Music Dynamics.

It had been a long time since my hibernation. Time for something new!

It has been a great opportunity for me here in UK too access to various data and info about music and art. At least, the internet speed is really fast, streaming is no longer a problem for me to learn new thing.

To be honest, I used to think that Classical music is something dead. But, now i could certainly say that, no it isn't.

Take one example: Chopin Ballade No.1 in G minor. I took the same piece performed by different players (Arthur Rubinstein, Horowitz, Zimerman, Michiavelli, etc). I noticed that,

1. All of them perform flawless. This is the basic requirement for classical pianist i suppose.

2. All of the performances have different video time length. It means that each of them is performed at different speed.

3. Each of them performs with different physical facial expression. As well as their dynamics, loudness, quietness, where to pause, where to emphasis, etc..

4. All blend in to: each of them has a very special interpretation into that particular piece.

This makes the piece alive. What was Chopin thinking? The song is just named "Ballade in G minor", this title doesn't show any clue. For instance, "pop song no.12 in E major", what's that suppose to mean? no title, only music score with expression signs.

In exact same notes, same timing/beat, same kind of piano; each of them brings you into a different realm.

In that case, emotion & dynamics is really something that makes song/music different & unique. isn't it?

Do jazz interpret music as such? Or just pure theory? Pure feel? Improvisation from the original song? No feel of the title at all?? What's happening?

I'm liking this band-Radiohead

Somehow, personally, i think that this is a band who emphasis on creativity, no boundary, and sometimes too "over"..

They are too creative, at least too creative for a newbie in music like me.. Playing with all modulation of keys and chords, from rock to jazz to electronics, multiple beats, sound, effects.. Creative!

But i hardly understand the lyrics, too bad.

@ their 3rd album "ok computer", they started to use a lot of pre amp effects and makes the overall sound very "euphoric".

@ their 4th album "kid A" and 5th "Amnesiac", they use ondes martenot and lots of electronics effects, irregular beat (geng!)..

@ their 7th album "in rainbow", hmm.... don't know what to say already lar..

Anyway, they become famous because the main vocal-thom yorke's voice, and his impressive lyrics (although i dun really understand it. And the band's "creative"ness in music arranging, plus the 6th member, Sound Engineer-Nigel Godrich. Those effects... one day i'll test it on audiophile equiptments!!

They may sound a bit "depressing" for some one.. Listen and see.

Try search in youtube: Pyramid song, Paranoid Android, Subterranean Homesick Alien, 15 step, etc... I m too lazy to post.

It was a "chance"? or miracle?

After a very very very long thought, referring to a lot of data, I found that "Acoustic" involves a series of very complex waves interactions. It may involve sound decay, sound delay, reverberation, echo, effects of human neuron's limitations, etc, whether linearly or non-linearly.

A far voice may sounds "soft", but the "soft" is very different from the "soft" when we turn down the volume of the hi-fi system. Sound of far distance decay over distance, but the high frequency will decay faster than the low frequencies, due to the environment's nature. A far sound will sound "soft" in treble but "not-too-soft" in bass. Non-linearity! Room's acoustics changing the wave pattern, it become slightly more reverberant for a far voice. Etc, etc...

My church (before renovation) have a so-called "warm" sound. I tried very hard to mix the bass so that it'll be clearer those days, but i failed to. Until now, when i look back to what i was trying to solve, only i realize the whole picture! (i hope i'm right).

Different materials absorbs different frequencies, usually the hardest/most costly to be tamed is the bass freq. My church was having some partitions, carpets, cushions plus some ceiling which seem to absorb sound pretty well, but just the HIGH frequencies.

My church was having an under-powered amps driving the FOH speakers and for bass guitar. Yet, it was so warm. The answer could be, the room attenuated the mid and high range, leaving the bass untouched/build up its energy. Hence, while the midrange and treble (which is most sensitive to our ear) being normal (no energy build up acoustically), the bass was being build up causing an illusion of deep bass. It explains the "muddy" effects of the bass, which is much undesired. But, we like bass, bass gives energy. Try to listen to music by laptop speaker, the louder u make it, the noisier it'll become. It have to be balanced by bass.

