, it is perfectly possible: that's called "transcription", just like its done for audio recordings of people talking. The person doing this is often known as an "arranger", as opposed to a "composer", and this specfic style is known as "by ear", as opposed to "by sight" (i.e., translating sheet music into tabs, or another form of notation, and vice versa). In fact, several famed musicians have been well known for being able to transcribe a piece of music they've heard from memory alone (Mozart has a famous story of doing that once).

In fact, that's literally how I've done ALL of my MIDI transcriptions for Mabinogi. And I have A LOT of them. Often times, if you know the instrument well enough, you'll notice that official arrangements have unforced errors. These are just small discrepancies, by I often strive for 100% replication of the original audio track (or at least as close as possible), so the best way to do that is to just go straight to the audio track itself. If I had more sophisticated technology, I could make my job immensely easier by isolating tracks (there is a audio phenomenon known as "phase inversion" which can be used to isolate frequencies), but usually the track is mixed in a way that I can get all I need from just listening really hard.

And I would be remiss to mention that being able to WRITE music and being able to READ music are two very different skills. Dimebag Darrell of Pantera refused to even use tabulature for his guitar work. Erroll Garner famously (and possibly apocryphally) once, when challenged on this point, said "No one can hear you read". The reason why I would recommend learning to READ music is that it facilitates communication. When you know the notation, you can literally just draw a crude staff, put some bubbles on it, and anyone who can read music will instantly understand what you are saying. This is why music theory is useful: not as a be all end all to music, but as a way to communicate ideas between musicians clearly.

[Moonface]

Ah, synethesia. Where colors have a taste and numbers have a sound. Yes, I have heard of it. I do not have it myself, though I can imagine it could be helpful in some creative processes in a limited fashion.

Yeah, I bring it up since one of my professors gave us an art assignment to pick our favourite song, and then isolate an instrument or sound within a part of it and then try to depict that sound as shapes and colours. I've been trying to apply it to the lyrics of Black by Pearl Jam but I find I tend to want to use triangles because of how lyrics tend to hold notes and any escalation/de-escalation is done without always changing syllables, which makes it harder for me to split it into separate shapes like with drums or guitars for example. XD

Man, the term MIDI isn't something I've noticed mentioned much since before the 2010's. I remember a few people here were all over those things back in the very early days of this community. I get the impression it's one of the easiest ways to get into making music of some kind? Considering my experience in seeing the term.

[Maniakkid25]

Easiest? Probably, but that's like saying "Devil May Cry is easier than Ninja Gaiden". I mean, yeah, it's true, but that doesn't mean it's not hard.

What makes MIDI easy to work with is that it's very old, and therefore very basic. At its core, it's just a set of instructions that a program can use to make noises with. TVTropes has a good analogy: in the realm of audio, MIDI is sheet music. It tells you all the instructions to PLAY a song, but it doesn't actually play the song itself. So, the benefits are ease of handling and file size (until MP3 came along, audio compression was actually really difficult, and almost never done). And because MIDI is so easy to handle, any basic interpreter can crack open a MIDI file and tell you all its secrets. But that doesn't necessarily mean you can just grab a MIDI composer and just go nuts. Without some basic musical understanding, you'll probably be fumbling with notes for a while as you figure out the interface. It still has its intricacies, after all.

[Moonface]

So would this sort of thing be similar to MIDI composers or would you classify this as something else?

[Maniakkid25]

I would, though it obviously isn't using the MIDI file type. Pretty much, you have a roll of programming language that tells the computer what noises to make and when, and the sound chip takes over from there. That's why I call my Mabinogi music files "MIDI", even though they aren't in a MIDI file type (they're written in MML, which is literally just a string of characters that is interpreted as music).

[Maniakkid25]

Double post time! So, time to ramble on more about how music is weird. Today's post is brought to you by the Tritone! Give it up for the Tritone, everybody! *applause*
 
So, recently, my mind has been stuck on a specific chord of a specific song, and it helps me remember just how versatile the Tritone can be. The chord in question is the opening chord of Trippin' on a Hole in a Paper Heart.


 
That's a spicy one, isn't it?! The chord has many names, but my preference is Asus#4. Okay, that's a lot of letters, let's break it down. A is the root of the chord, so it's an A chord. Sus is not short for "suspicious" in this context, but "suspended". A suspended chord is a chord that is neither major nor minor, either using the 2nd or 4th note of the key instead of the 3rd. This makes a chord feel extremely unresolved, and let's you dramatically hold out an ending, among other functions. #4 represents the note taking place of the 3rd, which in this case is an Augmented 4th, another name for the Tritone.
 
