Talk:Music Theory

Feedback from Hutchies and Musical May
1.Non-tonal, post-tonal, modern and contemporary music, 20th century music would be more correct terms for what is called as atonal music. Atonal implies in a negation of tonal music that is not true.

2.Is it really neccessary to say that some people think that it is ugly and other people don't?

-- Hutchies, (30 December 2005‎)


 * Hutchies: I've edited this page extensively to make it more complete as an overview of alternatives to tonality in 20th-century music; I've left the title as-is though, because I do think that although (like most generic titles) it leaves a lot to be desired in terms of accuracy, it's still the most commonly used term for this period (and with the revisions to the text it's more appropriate now).
 * The title of the Wikibook is Tonal Music Theory. I've looked around for how to rename the title of a book, and it seems like we should have consensus here before such a request is sent to the bot who deals with this. It sounds like you folks are all about adding sections about atonality/non-tonality/serialism/post-tonality/modernism/post-modernism or whatever you care to call it. If that's the consensus, then the title of the book should be changed. I don't have a problem with that at all. Also, it seems that people want to add information about non-Western music. This is, in my mind, another indication that the title of the book should be changed to simply Music Theory. Or maybe just Music. Now that I think about it, wouldn't it be better if we simply limit the scope of this book to common practice styles? And create other books for other styles? Something to think about. I don't care either way, since I've got this burnin' feelin' to start the counterpoint section. --A.J. 08:32, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

1.Hutchies is right; atonal is an erroneous term for some great music, but it is the term that is still used in most schools of music, so I believe that it is fine for this book as long as the other terms are presented alongside it.

2.I believe that this textbook could go much beyond what it is now, and include sections on musical form and analysis (including various forms of pop, jazz, rock, etc. as well as classical forms) as well as information on counterpoint and voice leading in various situations. Orchestration and Arranging may be too far outside the scope of this book, but might grow as its own section here until someone transfers it to its own textbook. Of course, some of this would be very difficult to do without the aid of graphics and media files.

3.I'd like to see media files being included of simple things such as scales, chords, and examples of each musical genre.

-- MusicalMay (27 May 2006)


 * http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Music_markup for easy finding, if something like this was enabled then I would use it. Tuxide 18:52, 9 August 2006


 * The awesome Score extension generates a musical score from music notation inline with the page text, and turns it into a .MIDI file you can download or play if your browser supports MIDI, and converts that into an audio file you can listen to. User:Skierpage/Music intervals/Minor practice is a simple sample I made using the extension and http://lilybin.com/ for quicker feedback on my notation. The Score extension should be used throughout this book and in all Wikipedia musical examples! -- Skierpage (discuss • contribs) 11:54, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

Cleanup-NC
Now that this book has been moved to Music Theory, I am marking it as  because its naming conventions doesn't abide to WB:NP. Links to individual pages should be  as opposed to , etc.  Tuxide 18:35, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I know. I've got it on my todo list. Over then next week or so I'll rename these pages correctly. Derek Parnell 00:17, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I could've done it myself, but there was one conflicting thing I noticed. Some link to the pages in the Western Music History book instead of this one such as Baroque, but others do not such as Classical.  I suppose all can be moved except Baroque, but I really don't know what should be done in this case. Tuxide 06:09, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I went ahead and renamed the red links, since those don't require moves. Tuxide 06:15, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

This whole section is dreadful! I will edit when I have time, but the inaccuracies are legion. For instance, the modes are defined against a C major scale without the 12-tone equal-tempered system - much less the major, or C major scale - ever specified. The twelve-tone equal-tempered system is never mentioned as the foundation of Western music theory. Stylistic peculiarities are listed as "theory," when actually music theory fundamentals are objective descriptions of the tonal system, and are only style-specific as one moves from fundamentals to more advanced concepts.

Anything labeled "music theory" needs to be defined in terms of a specific pitch universe; i.e., the fundamentals of the Western, equal-tempered system vs. Javanese slendro or the system of Hindusthani thats. Music theory describes the fundamental materials and procedures of the pitch (and rhythmic) system in question. Most of the genre divisions listed in this section differ in terms of form, style, and musical function, but not in terms of how they employ basic theoretical idioms.

Wiki Notation
I wonder if there is a way to notate music as a wiki, instead of using pictures. In this way somebody could edit any mistakes in the music and nobody would have to install music notation software in their computer ( and learn to use it ). Gus 2007-02-01 12:21


 * Hey Gus, I'm both a computer professional and an amature percussionist with an interest in composition on my PC; so I'll see what I can dig up on this topic. But my gut feel is that most browsers won't support this so it'll need to happen as a generated image, server side. Which probably means Mediawiki will need to update their system. (Perhaps not... I'll download and install Mediawiki tonight and see what they let you customize) If they let you execute external programs to generate images I'll look into the myriad of open source notation generators and give a brief summary of the pros and cons of each, unless this isn't the place for that discussion...  I'll keep you posted. -- Jason C Daniels 00:55, 3 April 2007 (UTC)


