To FrankWhite23

In order to illustrate that a Major or minor perspective lays on the composer's hands, in this composition you may find an elegant solution for sounding minor, but using Major chords, aided by a Modal flavor supported by a cyclic descending bassline.

Only 2 chords! B/E and A/G# - the order in which they are arpeggiated is what sets the intervalic relationship, thus the "mood".

 

Last edited by a moderator: Jan 24, 2021

Firstly, nice to see some substance instead of trolling. But your confidence in 'getting it right' seems maybe a bit misplaced.

Your first heading says
> Basics on the diatonic system ( 12 pitches or tonalities )

So, that's an immediate flaw (either in your labelling or your understanding)
Basic of Chromatic System (12 pitches or tonalities) would have been more appropriate
because you were not yet discussing 'Diatonic'.
You then nicely summarised various ways of carving up the chromatic space (whole tone and diminished)
but you hadn't yet defined or started discussing a diatonic space. (you can see that - right?)

Further down in your comment you have the heading
> The Major Scale
and then you do start discussing a 'Diatonic' space,
but why would you then narrowly refer to that whole diatonic space as "The Major Scale"
when it would be far more appropriate to recognise and highlight that the diatonic space includes all seven modes
and not just the Major (Ionian) Scale.

and then you could have (but I'm glad you didn't) get into discussions about whether versions of minor
like melodic and harmonic do or don't also deserve to be labelled as diatonic. (boring conventions about categorising)

---

I have a different concern about the post.

The basic accuracy is OK (other than the flaws mentioned above)
but 'basic accuracy' and 'useful education' are entirely separate concepts.

Someone that already has the knowledge, that was summarised in your comments, can read it, repair it, and say "yeah that's ok"
but for anyone that's trying to understand those ideas for the first time, everything you wrote above,
and all of my comments too, are totally baffling and have almost no educational value whatsoever.

I wonder if you might be guilty of the classic university lecturer's naive error where they assume that
'summarising and presenting what they know' amounts to 'teaching' - when it really doesn't.

You might also note that many contributors to this thread would be more than capable of delivering 'actual educational' material
but the more experienced contributors know that quality educational material will not emerge from improvised forum threads
and it's embarrassing to pretend otherwise. High quality educational material (that actually teaches) is in abundance
in music theory books and in some modern websites, and some online courses, that are devoted to getting it right.

If we really want to help a beginner, and we know that basic theory is what they need next, then we are usually
wasting our time pouring indigestible summaries into a thread and pretending they will understand it - they won't.
Instead, just point them to quality resources.

For example, one of my choices for beginners is https://www.daveconservatoire.org
One of its nice features is how it separates 'music theory' from 'reading music notation'.
Beginners can defer (or even completely avoid) the distractions of mastering formal music notation
until after they have some useful theory under their belt.

AFTER someone has explored a site like above and grounded themselves in the basics
then you can have a useful mutually educational dialogue.

---

So, you last post inviting people to explore a Zappa track seems for more useful as a way of having a useful dialogue.
Maybe you should provide a more detailed breakdown of how you think it works.

From my very brief peek at it, it didn't 'feel' minor to me (but 'feel' is obviously subjective territory)
To me it immediately felt Lydian. The two chords that you describe seem to support that.
I'd describe it as occupying a safe diatonic space which could be (classically and not very usefully) described as E Major
but it's far more appropriate to recognise that it's just toggling back and forth between an A Lydian Chord and a B Mixolydian chord.
Most of the improvisation over the top sounded like basic pentatonic riffs in the same safe diatonic space.
Pretty simple and very very nice.

 

Books and online courses are helpful for getting people acquainted with but not well versed in the concepts of music. The best way that comes to my mind is to take dead composers out of their graves and tie their hands and feet and put a gun to their foreheads and ask them to explain note by note how they composed their music, if they can explain it either (that I doubt).

People, no matter how much they read the present books, no matter how fluent they are, can not use them extensively in making their songs. The ultimate use they can make is to use scales and chords in some limited ways and involuntarily and unconsciously.

Past composers did not teach their students with books (I agree that books were scarce in their times). Their trainings were mostly in the form of private lessons that were provided for them. Of course, in many cases, the students could not act like their teachers.

The great composers had a much greater understanding of music than books and theories after them. They had powerful mental tools that could not be described in books.

 

You know what's really difficult? To understand others which simply cannot stick to a case.
You've guessed me for a troll. Is that what you call accuracy?
Being a Newbie I don't know how to open a new/different thread. Can you help me on that? Or just maybe open one called: Music Theory from the Ground Up. If done one-at-the-time, it will fit the bill for many people.
There you can start by not mostly cherry-picking eventual flaws in my writing. What about my definition of what a Major scale really is? That I can assure you've never read in your life, and never will, in any book or coming from anybody's mouth. If you get the essence of that, it should mean a breakthrough. Regarding diatonic scales, apart from the 3 main ones commonly taught, there are only 3 more possible and that's about it - I may elaborate on that there.
My sincere appologies to the readers of my first post. In a second read, it felt arrogant indeed, meanwhile my true intention was to be dry and direct. Shall I add that there's is no shame in not knowing. Information is not knowledge, knowledge is not wisdom, wisdom is not truth, truth is not beauty, beauty is not love, love is not music... Music is the best.

