

Music Theory For Beginners (part 2) - dous
http://www.whitakerblackall.com/blog/music-theory-for-beginners-ii/

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sp332
The randomness kind of bothers me. People don't write music randomly, and
composition isn't just following some mechanical process and seeing what comes
out. This method might get you music that _sounds_ nice, but it can't stand up
to music that is actually composed.

If you really want to learn about music, I think it's better to study good
music. If you thought adding rhythm had surprising effects, this video will
blow your mind: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0ZE38BQmvQ> It's an analysis
of Mozart in Leonard Bernstein's Norton lectures at Harvard.

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sheffield
_"I would hope you put more effort into thinking of a melody and harmony than
this, but the point is that rhythm makes a gigantic difference, even if
everything else is messy."_

You should read the article before commenting.

~~~
sp332
I wouldn't have minded some examples, but it bothers me that the entire lesson
about rhythm is based on mashing his hands on the keyboard. If you're going to
learn about rhythm, it would be useful to know what rhythm is _for_ beyond "it
sounds better than no rhythm."

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icarus_drowning
Very practical, which is great. It is very easy to stay motivated when the
tutorial is so focused on producing something that you like.

The only thing that I thought was missing was a discussion about micro and
macro pulses in 4/4 versus 3/4 versus 6/8, because it is a simple concept that
is easy to teach but offers the student much more variety of options in
choosing a time signature. As a music teacher, I usually approach the issue by
having students count 4/4 aloud (" _1_ 2 _3_ 4, noting that 1 and 3 are
accented slightly) and 3/4 aloud ( _1_ 2 3, noting that beat 1 is accented).
This teaches not just the structure of the time signatures but helps the
student internalize them, which I've found speeds up learning and
understanding without sacrificing the student's ability to understand what
principles make rhythms work the way they do. (This would have made
syncopation a _lot_ easier to teach later in the article-- it can be defined
as simply rhythms that don't conform to the usual micro/macro pulse of a time
signature, i.e. _1_ 2 3 _4_ , etc)

Also, one of the easiest ways to grok the time signature concept is to say the
signature aloud like it's a fraction. i.e., 4/4 is "four fourths", 6/8 is
"sixth eighths" etc. It really is that easy, and this approach _combined with_
the understanding that the lower value gets one beat and there are x of them
per measure usually makes time signatures one of the easiest sections of my
theory courses.

Still, it's hard to criticize a tutorial that has you producing music so
quickly.

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nandemo
OK, so why do we sometimes use 6/8 instead of 3/4? And rarely 2/2 instead of
4/4?

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elwin
Mostly to indicate tempo and style. A 3/4 measure and a 6/8 measure are the
same length, but the 6/8 has twice as many beats at twice the rate. So a
composer would use a 6/8 signature for a faster-moving piece with a lot of
eighth notes. Similarly, a slow piece would have a 2/2 signature instead of
4/4.

~~~
nitrogen
I think you may have the 2/2 vs. 4/4 reversed. In a 2/2 piece, quarter notes
will be played twice as fast as in a 4/4 piece at the same tempo. From
Wikipedia
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_signature#Most_frequent_ti...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_signature#Most_frequent_time_signatures)):

 _alla breve, cut time: used for marches and fast orchestral music. Frequently
occurs in musical theater. Sometimes called "in 2", but may be notated in 4._

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dous
Here is the thread for part 1 <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2326502>
and the direct link [http://www.whitakerblackall.com/blog/music-theory-for-
beginn...](http://www.whitakerblackall.com/blog/music-theory-for-beginners/)

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icefox
HN comments on part 1 <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2326502>

