There are "notes as the name of certain pitches", and "notes as things musicians play". The former is a relatively simple concept, the latter much less so. I do see that the vast majority of the wikipedia article is concerned with "notes as the name of certain pitches".
"A" is the name of a note. So is "Sa" and so is "Ke" (in different traditions). They all denote a specific pitch, though precisely which pitch they denote is not always clear (e.g. among traditions in which all pitch is relative to a root, or in a context where the accepted mapping between frequency and note names is unspecified).
When someone plays an "A" they have more choices than just its pitch, and the result is also a note.
"Dog" is the name of a pet often found among humans. So is "cat" and so is "mouse". They denote a specific pet, though precisely which pet they denote may not be clear.
When someone chooses a "dog", they have many more choices than just it being a dog, but the result is still a dog.
Names of things, and the things themselves are different, but when we write and talk about them, whether we using the name or attempting to describe the thing itself is not always clear. When I say "it was an "A"" to refer to the sound someone made, I may be trying to refer to every aspect of the sound in a rather anemic way, or I may be trying to denote its pitch. In English, the use of "A" to denote a pitch is widely, formally and colloquially, capturing that "there is a note we call A". The fact that the sound itself had other properties besides those captured by this pitch designation doesn't change that. When a teacher tells a student to play an "A", nobody would sensibly quibble and say "I don't know what to play". They would say "my teacher told me to play an A and I did". The fact that the language used by the teacher named only the pitch and did not convey any information about dynamics or articulation wouldn't stop any sensible person from agreeing that the teacher told the student to play "the note we call A".
Almost nobody else would ever say that "A is a pitch class". Just like nobody would ever say "a Chihuaha is a class of dogs", even though that's just as true. They'd point to a particular Chihuaha and say "that's a Chihuaha".
I'm really done splitting hairs here. I thought that we were discussing important things, not semantic details. Performed notes are more than their pitch, but the names of notes are considered by almost everyone to be notes.
> And these conventions are for example different between western and traditional indian, arabic or chinese music.
TFA does acknowledge that it only really covers western music.
But on top of that, the other musical cultures you mention are in fact remarkably similar to western musical culture at the level TFA is describing.
They differ significantly in terms of what they do with e.g. dividing the octave into 12, but they all make heavy use of the 3/2 ratio and other similar concepts.
If you want to get really different, check out Byzantine musical culture. They have no octave equivalence (!) and their notation is 100% relative (i.e. they write melodies down as sequences of intervals, not sequences of absolute notes). Even so, they still use 12 tones per octave ...
> It's as if a physics student tries to derive medicine "from first principles" by starting at atoms and thinking hard. It doesn't work and won't fix your appendix
It might not help develop a cure for your appendix, but it does or can help understanding why certain cures work, or why some are preferred over others.
What is meant here is that there are different musical cultures around the world, and if you grew up in one that, for example, prominently uses quarter-tones/microtones (e.g. a lot of music from Arabic and Indian cultures) then we know that you will have a different reaction to, say, Bach, than someone who grew up in a culture that uses strict equal temperament.
It does not mean "my parents played a lot of <X> and that doesn't sound good to me".
I grew up with Western music, and now Arabic music is one of my favorites. I really don't think Westerners hear semitones differently. Also, a lot of Arabic music is 12-tone, and even if it weren't, they probably appreciate Bach the same way.
You can re-train your ear of course. But on average a lot of people used to western music feel that classical arabic/indian music with half/quarter tones in it sounds 'out of tune'/wrong.
I really like classical arabic music. But when I tried to play the half tones in a tune I studied hard on the syrian guy I was playing with told me to please not attempt those because I was horribly out of tune :-P . Not because I played a half tone, of course. He did play them. But because my half tone was subtly slightly off the right half tone.
No, people don't "hear semitones differently" but ... practicing musicians from one culture will choose to use semitones, quartertones and microtones differently, and a listener with a lot of musical exposure will notice this when listening to music that does and does not involve such practices.
