How Music Works

 How Music Works

By John Powell

 

This book is inspiring for the full spectrum of music lovers.  From those that create music to those who enjoy music.  In my house music on Pandora is always playing thanks to the many Alexas placed strategically.  The book begins with the science of music, specifically how sound works.  Touching on subjects such as frequency and decibels, which transitions nicely to notes, pitch, perfect pitch.  The author spends time on the difference between noise and notes.  This difference is foundational as he moves in to the instruments that make the notes, describing the features of different instruments.  This part is later appreciated later in the book as he discusses the thought and effort in composing music.

In composing music, the reader becomes aware of the building blocks of creating the desired outcomes in terms of mood, the prime objective of music.  These blocks include

1.       Harmony

2.       Scales

3.       Chords – Major and Minor

4.       Rhythm

5.       Choice of instruments

Its interesting to learn in this book how relatively new, in terms the history of civilization the composition of western music is.  It is suggested that this evolution began in the fifteen century.  Beginning with what we now term as orchestral classical music and moving forward through jazz, and pop/rock.  I take a humorous note that Rap is not mentioned in this book of music.  Using the word humorous to lessen the blow, following the authors style to add his sense of humor.  A mood to keep the reader engaged from the front to back of the book.  Net-net this book will definitely give the reader, no matter how enmeshed he is in music, to have an even greater appreciation for music.

One of the key reliefs in this book is while it goes in to great detail of the structure, construction, composing, and listening of music: the author expresses that music is about feeling, and if a rule is broken because it feels good…it ok.

 

Notes:

·       Page 14: we are not designed to hear our own voices too loudly, in case they drown out any other noises …like lions, avalanches Sticking a finger in your ear improves the feedback between your mouth and your brain helps you monitor your own pitch

·       Page 23: Music notes are different from non-music noises because every music note is made up of ripple pattern which repeats itself.  …  Our eardrums flex in and out as the pressure ripples push against them. However, our eardrums can’t respond too quickly or too slowly – we can only hear patters which repeat themselves more than twenty times a second but leass often than 20,000 times per second.

·       Page 34: The general rul is that any note is made up of fundamental frequency together with its “twice frequency”, its “three times frequency”, its “four times frequency”.  and so on.  All these frequencies are called harmonics of the note.

·       Page 39: The basic sound of each instrument is called timbre.

·       Page 43: Differences between instruments when a not is just starting …  these start up notes are known as transients.

·       Page 44: There are many more frequencies involved in most real notes, so these ripple patters have different timbres is because the produce notes which contain different mixes of these harmonics

·       Page 45: The technical name for the collection of favored frequencies of an instrument is called format.

·       Page 57: it is now generally accepted that it takes 10,000 to achieve expert level in almost any activity.

·       Page 65:  The pipe organ gives us lots of choice in timbre, but the great thing is that groups of these different sets of tubes can be played at the same time to give you hundreds of possible combinations …  For the big finale you might want all the tubes on the organ to join in – which will require you to pull all the stops, which is where the phrase comes from.

·       Page 71: When composers are writing something for an orchestra to play, they have to bear in mind the thee timbres of each instruments at their disposal and then distribute the musical jobs accordingly.

·       Page 76: It is interesting to realize that quiet piano notes have a different timbre to loud ones because you hit a sting harder you get a different mix of harminics … which gives the notes a more complex harsher sound.  This means that pianists have some timbre control linked to their control of loudness.

·       Page 77: The piano was invented in 1709 … and was continuously developed over the next hundred years or so.

·       Page 78:  Another problem is the fact that if you set your synthesizer to produce a certain ripple pattern, the timbre will remain the same over the whole range of notes from high to low – and as we saw earlier real instruments don’t do that.

·       Page 79:  Even if the loudest – strongest component was 33Hz, the overall pattern would only be completing its dance 100 times – so the fundamental frequency is 110Hz.  … This is because only the 110Hz can be the head of the family which may include 220Hz, 330Hz etc … If you hear the following collection of frequencies: 220Hz, 330Hz, 440Hz etc, you will hear it as a tone with a fundamental frequency of 110Hz.

·       Page 85:  If we have two instruments, we only get double the effect if the Up-down-up-down pressure ripple are perfectly in step with each other – so they can act together to give an Up-Down-Up-Down pressure ripple.  But this synchronization never happens.

·       Page 96: the human hearing system is more sensitive at some frequencies than others.  This means that a 32dB high note from a flute will sound to a human than a 32db from a bass guitar.

·       Page 102: The child is now using scales, that is limited numbers of recognizable jumps in pitch.  These jumps are called intervals.  … 

·       Page 102: The careful choice of notes which sound good together gives us chords, and chords are the basis of harmony.

·       Page 103: As we shall see, harmonies are not always harmonious and it is the composer’s job to build up tension and occasionally and then relax it.

·       Page 103: Film composers often use only three of four tunes for an entire film, and they need to change the feel of the melody to match the moods of different scenes.

