kizolk
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Post by kizolk on Dec 8, 2023 22:14:05 GMT
I think there's research on the possible connections between melody/music and tonal languages/intonations. This is definitely something to think about (and read about, if I can overcome my laziness).
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kizolk
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Post by kizolk on Dec 8, 2023 22:44:01 GMT
I guess one thing I don't find very likely about the connection between human music and birdsong is that a single human male singing for a single female as courtship, seems to me to be a relatively rare thing. I don't think it's ever been a very common practice across time and cultures. In European cultures, love serenades were and probably to a less extent still are a thing, but IDK how significant this kind of practice is.
But that's on the production side of music. On the reception side, and dancing in particular, the connection with courtship behaviors seems much stronger. In fact I'm not even sure you could say dance is on the reception side of music, since dancing and music are so closely linked. Maybe they should be thought of as two different facets of the same thing.
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kizolk
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Post by kizolk on Dec 8, 2023 22:47:04 GMT
Those are definitely random thoughts, but oh well. I guess it's a good thing I dropped out of college; I probably lack the intellectual discipline for actual research.
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kizolk
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Post by kizolk on Dec 10, 2023 11:11:29 GMT
I lean towards not considering it music I won't pretend to know what constitutes art or music, but one thing I find hard to get rid of, or am reluctant to get rid of when trying to define art is the question of the intention of the maker. There's art I like and art I don't, and I would even go as far as to say it may be possible to define bad art (which I link to a lack of effort on the part of the artist to learn about their art, to put in the work and to experiment), but I'm generous in giving out the label of "art"... provided that there's an intention behind it. A quest for beauty maybe, and a certain disregard for the immediate utility of the activity in question, be it singing, painting, etc. And I don't think birdsong satisfies these criteria.
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kizolk
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Post by kizolk on Dec 10, 2023 11:20:26 GMT
I'm going on a tangent, but: even if it were possible to define bad art, that doesn't mean no one would enjoy it.
Here's an example of what I consider bad art. Although now it occurs to me that rather than "bad art", I should probably talk about "bad artistry"...
He's the laziest guy on earth. He didn't do his homework.
And yes, those are also subjective things to say.
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kizolk
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Post by kizolk on Dec 10, 2023 11:22:19 GMT
It's not even the worse song I've ever heard. It just sounds incredibly lazy to me.
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kizolk
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Post by kizolk on Jan 28, 2024 15:05:25 GMT
Branching off the discussion: It was on FB. What do you think the signature of 'Piano Man' should be? Callaina seems to think it doesn't matter, but it seems clearly 3/4 to me, as it does to most of the internet, although there is a 6/8 faction. At the time I thought the sheet music claimed it was 4/4. I was wrong, but surely a perverse person could argue the point? There's always room for subjectivity but it sounds like a rather clear 3/4 to me. I just feel like 3/4 measures are complete and self-sufficient here. Re-listening to it, I think the 6/8 people do have one big thing going on for them: the snare hit that falls on what would be the second beat of a 6/8 measure, or first beat of what would be the second measure of 3/4 in two-measure pairs. I tend to think of measures in popular music as containing at least one snare hit in general. By contrast, the linking section between two verses does sound like a clearer 3/4 no matter how you put it. I didn't know that song, so I don't know if that's how they play it usually, but I'm speaking of the bit starting at 00:47 for instance:
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kizolk
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Post by kizolk on Jan 29, 2024 19:58:43 GMT
I'd be curious to know why you favor one over the other though, and how you go about differenciating between 3/4 and 6/8 more generally. To be honest, I tend to approach this issue from a pragmatical point of view: I'm sure I've written a few pieces in 3/4 that would have been more adequately described as 6/8 and vice versa, because it works. In fact, I'm pretty sure at some point I've written stuff in 4/4 with every instrument playing triplets.
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kizolk
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Post by kizolk on Jan 29, 2024 20:00:31 GMT
I'm pretty sure at some point I've written stuff in 4/4 with every instrument playing triplets. Which may be what the guys you said interpreted Piano Man as 4/4 were thinking about.
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Post by Etaoin Shrdlu on Jan 29, 2024 20:19:51 GMT
I'd be curious to know why you favor one over the other though, and how you go about differenciating between 3/4 and 6/8 more generally. Are you talking to me? I'm musically illiterate, which is why I ask questions of you and callaina . I remember, ages ago, talking to someone who knew things about music and saying that a particular song (can't remember which, unfortuately) sounded like 3/4 to me. He said no, it was just divided into triplets. I asked why that couldn't be applied to everything written ostensibly in 3/4, including waltzes. His answer was that if it was really 3/4, you would know. As unsatisfactory as that is, I can't find a better reason for saying why 'Piano Man' strikes me as being obviously 3/4.
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kizolk
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Post by kizolk on Jan 29, 2024 20:47:53 GMT
Then congrats for being possibly the only musically illiterate person on earth who wonders about whether a song is in 3/4 or in 6/8. He said no, it was just divided into triplets. That doesn't seem to make sense to me. Like I said, I may have written things in 4/4 with triplets everywhere, but that's a silly thing to do. Triplets only really make sense if you're the only one playing them, as opposed to the entire band/ensemble.
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Post by Etaoin Shrdlu on Jan 29, 2024 20:50:27 GMT
I wish I could remember the song in question. But what he said did make sense at the time to me. It didn't have that thumping undeniably 3/4 rhythm.
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kizolk
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Post by kizolk on Jan 30, 2024 5:08:15 GMT
It didn't have that thumping undeniably 3/4 rhythm. But then you could say 6/8 doesn't have it either. Or I guess the two beats could be described as forming a "thumping" rhythm, but it's duple meter.
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kizolk
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Post by kizolk on Feb 2, 2024 23:52:11 GMT
Speaking of rhythm (as if I needed an excuse to speak about rhythm), this is the sort of thing you can find in progressive metal, my favorite genre of music:
Polyrhythms and odd meters are the bread and butter of prog metal. My favorite screwy thing is polymeters, but they're a bit less common.
A slightly less crazy example of rhythmical fun from the same band, but this is among my favorite songs from any band or genre (also, the album it's from is MUCH better produced than the one the previous song is from):
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kizolk
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Post by kizolk on Feb 24, 2024 21:21:58 GMT
This feels like the right thread.
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