Anyway, just wanna stress that the acoustic of the room is kinda... just nice to suit the under-powered amps, yet still sound so nice. We once removed a partition, the bass became a lot muddier, and it was since then i wanna get the bass sound right, nailed to its position, not floating around and kacau other instruments.. HAHA!. Quite a luck to get this kind of "just fine" or "it wasn't tuned!!?" environment, or i should say "Thank God" for knowing our budget..

The newly renovated church acoustic is a very challenging one, indeed! The prob now is how to equalise the system to suit our ears via room acoustics! Perhaps it'll not be a chance play this time (serious, lol!!).

stereo stage sound

I wanna talk about sound stage.

A sound engineer or sound designer does a job we call it "mixing". What is mixing? What is its importance in music industry?

Basically, mixing is a process to achieve two goals: 1. balancing or making multiple instruments coexist each other (clarity is the up most important), 2. Presenting the song in a creative way (climax & resolve).

When the artist has finished with the recordings of multiple tracks by different instruments, he'll send them to the mixing studio, and the engineer will try to fix in every of them, deciding when and where to add or cut or etc...

Few parameters that can be played around with:

1. The pan (a.k.a left or right). It's pretty obvious that modern pop songs have this kind of characteristic. This is way too different from the olden days' mono speaker, whereby the sound came from only one speaker/source. It gives the horizontal parameter so that we can imagine the sound stage in 2D (instead than 1D of mono!) while enjoying the music. Separating out instruments makes them sound more independent, not mixed muddily.

2. The reverberation. Reverberation produces a psycho acoustic effect-depth of stage. When you hear a sound from a far distance and you compare it with the guy talking right in front of you, what's the different? The far one has a more reverberant sound compare to the one talking right in front of you. It's the same concept when you want to shift an instrument front up or back deep into the stage! Again, wider and deeper stage creates an image of 3D, not a bore "paper". Just be careful not to make it too muddy till it becomes too "viscous" and eat up all the space, you don't want your stage to become a cave, clarity! Psychoacoustic wise, reverberation changes a person's feel on vertical dimension of the source-in rise when reverb is added.

Another interesting thing to consider: When one pan the piano to left speaker, and guitar to right speaker, does it means stereo stage setting? No, it's not. It's dual mono. To make the piano a stereo stage instrument, one must add the piano's reverberant signal to the right speaker. Both speakers must be considered as a stage source from the same place . Meaning, the left speaker will act exactly like a piano (plays notes, pure notes) while the right speaker will act as the wall on the stage bouncing off piano notes (while room acoustics are all considered).

That's all for today! It's really fun!

strange instrument. "theremin" and "ondes martenot".

I didn't know this is so weird will i watched this in youtube. They called it "theremin". Saw it in the science center of Singapore. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IA00Wug6uyc).

Basically it works as a radio antenna. Hence, when the frequency of the antenna is cut out by one's hand, it sounds with the respective frequency. It's a musical instrument which is having "untouched" operating system.. haha..

Hence, its frequency can hit a very deep bass.. I was shocked when i 1st hear it when no one is beside it. It was way too deep!
See this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mW0B1sipLBI&feature=related

Anyway, another instrument to be introduced is the ondes martenot. Knew this because i saw Jonny Greenwood (Radiohead genius guitarist) played this before. This instrument is more fascinating. It produces many kind of sounds, the idea was initiated from a engineer (frogot his name) wanted to find the frequency of a radiowave during the early 20th century. There is a string, a keyboard and a control board on this instrument. Connected to a series of speakers, it sounds very special.

A gong speaker for percussion/mallet/halo sound. A stringed one for string harmonics/reverb. A normal one and a lyre-shaped loudspeaker (produce sympathetic resonances). Hence, the sound reproduced is very "real" compared to the organ or electronic keyboard..
Try this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yy9UBjrUjwo

Erm, just my newly discoveries.. Perhaps it's already very outdated for some of you, just take me as a "suaku" human being! Cheers!

Another thought on worship band.

That day i talked with a friend, and we get something like this:

Worship leader's job is to get the congregations to be attentive towards God, and ultimately to bring them into a worship. Church worship session have songs with a similar theme, and that should be what the worship leader trying to get the congregation to think about. Hence, preferably, the worship tunes should be synchronized with what the pastor wanted to preach.

Also, worship leader shall have the anointing to affect the congregations, spiritually (holy spirit and stuff like that). But, i was thinking, should worship be done together just like in group prayer (same thought, same spirit and everybody says "amen"!) or just different people different touch/thoughts?

