I wish there was a category in the feedback items something like... "Like a lot - but wildly disagree"

I'll comment on only a few bits... but by no means the only aspects that I disagree with.

I listed a crazy interpretation for the rock band playing something absolutely anchored on G7 as home.
I anticipated from an imaginary classical music teacher...

@Fourier said...

So the exact crazy (mis)interpetation that I called out in advance is the one you have now prescribed.
Spelling it out more elaborately didn't make it sound any less crazy to me.

What's slightly baffling to me is why the bias to demand that everything is seen through the standard major/minor framework is so strong that it refuses to let you even recognise the validity of seeing this as actually using the Mixolydian mode.
So you say... "you can call it mixolydian as much as you like"
and I say... "Guess what - that's because it IS Mixolydian"
Is it really so impossible to 'let go' of the addiction to seeing everything through the classic functional harmony lense?

In effect what your paragraph says is something like...
"No matter what mode someone is playing in, I WILL find a way to re-translate it back into Major/minor
- why? because it's usually possible, and I personally prefer to see it that way no matter how convoluted the translation is."

Like I said - that's called a BIAS.
But at the end of the day, I do regard these as just perspectives - and hence they're as useful as we subjectively find them to be. If you cannot see any benefits from using a modal perspective and/or simply don't want to - then fine - really that's fine.
If I had to get stuck with a bias then the classic Major/minor functional harmony bias would be my first choice - but Major/minor functional harmony is not the whole game and I enjoy not being shoehorned into that bias.

---
Commenting on Chord-Scale theory...
@Fourier said...

So, IF I was ignorant about this (which I'm not) I would again resort to gambling. On the one hand we have @Fourier writing off "Chord-Scale theory" as "half-baked "music hacks" theory" and on the other hand we have (as just a few examples) Berklee College of Music and people like Jamey Aebersold and David Baker popularising this allegedly half-baked theory.
So, hmmmm? - where should my rational gambler place his bets? Not a difficult choice.

---

As for this bit...
@Fourier said...

Sorry, but that quote has to be a contender for one of the most ridiculous suggestions I've heard in a long time.
Reading that was a 'splutter coffee over my computer' experience.
---

Sincerely, this is/was a good argument.
I can see we won't change each other's minds - nor should we.
We are not arguing over whether gravity exists or not - then there would be a correct answer and I would argue tooth and nail.
We are arguing over whether chocolate tastes better than strawberry and in that context I just respectfully agree to disagree over our preferences.

Cheers

 

Last edited: Sep 11, 2021

Well, that's an emblematic introduction of what could be regarded as an wysiNwyg: what-you-see-is-NOT-what-you-get.

I explain: at analysing a given content, start by settting your premises in such fashion that all you'll be able to do onwards is to pile-up dissociative-mistaken conclusions.

Thus your considerations wind up falling in between two extremes: those who got it properly but prefer to neglect the proposition once their own conquered perspectives are considered to suit them better, and those who were not able to grasp anything so cannot eventually contribute, nonetheless both types worthily keeping that to themselves.

Am I being unkind to you? Absolutely not - on the contrary: analytical.

Therefore, I call up your attention to a well deserved second look at your own premises, as so as at the very content which they were harnessed upon, before proceeding with any further inputs.

If considered worthwhile, I beforehand make myself available to clarifications. Otherwise, consider it left where is at.

Cheers

 

This sheet shows a simple melody in 7 different modes. Listen to any of them several times and let the others know what you get. Of course, this method of using modes is not quite right, but not too bad for comparing them.

 

What did we get? What have you demonstrated?

a) First - find a useful melody instead of just aimlessly twiddling around! - ideas do matter!

b) IF you had chosen an actually useful melody (which you didn't) then you should have also illustrated it using parallel modes,
i.e., you chose to show 7 modes from the same diatonic space - C Ionian, D Dorian, E Phrygian, etc, (relative modes)
You should have included using C Ionian, C Dorian, C Phrygian, etc, (parallel modes)

As usual - never any useful contributions from Foster (under any name, Marseilles) - always just distractions.

