Coherence in non-harmonic sounds

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Re: Coherence in non-harmonic sounds

Post by Mattias »

Southpaw wrote:
Why is everyone so jumpy around here :lol:
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Re: Coherence in non-harmonic sounds

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Hey Victer,

adding a subtle bit of slow pitch modulation gets your pads and sounds into that slightly eerie place. Also called vibrato on some synths. Simple yet effective.

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Re: Coherence in non-harmonic sounds

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Amøbe wrote:
Southpaw wrote:
Amøbe wrote:
Whole tone is cool, very sci-fi but I think that's quite a common theme regarding melody and it was what I was trying to get across to the original question when I mentioned reversing his process but it went a bit bizarre after that to the point where I wasn't sure what was actually being discussed.

But I think when you start out with a single melodic line, the natural tendency is to make it interesting and busy because that's all that exists at that moment, yet sometimes a melodic line over an interesting harmonic grounding could well be just 2 sparse notes but you just wouldn't start out with that. Harmony implies melody, it doesn't do it the other way around too well unless you already know where you're gonna go with the music or are writing pop or a song or whatever. :)
I just want to say I completely disagree with all of this :D (but it doesn't mean you're wrong, but it's actually the other way around in my workflow. I find a busy melody is sounding extremely annoying on its own, and if I'm trying to make it fit into a harmonic progress I will often add more movement) Also I just think i don't understand, when you say that harmony implies melody?
Well that's a weird one, I was agreeing with you so to me you're now disagreeing with yourself :lol: Maybe some communication factor thing going on, let me try to explain where I was coming from.

In the original question and a few replies below that, he was saying he wanted to get away from obvious melodies, so I was suggesting reversing the workflow and instead of starting with any type of melody/single line, start out with something harmonic, as in chords like the track featured that he posted.

And I was saying the exact same thing. I too find a melody on its own to be annoying. To put it in context, here's what I mean: Say I just made some drum pattern and rhythmic base for an idea but there isn't much musical content besides what the sounds I already have might be suggesting.

What I wouldn't look to do, is then get a single mono synth line and try to play something right away. This bit is personal but I find it a lot easier and more subtle to first create some sort of harmonic base. Whether that comes from some sort of stab, a chord or detuning of a synth or a multiple osc synth playing with each osc set to different intervals doesn't matter much, it's still considered harmony ( as in more than 1 note ) Sometimes it could just be a cluster/textural sound from a series of efx & resampling but inevitably, that sound will have a fair amount of intervals/frequencies and it's from within those frequencies/intervals that I start hearing ideas for any simple melodic phrases. Obviously the rhythm of the tracks elements plays a role in this but just by having a harmonic grounding, little bits of musical ideas start popping out as you're listening.

This is what I mean by harmony implying melody. If you were writing traditional music and put a chord progression to a vocalist and asked them to see what they could come up with, the harmony and voicings would dictate where they hear their melodic lines. Change the inversions of each chord but keep the same progression, they would come up with different lines. Say you had these 2 chords: Cmaj7 to Fmaj7, you played CMaj7 in its 2nd inversion and FMaj7 in root position, you'd have this: G/B/C/E to F/A/C/E. The ears will have a strong pull to the 'E' because it's the common note between to the 2 chords, even though the 'C' is also common, because of where it situated in both chords, it would'nt stick out as strongly as the E. Obviously that's very simple but for the purpose of where I was coming from, it's fine. And when you have a cluster of tones moving about, there are frequncies which your ear will naturally pick out from within them and like I was saying, that and the rhythm of the track would imply melody. :)
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Re: Coherence in non-harmonic sounds

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Mattias wrote:
Southpaw wrote:
Why is everyone so jumpy around here :lol:
It can take some time to get accustomed to the vibe and jargon around Subsekt. Once you get it you get it!
:mrgreen:
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Re: Coherence in non-harmonic sounds

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Southpaw wrote:
Well that's a weird one, I was agreeing with you so to me you're now disagreeing with yourself :lol: Maybe some communication factor thing going on, let me try to explain where I was coming from.

In the original question and a few replies below that, he was saying he wanted to get away from obvious melodies, so I was suggesting reversing the workflow and instead of starting with any type of melody/single line, start out with something harmonic, as in chords like the track featured that he posted.

