Sincerely curious about this. I haven’t encountered this anywhere else.
Blues music pretty much exists in that space between the min and maj 3rd. 
If you pluck a string on a stringed instrument like a violin or cello, you will get a note. If you push the string against the fingerboard exactly halfway between its two endpoints, the note will be an octave higher. Halving, or 1/2, gives a perfect octave.
Other whole-number ratios give similar nice-sounding intervals. 2/3 is a fifth (C to G). Following this idea, you can express most of the notes we normally use in terms of these ratios. This is called just intonation.
It only works well with respect to one base note or key, though. If you want to incorporate key changes, the math doesn’t work out. To fix this, musicians invented an approximation called equal temperament. This is what is used on a piano, and on the electronic instruments we use that have quantized notes. The Monomachine allowed for the possibility of just intonation, which can change the sound in subtle ways.
4 Likes
It’s cool that they implemented that bcs even though the differences are quite subtle they do have a different feel. Thank you for clearing this out for me!!
1 Like
This thread is such a weird conversation. When I started reading I didn’t realise the OP was a fair while ago and the original question for some tips on what to learn and some resources wasn’t really the basis of the current discussion. I thought, poor dude, all he wanted was a few links and tips… and this is what he gets.
Still, interesting convo but weird how divisive it is. I don’t really care what anyone does, but I enjoy learning a bit of theory about scales and modes and keys and whatnot here and there, you know just the basics. I like how it unlocks different sounds for me when I’m playing keys or guitar or bass. I’m about 20 years in to mucking around with music as a hobby, and paying a bit of attention to this stuff in more recent years has definitely helped me find new things and not get stuck in the same old rut of sounds and patterns. Not only that, it kinda gives me a map of new things to explore in the future… which I like. I’ve never spent a lot of time learning other peoples songs, so I imagine I’ve missed out on absorbing a lot of knowledge that way.
What I don’t like is the times I’ve shared that ahah feeling I’ve gotten from learning a theory concept and then getting comments back about how creatively stifling or useless it is or whatever. I’m not really offended by that perspective, I just don’t really agree with it… it almost feels superstitious and sometimes not in a very endearing way. But really what do I know anyway?
Like others have said, theory as much as anything else is just a way of understanding and communicating what you’re doing so you can do it with others. If you don’t have or do that, the person you are doing it with still needs to figure out and understand what you’re doing. If nothing else it lets you express what you’re about to do before you do it.
I think if you’re satisfied and happy with what you’re doing just get on with it. I’m unapologetically interested in the western music tradition and generally open to but not really emotionally moved all that much by non-western music. I like thinking and learning about how western music has evolved and how it’s been understood. For me the theory and history is part of the whole story that I feel invested in, even if I really know very little about it all personally. While I don’t think rejecting the idea of theory is necessarily bad or wrong, I do feel like then considering your work to spring from a pure and untainted well of internal creativity is a bit disingenuous.
I dunno, what am I or any of us even talking about?
4 Likes
We’re talking about why @Fin25 just won’t use extended chords in his techno and how upset many of us are about this!
2 Likes
It’s 'cos they get in the way of the distortion.
1 Like
I was so stoked to learn Music Theory but after about 2 hours of hard study my snares still sound like shit. What page should I skip to? 
2 Likes
Um…
853?
“An electric guitar through a hot amp is an overtone-generating machine. Distortion is just higher harmonic content. Putting 12 Equal frets on an electric guitar is like putting training wheels on a Harley - the overtones being generated are in conflict with the fretted notes. When two overtones are played together, they create sum and difference tones above and below the two pitches being played, so the two notes are reinforcing each other instead of canceling each other. In 12-Equal, you’re limited to playing 4ths and 5ths as power chords with distortion, and I think this has hindered the evolution of heavy music. When the pitches you’re playing are really in tune, you can play all sorts of new and complex chords with tons of distortion because the overtones that make up the distortion aren’t fighting with the pitches being played. I grew up listening to Hendrix, Cream, Beck, Sabbath, and I’ve always been fascinated by the magical elements, like feedback. I remember playing a low ‘E’ note and wondering why the ‘D’ note that was feeding back was not on my guitar - my guitar’s ‘D’ was much sharper. I believe that for heavy guitar to progress, we need to realize that the sound of that Marshall amp distorting and feeding back is the sound of the Harmonic Series.”
-Jon Catler
5 Likes
Black Square is one reason I’d like to get involved in experimental theater.
Back on topic: this book was recommended upthread, but it turns out to be about crocheting!
2 Likes
Boo! 
1 Like
The British terms are kind of hilarious. Being Canadian, I got exposure to both those (though not so much) and the less colourful but easier to remember phrases (like “quarter note”) everyone else uses.
1 Like
Right now I am struggling to contain my righteous indignation. I can only pray that one day @Fin25 will complete a music theory assignment and I will be the one grading it. When I am done applying red pencil, his music sheet will look like a Quentin Tarantino movie.
If someone’s workflow is creating complex sounds first and combining them later, that might preclude them from using extended chords. Because the result will contain too many competing overtones. A big, thick s**t sandwich.
The music accompaniments I write for my students are based in harmony. I typically enter the harmonic information into my sequences first, defaulting to chords built on sine tones. Later, I tweak the sounds. In my arrangements, sounds tend to be more useful when they have harmonic overtones, and non-harmonic overtones, such as bell or bar-type sounds, need to be added with a grain of salt.
It’s all right to say “I don’t want/need this in my music.” But it is worth noting, imo, that workflows can limit what is even possible in a finished product.
1 Like
I think this might be my genre
2 Likes
I’m not trying to disparage anyone’s music. Specifically, I’m saying that if your goal is to express an extended harmony, the character of that harmony might be more clearly expressed by adding up simpler, rather than complex sounds. Muddiness can happen in any style of music.
1 Like
yeah, harmonic complexity and timbral complexity are ultimately the same thing right?
which makes me ponder: synths are still not good at dialling in harmonic overtones with the same precision as say a piano; I’m not saying they can’t, of course they can (FM especially), but their interfaces are not advanced enough for people to do that in practice.
Ofc they have the advantage of not being limited to any particular temperament like a piano so there’s a different kind of intuitive/happy accident harmony available. But as you say, progressing from there becomes difficult without that control.
1 Like
Harmony and timbre are not the same thing. Timbre is what differentiates diffierent instruments and notes. It is the “tonal quality”. So this includes changing dynamics and frequencies too. If you pick a string, you’d hear many complex quick dynamic changes and frequency changes
He said harmonic, not harmony, and he’s right, timbre is defined by it’s harmonic information/fingerprint. They are very closely linked.
Can you expand on this?
As I understand it, the overtones of tri, saw and square waves are fixed and precisely defined by their wave function. Are you talking more about accentuating specific harmonics? I would imagine the complexity of a piano’s construction makes it both more capable of tailoring a very subtle shift in tone, but also much harder to do because you need to open the thing up and change the tension of 100s of pegs.