Personally, i think that if it's not done in "togetherness", it'll be messy. Everyone will be having their own stuff and there is no unity. Even in the normal "world" bands, they play with same philosophy (you can see how badly a man can be changed once he's affected by the culture of the band he joined). Similarly, in church worship team, we all play different instruments, but our spirit should be aligned. The team have to follow what the worship LEADER leads, and not to lead individually.

But, how a pianist worship with a piano? Perhaps you can imagine the piano as a voice, just another kind of voice. Take 5 people sing together in harmonics, and we change all the 4 voices to string, left one human voice. It's the same isn't it? And you can also notice how a person usually free-worship in spirit- don't know what is he singing at all, only God knows via spirit... Haha, but for pianist, can't just free flow, only if you have the skill or talent. Else, tough.. very tough..

Now, i have another problem: if we just follow what the worship leader wants, and play it very harmonically, is it enough? This may be true for a thought: "good worship does not occurred naturally, but we have to "do" it out. This is very true.

Still, i do think that there is an element missing.

Perhaps this is not too important as christian shouldn't worship only at church, but it's an everyday "thingy"!

Psychoacoustic versus worship.

I'm not sure about this, really!

Music was 1st invented for spiritual worship purposes. It means it's having the ability to bring human's mind into another level of realm. (Christians believe that 1st musician was Lucifer, who became fallen angel when he started to worship himself instead of God with music). The history tells that music was developed only for spiritual purposes before it became an "art" for the society. After that, music was developed even more rapidly by the "world musician", its purpose was shifted from spiritual to entertainment.

So, we bring back this question: does music really affects one's mind? Can it bring a person to another realm and affect the emotion etc? Reality tells us that it does, e.g. Mozart effects causes the spatial intelligence to increase temporarily, Death metal music may bring people to think about despair, depress or emo.

Can we play or arrange something to bring christians to worship more deeply (mentally)? Will the way the singer sing-whether have emotion or not- bring the worshiper to different "place"?

Oxford university came out with a research recently, it says that we can hear shapes and taste colour.. What the heck is this? This is non other than the power of other senses (other than sight) on predicting an object's characteristic. Have you heard someone said "Marshall amplifier have a more rounded sound" or "when playing classical guitar, one should get the round sound and not the oval one". One tends to relate a lower frequency sound (lower tone) to rounded object and higher frequency (high tone) to sharp object. Does this effect mean anything to the music arranger when arranging a complex sequence of notes and harmonics? What will we "see" and where it'll bring us to? Can this be applied to spiritual purposes or was music first invented for this purpose?

Of course, worship leader must have a pure heart in worshipping God and he shall lead the members in the house to worship. But, what is the purpose of music? For a same worship leader, can he leads even better when there is an expert music team behind? Or when there is a team of psychoacoustic experts supporting him..?

psychoacoustic---psycho=mind, acoustic=sound. Is this the relationship?

Wanna buy a guitar..

What guitar should i buy, or should you buy? These are from my experience..

1. Wood of the guitar. Different wood gives you different sound, e.g. spruce top gives a very bright sound while koa top gives a relatively mellow sound. Rosewood back gives a bassy sound and maple back gives a more thin sound. It depends on what sound you like.

What about the quality of the wood? Let's say if you have a normal spruce and grade A spruce, the only difference is the stability of the wood. For the grade A wood, it's already seasoned and the sound quality is assured. But, for a non seasoned wood, chances are, it turns out to be very nice or very bad, some (those that are not completely dry) may even bend, which is very very bad..

Another thing, some say the different wood looked differently, e.g. some has more packed pattern, some loose. The packed one is sold more expensive, because of it's "artistic" look, not the sound quality..

2. The bracing. Even from same wood, different manufacturers have different style of bracing design. It affects the sound quality also. Hence, you'll have to try out few guitars so that you can get the sound that you prefer. Personally, i prefer Martin guitars than Taylor guitars.

3. The action. Even how good the sound is, if the touch is very bad (very hard to play), it's useless. I'd tried some handmade guitars before, although the sound is not bad, the strings are way too high from the fret, hence it's akward to play fast. The neck thickness, the buzzing of strings, etc.. these have to be considered.