And I was saying the exact same thing. I too find a melody on its own to be annoying. To put it in context, here's what I mean: Say I just made some drum pattern and rhythmic base for an idea but there isn't much musical content besides what the sounds I already have might be suggesting.

What I wouldn't look to do, is then get a single mono synth line and try to play something right away. This bit is personal but I find it a lot easier and more subtle to first create some sort of harmonic base. Whether that comes from some sort of stab, a chord or detuning of a synth or a multiple osc synth playing with each osc set to different intervals doesn't matter much, it's still considered harmony ( as in more than 1 note ) Sometimes it could just be a cluster/textural sound from a series of efx & resampling but inevitably, that sound will have a fair amount of intervals/frequencies and it's from within those frequencies/intervals that I start hearing ideas for any simple melodic phrases. Obviously the rhythm of the tracks elements plays a role in this but just by having a harmonic grounding, little bits of musical ideas start popping out as you're listening.

This is what I mean by harmony implying melody. If you were writing traditional music and put a chord progression to a vocalist and asked them to see what they could come up with, the harmony and voicings would dictate where they hear their melodic lines. Change the inversions of each chord but keep the same progression, they would come up with different lines. Say you had these 2 chords: Cmaj7 to Fmaj7, you played CMaj7 in its 2nd inversion and FMaj7 in root position, you'd have this: G/B/C/E to F/A/C/E. The ears will have a strong pull to the 'E' because it's the common note between to the 2 chords, even though the 'C' is also common, because of where it situated in both chords, it would'nt stick out as strongly as the E. Obviously that's very simple but for the purpose of where I was coming from, it's fine. And when you have a cluster of tones moving about, there are frequncies which your ear will naturally pick out from within them and like I was saying, that and the rhythm of the track would imply melody. :)
HA! I completely misunderstood you - sorry! I agree with everything now :D

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Re: Coherence in non-harmonic sounds

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Amøbe wrote:HA! I completely misunderstood you - sorry! I agree with everything now :D
Eww.

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Re: Coherence in non-harmonic sounds

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Amøbe wrote:I think I'm somewhat damaged in that I first started playing classical guitar and then - through musicology - I guess I have an above average knowledge about harmony - where I'm getting with this is it's hard for me to just make something outrageous and then fit it together with an eq, because I'm always annoyingly aware of what's going on harmonically.
why call it "damaged" ??
I call it prejudiced, though this happens on a more subconscious level.
I had the typical classical training, and I hated it for years, but now I'm really happy I did it.
I mean, I can play keys on a very decent level, so I can actually play almost all my parts in instead of clicking the notes. Only thing I found really frustrating looking backwards is that I really had to sit down and force myself to start improvising on the piano, and later on synths. I still speak to classically trained musicians from time to time who say they "admire" people who can make their own music, while hell, it's technically a LOT easier to make your own music than to play the music most classical musicians have to play.
Amøbe wrote: But I do have some strategies to make melodies
I have no strategy at all. None whatsoever.
I just start with one melody, then add another, and then maybe another, and I keep on layering, and then I might start removing notes again.
My harmony training really was very basic (which I still regret), but on the other hand, if you played so many pieces in the typical traditional Western system, your ears will always tell you what works and what not.
I'm happy I have that "perfect pitch" thing (though not the full 100%), that's obviously helpful, but even that can fail you with sounds that are detuned too much, or when you have sound planing going on (with old school samples being badly pitched up or down).

Anyway, what I was trying to say is that I never use the theory to make things work (I probably should),
I use my instinct and what my ears tell me. I'm happy I got some sort of education, but the biggest thing I learned there was to play keys. All the rest hardly gets used nowadays.
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Re: Coherence in non-harmonic sounds

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rktic wrote:Hey Victer,

adding a subtle bit of slow pitch modulation gets your pads and sounds into that slightly eerie place. Also called vibrato on some synths. Simple yet effective.
Boards Of Canada made quite a few albums with that being their main trick sound design wise...
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Re: Coherence in non-harmonic sounds

