yoyodog

ok.. sorry for the anonymity.. I thought that by remaining 'anonymous' you all may have a more objective view of the articles. That is, you will not say that they are good just because i am a memeber of yc, nor say it is bad because of that. Personally, I feel that my articles are not very scientific and substantiated also. I look forward to some comments so that I can improve my future articles.

hey what about this : Doglas, Y. (2006). On the Principle of Relativity of Music. PHILICA.COM Article number 64. by the same author. It looks interesting, but I am not sure if its theories hold water. It basically applies the Principle of Relativity (by Galileo) to music.

has anyone seen the article yet? please post your comments!

Would anyone want to check out this article on philica.com: Doglas, Y. (2006). On the Properties of Original Triads Regarding Dissonance. PHILICA.COM Article number 66. The title of the article is "On the Properties of Original Triads Regarding Dissonance". The summary is about "This idea presents a surprising result that the series of original triads is 50% dissonant, and 50% non-dissonant.". Sounds interesting?

Hi all, I found this book on the internet titled "Mathematical Theories of Music and Harmony", but I haven't bought it yet cause I am not sure if it is good. Has anyone heard of this book? It sounds interesting to me.

music is subject to taste... and one man's meat is another man's poison.

Very good idea! especially if we set low prices, that may attract many buyers, or advertisers. The key for internet business is usually to capitalise on volume.

Hi, I am thinking of joining a classical composition competition (not a very major one though) in my country. The competition has no limits on the instrumentation and the style. The duration has to be less than 20 minutes though. What "style" do you all think I should write in? I heard that from past competitions, the winners mostly wrote the more 'avant-garde' and 'modern' music. One was called Vulcanicity and simulated a volcano eruption (not a very pleasing experience for me). As this is the first time I am taking part in a composition competition, I would like to ask if it is true that judges generally prefer avant-garde, dissonant, and highly original music, that not necessarily is pleasing to the ears? If that were so, I would tweak my strategy a little, to suit the style.. Thank you for your comments.

With the increasing world population, tyranny of the majority sets in for many things, including music, The music that the most people like, regardless of its quality, will tend to dominate the music scene. For example, when the world population is 100 000, if 70% of the population likes pop music, while 30% like classical music, the difference is not that big. (70 000 vs 30 000). But when the population grows to 10 billion, with the proportion remaining the same, the difference becomes rather humongous. (7 billion vs 3 billion). Obviously "money-minded" music publishers, composers, and musicians will choose to be associated with pop music, leading to a vicious cycle. I.E, with the majority of the music composed being "pop", the musicians have less choice in their repertoire. Note: This is a hypothetical situation only, so please do not be offended by it. Furthermore, the proportion is an overestimate -- I would hypothesise that the ratio is more of 9 is to 1.

Sorry if I offended anyone who likes atonal music. I would like to clarify that music is relative. One man's meat is another man's poison. But what I am afraid of is the trend of increasing dissonance will lead to no end? From a mathematical perspective, the number of dissonant combinations of notes far exceeds the number of consonant combinations. And the limit of dissonance is infinite. What I mean is, if music proceeds on in the trend of increasing dissonance, it can go on forever and ever. So, in my humble opinion, it is suitable for music to take a split path -- one exploring further increasing dissonances, while another path looking back to more tonal music, but adding some touches of creativity to it. This way, we will have the best of both worlds.

Actually, I do listen to modern music, by Stravinsky and others. But I found that the most I could tolerate was Prokofiev. Any more dissonant than that I cannot listen to it. Using an analogy from Robert Frost's poem: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I

Hmm.. to me the most important technique is harmony. Orchestration is second, but that is only if you want to compose music for the orchestra.

Hi, have you seen my Prelude in G# minor? http://www.youngcomposers.com/forum/showthread.php?t=4410 It is not really that difficult a piece, though. I wrote it in G# minor not to show off the number of sharps, but mainly because it makes use of the lower registers of the piano, in the case of my composition. Furthermore, G# is a rarely used key so it sounds "new", especially after listening to too many A minor/C minor pieces.

Using fashion as an analogy for music, I would predict that tonal works will become popular again one day. In the past, fashion models were all very thin. Only recently, after a case in Madrid, did they ban overly thin models from fashion shows. Perhaps, this is a sign to show that the "fashion" is now changing from thin, to less thin. After all, how thin can a person get? (without dying from malnutrition, of course) Similarly, perhaps one day, avant-garde music will die off, and the "fashion" reverse back to tonal music again. (This analogy is not really a good one, since there is a limit to how thin a person get, but there is no limit to the amount of dissonance in a music, from the Law of Thermodynamics which states that entropy (related to dissonance) always increases.)

Hi, what are your views on 20-21st century music, regarding the ever increasing dissonance? Personally, I feel that melody and harmony are the two most important aspects of music. 20-21st century music has almost no melody, while its harmony, although interesting, is a little extreme in the dissonance aspect. (Note, I am referring to the majority of 20-21st century music, I know there are some exceptions) Now that the novelty of such compositions has worn off, how long do you think such music can last? My personal view is that, contrary to common sense, it will actually last forever, despite its relative unpopularity. The main reason is, those people who love music with nice melodies, have already switched to listening to pop music, or older classical music. Hence, those remaining are those who like avant-garde music. The scary part is, if current music is already so dissonant, what about music a few centuries down the road? I think I would rather hear a dentist's drill than that... Just some thoughts.