Harmony Explained: Progress Towards a Scientific Theory of Music

Re:Harmony Explained: Progress Towards a Scientific Theory o... by dahart on Wednesday July 13, 2016 @03:57PM (#12089156)

Yeah, I was thinking of "Spectral Music":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectral_music

Tristan Murail is a well known composer of spectral music.

http://www.tristanmurail.com/en/outils.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tristan_Murail

Also worth exploring in terms of modern music theory are microtonal music and atonal music, both of those are playing with incorporating the physics of notes, overtones and harmonic relationships.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microtonal_music https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atonality

Apologies for only bringing Wikipedia links, but they are pretty good launching points for learning more.

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Re:Harmony Explained: Progress Towards a Scientific Theory o... by Bromskloss on Wednesday July 13, 2016 @04:06PM (#12089222)

> Yeah, I was thinking of "Spectral Music"

Oh. It has not been my understanding that spectral music is about beat frequencies.

Beside the point: My experience of spectral music has been that it's a neat idea that seems worthy of trying out. Then, when you do it – test the hypothesis, so to say – it turns out that nope, didn't work, sounds awful.

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Re:Harmony Explained: Progress Towards a Scientific Theory o... by dahart on Wednesday July 13, 2016 @04:48PM (#12089557)

Yes. Spectral is a bit more about composing using overtones than beat frequencies. I know the latter has been done, but I mixed them up a little, I would have described it as overtones were I to write my initial comment again.

I agree that it's not producing pleasant music to the masses. It's more of an academic exercise, but it is influencing modern music theory and bridging classical music theory with a more recent understanding of harmonics.

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