I am missing the part where TFA said that the goal was to help with "basic song writing".
And what is "distracting level of nerdery" to someone can be the key that helps unlock a deeper level of understanding to someone else. I thought we understood neurodivergence a little better these days.
The western theory stuff you describe has almost no relevance at all when considered non-western musical cultures. The contents of TFA, while not strictly comprehensive when considering other musical cultures, is still pretty on point. Even though Carnatic and Hindustani music theoretically uses 22 tones per octave, the most common ones are still drawn from the same set of 12 used in western music, and the most common scales are remarkably similar.
> The western theory stuff you describe has almost no relevance at all when considered non-western musical cultures.
Say it louder for those at the back. People keep forgetting that western theory was unable to explain why the blues (the American music form by excellence) worked at all. And arguably, a lot of the western music theory is more akin to a codification of existing musical practices in the western world rather than some scientific model. But a lot of music theory fans seem to dogmatically treat it as THE science of ALL music.
There is "western music theory" ala Schenker, voice leading, serialism etc (to mention a couple of names that some people might have heard of) but that describes things to do once you've got a scale and chord system.
This is "12T music theory", describing how you might get to a scale and chord system.
I don't see how it is confusing. You can spend a lot of time doing "western music theory" without ever understanding most of what is in this article, that is certainly true. But the fact this this outlines a bunch of stuff that undergirds what a composing (or improvising) musician might consider "music theory" doesn't invalidate it, or make it confusing, IMO.
"Music theory" has a near universally accepted meaning. This article is not about that, it's about what we all call in music academia acoustics and digital synthesis (which of course I know you know as I know your work). The derivation of scales from acoustic principles is not in theory books; it's in acoustics books. I've taken numerous theory courses and also taken university acoustics courses and digital synthesis courses, so I can certainly comment on what was taught where! If people go here and think they are learning music theory and then want to go on, they will be frustrated by not finding what they want, they will have issues communicating with others in the field, and they will lose credibility by not knowing the standard nomenclature. That kind of redefinition of standard terms is not good pedagogy.
Look, it's like me writing an introduction to "colour theory" and then writing about something else that eventually leads to how we see colour.
I'm not debating that the article has useful content – it does – but it's title and framing is misleading, which is a disservice to the new student. I happen to personally believe everyone getting into music theory would be well served by knowing more acoustics and that this is useful material. But muddying the waters by using terms in weird ways is off.
And when you write about a field and use the wrong terms, you lose credibility. Sorry, I don't trust authors who can't be arsed to use the standard nomenclature for a topic, it really doesn't make them sound trustworthy.
Are Peano's axioms number theory? No one really uses them directly (other than induction) when working on practical number theory problems, but they are considered part of it.
Scales and chords build the fundamental basic blocks for Western music (I would introduce equal temperament third but that's only a matter of ordering). They are taken for granted in musical practice, I agree, but only because musical practice concerns itself about how/what to play and why. If somebody comes from the point of view that clefs and stems (which are undoubtedly musical tools) are gatekeeping and all you need is a piano roll, this article explains from first principles enough musical building blocks to tell them why they're wrong.
Sure, but none of that changes the fact that is someone reads that article and says "wow I like music theory!" and orders the best theory books or signs up for a course or lessons, they are going to be PISSED. They will get some books that don't cover what they think music theory is at all and that touch on basically nothing in this article.
On the other hand, if the author had said something like "Intro to the acoustics behind musical scales", then they might go on to order great books like Kyle Gann's or Gareth Loy's and be off to the races.
Redefining normal terms just makes people sound like they have no clue, and that is, 100%, a serious disservice to the reader/student.
Or maybe not... surely if you are shown figured bass you will be pissed, but on the other hand understanding triads and sevenths provides some intuition about inversions, voice leading, rootless voicings, upper structures, diatonic movement of voices. Certainly not enough to orchestrate a piece, but enough to listen to educational YouTube videos, follow lead sheets, think about what you're hearing.
