Understanding Why Lettered Notation is Illogical
Music is not Science. There’s some interesting sciencey things about music, but music itself doesn’t have to perfect or logical. Classical notation using letters is a great example. It hasn’t changed for hundreds of years altho the values and assignments are largely arbitrary. Here’s the notes on a keyboard:
Most pianos and keyboards will be tuned to A440 in equal temperament. Some have an issue with this but my beef is the assignment of the black and white keys, or really the concept of flats and sharps as they are assigned to the letters A-G.
The argument against redesigning this system from scratch may be that music is more about intuition than logic and that the existing system has prevailed precisely because of this and anyway, it’s all pretty logical it you study it long enough. But this is the problem. It only seems right because you accept these arbitrary assignments as a kind of Truth that is unquestioned. Staring from this, a logical construct is formed around it that supports itself and eventually, seems intuitive. But really, the process involves rote memorization which is wholly unintuitive. For example, the notes A and B are a whole step apart, but B and C are a half step. Why? There is a historical reason, but also, the notes themselves must be considered as nonsense. The white keys on the piano may seem “brighter” sounding or more “natural” in some way but this is only through repetition, ear training, and relative placement of notes. An older standard of note values places the A above middle C at around 415 Hz, a full half-step below A440. If a keyboard is tuned to the values of the notes when those notes were invented, the keyboard looks like this:
(it actually will look the same if you don’t paint the note values on there)
Unless you have perfect pitch (trained to 440), you might not even notice a piano has been tuned this way. It might sound off at first, but you’d get used to it. Time has proven this. The system of equal temperament is another example, but regarding the intervals. We are accustomed to hearing notes and intervals slightly wrong from what they were first intended to the point were the “right” values now sound wrong. Eliminating the arbitrary system of letter values with sharps and flats would make learning notes and intervals easier for new students.
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V/A | Something From Nothing: The Art of Rap
In the 60s and 70s, Lou Reed was legit down with the streets. But by the 80s he was punning about the dangers of strange candy. (Which makes him perhaps an innovator of proto-Modern J-pop. But focus.) Crack had just hit the streets. Social programs were being cut. Thousands were dying of AIDS. Lou had lost touch.
Luckily non-white people were also rapping.
Hold on. This is only about what it is. That’s the beauty of Ice-T’s documentary:
It’s also beautifully photographed. And it’s even better than this trailer if that’s not selling you. I don’t think it sold that many people went it came out but it’s there forever so you should check it out. I haven’t been into Hip-hop much in the last few years but I’ll always respect it as an artform. This even makes me take some people seriously I didn’t before, like Kanye. No Jay-Z in this thing, but they got Kanye. Even his best lines used to seem like throwaway jokes to me, but he can pull off a convincing acapella (if not freestyle). And it was funny hearing different stories contradict each other, I always like to hear KRS-One’s version of things.
I should probably get the DVD. I just watched it on Netflix and got the soundtrack. You can enjoy the soundtrack itself as a good mixtape album with some exclusive freestyles, but I wouldn’t recommend it as an intro to or overview of Rap like I would recommend the movie. I feel like the movie is really made for people who do not take Rap or Hip-hop culture seriously, but there’s so many movies about “Hip-hop culture” that really gloss over the Rap part. The doc proves it’s point pretty thoroughly but this soundtrack is a little random. There’s no chronology at all and of course they are limited by rights issues and I assume it’s Ice-T personal taste here, but it doesn’t include all of the freestyles in the movie, I would say the best ones are left out. (Wiki has a complete list of all the songs.)
My personal favorite inclusions are It Takes Two which was so huge when I was a kid but people forget that one outside of the East Coast I think and it doesn’t sound like anything else so it doesn’t fit into most history retellings. And P.S.K. by Schoolly D. Ice-T’s early stuff ripped off Schoolly pretty hard I thought, but he stayed underground so most people don’t even know that. That was cool of him to include.
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Velvet Underground | VU
RIP, Lou Reed.
“It just feels so insincere and like a cop-out. To me, ‘RIP’ is the microwave dinner of posthumous honours” ~ Lou Reed
Well…fuck you then, Lou Reed. I mean…jeez.
I originally was going to end the post like that. I got complicated feelings about Lou Reed but it’s a little much to make it into a punchline. And it’s not really fair to make a Velvet Underground review only about him. But this is the format I have chosen to talk about my bullshit. The man’s dead and this is the only physical release I own with his music on it. (If John Cale just died I would be forced to reach for the same record. Yes, this would be a serious gaping hole if I was a serious collector of serious music.)
There’s a practical reason this is my only Velvets record, it was cheapest. (Altho it is currently somewhat pricey on Amazon.) Might have even got it for free. Had a few neighbors at one point in the 90s who just dumped boxes of vinyl on the curb as they replaced their collection with CDs. It was not a more enlightened time. The sleeve is in decent enough shape, but I like the record itself. I like that they were on Verve. It’s like, wow, legit!
Songs off the first album with Nico, and Transformer are really my favorites. But those songs are just always kinda around. Never felt the need to own those records. And you usually never see them for less than full-price.
