Ain't it kinda cool?

We obviously all like music. But regardless of the style, it's all just scales, chords and arpeggios! ...

So whether it's rock and roll, country, bluegrass, blues or classical, it's all just ....

Ain't it kind of cool?

Well maybe if you want to put it like that then it may seem at first sight it is, but if you want to get into the science of sound such as upper partials frequencies, comb filtering, then its far from being simple.

And eastern Music where the tonal and scale system is totally different to the conventional, well that's another story.

Musiclover

Bob-that is pretty amazing when you think about it! Thanks for the perspective!

Some times (when I am in one of my Star Trek moments, loved that show) I wonder if we ever got in contact with an alien civilization, and their taste in music was such that the more out of tune and dissonant you sound, the greater you sound to their ears.

Sure would put a lot of the music greats out of business, where as the totally tone-deaf would be mega stars overnight.



Musiclover

Fingers crossed for myself and the rest of the tone-deaf crew

This was the theme of a cute short story years ago about a bad tuba player. The story was about a super alien race who needed our planet for whatever reason and considered all of our works and technology "ants playing with twigs" until one of them happened to hear this tuba player and thought it was the greatest expression of high art he had ever heard in the galaxy and decided we were worth saving. The tuba player became a superstar who was taken on their starships to gave concerts everywhere in front of all kinds of different races. What was funny was he had no clue what it was about his playing they liked other than he knew he was a bad tuba player so he deliberately played his limited selection of tuba parts as horribly as he could.

Bob

At its basic level, its fascinating! There are experiments proving resonances and frequencies can have physical shape. Check it out here:

That was very interesting.

I like all kinds of music, from 3 chord blues to Prokofiev symphonies. I have music from all over the world in my collection and even find the types not based on our "western" scale interesting.

Not that I like every song I hear. I like millions of creations, and others were written for the ears of another person to enjoy.

But the bad tuba player reminded me of this.

Many years ago I flew to London, rented a car and put 3,000 miles on it touring England, Wales and Scotland. I had many musical experiences there, some fantastic in the Jazz, Folk, Rock, and Classical genres. But the one the tuba player brings to mind is this.

We were in the city of Bath. We got in around sundown, found a room (we had no advance bookings), had dinner, and went wandering down the streets.

We heard music. It was a piece I've played in concert band and one I have a few recordings of in LP and CD format, Pictures At An Exhibition by Modest Mussorgsky.

We stopped by the door. It was obviously a rehearsal. The orchestra was out of tune, they played movements more than once, obviously struggling to get things right. It was endearing. Our hearts went out to them as we silently eavesdropped on their rehearsal on the street outside. We were not able to understand the conversation but we could hear the improvement between repeated sections. The work and the passion was evident.

I've heard some world class orchestras play this piece and have been moved by it. I've played in in concert band myself and felt the thrill of participating in a great piece of music. But the amateurs in Bath struggling to make something out of the dots on the page, as I did many times myself, was particularly endearing and stands out in my mind. It was a delightful experience for me.

Insights and incites by Notes

This is a wonderful and charming story, thank you so much for sharing