Harmonics and temperament aren't really relevant to all this, though at some point you have to explain why certain intervals are naturally consonant but "boring", and others can be made to make sense but mostly within a more complex voicing (which reconnects to topics like inversions and voice leading).
(For disclosure I studied piano until ~20, both classical and jazz, and I would call my knowledge of jazz theory "decent" for someone with zero professional or academic experience. Obviously not comparable to yours and not even in English, so perhaps what I wrote above will sound really stupid).
> The derivation of scales from acoustic principles is not in theory books; it's in acoustics books.
And this is correct because ... ?
There are whole subsectors of "music theory" that cover precisely this sort of thing, even though they are fairly arcane. I'm thinking of things like pitch set theory.
My own take is that western musical pedagogy, at least historically, is one of the worst examples of pedagogy that exists, precisely because of what is taught, in what order, and why. It pretends (or used to) to have some sort of universality or inevitability, when even a scant familiarity with other musical cultures would make it clear that this is false. It is emphasizes a note-centric rather than interval-centric approach to melody (and chords) that ignores centuries of (folk) musical practice (most simply known as transposition, but the implications of it are staggering, and largely elided).
So, defending what that pedagogy calls "music theory" seems like weak sauce to me. Especially given, as many others have pointed out, western/european "music theory" is a codification of existing practice for the most, not a generative theory.
It seems you arguing how things should be, not what they are. I don't disagree that in music we have lots of inconsistent nomenclature that could have better names. But writing an intro to a topic and using non-standard nomenclature (without explaining that that's what you're doing) is still a source of confusion to learners.
Whether or not this info should be in acoustics books or theory books is not relevant to the new learner, that's where it is! I actually think a crash course in acoustics would be a good addition to a comprehensive theory book, but it doesn't change the fact that no theory course or book has this stuff (not even my pitch set texts!)
I teach music students regularly. I spend a lot of time explaining what something is called in various contexts. They need to know this to learn in a productive and not frustrating manner. They can then learn later why the terms are imperfect and used differently in different subcultures.
But no argument on that is going to convince me that it's good pedagogy to tell new readers that a post on acoustics and synthesis is on music theory. That's just counterproductive at best, or ignorant at worst.
What would you call the topic of "why are there 12 notes to the octave?" "why is the perfect fifth the most consonant chord?" "why do we use equal temperament?"
In the all the textbooks I have or have seen, those are called "acoustics" (and more specifically "tuning and temperament"). They are covered in the text book I had for acoustics, and not covered in any of the textbooks I used for theory (jazz or classical). For example, in Rossings "The Science of Sound", it's in a chapter called "Musical Scales and Temperament".
Look, I agree that they should be. I have literally had discussions with one of my PhD supervisors (who taught acoustics) about how much better some students would understand some of harmony if they started with some acoustics! But they aren't, so if one is going to redefine common uses of terms, at very least this should be explained in detail to the student prior to use.
My call on this stuff is always determined by "What will help my student learn most efficiently, without frustration or confusion". That article fails badly on that count.
While these are helpful topics to understand, they are not beginner topics. Not if you want to make music. They are fundamental questions in that they reside at the base of why things are the way they are, but they are not fundamental in the sense that you should teach them to a beginner who wants to make music.
The point is to make music. And the most practical way to do so is to teach instrument technique, intervals, scales, chords, and melody. Not low-level acoustic phenomena.
To make an (imperfect) programming analogy, you are proposing to teach low-level computation when most students would benefit from some Python, if/else statements, and functions. Not memory allocation and assembly. They're useful someday, but less useful when your first goal is to simply write a program.
Because music is pleasurable to play, to experience, and it's gratifying to be creative and to discover your creative potential.
If you have an alternative reason to learn music and to start learning through acoustic phenomena then let's hear it.
