thanks keef. i've always seen those funny X-ian names over solos in guitar tabs i knew it was about the mode or scale but i never really understood what they were really referring to hehehe

although i kind of enjoy being theoretically illiterate at times

god damn..

ill just keep on telling myself that John Lennon never learnt how to read music... lol

They're Greek names. More like Pagan.

There is no direct link to us from Greek music. All we have are the names of the modes. We don't know what notes went with what modes.

I like the orthodox approach this topic started with. Tuning systems and Slonimsky's "Thesaurus..." are really superfluous at this time.

Work up from Papa_Magotchi's original idea. Then start with Counterpoint...on to Harmony (yes, that's the best order).

Y'all are just going to confuse yourselves with the crap that's out on the Internet.

The beginning, for our Western music, is Church Polyphony. I believe in learning the material in the same order as mankind discovered it. Not the terrible, Rameau-based way it's taught in school (part writing excercises, etc...).

alright, but i still think someone should discuss the physical aspects of sound and how it relates to music theory

Not sure if we should call this Roivas' Sermon on the RM or Roivas' Commandments, on how to discuss and learn musical theory.


My vote goes for Roivas' Commandments, since it really doesn't have that Matthew 5:43-48 43, of Love thy Enemy feel, from the Sermon on the Mount.

Can't I be "Superior Prick" in at least one area of the forums?

You're right. The overtone series is good place to start and seems to be in alignment with basic music theory to a certain point.

Most harmony books touch on the overtone series a little in the beginning chapter. They have diagrams containing the first 15 or so partials.

Um, do I have to do it?

go for it, i dont remember how the overtone series goes

Okay...I'll do it tomorrow. I have to go now...I'll be out all night most likely!

(If anyone doesn't know the whole I ii iii IV V vi vii (half diminished) thing yet, I'll explain later.)

Listen for overtones by striking the low keys of the piano one at a time. It's hard to hear very many of them, though.

The first two "partials" (or "overtones") are the Octave and the Fifth. There you have the V-I relation that's so important in tonal music.

Just remember that every note has it's own overtone series and because of that, each tone strives to "tonicize" itself with it's own V chord. The overtone series shoots up like a tree from every tone. Any reversal of the endless climbing of fifths is a "harmonic inversion." Not important right now.

The flat seventh (b7) (which occurs in dominant seventh chords, or V7) isn't accounted for by the overtone series (it's derived from voice leading in cadences). It's also against the natural drive a note has to tonicize itself that makes linking the b7 to the overtone series negligable. If flat sevenths occured naturally in the overtone series, each note would be striving to be dominated by another chord (as in "C dom 7 belongs to the key of F"...etc).

So what I'm saying is that anything after the first five partials is not applicable to tonal music theory. So says Schenker and Hindemith, whose books you should find as soon as possible.