 

Are you MMJ? God, I hope so. Two Major Universities are looking for you for impersonating a qualified lecturer. Both you and MMJ identically are a dog with a bone and when challenged to demonstrate their knowledge you got from a text book being audio in music of your own performance, you then ignore the question when asked or challenged to present music of your own to demonstrate you baulk, or pretend the question was never asked, or turn it back on the asker, and have NOTHING of worth to present audibly to back up the fact that you read it in a book and absorbed it and nothing more, cannot play what you spout Freetobestolen. PUT MUSIC UP OR STFU FRAUD. If you are MMJ you are a fraud and looking down the barrel of jail time. Put some music up of your own like any very qualified musician would or STFU. Similarly, also put what you spout in actual written music like a qualified music lecturer would not in text-speak. There are a lot of people here who read music, you know, the thing actual professional musicians do.

If you are qualified then like every qualified musician in the world, they have Sibelius, Finale or something similar. They do not write pages of English, they screen-capture the music THEY wrote out, not copied which anyone can do.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Jan 24, 2021

What a sad individual...

 

You were asked three times to demonstrate in AUDIO of your own. You are as sad as it gets FRAUD - You are a joke. I can stand by why I do and say things, as can anyone qualified you sad little, little man. You are qualified? write it in actual music. come on, you told everyone you are better than everyone else. Pathetic.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Jan 24, 2021

All aspects of western music (based on 12-TET) have been exhausted previously. Nothing new can be invented.

The only dimension that has not yet been fully explored is the combo of various rhythms and timbres in the form of present-day song-frame music.

After that, the evolution of music will meet the sticky end ...

 

Publicly say this is yours as in you did it. Good, now play what you speak and upload it so people can hear it. a qualified musician knows intimately both are necessary because simply, music is heard.

 

Really? You have not even touched on polyrhythmic counterpoint. Magadini and many, many others are showing a new way of experimenting, both rhythmically and harmonically.
No qualified musician would DARE be so ambiguous. You certainly have no Master's degree or Doctorate, with that statement alone, your paper would have been thrown back in your face. Ambiguity and broad generalized statements are failed.

 

That's the beginning of "understanding" something about music - simply too much for a beginner.

 

It isn't if it is taught properly and systematically, because a REAL teacher also uses sound so their ears absorb it. That's not rocket science.

 

So how you'd explain a beginner that the real I chord is actually a V chord ?

 

I'd play it to them and ask if them if they hear any difference as a good teacher would, before I attempted any theoretical explanation.
Then see if they could hear that the V leads back to the I before I decided to go anywhere near perfect cadences or anything that might discombobulate them.
The music people aspire to is heard. The theory while very important is wasted if the person becomes confused with an over-abundance of technical information. Ensuring the student HEARS is critical as any good teacher knows. If it was not, solfege (Sight-singing in short) would never have been a critical part of every music school in the entire world for centuries.

 

Sorry but you haven't answered the question or didn't get it. Now properly: how can the actual I chord, naturally generated from its fundamental onwards, to pose as a V chord in a system which became the staple of western music?
Moreover, if it's like you point-out right after, we could've very well stayed within Modal territory forever.

 

V to I is music fundamentals BTW. You asked clearly HOW I would teach it - slowly and systematically. See the post above that, I stated that so very clearly - you are seeing only what you want to see. I answered exactly as a knowledgeable teacher would. Start with the basics before doing what you would have just done, completely discombobulated them. I can answer that easily but without systematic tutoring which I said, no beginner could as I clearly said for the third time. You asked how would I teach a beginner to get to that stage, get their ears working first was my answer.

You put no audio up and throw theory with no audio of your own to substantiate you know how to teach. . You have jumped to the part that no REAL teacher would start with and that tells me and a few qualified people watching this thread exactly what I already knew. Whenever the hearing or audio aspect comes in you run away. Sorry, that screams a huge missing critical component of not only being a good teacher, but also a good musician. You are a dog with a bone. Take the bone. It's all yours. I am amazed you have learned what you have already but like MMJ it's missing some serious critical components.

 

Ok understood, you didn't get it and prefer to slide in the obvious cadence instead of stiking to the single chord mentioned. Typical "teacher". God bless your students. Now you may scram and let the thread to continue.

 

I got it as did anyone qualified. You do not get it and instead prefer to place yourself above everyone else by telling everyone how much you know and we all knew nothing which was screen captured by several people. A really good player has no need to do that nor does a good teacher. They know they can teach properly they do not feel an insecure megalomaniacal need to tell everyone they are better than everyone else. The difference between me and you is I do not have to prove myself even though you had to be prompted to post something that was actually related to real music, not text-waffle. Put your OWN playing up to show everyone how much you know and how amazing you think you are so everyone else can believe you - otherwise, I stand by what I said, it's only musicology and has nothing to do with the real methods of teaching a full music education other than theory which is not the be-all and end-all of music. Any true teacher knows that and you are not one.

 

The only thing you have proven or backed-up here so far is to possess a twisted 12 yo mindset and behavior, insecure sad individual. You've contributed nothing to anyone. My terminology to define your status: scram psycho.