Most people don't get into molecular gastronomy if they don't intend to cook a meal. And I'm going to go out on a limb and say that 99% of aspiring cooks shouldn't learn cooking via that discipline without first starting with something more practical and immediate.
It’s also worth mentioning that these are very western ideas. Lots of other cultures derive alternative structures not based around 12 half steps to an octave and so on.
Oddly, or perhaps predictably, or both, most of them still converge on the same basic pitch classes.
The example I'm most familiar with is Carnatic and Hindustani music, where there are theoretically 22 tones per octave, and in fact the tones in most cases actually cover a range of frequencies rather than a single one. Nevertheless, the most common and most popular music from those traditions tends to only use about 7 tones per octave (equivalent to a western "scale"), and they still have a very central for tone ratios like 3/2.
> Europe hasn't always existed as a concept, and its longevity is unknown.
Europe is the name of a continent. What reason(s) would there be to change the name of a continent?
In contrast, the EU is a trading block, set up to foster greater pan-European trading relations. It's not the only pan-European institution. For example, the Council of Europe ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Europe ) is a separate pan-European institution, set up in 1946 which was before the EU or any of the predecessors of the EU, and amongst other projects was behind the formation of the European Court of Human Rights. I bring this up to highlight that we do not need the EU in order to have collaboration between European countries.
You haven't given any dates, but if you're talking about ancient Egypt, i.e. the Egypt before 0AD, then yes. The term "Europa" was used to refer to the continent around this time by the Greeks, and I don't see why Egyptian people wouldn't have picked up on a useful term they didn't have before.
Counterpoint: what you want to claim are core values are actually window dressing to hide how people see the out-group. Who doesn't "love their kids" or fall in love, or want a sense of belonging (ok, a few), or a sense of purpose (ok, a few more). These are not statements about anyone's core values, they're statements about what it is to be human.
Core values are about how you treat people who are NOT close to you, how you believe limited resources should be allocated, how and by whom you think decisions should be made, what the relationship between individuals and society ought to be, and specifically between individuals and government.
That also sounds nice on the surface - but has the same problem. Political positions disguised as core human values. Allow me to explain.
You say "values like how you treat people who are NOT close to you". Which is really code for "people who like open immigration policies are virtuous and people who oppose them are bad and/or less intelligent". But once you drill down to details - the picture changes. This kind of sentiment is used to drum up support for very specific pieces of very questionable legislation. Why should a specific ethnic group with a large and powerful diaspora get a free pass to ignore immigration laws, but other ethnic groups get the book? How is this about being virtuous and treating people NOT close to you equally? Well, you aren't allowed to ask these questions - you don't want to be a part of the dumb racist outgroup, do you?
You're reading things into what I wrote that are not there. I have not suggested that any particular stance towards people who are not close to you is virtuous. What I wrote is not "code for" anything.
If your core values are the there should no border controls at all, those are your core values. If your core values are that we should very tightly controlled borders, those are your core values. If your core values are that we should let in more Norwegians and less Bangladeshis, or vice versa, then those are your core values.
My point wasn't that a particular set of core values are virtuous, it was that core values are not things like "loving my kids".
Well - what's a core value? I'd say that if you can remove a value and still stay "you" then that value wasn't really core.
By that definition maybe even "loving my kids" wouldn't pass the test, as Viktor Frankl explains better than anyone could.
As for immigration, it is no accident that anti-immigrant rhetoric is on the rise precisely when the economy is doing poorly. When there were enough resources to go around - there wasn't nearly as much reason to oppose immigration. Which means that "my family is financially secure" is a much more core value for most people than being open to the world (even if they'll never admit it).
That's a narrower framing than I had in mind for my original comment. My whole point is that "politics" has transcended any single issue and has become indicative of a much broader world view. Sure, if you zoom in on any policy question you'll find plenty of places where reasonable people can honestly disagree. But that's not the way our political system functions.
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