alt Hacker NewsWe recently had a long discussion about this. I come from the “music theory makes a lot more sense once one understands that 2:1, 3:2, 4:3 sound really whole and good to the human ear, 5:4 has a little more tension, and 6:5 has even more tension” school of thought [1] but for other people it is a distraction from understanding basic stuff like “this is a minor scale”. See here for the long discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49541888
[1] I understand ancient scales were 3-limit instead of 5-limit scales, and that modern equal temperament has thirds which significantly deviate from 5:4 and 6:5, but once polyphony became a thing, 5-limit temperament made a lot more sense because they reduce beating.
Replies
> I come from the “music theory makes a lot more sense once one understands that 2:1, 3:2, 4:3 sound really whole and good to the human ear, 5:4 has a little more tension, and 6:5 has even more tension” school of thought
Ah, well, that makes sense. I come from the "music theory is a quintessentially rigid, British-Schoolroom-coded subject that emphasizes rote memorization over actual understanding" school of thought. The musical equivalent to Americans requiring their children to recite the Pledge of Allegiance before they can even understand what the words mean.
The student seeking to build their understanding asks: why is the order of sharps FCGDAEB? Why is the mode with a sharp 4th note the Lydian mode?
Music theory responds: Because fuck you, that's why.
Man that top comment is such a combination of "sneering to show off" and completely wrong that I'm shocked I'm not on reddit.
Recommending The Jazz Theory Book to someone starting from scratch, especially someone self studying, is like recommending CLRS or TAOCP to someone who asks "I'm curious about learning the basics of algorithms and data structures, any good books for self study?" And of course that happens all the time too. Chapter 1 is "here's what intervals like major 3rd and perfect fifths are", Chapter 2 is "here's the major scale and all its diatonic modes and ii-V-I progressions", Chapter 3 is "here's how you might use the Phyrigian mode to play over a Sus flat-9 chord" (pg 48).
Recommending Schoenberg and Messiaen as steps to get a sufficient surface of topics covered for "music theory" is performance art in its own regard. Bravo!