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Bobby G
Well-Known Member
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- Wonderful Welwyn Garden City, Herts
Ok, I haven't studied it formally, but I know bits'n'pieces e.g. 1:2 is an octave, 2:3 a fifth, etc, and I can see how the notes were arrived at, how we have the 12 chromatic notes in our music, a bit of how harmony works (and would understand more if I studied it). All this is scientifically proveable undeniable incontrovertible fact. It's all based on mathematics, therefore you can't get away from the idea that mathematics is central to music. Rational.
Many musicians play by ear (or from written music) and are quite able to function within their chosen field with very little awareness of Pythagorus's work. We are all working off his developments in some way, but there are those who don't know or don't care about such things.
Some, when improvising employ pitch-bending, glissandi, and vibrato as part of their technique, mainly for emotional impact - every note exactly on-pitch would make most jazz, blues, and rock music far less interesting, engaging, 'human' and have far less 'feel'. In fact I would contend that most people, a lot of the time, are deliberately playing slightly 'out of tune', especially on a sax which has intonation that is easy to manipulate. Without knowing it, they are messing with Pythagorus, not consciously as most have no idea of his contribution, but they are somehow going against the mathematics, stretching and bending it for their own need to express themselves. Not to mention the tensions and releases and ensuing emotional responses created by varying rhythmic changes, playing faster, slower, behind/in front of the beat etc., again going beyond the pure maths of music. The one word that sums all this up is interpretation. Scientifically proveable or explainable? Mystical.
Language - we all use it, most of us can read it, most of us can write it many of us do this without any real notion of how the language developed, where words originated, or all the rules of grammar, clauses, sentence construction etc. but does that stop us from communicating with each other?
Discuss. Or not. I'm getting back on my fence now.
Cheers, Bob
Many musicians play by ear (or from written music) and are quite able to function within their chosen field with very little awareness of Pythagorus's work. We are all working off his developments in some way, but there are those who don't know or don't care about such things.
Some, when improvising employ pitch-bending, glissandi, and vibrato as part of their technique, mainly for emotional impact - every note exactly on-pitch would make most jazz, blues, and rock music far less interesting, engaging, 'human' and have far less 'feel'. In fact I would contend that most people, a lot of the time, are deliberately playing slightly 'out of tune', especially on a sax which has intonation that is easy to manipulate. Without knowing it, they are messing with Pythagorus, not consciously as most have no idea of his contribution, but they are somehow going against the mathematics, stretching and bending it for their own need to express themselves. Not to mention the tensions and releases and ensuing emotional responses created by varying rhythmic changes, playing faster, slower, behind/in front of the beat etc., again going beyond the pure maths of music. The one word that sums all this up is interpretation. Scientifically proveable or explainable? Mystical.
Language - we all use it, most of us can read it, most of us can write it many of us do this without any real notion of how the language developed, where words originated, or all the rules of grammar, clauses, sentence construction etc. but does that stop us from communicating with each other?
Discuss. Or not. I'm getting back on my fence now.
Cheers, Bob