 

It seems nothing.

Lots of things.

I said listen to them several times. If you do, you'd notice they matter. BTW, its point wasn't catchy melody that you might prefer.

When modes were introduced in previous times, there were no sharps or flats or were used very limitedly. My post's aim was to understand what the strengths and weaknesses of the modes in diatonic realm are by listening to the examples, and why Major has been chosen as the final option from the 7 modes of the white keys.

 

So you completely ignored my bringing to your attention the difference between seeing modes in a relative modes context and seeing them in a parallel modes context. I am (almost) saddened at how your response demonstrates that you really do remain totally clueless about what any of this stuff means.
I say 'almost' saddened - but OK I lied - I actually just feel guilty for feeding scraps to the troll.
Mods - I beg for forgiveness

 

You talk too much and don't listen.

 

Is it, or is it not, a major chord that is the tonic? Because that is what "major tonality" means, that your tonic is a major chord. It really ain't that deep. I'm still wholly convinced that you simply don't understand what major (...and minor) tonality is in the first place, and you keep conflating these with modes. As long as you're doing this, you'll never really be able to understand.

And uh, yeah, the fact that Berklee teaches stuff like that doesn't make it good. It's a college for rich kids and I've seen actually plenty of excerpts by authors that are professors of Berkelee with nonsensical statements. It's not solely the teaching why people go to Berklee (and that teaching often focuses on performance specifically), it's also the connections they get to make with other rich kids.

It wasn't a suggestion, it was a fact directed as a hint for you. Guitarists in particular are very prone to not see the forest from the trees because they barely can access their guitar without thinking about scales.

Nevertheless, after all this, you've failed to provide me any worthwhile reason for actually using these modes for anything. Everything supposedly that is done under modes falls still nicely under minor/major, since that's merely a question of whenever the tonic is minor or major. And in idioms where the third kind of gets to be both (i.e. Blues), modes wouldn't save you any more than standard minor/major framework - both are pretty inappropriate. I think my case rests until anyone is able to articulate a good (i.e. useful) reason to be thinking about these modes at all.

 

We're now in bizarre territory. I will provide just my perceptions of what's going here and of course you won't agree.

Maybe metaphor will convey more - because I've given up with actual examples.

You have a hammer - a mighty hammer - call it by any name you prefer 'Functional Harmony', 'Tonal Functions', or as you seem to prefer 'Major/minor tonality' - any label will do; we all know what it is and we're all versed in exploring that hammer to a greater or lesser extent.

You have that hammer in your toolbox - you love to swing it. And from what you write, you do seem to have a good grip on that hammer.

Guess what - so do I do - I really like that hammer too - it's great!

So when you say

Well you can simply dream on with that defensive posturing fantasy.

Some people, many people, certainly not just me, and in fact huge swathes of the modern music community,
think that having a modal screwdriver in the tool box is also quite fascinating. This results in us putting the mighty hammer down occasionally and it enables our tentative exploration of "things that 'can be' viewed from outside of the traditional Major/minor tonality lense".

Your response to 'people other than you enjoying this' seems to be...
A cynical dismissal of all things modal, (I've lost count of how often you've said something like that)
and a quite insulting dismissal of guitarists, jazz schools, and basically anyone and everyone who dares to pick up a screwdriver instead of the hammer. (I've lost count of how many disparaging insults you've made here already)

Instead you just bizarrely insist that "You have never seen a screw that can't be bashed into the wall using your mighty hammer - and so there - swagger swagger - screwdrivers must be redundant!!!"
It's a very blinkered perspective - and a bit pompous - and very comical.

This is classic BIAS (pun intended)
- accompanied by an unimpressive post-hoc rationalisation of why the hammer is the only thing that's required.
It's also accompanied by your very grubby insistence that anybody else who is trying to explore using a screwdriver is just some kind of moron that has failed to grasp how to use a hammer.
That's delusional! - but do carry on swinging that hammer if it makes you feel better.

