Re: Chord connection


"Abstract Dissonance" <Abstract.Dissonance@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:12dfcalabbhfadc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

[snip]

yeah, but one has to focus on the main evidence because thats usually(in
most cases) what solves the case.

Yes but the "main" evidence might consist of four or five things that by
themselves aren't conclusive.

[snip]

ok. I really have trouble realizing that context is so important.

Do you not read my posts? I think our first conversations years ago
consisted of my response being "Context Jon, context" :-)



Its not
that I'm intentionally trying to deny it but its just hard for me to see.
I do get glimpses of it though but I forget easily ;/ I think I gotta
start actually try to make music and stop reading so much and then it
might be more obvious.

Yes. Music is ultimately about music. Not discussion about music!

[snip]

ok. I think I have been trying to make it to black and white when its
really grey.


Yes, I think that is a problem you've exhibited since the beginning. You're
overcoming it in various portions of music but as you learn, you keep
discovering new things and unfortunately, you see those things in black and
white at first. I think you've made lots of progress though, and if you can
jumpt to the "seeing things in grey" when discovering new things, you can
save yourself a bit of hassle. I know it's not always possible or evident
though.


[snip]


right. But there does seem to be "inherently" good and bad things in some
stuff. i.e., eating mercury isn't a good thing even if it tastes good to
some people ;)

That's not true. That goes on the erroneous assumption that people want to
live. Eating Mercury isn't inherently bad for someone wanting to commit
suicide. Now obviously I mean that as an extreme (and unrealistic) example,
but the point is there's no "inherent". As a culture, we tend to want to
live longer, and eating mercury is counterproductive to that goal, hence
"bad". Really though it just goes against another goal. But you need
the...wait for it...CONTEXT that society provides to determine is eating
mercury is *considered by this culture* to have a positive or negative
effect on the culture's norms.




I try to fit things in a mathematical box but I suppose that
doesn't always work(not because it can't but because I can't do it).

There are things that math does not explain. Sorry.

[snip]

Yes, and you keep telling me these things but they just do not sink in. I
do understand it on an intellectual level but I guess I maybe wish it
wasn't that way(because then you rely on feeling and stuff instead of
logic).

But it IS that way. Logic is not a very good thing. Logic is really useful
only in paradigms where everything is defined. It is logical to say that
changing a note from A to B in tertian triadic harmony WILL produce a
differnent harmony. That is defined in that system. But it is not logical to
say that this harmonic change will cause a human listener a "feeling of a
need for continuation". The paradigm of Tonality in which a ii-viio6 (dfA to
dfB), and the listener's familiarity of that paradigm must first be
established. For listeners of other cultures who do not use tonality as we
do, they do not hear the "leading-tone wanting to resolve" because it's
simply not part of their paradigm. Thus there is no logic in saying "the
note change from A to B creates a need for resolution". We must have a
context in which the operates (and in fact, we know if the notes were df#A
to df#B, we have yet another paradigm). In doing this, you're trying to
apply a broad logic that actually exists only in a very small set of
pre-defined variables.


[snip]

Well, thats my problem. I'm not saying that a composer intentionally uses
auditory illusions to make music but just that maybe we all end up
suffering from these illusions and this is what causes some "laws" have
exceptions.

No. The reason "laws" have exceptions is the reason you put "laws" in
parentheses. They are not laws. They are not logical. There is no logic in
not using parallel 5ths. However, during certain periods of time, in certain
portions of the world population, certain portions of people avoided using
parallel 5ths in a certain portion of instances. The usage was controlled by
a paradigm in which a general norm was that they were counterproductive to
some other goal. Once that pardigm was exceeded (by ignoring one of the
normal goals), a pradigm existed in which a portion of people used parallel
5ths freely.


On one hand one could say that it doesn't matter if we do have these
problems because all humans suffer(or 99.99%) from the same auditory
deficiencies and we can just assume they don't exist... but I feel that
its not a "pure" result and can hide real laws that government good music.
I suppose this is simply a philosophical argument though but I know from
looking at a few optical illusions that one can actually realize its an
illusion and force the brain to understand the real complexity that is
involved.

An example

http://www.grand-illusions.com/opticalillusions/dragon_illusion/

I did this and then I got the illusion to work. Then I forced myself to
"undo" the illusion by making my brain realize what it was doing wrong.
When I would do that I would see the real structure and not the one my
brain initially saw. (i.e., you are able to see it without the illusion by
telling your problem that the faces of the dragon(not the face of the
dragon but the planes that exist with the dragons face printed on it) are
"inverted" and when you do that then the illusion disapears).

Ofcourse I'm not saying these things are a big deal and I would suspect
that if they are then its only on some very deep level where not to many
people care to go.

An auditory illusion like this where our brain "sees" what is not there is
like when we hear the notes C and G and our ear "fills in" the E overtone
and we "hear" a C chord. A better example is part of the reason Perfect 4ths
with the Bass were treated as a dissonance - we tend to hear a "concave" C-G
dyad - that is G-C, a P4 as a "harmony" with a fundamental of C. Our brain
perceives this dyad as having a C fundamental because our experience has
thus far been that that's usually the case - just like we assume that those
drawn facial features of the dragon conform to normal facial construction.
When you realize that G-C is a P4, you too could probably undo the illusion
and "see" it for what it really is - a G bass note instead of an inferred C
bass note, or, a G harmony with a wrong note, etc.

There might be some "concave" elements in music but in general, music
follows the norms.

Later,
Steve


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