Now, I've previously said how the Tritone can sound like one of the most evil things ever by saying that Purple Haze's intro sounds like death itself is creeping for you, but that's not it's only feel. After all, Trippin' on a Hole sounds far more like, well, an acid trip. It's like the chord itself is pulling you down the rabbit hole, and who knows what you'll find, which is a perfect setup for such a weird song. And this is the true power of the Tritone.
 
See, depending on the context, the Tritone can evoke MANY different emotions. In the Simpsons theme, it evokes a sense of playfulness. In Mars, the Bringer of War, it evokes a feeling that, well, an army ready for war is slowly, unceasingly approaching. In Yoda's Theme, it evokes a sense of awe and wonder of the titular character. All of these emotions from just one interval. Hell, for centuries, it’s been used as a form of tension and release.

I’ve briefly touched on this before, but in a standard three note chord, you can technically keep stacking 3rds on top of it, and this will not change the base quality of the chord. The most common way to do this is by adding the 7th of the chord (so, if we had a C chord, the 7th would be a B or Bb, depending on the context), which leads to three different kinds of chords. The Major 7th chord is smiply a Major chord with a Major 7th on top of it (so, C with a B ), and the Minor 7th chord is a Minor chord with a Minor 7th (so, Cm with a Bb). But then there is the Dominant 7th chord, which is a Major chord with a MINOR 7th on top (so, C with a Bb). This can only happen on the V chord of a key, normally (so as an example, the V chord of C Major is G), and is part of a classic trick to bring you back to the I chord of that key. The reason why there’s tension in that chord is because that Minor 7th creates a Tritone with the Major 3rd, resulting in a chord that feels like its fighting itself in classical harmony, and the release comes as the 3rd resolves to the root, and the 7th resolves to the 5th of the root of the chord. In Blues and its children, however, you tend to play Dominant 7s in whatever chord you’re playing on because, well, it sounds cool. This leads into a sidetrack about the 12-Bar Blues chord loop, and we’ll talk about that another time.
 
But, believe it or not, the Tritone in a chord is not that strong a dissonance. By itself, yes, that is probably the most dissonant set of notes you can ever play, stop that. But it’s not a “sharp” dissonance. Those types of dissonances are known as Prime Dissonances, but I prefer the term “Sharp” Dissonance, because it immediately tells you what it means, and why it’s called that. Those dissonances fundamentally change a chord’s quality, sticking out like a nail on a floorboard. In chords, the Tritone has got nothing on, say, the Minor 2nd or Major 7th, which actually makes the Tritone more flexible, despite (or perhaps because of) the dissonance.
 
Oh, and no, the Tritone was never banned in the middle ages; that is a myth that plagues the internet due to misunderstandings and temporal misplacement of historic texts. “Diabolus en Musica” (“The Devil in Music) is meant to be a figure of speech saying “Damn, this is hard to sing!” And it is; Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam knows from experience on their song Even Flow. (Almost) Every line of the verses opens with a Tritone drop from F# to C, and a trained ear can hear that Vedder goes WAY flat on that C at first, before pulling himself back up. And in yet another emotion, Even Flow’s usage helps to reinforce the plight of the man being sung about, and how it seems like he’s trapped in his situation, even if he doesn’t recognize it himself.

[Moonface]

I would, though it obviously isn't using the MIDI file type. Pretty much, you have a roll of programming language that tells the computer what noises to make and when, and the sound chip takes over from there. That's why I call my Mabinogi music files "MIDI", even though they aren't in a MIDI file type (they're written in MML, which is literally just a string of characters that is interpreted as music).

Since this came to mind when reading this just now and I want to ask before I forget (I do intend to go over your other post at some point), does that mean those pianos that can play music automatically from a sheet would be like a physical form of MIDI style music, or not really?

[Maniakkid25]

I would consider it that, but that's probably stretching the definition of the term. MIDI is a programming file, which has strict specifications, and I'm using it in a much more general sense than what its definition is.

[Moonface]

See, depending on the context, the Tritone can evoke MANY different emotions. In the Simpsons theme, it evokes a sense of playfulness. In Mars, the Bringer of War, it evokes a feeling that, well, an army ready for war is slowly, unceasingly approaching. In Yoda's Theme, it evokes a sense of awe and wonder of the titular character. All of these emotions from just one interval. Hell, for centuries, it’s been used as a form of tension and release.

I've listened to the TSP song a dozen times hoping I'm picking out the right part as the Tritone, but whether I am or not I can not determine what the Tritone is in the Simpsons theme which is making it hard for me to grasp the concept of the note properly.