For me, wrestling here with that kind of limited blinkered bias will now stop. I have a healthy positive attitude towards old tools, new tools, hammers and screwdrivers and whatever other tools I can get my hands on.
Your overt cynicism towards everything other than your precious hammer is just too negative to be of any value to me.

So, by all means carry on demonstrating how you can bash screws into walls with a hammer - yes it works every time - congratulations - but stop fooling yourself into believing that this is useful news to anyone!
It just makes me laugh - and if the reasons why aren't obvious yet - like I said, I give up!

I now exit what I initially thought might have been a fruitful sub-discussion - I now see otherwise.

Regards

 

I envy your extraordinary talent for finding words and sticking them together. I can swear that I haven't seen a person to your artist in wording and sentence making in my entire life. That's wonderful. You're either a poet, or a language professor.
Anyway, let's get back to the topic.

In Tonality, there's a goal, a final goal that's highly favored by composers, but there's no specific goal in Modality (at least in modern way of using Modality), and it's of interest to improvisers because they don't want to take their fingers off the musical instrument and move them to the end without thinking.

Now think about what the goal is.

 

We've got a whole new type of breed here, the braying Donkey Trolls..



And here's a good Masterclass level demonstration of their Tonal skills..

Such Delight..
not long ago they discovered Real Artists don't use Color!
that's just a Pointless distraction for mere Wall-Painters..

And not only they managed to convince their ignorant selves, but now Advocate for it!
going around town pretending to correct and shame others, and flat out deny what Centuries of proper Empirical and Theoretical practice/study/knowledge have come about..




(I would gladly join and obliterate you with Facts, Knowledge, and even real life examples,
but you're not Deserving, you're just Donkey Trolls who don't even know wtf you talking about, and I've got better things to do.. lol)

 

Here's a fun experiment. Open to anyone that wants to play.

I will (with deliberate ambiguity) reveal the aims of the experiment first.
Aim: "Test whether your music perspectives are broad or narrow."
or did I already lie about the aim? maybe - maybe not
Aim: "Test whether your bullshit detector is installed correctly"

The experiment is in three parts...
Part 1) All the text in this comment
Part 2) Your responses to this comment
Part 3) My replies to your responses

=== SO HERE'S PART 1 ===

Instructions:
See below where I have written 8 paragraphs.
They are a loosely summarised criticism of the limitations of major/minor tonality.
I'm not inviting a fine critique of these paragraphs (but you're very welcome to provide one if you like)
I would prefer a much simpler 'overall summarised response'
What I would really like is something very simple like a poll...
a) yes I agree with the thrust of those paragraphs
OR
b) those paragraphs are a load of pure pretentious bollox
but feel free to find some nuanced middle ground if you want.

In part 3, I will offer my (no doubt puerile) subjective opinions about your perspectives based on your responses.
I promise part 3 will be worth reading.
I will wait an unspecified number of days before part 3 just to see if any other forum members care to participate in this fun poll. and if no-one cares to play then the game sinks and part 3 will remain unknown (probable I guess)

Over to you...

The eight paragraphs...

[1] In the classic tradition we're obsessed with elaborate schemes based around [V -> I] i.e., cadential tonality.
It's good stuff and has been delivering the goodies in multiple genres for centuries.

[2] BUT it's NOT the only game... Today's (and yesterday's) possibilities are broader.
A practical mini example - "The role of a Dominant 7 chord"
It doesn't need to provide its traditional classical function, i.e., some kind of dissonance needing to resolve.
The dissonance can instead be a valid self-contained entity.
Today, dissonance can be validly used without it preparing or anticipating anything.

[3] Music of yesterday and today can easily merge parallel dissonant chords which simply abandon their traditional functional value, and today your brain just naturally accepts that.

[4] We just don't need to be in that framework of classical tonality.

[5] However, it is still 'indispensable' to utilise some orienting force.
Let's stay broad and call that force 'attractive poles'.

[6] Diatonic tonality is just one way of organising music around these poles.
'Tonal functionality' used to be the primary organising force
but now it can be subordinate to the more generalised attractive force of these sonorous poles.