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Hades wrote:
Amøbe wrote:
why call it "damaged" ??
I call it prejudiced, though this happens on a more subconscious level.
I had the typical classical training, and I hated it for years, but now I'm really happy I did it.
I mean, I can play keys on a very decent level, so I can actually play almost all my parts in instead of clicking the notes. Only thing I found really frustrating looking backwards is that I really had to sit down and force myself to start improvising on the piano, and later on synths. I still speak to classically trained musicians from time to time who say they "admire" people who can make their own music, while hell, it's technically a LOT easier to make your own music than to play the music most classical musicians have to play.
Amøbe wrote:
I have no strategy at all. None whatsoever.
I just start with one melody, then add another, and then maybe another, and I keep on layering, and then I might start removing notes again.
My harmony training really was very basic (which I still regret), but on the other hand, if you played so many pieces in the typical traditional Western system, your ears will always tell you what works and what not.
I'm happy I have that "perfect pitch" thing (though not the full 100%), that's obviously helpful, but even that can fail you with sounds that are detuned too much, or when you have sound planing going on (with old school samples being badly pitched up or down).

Anyway, what I was trying to say is that I never use the theory to make things work (I probably should),
I use my instinct and what my ears tell me. I'm happy I got some sort of education, but the biggest thing I learned there was to play keys. All the rest hardly gets used nowadays.
Okay prejudiced is a much better term - my problem is that when I want to go down the atonal road I do it very backwards... I keep thinking about the possible harmonizing elements I could do - and then I have to break it down. It's not really a problem I guess, but I'm always confusing myself about why I can't let those counterpoint stuff go!

The thing about classical musicians not writing their own material really confuses the fuck out of me, too! I believe the reason is that historically music had to be more of a hierarchy (and it still has to be this way with symphonies), where the musicians had to play their role for the music to come alive - but that just seems weird these days?

I know a few people who accidentally pick up perfect pitch from time to time, and then they have to break it down (they're all singers) because in a choir you sing with a root frequency that goes up and down about 20 hz (depending on style and the other instruments) so if you have perfect pitch - a lot of music will sound off :P

It's funny - I'm really bad at playing keys (I'm just capable!) but I really like to go deep into the notes on paper :P (well the piano roll)

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Re: Coherence in non-harmonic sounds

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sound design and groove is, however, something I totally suck at :D

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Re: Coherence in non-harmonic sounds

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Amøbe wrote: I know a few people who accidentally pick up perfect pitch from time to time, and then they have to break it down (they're all singers) because in a choir you sing with a root frequency that goes up and down about 20 hz (depending on style and the other instruments) so if you have perfect pitch - a lot of music will sound off :P
You don't "accidentally" pick it up "from time to time", afaik.
I haven't done the whole wikipedia reading on the subject, but from what I understand (and from what I have learned from discussions with some of the music teachers of my oldest), you are either born with it or you just don't have it.
You can, of course, learn a minimum of trained hearing, which is why they teach musical dictation,
but this isn't the same as the theoretical perfect pitch thing. :)

My mom has the same thing, but far more developed than me, and she's not even capable to listen to any piece of music without hearing the notes inside her head. She can barely enjoy the piece of music, because her brain will always be registering the pitch of the notes that she's hearing.
I praise myself happy I don't have it that bad. :?

I agree with you on the choir part. I agreed to sing along in some choir of my oldest music school a few months ago,
and I was annoyed to death by how off all the other singers were... :)
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Re: Coherence in non-harmonic sounds

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Hades wrote:
Amøbe wrote: I know a few people who accidentally pick up perfect pitch from time to time, and then they have to break it down (they're all singers) because in a choir you sing with a root frequency that goes up and down about 20 hz (depending on style and the other instruments) so if you have perfect pitch - a lot of music will sound off :P
You don't "accidentally" pick it up "from time to time", afaik.
I haven't done the whole wikipedia reading on the subject, but from what I understand (and from what I have learned from discussions with some of the music teachers of my oldest), you are either born with it or you just don't have it.
You can, of course, learn a minimum of trained hearing, which is why they teach musical dictation,
but this isn't the same as the theoretical perfect pitch thing. :)

My mom has the same thing, but far more developed than me, and she's not even capable to listen to any piece of music without hearing the notes inside her head. She can barely enjoy the piece of music, because her brain will always be registering the pitch of the notes that she's hearing.
I praise myself happy I don't have it that bad. :?

I agree with you on the choir part. I agreed to sing along in some choir of my oldest music school a few months ago,
and I was annoyed to death by how off all the other singers were... :)
Interesting subject. I have relative pitch, I do not have perfect pitch.

