For changing the current heavy atmosphere of Education section, I invite all ASers to think about this term, "Wrong Harmony". I allege that after the breakdown of tonality (officially dates back to the beginning of the 20th century) and also appearance of new concepts in music, human-perceptionable harmony fell.

Gradually music fell and we entered the sound world. Sound ≠ Music. Music is just a small subset of it. Excessive emphases on tensions and utilization of non-musical elements caused irretrievable loss of the lofty music of the previous centuries and totally washing out the music-genius-breeding tradition.

I call all of the above phenomena "Wrong Harmonies". Human auditory system can not enjoy wrong harmonies and easily memorize them.

What's your idea about this topic?

 

Last edited by a moderator: Dec 12, 2019

Foster. My answer is Foster.

 

Well. What's your point? You call it "Wrong harmony", ok. But what's your goal for making this topic?

 

First of all: Tonality never had a breakdown, because tonality can be heard every day on the radio. Tonality is nothing else than the harmonic layering of tones.
Secondly, the only thing that goes back to the beginning of the 20th century is the development of sound music in the course of futurism and the avant-garde. These experimental currents have not harmed the musical high culture, but have spurred it on and developed it further.
Third: There is no such thing as "Wrong Harmonies". If you layer tones on top of each other you get either a harmony or a dissonance.
Fourth: Every instrument in the world produces tones, sounds and noise proportionally. The weighting varies according to instrument and playing style.
Increasing tonal proportions wash out the music-genius-breeding tradition?
Ludwig van Beethoven, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Ornette Coleman, Stalaggh, Kendrick Lamar... they are all fundamentally different and yet have something in common: they play with tones, sounds and noises.
And you know what? My human auditory system enjoys every millisecond of their musical soundscape, harmonies and dissonances!

 

I think I can pin point the origins of "wrong harmonies"... They are introduced not by singers but by vocal plugins promising instant harmonies. There are many companies offering up to eight part vocal layering like Eventide but if you don't know that what the software thinks should be flat or sharp or remain natural in relation to the songs key and whether it is major, minor or any one of a substantial number of scales or modes, then you are going to hear wrong harmonies.
I realise I am guessing at the intent of the op, but wrong harmonies are not something I associate with instrumental music.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Dec 12, 2019

I think right or wrong often depends on familiarity,what sounds good is what sounds familiar,just like food what tastes good is what you're familiar with,for example Arabic use of quarter tones might sound dissonant to ears attuned to 12 tone equal temperament but wonderful to people who have grown up hearing Ud music.
Jacob Collier is an example of some who experiments with microtonal chords well to be specific with just intonation and some of it sounds quite pleasing at least to my ears.Harry partch did this many years previously but as the octave can be split into multiple variable divisions all sorts of harmonies can be created only limited by the listener's ability to discern cents in the octave.

The 2nd video would sound very strange to someone used to only twelve tone equal temperament. I personally enjoy it,even though it has harmonies that would be considered wrong by many people,they're not really wrong just different from what most people hear from mainstream outlets.I wish I could afford some of those microtonal keyboards

 

That's very true. But I think we as a species tend to gravitate toward certain basic things as "good and bad". Open fifths, major triads and sugar are "good". Detuned fifths and bitter leaves are "bad". It's a bit universal to start with but if we expose ourselves to things like microtones and unsweetened tea we learn to accept them as "good" as well. It's going to be stronger with food than music of course because food ties in directly with survival.

 

Aye food is maybe a weak comparison but nonetheless I do think the very fact that we can attune ourselves to enjoy dissonance is a wonderful facet to possess but then again without dissonance consonance isn't half as sweet in my most humble and insignificant opinion.

and in the words of the bard music is the food of love.

 

and if our/your/their culture hears a detuned 5th as consonant/good? I merely pose the question.
Is it really Universal?

 

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I think edm (21st century music) was created for simplistic melodies. Look at old music - it had less instruments (generally) but the skill associated with each sound was high i.e varieties of scales now uncommon were used. Now mostly 2-3 scales are used. The melodies are fast but simple. And there is nothing wrong, its all about familiarity. I like edm styles because I hear them since i was born. My grandmother doesn't like such "harsh" music. You can say modern hip hop brought back uncommon scales and chord progressions back to life. Its all about your taste.
If you are high you can even enjoy fan noise.

 

Don't let the Superprofessor come inside this post or you are in big trouble.

Btw he probably wont come because he is not the thread starter so not need to accumulate points, views, self esteem, blatant fire, troll training etc etc... sick mind at its best.

to back on topic the only wrong harmony is the one that make your music sucks. if you like it then the harmony is ok, we are not in the Educational Guantanamo Bay detention camp as the superprofessor would like to confine us.

 

I know a music professor (that I had) who traveled to the amazon and he brought an acoustic guitar with him. He found a tribe and was fascinated by their music. It was odd and new to him, microtonal. He was so happy to experince this so he figured he would take his guitar and play and sing some western songs. When he started playing his tuned guitar several children in the tribe put their hands over their ears. The parents were ashamed and tried to make the children stop covering their ears. Western temperament, (12TET) based on the harmonic series, just sounded horrible to these children (probably to the elderly too, but they didn't want to show disrespect by covering their ears or making disgusting faces).

It's all relative. If you are exposed to microtonal music when you are an infant, this music will not be alien to you. So bottom line - there is no wrong harmony/temperament/scale.

 

I don't know... I imagine maybe someone has tried to do a study but maybe not; it's a pretty abstract thing. I had always been sort of under then impression that it was, especially with the earliest western music like chant starting there. BUT...

Which of course is true; if a culture already has a micro-tonal system and you hear it as normal from birth, there you go. My thought that the human ear might gravitate naturally to the consonance of an open 5th interval kind of supposes a culture in which music doesn't actually exist yet and afaik there IS no such culture or place! So maybe it's a moot point all around.

 

@ the real Pict : take a Roli Seaboard Block - it may only sport two octaves, but it is absolutely affordable and provides an entrance into the microtonal cosmos (little more than € 200)

 

I see it like this:

On one site you have a girl(harmonie):silky voice, perfect articulation, situational quick-witted speech.

And on the other site the street bi**h(dissonance):laud voice, articulation like a south living farm girl, and more hard tripping on anything, then anything else.

But both girls are beautiful in their own sense, and have a place in this world!

I don't like this black and white thing in Music, you have this enough in religion and politics etc.

Music is not like the wheel, that is already perfect as it is(Or Do You Literally Want To Reinvent The Damn Thing).

But music reinvented itself truth us, so many times, that it would be hilarious, to act like it was baked in stone right from the beginning, and it's still developing.

Perception is a bit*h, and every body of us, has its own one!


So don't take your self and music too serious, enjoy both girls, and maybe at the same time.

 

Last edited: Dec 13, 2019

Now I'm sure of it

I'm updating my sig for informational info...

 

foster,

we have seen this same "content" you keep posting in a loop for years now, and we have heard your "musical" attempts. im afraid that in your case the phenomena is not more complex than what we generally call having bad taste, being tone deaf and plain lazy.

then you can go crazy obsessing trying to drape it all in mannered silly words, it doesn't hide the emptiness in your typical soup of letters

 

Burgvogt thanks for the pointer I'll check that out

 

My goal was simple:

I just wanted us to heighten our artistic awareness in what's good, what is not so good and why. I'm always having this thought in mind that what hindered the advent and development of music elitism in 20th century and one reason that attracts my attention is the tainted climate that musicians breathe in it. Everything isn't about the money but much relates to the music itself and expectations from it.