4. Then, you have to check check very carefully the accuracy of tone each strings at each bar. make sure that the tone (especially after 12th bar) is still consistently in tune.

5. The value of the guitar. I'd been thinking of this question for some time. Good instrument will have their value increase over time. e.g. you bought a Selmer saxophone at 50's, now the price is almost 30 times the price last time.. But if you buy a kapok guitar, do you think you can even sell the guitar? This is the different, hence buying good guitars is another kind of investment, provided you really know how to take care of it..

These are what i know so far. I heard people say that hand made guitar's sound quality will increased by time, but machine made one won't.. I doubt on this. Also, don't be cheated by the price and think that price higher, sound better.. it's not that case. Some price are meant for the outside look only, not the sound nor feel.. E.g. standard taylor has standard price. Those limited edition one will have the more or less same sound, but the design varies a lot..

Tritone substitution. It's classic, yet modern!

Lets talk about big band..

When we listen to big band, usually we find that there are a lot of weird chords jumping around, pop out suddenly and vanish during the second stanza (although 1st and 2nd stanza are the same in melody). These may be tension notes, or tritone (for my limited music knowledge)!

Often, jazz players use tension notes, and are made up of 1-3-5 (basic chord notes) -7-9-and the sequence goes on till it repeats again (tension notes). The second rule they use is the root-elimination, 5th-elimination, 3rd-stays, 7th-stays and chosen tension note(s)-stays.

One funny thing occurs: Since there is no root, no 5th, the chord played (together with tension notes) will sound like some other chord, say:

C7: C-E-G-Bb....Eliminating root and 5th: E-Bb
F#7: F#-A#-C#-E......Eliminating root and 5th: A#-E or Bb-E.

Can you see that? So, instead of using C7, some composer tends to use F#7 to substitute C7, and you see these in many r&b songs. With the root and 5th retained, F#7 gives a more 'funky' feel to the overall composing!

If playing a progression like:

|C |Am |F |G7 |C |

it can be alter to
|C |Am |F |C#7 |C |

or
|C--Bb7 |Am--F#7 |F-F#dim7 G#7|G7-C#7 Bdim7 |C---|

or
|C-Bm7b5-E7-Bb7 |Am-A-C#dim7-D#7 |
|Dm9-F#dim7- |C#7-Bdim7-G13-G13b|C--- |

Just try la.. it's fun!

Music shift?

Suddenly i have a thought: baby boomers and music style revolution.

During World War 2 (WWII), many men died as they fought in a battle. This ended up causing a phenomena where there was an unbalanced ratio of adults to children. Slowly when these children grew up, they became the main part of the society. But, do you think they will prefer the classics-classical & big band- or the new born rock and roll?

Big bands and classical orchestras are formed by a band of 'old' musicians, who talked about the deep theories in music and the fine progressions and arrangements. Usually they made the gentlemen style, quiet but meaningful. This is contradicted to the rock 'n' roll, funk, r&b or hippies which were made up of good-looking young players, who also share the same interest as other baby boomers around the country.

It's almost the same for today.

Rock music has a more energetic feel, which is preferred by teenagers. Loud music, heavy beats and opportunities to dance around freely..

Since there were no 'market' already, the classical orchestra and big band slowly vanished. Teens tend to follow their teen idols and no adults were there to preserve the fine classics.

~~But, as well, there were many other factors that causes the shift, such as high cost of maintain a band made up of more than 30 members. During the war, some fine players in those big bands had lost their life as well, causing a discouraging situation.~~

Is there any significance on "throwing away an old idea and come out with a whole new idea"? As in "throwing away the well established classic and roar out a ROCK N ROLL tiger", and this tiger is the one that influence the most on todays' music.

Since we are not throwing away any idea, we continue to establish a firm theory on the particular music as:

baroque to romance
delta blues to cool/fusion jazz
rock 'n' roll to alternative rock.
The next generation will lead to...?

Three different theories (but similar), two great shifts in the main direction, one cause...

hymn vs contemporary worship music.

"A Mighty Fortress Is Our God"-Martin Luther (paraphrase of Psalm 46).This is one of the earliest hymn. Early hymn are paraphrased from the bible verses. Self written lyrics were not allowed.