If you played 'C' on a piano, to me it's just a random note. If you played say a Cmaj7 chord, or an Emadd9, I can tell you that the chord was a maj7 or a minor with an added 9th. I couldn't say with any degree of success that those chords were built on 'C' or 'D' or whatever. I hear the intervals but I can't say that it's an 'A' or an 'E' of whatever
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Re: Coherence in non-harmonic sounds

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Hey Hades, check this kid out. The mind boggles as to how you can have such pitch detection..... crazy man.

youtu.be/t3Cb1qwCUvI
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Re: Coherence in non-harmonic sounds

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Southpaw wrote:Hey Hades, check this kid out. The mind boggles as to how you can have such pitch detection..... crazy man.

youtu.be/t3Cb1qwCUvI

hah, yeah, wish I had it that strong.
I can track down chords in a few seconds, but tell them directly ? no way. simply no way.
But yeah, when you get a typical classical education around here,
you never get much theory about chords unfortunately.

I did however have an exact same situation with my oldest (now 9),
she asked me to give her a new exercise for her musical dictation (or whatever you call that in English),
so I played this simple piece, and just because she didn't have everything noted down correctly,
she said "hah, dad I wonder what you would have done in my case"
so yeah, I literally sat with my back to the piano while she started playing keys,
didn't miss a single one...
that shut her up for quite some time though
(poor thing, didn't even mean to bring it on to her like that) :)
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Re: Coherence in non-harmonic sounds

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First of all perfect pitch is that when you can tell a pitch without it being relative to something else. It's not humming a melody and then be able to quite fast put in the notes on a keyboard, and it's also not being good at musical dictation. These last examples are just cases of well-adjusted ears and a good sense of pitch detection.

Perfect Pitch is when somebody plays a note on a keyboard and you're not just able to say "that's a D" but also capable of saying "that D is tuned a bit too low". Perfect pitch is actually a problem because you tune instruments with different hz as the root - this has to do with the timbre of the instrument that "klings" (is that an English word?) better at different hz.

This also leads to why perfect pitch likely isn't something you're born with. There's not scientific explanation as to why the tonal system is the way it is - the closest you get is that the 1st, 3rd and 5th overtone make up a major triad. Instead harmony and counterpoint (the roots of western music) is something that slowly developed, because people thought different melodies sounded cool. Another argument as to why it's not a natural given is that especially south-eastern asian folk music is very harmonic, but sounds extremely off if you arent used to hearing it (and it's not supposed to sound off or dissonant - in a south-eastern asian tradition it's beautiful harmonies)... also it doesn't explain why I really like twelve-tone music and clusters (that would be weird if I liked something that was extremely unnatural) - and last but not least the 440 hz pitch standard was decided by the nazis - it used to be lower, something we can see when we look at the instruments build earlier.

And to the thing about accidentally picking it up - actually you do! I don't have close to perfect pitch, but in the periods when I played guitar the most, I could tune a guitar with playing the strings open one-by-one and when I checked with a tuner later on, I was right (this isn't something I can do today, but when you play the same stuff over and over, your head begins to remember the tones). So what you want to do, when your head gets locked onto one tone, which is the right one, is to buy a bunch of tuning forks that are a little differently tuned, and then just go and listen to them throughout a weekend (at least that's what I see other people do).

However, you arent completely wrong, when you say that this is something you're born with (which you are not). But last time I read about this (and that's 3-4 years ago) the conclusion was that perfect pitch is something you learn, but it's likely that only some people can achieve a perfect pitch (as in you'll have to have the right ears).

Also in the same field - actual tonedeafness has never been discovered. People are just not trained to detect pitch :)

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Re: Coherence in non-harmonic sounds

Post by Amøbe »

Southpaw wrote:Hey Hades, check this kid out. The mind boggles as to how you can have such pitch detection..... crazy man.

youtu.be/t3Cb1qwCUvI

Something that confuses me about that movie is that they start with single notes - the people I know, who has/had perfect pitch says single notes are the hardest ones and chords are actually easier :P

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Re: Coherence in non-harmonic sounds

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Amøbe wrote: Something that confuses me about that movie is that they start with single notes - the people I know, who has/had perfect pitch says single notes are the hardest ones and chords are actually easier :P
ow no, totally not the case for me.
as I said above : I can't do it with chords, simply because I never received enough training with chords to be able to say what I just heard.