·       Page 103: Composers often deliberately choose a sequence of anxious- sounding chords to build up tension before easing it with some harmonious combinations – composing is rather like telling a story or a joke, in that the composer needs to set up a situation and then resolve it in some way.

·       Page 105: the higher note has a frequency which is exactly twice that of the lower note – and the interval between such notes is called an octave.

·       Page 106: So if we hear the 110Hz note first and then both of them together, the brain is not provided with any new frequencies – it just gets a double dose of some of frequencies it heard in the original note.

·       Page 110: notes that are too close together produce harsh combinations.  Consecutive notes on a scale are either a semitone or a tone apart in pitch… notes that are a semitone apart compete for our attention rather than support each other.

·       Page 111: Chords and harmonies form the backgrounds to the melody and also support the punctuation of the phrasing of the music.

·       Page 112: A chord played as a stream of its individual notes as calle appreggio and this is the basis of popular folk guitar.

·       Page 113: this method of playing the same tune after a certain delay is called a cannon.

·       Page 114: Composers have to use a lot of skill to write counterpoint- and a piece which relies on the interplay of counterpoint as its main content is called a fugue.  …One distinctive feature of most fugues is the involve tunes that have an easily recognized beginning.

·       Page 118:  the link between the terms of “scale” and “key”…Lets take the C major as an example.  The scale of C major involves a specific group of seven notes but they are only called aa scale if you play them one after another.

·       Page 119: Sales are based on a series of intervals, which are divisions of a naturally occurring interval called an octive.

·       Page 119:  Musicians don’t generally use more than about seven different notes at a time – even if the octave has been divided up into more steps than this.

·       Page 120: the limit of our short term memory is about seven items

·       Page 123: To get a decent sounding scale we want to have a team of notes which have five frequencies which are related together. … The top string needs to have a fundamental frequency which is twice that of the lowest string. – and everything is based on this naturally occurring interval. …for the optimum teamwork, the strings should also have frequencies which are related to the frequency of the lowest string.

·       Page 135: They didn’t have a theory for their tuning method, because you don’t need theory to make good music.  (this must be sarcasm or else throw this book away)

·       Page 142: Music composed in major keys sounds more self-confident and generally happier than music composed in minor keys.

·       Page 143: The group of seven that make up a major scale (or key) are the most closely related group from the original choice of twelve.  This makes them sound good and strong together.

·       Page 143: Minor keys involve substituting a couple of the major scale notes for less supportive of the original group of twelve.

·       Page 145: Moving from one key to another during the course of a piece is called modulation.

·       Page 149: When the “almost there” notes appear in the melody or the harmony it makes a fairly clear demand to get “there” so the listener has a feeling that the next note should be the key note.  In fact, this effect is so strong that the technical term for the “almost there’ note is the leading note.

·       Page 150: The technical term for any phrase ending in music is a cadence.

·       Page 152: We use all three types of minor scale within a singe piece of music.  We use the original one if the theme is descending, one of the others if the music is ascending: and the third one to make up the accompanying chords.

·       Page 152: Like the major scale, the natural minor scale is one ancient modes called Aeoloan.

·       Page 153: The natural minor scale was found to be just right for the parts of melodies which were descending in pitch, so it is called the descending melodic minor scale.

·       Page 157: When we eventually get to the end of a phrase the music is likely to relax into a simple major or minor chord.

·       Page 163: in major keys, note 5 occurs most frequently and will be played about four time as of the as note 7, the least common member of the group. There are other relationships which hold true in most tunes.   

Page 179: 1. Major keys are a team of seven notes which are strongly related to their team leader.  The punctuation of phrases in major key music is generally clear and decisive

2.       Minor keys have a couple of different notes depending on weather or not the tune is going up or down in pitch.  The team of notes is not as strongly related as a major ket team and the musical experience not as decisive and clear cut – particularly at the end of phrases.  We have to associate sadness with this more complex interrelationship of notes

3.       Music changes from major key to major key to keep our levels of interest up, and the same is true from minor key to minor key.  Certain changes increase the brightness of the music for a short while, and others can diminish the brightness.  The effect does not last long because it is caused by the change itself.

 

·       Page 181: The tempo of a piece of music it the pulse rate – how often you tap your foot to it.  The meter is hoe often you would emphasize one of the foot taps. Rhythm is the pattern of long and short notes being use at a particular time.

·       Page 195: Some rock group songs keep the “one two three four” emphasis for the tune but deliberately emphasize beats two and four with the bass guitar and drums, a technique known as “back beat”

·       Page 214: The two most common types of classical music which involve an orchestra are the symphony ( hundred Instruments) and concerto ( few instruments)

·       Page 214: The only difference between a symphony and a concerto is that a concerto also involves a soloist who sits or stands at the front of the stage. 

·       Page 218: Most symphonies have four or five movements.

·       Page 219: Sonatas are almost always pieces for one or two instruments and are generally in three to four movements.