Charles Wesley developed the new style of lyric writing. He integrated one's personal feeling to God with the original bible verses. And hence broke the old rule of lyrics writing. E.g. "Where Shall My Wondering Soul Begin?"-perhaps the old love songs are written in this way.
(http://www.hymnlyrics.org/newlyrics_w/where_shall_my_wondering_soul_begin.php)

"Hark! the Herald Angels Sing" is a song of Wesley as well, it's still very God centered but not by paraphrasing.

These are some other hymn which are not paraphrasing bible, yet quite God centered: Amazing grace, count your blessings, fairest lord Jesus...
(http://www.hymnlyrics.org/mostpopularhymn.php)

Current worship song such as Kathryn Scott (one of the contemporary christian song singer) sings praise and worship song that are musically not suitable for church worship. Yet, it's a very good choice on personal listening at home (usually when praying or praising God at home). Some other examples are Doug Horley, Michael Smith, etc. The lyrics tends to be very similar to modern love pop songs.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contemporary_worship_music)-if you trust wikipedia..

Yet, not all are like this. Say, if you see the hillsong lyrics and arrangement, it's very suitable for church worship. I take an example, "everything that has breath" is very God centered. Some other such as "To you" is very much like a love song, especially:

"Hear my cry
My deep desire
To know You more".

It's alright to be like a love song, since we all love God. Just to show the effects of pop culture on church music.

These are "lyric"ally. If seeing it musically, the contrast is more obvious. From no instrument, till A capella, to piano.. This is actually very similar to normal music development. Later, musical instruments are added in.

Some people like the old style of serious worship, some like the current 'euphoria' style of worship. I think both can't be eliminated.

Also, when there was rock and roll music, there were rock and roll church music. When there were is rap music, there are rap church music as well.

At the past, If not mistaken, church music (hymns/Bach's music) is leading the development of the art of music. It's a contrast now.

Musically, we can clearly see the contemporary factors in it. Yet, I'm not too sure about the lyrics part. It's kinda confusing to analyze words for me, since i'm still not trained well in literature knowledge. So, if can, please tell me more so that i can sharpen my skills on it.

(I depends mainly on the church music history on wikipedia. Many tell me don't trust wikipedia, but just take it since it's relatively too hard to find any other reliable sources online.)

Pop Music.

Recently, i realized why I hate pop music so much. It’s mainly caused by the ‘unchanged’ and uncreative instrument playing method. Yet, I totally changed my mind recently!

Pop music is a trend of music. Every era has a different trend on music, and i call this pop music. For every era, their pop music will be sharing the same type of composing and singing methods. And they are, as well, sharing a roughly same idea-trying to reveal the ‘current’ state of social or art status. It can include what ordinary middle class society hoping for, or what teenagers think of ‘love’. Or it’s just a mere fantasy-fantasy in different era is very different! It’s another kind of human history on everything. Some composers tend to write out their feel on what happens via a very literary style, some just ordinary white words. I’ll prefer those parables.

Perhaps we could know more about current state of socio-economy and art via music. Art is always a more relaxing method to understand what happens around us, the thoughts of writers and to play around with!

Leehom MusicMan

爱得 得体 : It's kinda old school song, with a electric guitar solo that sounds a little bit metal (and a little Yingwie Malsteem). Very rich arrangement, yet, the drum beat is a little too repetitive. (Maybe he is trying to introduce Rock/Metal to us via a softer version so that we can take it!). It'll be better if he put in a heavier/thicker electric guitar sound.

心跳: His signature pop song style.. HAHA! No comment!

春雨里洗过的太阳: I love this song. It's having a "Norah Jones" feel.. The cause is mainly the electric guitar inverse reverb effect. Very calming "California style"..??

Everything: I love this song as well. Very emotional, having the 爱错(Shangri La album) feel.

我完全没有任何理由理你: An 'experimental' style (close to) song. He's teasing those critics who refuse to accept the new born singers/artists. I have got some John Frusciante(lead guitarist of Red Hot Chili Peppers) feel in this song, especially the guitar solo, it sounds like his (can refer his personal album, Murderer-To Record Only For Ten Days-John Frusciante). Overall, he is trying to introduce more style to us (i think so..) and it's nice!

另一个天堂: duet. Island romantica feel. HAHA!

玩偶: Mixing the happy rock with the happy Chinese Traditional style. So, in some part, you can get the feel of...Chinese opera style (like traditional wedding song..??). He is playing his voice, great. Electric guitar skills improved.