 * There is a mediawiki extension for the GNU Lilypond rendering engine, for rendering music notations. However, that extension isn't installed here (or on any wikimedia project, for that matter). If there was enough support, we might be able to convince the developers to activate the extension for en.wikibooks, but we would probably need several votes from community members. If you want to get this issue started, you can post a note about it on Staff lounge, and we can start voting on the idea. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 01:01, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the heads up. I believe I found that extension -- WikiTeX -- on Wikisophias site. The extension appears to support many "LaTex" object/drawing extensions, not just Lilypond. Whiteknight, is this the item you were referencing? -- Jason C Daniels 01:36, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Probably, and thanks for fixing my typo. I remember reading something about it on meta the other day, and sort of forgot about it until i saw this discussion today. If the extension supports more types of media besides music notation, it might be a benefit to the entire wikibooks project, not just the music books. Bring it up at the staff lounge. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 01:38, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Whiteknight, what's the status on this? I'd like to be able to write up/edit a music notation page. But I'm not familiar or comfortable enough with the image insertion proceedures to do this yet. It strikes me that using a "built-in" wiki tool for music notation rendering would be easier than creating examples in an engraving program, and exporting them as images to be uploaded and embedded into a page... --A.J. 08:10, 28 May 2007 (UTC)


 * There is an extension for this, called mw:Extension:Score, it's completely awesome. Within a Score tag, you enter Lilypond notation, and it renders as a musical score, with an optional link to an audio file you can listen to! Skierpage (discuss • contribs) 11:12, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

Musical Styles
Is it okay for me to add another style under there (Electronica, including ambient, IDM, trance, etc.) although there is a Miscellaneous Styles section? I feel that electronica deserves its own section because of its uniqueness. I also plan on writing the section. --MagiNinjA 06:41, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Dude, I say go for it. I know nothing about that style of music, but if you're willing to write it, knock yourself out! --A.J. 08:32, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Page Formatting
I noticed some areas on this TOC page where the formatting seems a little off. I will go through it and fix up some things if people want, but i dont want to step on any toes. Let me know if you are interested and I will see what I can do. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 22:46, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

It seemed like someone came in and copy/pasted the page code onto itself, so all the TOC entries were listed twice... I fixed this and removed the "Music Theory/" part of each section title. I am brand spanking new to the Wiki scene, so I figured I'd act first and ask for forgiveness if necessary - if I stepped on toes, or if this is against Wikiquette, please don't hesitate to let me know. This book has been languishing in "disrepair" for so long that it finally got to me, so I decided to dust out the cobwebs. Countless other issues with this book which are driving me batty! I'll work on them as diligently as I can. --A.J. 08:06, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Content Organization
Schoenberg (In Theory of Harmony ) makes three distinctions in the pedagogy of music: Harmony, Counterpoint, and Form. I think this would be the most beneficial chapter/unit breakdown for this book. For those without any knowledge of music whatsoever would have an introductory chapter/unit from which to gain knowledge of the basics of musical notation and so on. What say you all, if there are still authors about? Again, the idea is:
 * Fundamentals (of Western Music)
 * Harmony
 * Counterpoint
 * Form --A.J. 08:32, 28 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I just wrote up a potential "contents" section for the fundamentals chapter/unit. Here
 * Fundamentals of Common Practice Style
 * Notation
 * Staves
 * Clefs
 * Note-length values
 * Pitch
 * Overtone series
 * Harmonic/Melodic Intervals
 * Consonance/Dissonance
 * Tertian Harmony
 * Tonality
 * Keys
 * Intervals appearing in a Key
 * Modes
 * Diatonicism
 * Chords
 * Chord Construction
 * Diatonic Triads/Seventh Chords
 * Primary and Secondary Diatonic Chords
 * Chord Connection (Progressions)
 * Techniques for Writing and Analysis
 * Basic Four-Part Writing/Voice-Leading
 * Roman Numeral Harmonic Analysis
 * Figured Bass (and Realization of Figured Bass)
 * Chord Symbols --A.J. 18:40, 28 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree; there's to much overlap throughout this book. We need to have clear sections about each subject. Herr Beethoven (talk) 14:31, 25 July 2010 (UTC)


 * I think the content in "Notation" and "Pitch" is not exactly supposed to be in the right spot. I think the problem stems from how "Common Practice Styles" is before the "Basics" when I think "Basics" should be before "Common Practice Styles." Perhaps place the content found in "Notation" and "Pitch somewhere within [The Physics of Music] and/or [Introduction]?

Organization
This book is not organized. It starts off talking about pitch and rythym and harmony. It first needs to start with basic notes and rests and then scales then chords etc. I'll help out with the basics organizing it when I can. - Portlandiaman


 * yeah, its really disorganized and confusing. please fix, thx

Reggaeton is not western music, please create a section just like western music for latin music so we can put all music of latin origin thank you

Semitones are not in western music
The reference to semitones as intervals in western music is patently wrong and should be replaced with half tones. In western music there are whole tones and half tones based on frequencies of the diatonic scale. Semitones are in other music cultures such as in India etc..This is confusing and misleading information. 2601:204:C600:C65:55F1:596E:E718:CBA9 (discuss) 03:08, 15 September 2017 (UTC)


 * You are correct that semitones are the same as half steps. However, "semitones" is also used in Western Music, as well as half steps. Here in the United States, "half steps" is more commonly used than "semitones"; however, in Germany, for instance, "semitones" is more commonly used than "half steps." This is all dependent on context. Musical Inquisit (discuss • contribs) 08:50, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

Some rewrites
Hello to anyone still here, figured I should make myself known.

I've done some big rewrites and additions and whatnot, especially with stuff like tuning and temperament as well as some 20th century theories, expect more in the future. Still kinda new to MediaWiki stuff but I'm figuring it out. Obviously I would like to change the organization of all of the pages but I want to bother only with pages since actually editing them seems to be getting the least attention as of right now. Sorry if I terribly mess things up. TromboneBoi9 (discuss • contribs) 07:24, 29 June 2024 (UTC)