Also, just thinking practically : why would it be easier to detect say 3 notes at the same time than detecting 1 note.
Doesn't make sense to me.
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Re: Coherence in non-harmonic sounds

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Amøbe wrote:First of all perfect pitch is that when you can tell a pitch without it being relative to something else. It's not humming a melody and then be able to quite fast put in the notes on a keyboard, and it's also not being good at musical dictation. These last examples are just cases of well-adjusted ears and a good sense of pitch detection.

Perfect Pitch is when somebody plays a note on a keyboard and you're not just able to say "that's a D" but also capable of saying "that D is tuned a bit too low". Perfect pitch is actually a problem because you tune instruments with different hz as the root - this has to do with the timbre of the instrument that "klings" (is that an English word?) better at different hz.
I know the definition of perfect pitch.
I know I don't have it perfectly, nor do I care how much of the percentage I would have.
I honestly just use the word because I have never found another word to describe it better.

I can't really use the word relative pitch either because that's different from what I have. :)

Honestly, I don't care what it is, in fact I never even knew what it was until someone suggested that to me.
Whatever it is, I can detect the notes on a piano pretty much always exact, and at times notes on other instruments as well. If this comes from practice or being born with it ? I don't know, I was repeating stuff I heard on the radio on the piano since I was 5. So you tell me. I honestly don't care where it comes from. I'm just happy with it, it's practical. :)
Amøbe wrote: This also leads to why perfect pitch likely isn't something you're born with. There's not scientific explanation as to why the tonal system is the way it is - the closest you get is that the 1st, 3rd and 5th overtone make up a major triad. Instead harmony and counterpoint (the roots of western music) is something that slowly developed, because people thought different melodies sounded cool. Another argument as to why it's not a natural given is that especially south-eastern asian folk music is very harmonic, but sounds extremely off if you arent used to hearing it (and it's not supposed to sound off or dissonant - in a south-eastern asian tradition it's beautiful harmonies)... also it doesn't explain why I really like twelve-tone music and clusters (that would be weird if I liked something that was extremely unnatural) - and last but not least the 440 hz pitch standard was decided by the nazis - it used to be lower, something we can see when we look at the instruments build earlier.
it's a good argument to say that you can't be born with it if you consider people are born into different cultures with different types of tonal systems. I never even thought of that ! :)
I just went with the wiki explanation of perfect pitch.
there are no reported cases of an adult obtaining absolute pitch ability through musical training; adults who possess relative pitch but do not already have absolute pitch can learn "pseudo-absolute pitch" and become able to identify notes in a way that superficially resembles absolute pitch.[8] Moreover, training pseudo-absolute pitch requires considerable motivation, time, and effort, and learning is not retained without constant practice and reinforcement
However, you must consider the fact that you only learn to name the pitch of a note after you are born and raised in a certain culture, with a certain musical background. You can't ask a 2 year old to name the pitch of a note.
This is an interesting point though, really interesting. Thank you for that !

I do like to point out that, whatever it is that I have, I never have "constant practice and reinforcement", as they say on wiki.
Amøbe wrote: And to the thing about accidentally picking it up - actually you do! I don't have close to perfect pitch, but in the periods when I played guitar the most, I could tune a guitar with playing the strings open one-by-one and when I checked with a tuner later on, I was right (this isn't something I can do today, but when you play the same stuff over and over, your head begins to remember the tones). So what you want to do, when your head gets locked onto one tone, which is the right one, is to buy a bunch of tuning forks that are a little differently tuned, and then just go and listen to them throughout a weekend (at least that's what I see other people do).

However, you arent completely wrong, when you say that this is something you're born with (which you are not). But last time I read about this (and that's 3-4 years ago) the conclusion was that perfect pitch is something you learn, but it's likely that only some people can achieve a perfect pitch (as in you'll have to have the right ears).

Also in the same field - actual tonedeafness has never been discovered. People are just not trained to detect pitch :)
I don't know, I honestly don't. I am convinced you can get better at it, which is also what I said above, but I still feel a big difference between for example my oldest daughter, who is just trying to get better through musical dictation and exercise, and me or my mother, who never exercise and are just spot on when it comes to notes being played on the piano.
It's above my head, really.
And I just use the word "perfect pitch" for lack of a better description.
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Re: Coherence in non-harmonic sounds

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Does it matter?
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Re: Coherence in non-harmonic sounds

Post by kertikristof »

At least for the sake of arguing, I heard here some interesting​ information.

But well, don't think so it matters to make great music.
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