tracker Vs conventional music things

[anboi]

as a slight aside to threads about time sigs and scales i was thinking that as a tracker with no traditional music instruction to speak of i use some weird terms and things for describing whats going on and was wondering what other things people do differently. for example i don't know anything about scales but i do know and now recognise certain subsets of notes as going well together and certain subsets being easily changed to from other subsets, i think this is roughly what is called keys but as far as i know there exist keys with identical notes which have different names which seems silly to me.
another thing is what sam zen was saying about time sigs - in a tracker its all about how many ticks per bar. i have no idea until i try to put loops into cubase or whatever and it tells me (apparently a recent tune was in 15/16?!).
finally the classic one - there are no flat notes, only sharps! so much more simple to consider them as all being sharp, although better still if it was traditional to just use a different name for every semi-tone so a-m instead of a-g with sharps. i assume there is a traditional reason for this but have no idea.
anyway, that's my thoughts on that and i'd love to see what other people do for these and if there are more things that have become trackerised or have versions in the tracking world different to those in the classical world.

[Blulum]

for example i don't know anything about scales but i do know and now recognise certain subsets of notes as going well together and certain subsets being easily changed to from other subsets, i think this is roughly what is called keys but as far as i know there exist keys with identical notes which have different names which seems silly to me.

I'm also pretty theory ignorant and would like to know more about this...but from what I've ascertained, the difference is in the tonal center. For instance C major and aeolian(A minor) use the same notes, but produce a completely different feeling. Although this just relates to playing a straight scale, my only real implementation of this is to make a melody within one octave, for instance a4-a5 for a minor. Probably ass backwards but hey <.<

[Squirrel Havoc]

Funny this gets brought up, it was tracking that got me into studying theory and composition, so I got a bunch of books and looked at some web sites for chords and stuff. It didn't help me get any better though  :wink:

[LPChip]

A scale is being called by that because of the sound it gets when you play the root keys at the same time.

A C Maj. is defined by the C E G keys.
A C Min. is defined by the C Eb G keys. (Eb = D#)
A 7th is defined by its 4th keypress which is the root key -1
As example, the C maj7: C E G B

Ofcource the full scale has more notes, but they are defined by their root keys. In a rythm (accompany) you will hear only these root keys being played. The melody will ofcource have all the keys being played. You can't compare scales only by the melody that plays them.

[Snu]

A scale is being called by that because of the sound it gets when you play the root keys at the same time.

A C Maj. is defined by the C E G keys.
A C Min. is defined by the C Eb G keys. (Eb = D#)
A 7th is defined by its 4th keypress which is the root key -1
As example, the C maj7: C E G B

Ofcource the full scale has more notes, but they are defined by their root keys. In a rythm (accompany) you will hear only these root keys being played. The melody will ofcource have all the keys being played. You can't compare scales only by the melody that plays them.

er, lp, those are chords not scales... they may be related, but they are not the same thing.
probably the simplest way to think of a scale is that it is 7 notes seperated by half steps or whole steps (half step is a chromatic step, ie, c to c#, whole step is two half steps).
a major scale is w w h w w w h, minor is w h w w h w w
(tho in minor the last note or two of the scale is often raised a half step).
just pick a note, and apply that to it, d major for instance: start on d, then e f# g a b c# d
the tonal center thing that blulum brought up still applies, as you can see those two sequences are identical just offset.  all modes have the same sequence, just different offsets.

and by the way lp, i completely dont understand that last paragraph...

[Sam_Zen]

Any scale is a subdivision of an an octave, being a definite entity in physics, being the double frequency.
According to western use this should be subdivided into seven notes out of the twelve halfnotes available.
Nevertheless with tracking-coding, any of the 12 notes are available for use, besides the chosen scale.

Classical Indian music uses two 7-note scales, with the distinction between 'ascending' and 'descending'.
I still like to know what this means in practice, while playing a piece. I have no idea so far.

Another example to make these things rather relative, electronically seen :
I use a program called FractMus 2000, to render fractal-driven MIDI-files for a composition, where I have the choice of several scales, like Myxolydian, Major, chromatic, etc. But there is also a custom option, with a choice to make a set out of any of the 12 notes to be used in the result. So there, a scale with only 5 notes also is possible.

[rncekel]

An easy example of what means a ascending and a descending scale is the western minor scale. When it is played upwards, it is usually played as:
... E F# G# A, so there is a "sensible" (the G#; just a semitone under the tonic note). When it is played downwards, it is usually so: A G F E... (no sensible, but "subtonic").
So, to make it easier to understand, play the following (A minor scale with the ascending and descending scales):
A3 B3 C4 D4 E4 F#4 G#4 A4 G4 F4 E4 D4 C4 B3 A3
(of course, the octave is just an example to make clear when it's upward and when downward).

This means that when you play (succesively) AGFE they usually are natural, but whe you play GA, the G is usually G#. If you play always (upward and downward) F and G#, you will get a nice oriental feeling.

[cdnalsi]

You can't compare scales only by the melody that plays them.

I'd have to disagree. A trained year can hear the scales and can compare them and can feel them immediately, even if it's played by a monophonic instrument.
I've recently done some training in this matter of listening to monophonic instruments, or single voice lines and determining what chord progression and scales it is playing.

[Sam_Zen]

There is a style in 'classical' jazz called Bebop (Charlie Parker, etc. around 1940-55), where with almost any note played, the underlying chord has changed.

[Matt Hartman]

There is a style in 'classical' jazz called Bebop (Charlie Parker, etc. around 1940-55), where with almost any note played, the underlying chord has changed.

That's very typical in Jazz. Jazz is an art form to open up "free flowingness" if you will. A lot of voicings will be used and in most cases rather rapidly. It's to give the expression a lot of diversity.

Whereas Classical is very structured and refined.

Certainly in the case of Charlie Parker, his compositions are a mix of both. Not enough slop to be considered a Miles Davis, but not too much tidy to be considered a Bach either.

Charlie Parker really opened up the playing field for Bebop.

[Squirrel Havoc]

Was Charlie Parker the guy who went nuts when his mom died and made really weird music? My brother told me about some old jazz guy that did that

[Sam_Zen]

2 Matt Hartman
What do you mean by 'slop' ? Because I'm an admirer of Miles Davis.
2 Squirrel Havoc
Dunno about his mom, but he went nuts anyway ..