Altho I like the record a lot, I rarely flip it over. B-side does not win this time, those songs really do sound like leftovers. This is a basically comp of outtakes; every song on the 1st side however, seem like classics it’s hard to believe they didn’t use. (Reed re-recorded all of them solo. I prefer these versions by a long mile.) I used to have the CD reissue of Loaded (sold it); the second disc has different versions of I’m Sticking With You and Ocean. I’m Sticking With You is a cute song that Mo sings but it’s kind of a goof. Ocean—it’s just perfect on this record. The cliche in my head I’m trying to avoid is “understated masterpiece”. I think ‘masterpiece’ is overselling it, but other versions are a little too overthought or overworked. I believe all my feelings about Lou Reed can summed up by listening to the VU and solo versions of Ocean back to back. At least until recently. Going thorough some of of his stuff I never listened to and posts about details of his life I kinda feel bad for him now.
I Can’t Stand It is one of the great Rock ‘n’ Roll songs of all time. It makes the song Rock ‘n’ Roll (from Loaded) corny by comparison. I dunno, some of his schtick I don’t really buy. Especially the later stuff. He just went off in a direction I don’t care about at all. The atmosphere of some of these Velvets songs is so great, you really have to credit the rest of the group. The way way Ocean ends, this version…that’s just one the best things ever recorded. It just hits a perfect unnameable emotion every time. The words don’t tell a story or nothing. No idea what it really means. Perfect.
I also really do love Metal Machine Music too, but I got it off Soulseek. %
Intro to Numerical Notation
You don’t need an introduction to the idea of numerical notation if you are not classically trained on a guitar or piano. There’s tablature and chord numbering systems that work well enough that there’s often no need for a player to learn to read notes on a staff, especially if they stick to standard tunings.
I first learned music in elementary school on the clarinet, which is in Bb. In high school I switched to Alto Sax, which is in Eb. Then I started learning guitar on my own and quit the school band. I messed around with the tunings a lot. I tried taking and advanced music theory class but failed it. I aced the basic test, but I could not name the notes on the piano by ear for my life. Some people in the class had only just started on the piano or guitar and seemed to have no problem. It’s probably a crushing defeat I would not keep going back to mentally if I had since succeeding at something else in life, but here we are.
In the dark and disturbing future we currently live in, “the kids” can get into music without ever learning any real physical instrument. A few years ago, I got into an argument about flats and sharps in different keys. The argument goes that that you don’t really need both flats and sharps; the names of different keys and scales contain the same notes with different names. (For example, you could always use sharps.) If the music only exists in the computer, the names of the notes don’t matter. I figured this could be taken a step farther to eliminate both flats and sharps:
Ｏ｜１｜２｜３｜４｜５｜６｜７｜８｜９｜１０｜１１｜Ｏ
This is what I came up with. That is an A chromatic. Each number is a half-step and now it’s perfectly clear what intervals you are dealing with for any scale you make. There’s a slight problem of ‘１０’ & ‘１１’ taking up two spaces instead of one I haven’t worked out yet, but I’ve also given the notes one syllable names that can be as read quickly as “do-re-mi”, etc. Not quite as nice sounding, but less relative:
- Ｏ – A —— (“oh”)
- １ – A#/Bb — (“wun”)
- ２ – B —— (“tu”)
- ３ – C —— (“tri”)
- ４ – C#/Db — (“for”)
- ５ – D —— (“fiv”)
- ６ – D#/Eb — (“sik”)
- ７ – E —— (“sev”)
- ８ – F —— (“eht”)
- ９ – F#/Gb — (“nin”)
- １０ – G —— (“ten”)
- １１ – G#/Ab — (“lev”)
It’s also less relative in that it’s strictly nailed to A440 and equal temperament. This is simply because it’s most widely used. But because it’s numbers, any variation can be expressed in decimals. A44x for example would be Ｏ.x, and A415—A3xx would be １１.x (you’d have to figure out the exact math). This is not practical at all for sight reading in most cases of course, but it gives the note a definite value that can be applied to any octave or transposition. It also accurately names microtones, with quartertones being named ‘x.５’, which could get confusing if you use a lot of them, like if you’ve got a piano tuned to quartertones, but you probably don’t.
These are all things I can explain more later.
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Perfume | Clockwork
Because the clockspring smiles,
gears turn
Winding, winding, wanting more;
grinding, grinding, yet
the clockspring’s smile
always stays the same.
At any time, your button
can change the world.
(you are the stage)
Wah Wah Wah the gears
Wah Wah Wah move together
Wah Wah Wah just like this
Wah Wah Wah ···
Even if you want a simple life,
that won’t do, there’s no obstacle;
become like the clock’s pendulum:
right to left, wanting to swing
(I want to swing)
Wah Wah Wah Modestly,
Wah Wah Wah it’s fun
Wah Wah Wah going in circles
Wah Wah Wah 1-2-3
Because the clockspring smiles,
gears turn
winding, winding, wanting more
grinding, grinding, yet
the clockspring’s smile
always stays the same (a dancing melody)
at any time, your button
can change the world
(you are the stage)
Wah Wah Wah the gears
Wah Wah Wah move together
Wah Wah Wah just like this
Wah Wah Wah don’t stop
Lalala (Clockwork, Clockwork) Lalala
A brilliant movement each time,
it’s important to remember:
become like the clock’s pendulum,
right to left, wanting to swing
(I want to swing)
Wah Wah Wah Modestly,
Wah Wah Wah it’s fun
Wah Wah Wah going in circles
Wah Wah Wah 1-2-3
Because the clockspring smiles,
gears turn,
winding, winding, wanting more
grinding, grinding, yet;
Clockspring’s smile
never changes (a dancing melody)
at any time your button
can change the world
(You are the stage)
Wah Wah Wah the gears
Wah Wah Wah move together
Wah Wah Wah just like this
Wah Wah Wah don’t stop
Lalala (Clockwork, Clockwork)
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