[7] At the end of the day, music is just a sequence of auditory impulses that converge on a point of rest.

[8] Traditional diatonic systems possess no 'absolute value' in themselves.
They 'can and do' satisfy the ideas of attraction described above
but only in limited ways that have emerged just from glorious tradition.
We no longer need to be slaves to those abitrary limitations.

 

This argument is precisely the argument of improvisers. An argument that ends with weirdness and ambiguity. Of course, improvisers don't have that vision, and they mean it as a fun way of creativity.

Okay, I don't deserve it, but at least do it for everyone else.

 

1) No, you are describing the simplified explanation that is offered in (elementary) school books about how many pieces seem to have been written in certain time period in Classical music (the actual poster boy of "Galant style" - Mozart - did actually use some kind of other theory since both creators of Riemannian functional harmony and Schenkerian analysis were born more than 50 years after Mozart's death).
2) This is a somewhat valid point, still, the tuning system of today is different, so comparisons with 1600-1700-early 1800s music don't work. Still, complex chords are more dissonant than triads (like triads are more dissonant than dyads), so if you want to write in totally coherent manner, you may want to prepare and resolve dissonances to consonances in slightly different system or else you risk to confuse or make your listener uninterested, because your music doesn't work on psychological level.
3) No, you simply have to use another system with different rules. See point 2 and your own explanation about forces of attraction (and repulsion). You don't have them in a musical texture that makes no sense. Many people intuit alternative systems of composing that don't break on psychological level, but many also fail (and write nonsense that noone buys or wants to listen to).
4) Ok
5 and 6) Agree with first part of 6), don't agree with second part ( "but now it can be subordinate to the more generalised attractive force of these sonorous poles"). Maybe I can agree, if you give more details about what you mean with "sonorus poles" etc.
7) No, music doesn't even have to do with sound or human perception, but here we go into philosophy, so there is no point in this discussion.
8) No; if you want to write mostly heptatonic, mostly consonant music, mostly major-minor triadic, especially for choirs, you will inevitably rediscover classical music idioms.

Btw, I know people that find jazz dissonant, wow... One of them is classical music cellist with absolute pitch, so he is not some random non-musical guy. As much as I like any form of music, my personal opinion is that most people don't even need any form of more complex systems than pentatonic ones (with little to no harmony). Some EDM/pop producers have become millionaires by writing primitive techno beats and simple monophonic or heterophonic music. Obviously, they didn't need any form of harmony.

Btw, the main topic was "extendind major scale". It seems that almost all post are off-topic.
Why don't you guys make a topic on modes, jazz arpeggios, outdated harmony system, modes, fluffy donkey toys etc.

 

I always ask everyone how they make music. The reason for my question is to know their views of music theories. Music theories sometimes have commonalities, and sometimes contradictions or entirely separate worlds. Your general information about music is so good. You know a lot about anything. But I think you haven't used them much in practice.

• Do you care about the details of the music and how they're used?
• Do you spend most of your time studying music or making music?
• If making music is your priority, what theoretical principles do you consider in making your work?
• If improvisation is part of your work process, how do you combine principles with improvisation?

 

First question makes no sense to me. You should listen to both details and the "big picture" behind them to judge the worth of some piece of art (for example: in a novel the writer may employ beautiful words, logical structure of sentences and scenes, but the plot and the whole story to be worth nothing in the end; it is interesting that the opposite is not true - there are plenty of badly written books that function only thanks to the ideas behind them or the story. In general, there are only few good writers that managed to create good novels only relying on "purple prose").
Second question - I am trying to balance between both.
Third: I consider aesthetical principles fist and then employ the right kind of theory that will achieve the intended emotional effect on the listener.
Fourth: practice every day, of course. There is also another type of improvisation where you use subconscious motions to generate new ideas without thinking about any theory or stylistic principles.
Btw, if you instead of trolling the forum, have spent this time on practicing and composing ( and maybe learning more theory?), you would have been a better musician and not wasted your time.

