At band rehearsal, and...

[Justin S.]

Moonlapse,

I tend to think all subjects fall under one broad "history" category and so bleed into each other. Im not so sure what pure "classical discipline" would be currently. I dont see a concrete seperation between sensory biology/psychology and music in the context of the listener. Obviously a HUGE difference in study, application etc.
When I mention "theory" or education, i dont mean just the technical nitty-gritty. I have had only my current professor so i cant really say what typical instruction would be like. From what you describe, and the experiences of some of my friends support this, its really hit or miss with what you get. I feel lucky that I got an instructor who is as interested in the history and impact of music as of the practical side.
To be fair to classic composers and theory, they where nothing at all like they are portrayed today. For example Bach was an absolute madman (i mean it in a good way) and was not a stuffy charicature of the Barouqe period; his organ pieces esspecially where written in a entirely different tunning than we use today; this has a drastic impact on the sound, making it more uniform but less dynamic. Sort of a pre-electronic form of compression.
Our lessons also creep into more of the physical realm. We talk about dynamics of sound, the impact of overtones, etc. Its been strange walking around trying to name every note that i hear. i think it is bizarre that both a piano and a jet engine produce the same notes, but they sound distinctly different because of how the acoustic waves are produced and interact. I step outside and think, "hey that leaf blower is Db, or my car alarm is A" whatever. Call me stupid but i think its absolutely mind blowing that every tone we hear is a measurable "note". Rarely ill even hear a chord produced by radom bits of machinery, and i when i mention it, im certain everyone thinks im totally insane.
If you have the opportunity to attend an instruction or theory class at a University, i highly reccomend it. By the way, is your band serious or just for fun? Have you recorded anything, and if so, what style?

 

[Ermz]

We are meant to be serious, but I don't think any of us are taking it seriously. I've been meaning on calling it quits for a while, because it just feels like a trap. I wrote most of the music we have, and it's basically just whatever I come up with that I like. I can't really categorise it as anything apart from it's metal but it also has arpeggiated clean parts airy melodies, and I even started experimenting with synths a bit. Some parts are predominantly metal too. So it's basically from one extreme to the other. It's sort of like thrash metal with the ambience and ferocity of black metal mixed in with some acoustic dabblings.

I tend to think of sound more in terms of frequencies than notes. Comes with being an aspring Audio Engineer, I guess. Sound makes more sense to me when explained in scientific terms, as opposed to the more vague and subjective musical terminology. I think we know enough about sound these days to stop reffering to it using antiquated terminology (you know all the fortissimo, fortississimo stuff in relation to how loud a note is meant to be played). But whenever I hear a sound, I try to place it within a certain frequency band as opposed to trying to figure out what note it is I'm hearing. It can be thought of in both ways though, and both have relatively accurate ways of translating into each other.

 

[deliverance]

interesting discussion