脚本: Some part, it has some old pop style, some part japanese song style, some part bon jovi style. It's a mix! It sounds very nice. One thing to note is the part after the guitar solo. His voice is changed a little, too trebly and become not very clear. I think he never sang so high and still using the 'real' voice, hence it should sound a little bit..wierd.

可敬的对手: 6/8 song. 1st time listening, i straight away get a "can you feel my world" feel mixed with 伍佰 feel. The centre part where the piano just swing up and down with drum and vocal is my most favoured part! It's like..hanging out in nowhere!

摇滚怎么了!! : He was playing with this song (hear his voice already you knew it), that's the spirit of rockers' song! Suddenly goes back to the 60s' (the accompany vocal), suddenly funk punk rock (rap part), suddenly 古筝.. HAHA! Just that, maybe coz this song he was playing all by himself alone, the whole real rock feel haven't come out.

The coordination of various artists is an important part. Usually when we jam rock, a lot of feel doesn't come just from you alone, other players ill inspire you as well, and this is actually crucial. Same applies to all his rock song. If he could get a full band to play his song, it'll be very very nice!

Drummer is Musician!

When we talk about music, we would say music is composed via harmonization and rhythm. At least this is true for modern music.

Because for the era long before this ( maybe the classical era, when Beethoven had not started his romantic revolution, rhythm was nothing ). They used mainly tonal harmonization composing style instead of rhythmic composing-which is mainly used nowadays.

Who are the musicians and how we consider harmonization? For me, musician is one of those who are able to play out a sound from something, and it's meaningful-can be solos or harmonization with other musician.

So, as we say that most of the music nowadays are made of rhythmic composing, rhythmic harmonization is at uppermost important. Drummer is the main man in charge of rhythmic session of a song, and the key is to harmonize with other instruments played. Rhythmic harmonization! Although drummer usually don't know about music theories other than beats and pattern, LOL!

Sadly, nowadays, there are too much of music depends solely on rhythm, and sometimes you would be annoyed and disappointed by the identical chord progression and verse-chorus-bridge arrangement style. Hence, if a particular piece of music is composed carefully, that is, considering both rhythmic and non-rhythmic (tone harmonization, as in classical and jazz) part, 'it' should sound very nice. Or maybe i should address that music 'She' or 'He'!

Anyway,

This theory seems doesn't fit in to the 'experimental music'. I still can't get it. One introductory example, try listen to white noise. Yes, White noise, the sound you hear on a TV when those white and black spots come out after the 'national song' sang-when all the TV programs ends.

Lastly, don't think that white noise is annoying. Maybe it's just because your TV speaker is not good enough. Provided the audio system is good enough, white noise is used in some physical-psycho-therapy thingy. It actually makes us feel calm!!! Why?!

Psychoaucoustic, my view.

Sometimes ago, I saw a documentary on Art Central-a TV channel of Singapore. It’s about music. It states, at the end of the show, that human tends to feel happier or ‘high’ if listen to loud music, such as live music. Around 90~110dB, if I’m not mistaken. But, it has its own limit, that’s it, if higher than 110dB, it’ll actually cause uncomfortable situation, or vomit.

And personally, I feel that human likes to listen to far separated frequencies, and as well not a repeated melody. For example, arpeggios (classical), octave (jazz), pentatonic (blues and rock) and tension notes (jazz/ big band). The song ‘Etude in C# major-Chopin’ is so so nice, and it’s a typical piano piece that runs from lowest to highest note of piano within seconds. Other classical songs show this characteristic as well. For some fast songs like ‘The Flight of the Bumblebee’ makes us feel happy as well. In this case, the separation between two ‘far’ frequencies still occurs, just that it’s taking a longer path.

Secondly, human likes both high and low frequencies. Such as when listening to U2 songs, the band plays a motif of high pitched effects generated guitar licks, almost for all the songs. Feels nice, not bored. It feels a bit like breaking the harmony of a classical composing style, but it brings the audience to another level of enjoyment. Many bands use this technique. For solos, the same technique applies, such as how Albert King, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Joe Satriani and Steve Vai play. Why is this so? Some says human ear is more sensitive to mid range frequencies (1kHz). Hence, when we hear something in full range, with bass and treble boosted, it’ll cause itself to appear full. Let’s think if a Mozart masterpiece or Glenn Miller’s big band is recorded without bass and treble (mid boosting), how’ll it sound like?

