A small rant about music theory and contemporary music \ stacker news ~Music

DISCLAIMER: This is just my opinion as an intermediate pianist, please don’t take any of this too seriously and please feel free to prove me wrong

Intervals! (FYI this will probably not make sense without prior music theory knowledge)

if you take a major 6th interval chord whatever and make the top note double flat, then it’s a DIMINISHED 6TH?? but there’s a difference between diminished 6th and P5? like what no this is all wrong what is going on!
if you take any interval and make the top a sharp and the bottom a flat it ceases to exist. Hooray.
let’s talk about augmented intervals. Dear lord. I can’t. If you take a Perfect 5th, and then put a sharp on top, it becomes an augmented 5th. Okay, all good so far. If you put a double sharp on the top note, guess what? it ceases to exist. Again. Double hooray.
my ears are telling me that a diminished 6th and a P5 are the same thing, but no no no no we don’t use our ears in MUSIC THEORY they’re very different
AGH INTERVALS I HATE THEM THEY MAKE NO SENSE

Contemporary music! (No prior knowledge needed)

first things first, we must address the divide between “contemporary music” (think modern music, like Taylor swift, Beatles, etc, basically anything from 1945 onwards) and what I like to call “classical contemporary”.
Classical contemporary is the one I dislike
most pieces I’ve played were dreadfully unmusical and atonal, and classical contemporary does not feature lyrics
Most pieces that I’ve played are bad and not good and unorganized
I’m pretty sure most of the composers are the definition of taking themselves too seriously
if the renaissance was baroque, and impressionism is romantic, and neoclassical or whatever is classical, THEN CONTEMPORARY IS ABSTRACT ART
dear god they made abstract art into a music form. Very controversial and worth too much money/praise for the amount of effort put in exhibit A: 4’33” by John cage. 4 and a half minutes of silence and he gets paid to perform this. UNFAIR. IT DOESN’T EVEN SOUND LIKE ANYTHING exhibit B: One for Violin Solo— play a giver solo then smash the violin you played it on the ground. 1. Why. 2. Waste of violin. 3. That would hurt my soul
I’m pretty sure I could make a “contemporary piece” by merely banging my head against the wall——oh wait, yoko ono ALREADY PERFORMED THAT IN WALL PIECE FOR ORCHESTRA

anyways my rant is over

50 sats \ 1 reply \ @SimpleStacker 5h

Diminished 6th and perfect 5th indeed sound the same (they have the same number of semitones between notes) but I think the difference is in how they are used within a piece.

I actually don't know what counts as a contemporary classical piece. What's an example?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @trax 2h

I've heard of Ludovico Einaudi being called a modern classical music, so e. g. Una Mattina

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Scoresby 3h

I'm illiterate when it comes to music, but this was interesting to read. ⚡

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @xz 4h

Interesting rant.

Well, you anticpated that I couldn't make much sense of music theory. Oddly though, it all made logical sense in terms of already knowing basics of how chords are formed on a fretboard. In terms of scales and musical notation, not sure I know much beyond that you are talking much about resonance. What do you use in music theroy if not your ear?

I don't really get your critique of contemporary, but I wasn't sure if that is a juxtaposition to be considered in light of classical music. Contemporary is post 1940's? Electrified?

Did Beethoven say (paraphrasing and translating) 'all music is frequency over time'?

In my mind, classical needs defining:

Classical music = tradition / geography (scales, tunings, rhythms, instruments etc.)
Classical = The use of elements of a classical music orchestra (as in classic rock.)
Classical as in pre-modern tuning, as A = 440Hz became IEX/ISO standard in music technology, diffrentiating non-standard tunings to a modern contemporary / classical standard.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @plebpoet 4h

did yoko ono ruin music

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @035736735e 1h outlawed

stackers have outlawed this. turn on wild west mode in your /settings to see outlawed content.