 

Thank you very, very much.

Whenever I ask everyone those questions above, without giving enough details, they just tell their general points of views. No one tells their exact processes.

 

There is no secret process.
Sit down, hit "record" button and later edit midi data, if you have to. Some people seem to just input everything with mouse in sheet music notation or piano roll editor.
Of course, you need to know what are you doing. That's why general knowledge of music theory or patterns from existing songs (that you can imitate) comes into play.

 

I can definitely relate to that... would that be the sad but true ending to all sorts of human interactions on any topic, and why in the end we socialize only with those who share the same opinions? Pedantry and vanity obliterating and slowing down evolution?


On a given day you decide to try sharing a rather unusual perspective of yours.
Result: you're a jazz snob.

Such prespective represents the amalgamation of decades of hard study and practice.
Result: you're a jazz snob, trying to misguide others.

By offering some simple introductory examples through simplified notation you try to change the course it's taking, little by little, hoping some readers can now start pondering about it.
Result: you're a jazz snob, trying to misguide others, academically unworthy, unable to walk your talk, a troll spreading humiliation and discontempt.

You decide to improve the examples, now by depicting them through whole fingerings, chords and audio files.
Result: you're a jazz snob, trying to misguide others, academically unworthy, unable to walk your talk, a troll spreading humiliation and discontempt, hearing impaired, a stealer reposting others' contents claiming to be yours.

Ultimately you encompass and execute a great deal of the concepts you've brought about throughout months in a rendition (recorded on a cellphone alright, listenable nonetheless), hoping to finally get back on rails and move on.
Result: you're a jazz snob, trying to misguide others, academically unworthy, unable to walk your talk, a troll spreading humiliation and discontempt, hearing impaired, a stealer reposting others' contents claiming to be yours, irreparably ignorable and ignorant as well, once the terminology found on the first post is imprecise (wrong), not uncomprehended.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Sep 14, 2021

hah! join the club. i am a fellow pseudo-snob-elitist (whatever that means), and at times a pseudo intellectual. it could be worse for you, apparently i am 'woke' as well -- a meaningless accusation that is supposedly the worse thing you can be.

fortunately the bar is pretty low around here with regards to any pursuit that requires thought, in any field. if you have not noticed this forum, like the world, is full of morons who slavishly line up like sheep to limbo their way to their obtuse heaven. none of it as it seems, of course, it is mostly just a manipulative facade/game to lay claim to the commons.

unfortunately, i thought this thread was about exploring methods of going beyond the conventional structures with a prescriptive view to a structural cromaticism, not endlessly descriptively stating the conventional forms which it seems to revolve back to. i think if this stuff interests a person, they are well aware of what they are 'suppose' to do, i was hoping for things that you are not suppose to do, but still work. it is not like there are not a million threads on the intricacies of theory. computers can pump out endless technically 'correct' or 'incorrect' formations that can please or displease. only people can sculpt work that references the multitudinous human experience or some such meta-narrative directly. music has a hopelessly inadequate set of tools with which to achieve this end. i understand the imperative to taxonomically codify or subset tools, but at least the tools should be on the table.

in general people seem to crave the safety of descriptivism over the troubled waters of prescriptivity. (sic.) it gamifies the process rather than promote exploratory discussion.

it is still a net positive that people are interested in discussing theory as an end in itself (despite some objections). the music of the page (screen? most of my formal studies in this area are from pre-computer world, cut and paste is a whole different thing without the glue), so to speak.

can you write a piece solely with tight, sustained, simultaneous 1, b2, 2, b3, 3, 4, #4 clusters? no! you snob. get a 'real' job -- do as the romans do, or be damned. do as the romans do, and be damned. such is life. you probably know this if you have pursued a life as a creative, in any capacity, for any length of time.

i understand your interests, do not let the detractors devalue or take them from you until you have gotten what you want out of them and are willing to let them go. the detractors only find interest in the mundanities of rome. we all have to let go of everything in the end. time grows old and forgets its worlds.