Chords formation theory.

This is just a brief intro to chord formation. There are still a lot more deeper stuff that i haven't come across with as well as its histories.

Usually, we name a chord as major (M) / minor(m) / diminished(dim) / augmented(aug) / dominant / sus4 / add9..

It's actually quite easy, chord forms via a combination of three notes, the 1st, 3rd and 5th. This is the most basic situation, developed since or even before the bach's era. So, what are these 1, 3 and 5? They are actually just 'dol', 'mi' and 'sol' in its respective scale. Say,

• When trying to get C major, use 1, 3 and 5 of C major scale.
• C minor? 1, 3 and 5 of C minor scale.
• same applies to diminished or augmented.

When you meet something like major 7 (CM7) , minor 7 (Cm7) or dominant 7 (C7), what to do?

• Actually is the same just play an extra 7th note of the respective scale.
• for dominant 7, b7 is played instead of 7th.
• sus4? Play 145 instead of 135. This will give a suspended feel since there is no 3rd note, which is particularly important in chord major/minor determination.
• add 9? even easier, just simply add a 9 to 135. it'll become 1235, since 2=9.

If you are playing chords with tension notes, it's quite important to ponder a while which note to throw away, and which note will be kept. Chords like G13 tends to eat up too much space and you have got not enough fingers on the left hand to play all the 1,3,5,7,9,11,13. So, we just take the important stuffs, like root (only if not playing with a bass instrument), 3rd, 7, 13.

3rd determine the characteristic of the chord (M/m/dim/aug..). 7th determine the 7th characteristic (M13, 13, m13 are all different). 13th is the note that causes us wanna use such a complicated chord.

Frankly, if you are playin' jazz, the score will write G7 instead of G13/Gb13 and stuff like that. This is because, G7 is the main feel that the song needed, the '7th' feel, but meanwhile, adding a tension note (becoming G13) is just to add a 'tension' taste to the '7th' feel, and every tension note has its own ways of resolving itself to a 'non-tension' realm. Someone may scold, "what are these 'FEEL' thingy!?" but it's very hard to explain, and still the same qoute, 'feel it, music or any other arts are very subjective!'

Have FUN!!

Tension note.

What are tension notes?

Usually, we see these in jazz music. Normally, we use 1-3-5 in major chords. Occasionally, to add a little touched taste, we use 1-3-5-7, we call it major7.

For jazz players, they tend to add in more. If i draw out a scale in two octaves:

1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12-13-14-15-16;
where 1=8, 7=15, etc.

So jazz player sees 9, 11,13 as tension notes. Not only these, even the b7, b9, #9, b13, #13 are tension notes as well. Chords involved will be written out such as:

Cmaj9 (1-3-5-7-9 / C-E-G-B-D) or can be written as CM9 (different from c minor 9 "Cm9")

C 9 (1-3-5-7b-9 / C-E-G-Bb-D) - C dominant 9

C mM9 (1-b3-5-7-9 / C-Eb-G-B-D) - C minor major 9

G13 (1-3-5-7b-9-11-13 / G-B-D-F-A-C-E)

Gb13 (1-3-5-7b-9-11-b13 / G-B-D-F-A-C-Eb)

F9 (1-3-5-7b-9 / F-A-C-Eb-G)

So, tension notes' chords tend to have too many notes and are relatively hard to play. Hence, as in making assumptions in physics, we cut off some of the "unwanted" notes:

• The 3rd, 7th and the last tension notes are the most important amongst all others. The 3rd governs the chord's major/minor. The 7th governs the dominant7 / major7. Last tension note is the note you want if you are using such chord.

• The root can be cut off since there'll be a bassist to assist the playing. Playing root is a redundant.

• The 5th sound is not so important, as well as other "lower ranked" tension note. (For 7-9-11-13, 13 is the last tension note and 7-9-11 are the lower ranked.)

Tension notes make jazz chords very difficult to obtained by hearing, especially those root-eliminated chords.. Some chords even have two wanted tension notes, such as:

Cmaj7 (b9 b13).. These species sound pretty wierd!! LOL! But fun to have a try on it..

