no man. GUITAR plays a great part in mathematics... you can learn to calculate a rythm in your mind, with your own sense of judgement. You dont need to learn a bunch of human-made graphics and numbers to calculate something that is present, a lapse of time... or the beat between a different assortment of musical notes. music is THERE... the timing is present, existant.. but numbers and graphics and all this crap is utter bullshit
The ancient Greeks figured out that the integers correspond to musical notes. Any vibrating object makes overtones or harmonics, which are a series of notes that emerge from a single vibrating object. These notes form the harmonic series: 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 1/5 etc. The fundamental musical concept is probably that of the octave. A musical note is a vibration of something, and if you double the number of vibrations, you get a note an octave higher; likewise if you halve the number of vibrations, it is an octave lower. Two notes are called an interval; three or more notes is a chord. The octave is an interval common to all music in the world. Many people cannot even distinguish between notes an octave apart, and hear them as the same. In western music, they are given the same letter names. If you blow across a coke bottle and it produces the note F, and you drink enough so that the air remaining in the bottle is twice as much, the note will be also an F, but an octave lower. If you shorten a string exactly in half, it makes a note an octave higher; if you double its length, it makes a note an octave lower. You can think of the concept of octave and the number 2 as being very closely associated; in essence, the octave is a way to listen to the number 2. If you shorten a string to 1/3 its length, a new note is produced, and the second most fundamental musical concept, that of a musical 5th emerges. We call it a 5th, because it is the 5th scale note of the Western do-re-mi scale, but it represents the integer 3. (Incidentally, the 5th is the only interval other than the octave that is common to all musics in the world.) Strings of a violin are tuned a 5th apart. Men and women often sing a 5th apart, and most primitive harmony singing involves octaves and fifths. In fact, they say that when you are learning to tune a stringed instrument, you can only trust your ear to hear octaves and fifths, and you should not rely on your ability to compare other musical intervals properly. The next note in the harmonic series corresponding to the number 4 is 2 times 2 and thus a second octave. The number 5 produces a new note, called the musical 3rd. The 3rd is the other note in the fundamental chord, called the major triad, which is made up of 1st, 3rd and 5th notes of the Western scale. The number 6 produces a note an octave higher than the 5th, and it is also a very harmonious note. The number 7 produces the first dissonant note in the harmonic series, which has some numerological and religious significance. Also of spiritual and numerological interest-- the next dissonant overtones are the 11th and the 13th. If you build a musical system out of these integer notes, it is what is now called the Pythagorean scale, as used by the ancient Greeks. If you bore holes in a flute according to integer divisions, you will produce a musical scale. Oddly enough, if you try to build complex music from these notes, and play in other keys and using chords, dissonances show up, and some intervals and especially chords sound very out of tune. Our Western musical scale paralleled the evolution of the keyboard, and finally reached its modern form at the time of J.S. Bach, who was one of its champions. After a few intermediate compromise temperings, as systems of tuning are called, the so called even-tempered or well-tempered system was developed. Even-tempering makes all the notes of the scale equally and slightly out of tune, and divides the error equally among the scale notes to allow complex chords and key changes and things typical of western music. Our ears actually prefer the Pythagorean intervals, and part of learning to be a musician is learning to accept the slightly sour tuning of well-tempered music. Tests that have been done on singers and players of instruments that can vary the pitch (such as violin and flute) show that the players and singers tend to sing the Pythagorean or sweeter notes whenever they can. More primitive ethnic musics from around the world generally do not use the well-tempered scale, and musicians run into intonation problems trying to play even Blues and Celtic music on modern instruments. The modern musical scale divides the octave into 12 equal steps, called half-tones. 12 is an important number on Western music, and it is oddly also an important number in our time-keeping and measurement systems. The frets of a guitar are actually placed according to the 12th root of 2, and 12 frets go halfway up the neck, to the octave, which is halfway between the ends of the strings. On fretted instruments we are playing irrational numbers! And any of you who have trouble tuning your guitars might get a clue as to why they are so hard to tune. Our ears don't like the irrational numbers, but we need them to make complex chordal music. The student of music must learn to accept the slight dissonances of the Western scale in order to tune the instrument and to play the music. Studying mathematics can also assist you in daily life as a musician. I cannot tell you how many times I have actually needed to solve an equation or refer to one of my math textbooks, but the answer is a very small integer. I think the only time I ever needed to do that was to compute how many combinations of a guitar capo that allows you to selectively capo any combination of strings at a given fret, rather than just clamp across all the strings as capos have traditionally done. I am not talking so much about solving the little algebra problems of life like changing money when you tour in foreign countries. Though it is a good exercise to go to England, pay British pounds to buy liters of gasoline, and try to figure out 1) what miles per gallon you are getting 2) what you are actually paying in US $ for a gallon of gasoline. That's kind of tricky, though it is junior high school math involved. Being a former math student makes it easier I think for me to use and understand my computer, which is an essential tool for a working musician today. We have to have mailing lists, and print out mailing labels to advertise our concerts using various Boolean and/or statements. Print out a list of everybody who has signed up in the last 2 years who either lives in northern Mass, coastal NH or Southern Maine, but only if they are media, and sort them by zip code. It's a math problem.
No, it's just that I can get by well enough without making it out to be a huge issue like most people do... but I play several instruments, so it's gotten to be something I don't even have to think about anymore... I just do it. Long as you know where to start, carry a song along, end it... and you have other people that can work with you. I could go to Berklee or Juliard if I really wanted to, but I don't want that...
getting by as a guiotar player is a weak story i allways improve my self daily to become a player that can inspire ppl through me music i guess you could just play som riddim in the back round
the golden string, thats a bunch of bull... I learned to play music before i even learnt how to read or how to count numbers... music can come naturally... come on, music has been existant since the begininning of humanity... did the neanderthals really read a Pythagore book to learn how to hit some things and to make precise sounds... fuck no
And I always improve myself daily so I know when to keep my mouth shut and when to speak when I know what I'm talking about instead of copying and pasting things... I don't improve, I do what works and make slight corrections. Let me know when you're playing on Clapton's studio albums.
who gives a shit about typing... its as dumb as mathematics... another stupid invention... its not by improving our typing or our mathematics that we'll learn from life.. its about introspection, self discoveries, spiritual enlightenment... not about gettin your spelling precise, so that you can make a good image of yourself.
with all of your brainwash propaganda you need to look at the other side of things. yes you have to go to school but no matter how much you are against the govt they have done more for more people than any hippy communion ever will. there is absolutely nothing wrong with that and you can do whatever you want with your life, but school opens the door to so many things that you would never experience or know about if you just lived simple in your communion your whole life. me and my friends have actually thought about moving out to montana and starting our own community. but before you go bashing the everything and everyone try to be more open minded about things. just do what you want but dont superimpose ideas onto other people about anti-government if you dont want to the govt to do it to you. thanks
oh wow you new how to play music before reading and writing you should be a proffesional musician by now ...instead of livin with mom and posps
HELL YA no things come naturaly to people you just have to want it and not try so hard to learn everything the way it has been taught for years just beacuse it been taught that way dosent mean its right
fyi - i play 4 instruments math has everything to do with music and for those that dont believe this just stop going to school and move out of mom an pops and see how far you get i travell the usa for 4 years alone ..have you guys survived that o
hey fuck you man your better than us cause you can type ohhhhh good job why dont you go join fucking america in its fight for something that i dont want
and if you were so wise about mathematics being important and being a fancy guitarist for it.. i doubt youd be on a hippie forum for most of your time... find a seat in the white house my friend