Augmented and Diminished scale.

Actually i'm not too sure how augmented and diminished chords are used. But, the theory is based on whole tone (WT) and half tone (HT) scale.

For diminished scale, we use whole tone half tone method:

WT-HT-WH-HT-WH-HT-WT-HT

For example, for C diminished we take:

C-D-Eb-F-Gb-Ab-Bbb-B-C (9 notes)

Same method to obtain chord, Cdim7, 1-3-5-7, C-Eb-Gb-Bbb.

OR maybe can use half tone whole tone. Try it out.. Since it already sounds wierd, i can't really differentiate the difference between the usage of WT-HT or HT-WT.

For augmented chords, we use whole tone scale:

WT-WT-WT-WT-WT-WT-WT


Caug scale:


C-D-E-F#-G#-A#-C (7 notes)


C aug means 1-3-5, C-E-G#.

Try it out! Do combing on your left hand (chord) and run up and down with the respective chord scale, should sound quite diana krall, hehe.. (but hers is much more difficult..)

Scales? These are some of what i know!

In scales, we take C major as a main reference, it's easier to imagine. Imagine on a keyboard, 'C' is the 'do', or 1st. It then continues to 'D-E-F-G-A-B'. While looking to the black key, we notice that there are black key gap in between some two adjacent white keys. In this key, it's obvious that 'E-F & B-C' have no gaps in between.

• If there is a gap, we call it wholetone (WT).

• If there is not having any gap, we call in semitone (ST) .

For any major scale, it's ascending this way:

WT-WT-ST-WT-WT-WT-ST


To makes things easy, just imagine the black keys of piano, it's exactly the same.

So, what about minor? It's something like this:


WT-ST-WT-WT-ST-WT-WT


Observe it carefully, it's actually just a shift of the major scale. Hence, we can say that if you play C major scale, but start with A (the 6th note), it's the minor scale of that particular key, in this case, A minor scale:

A-B-C-D-E-F-G

Neither sharp nor flat occurs, it's just another identical C major scale, just that there is a shift.

Same thing applies to some basic jazz mode,

Dorian: starts with 2nd.
Phrygian : starts with 3rd
Lydian : starts with 4th
Mixolydian: starts with 5th
Aeolian: starts with 6th (another name for minor scale)
Locrian : starts with 7th.

Hope that it cures the curiosity on basic scale forming.

Brief intro to soud.

hmm...

All sound come out of vibration of a material, and it travels through air. So, you can't hear any sound in vacuum.

When a material vibrates, it has its vibration rate. This is proportional to the frequency. Human only listen to frequency from 35Hz to 20kHz.

35Hz is something very bassy, 20kHz is very high pitch. So, it's actually inaudible for older people. We human is very sensitive to sound around 1kHz, our speaking voice is approximately in those range as well.

Everything vibrates, but they don’t produce the same sound. Every material has its own characteristic on the vibration they produce and its effects on air. For example, you tie a string on a material, and apply some tension on it. Tension makes sure that you won’t get anything too bass till inaudible, since at least we need 60 cycles per second of vibrations. If you tie it to

a glass, it may sound ‘glassy’. Tie it on a wood, you may find it ‘woody’. And, tie it on a table and it’ll become louder (because table has a depth, just like the different sounds produced by an acoustic guitar and an electric guitar.

So, take guitar as an example. The sound come out of it depends not only on its wood. It depends also on its inner brace and dimensions design. Yet, wood

really affect much of the tonal quality. However, some guitar manufacturers, such as the Ovation USA, are using the helicopter blade material to replace the wood of the guitar’s body. Also, if Taylor and Martin both using the same grade’s wood to build a guitar, it won’t sound the same, because the design each of them using are so different. If considering the string? But the main point here is that all these sounds very different form the plain pure sine wave.

This is what we call musical instrument.

This can be imagined as few waves, each with its own frequency and amplitude (loudness) all blended up together. And this will give out something very special. For any two instruments, they’ll sound maybe very different or slightly different. Again, this is caused by the dimension of the ‘guitar sound box-its inner resonance’, the strings used and the wood. There are many other factors as well.

Same thing applies to speakers. But for speaker, it’s much more difficult to design (I think so), because it has to be able to reproduce full range frequencies.

Just a share of knowledge! Found these online.