unc0n · HackerTrans

3 года назадdiscuss

This is a good point, but extends beyond individuals to companies as well, and seems to justify a pretty clear decoupling between China and the rest of the world until China is willing to play by the rules. Should we also then extend the guidelines that constrain foreign students from studying certain subjects in university (historically by not letting certain US government funds for research grants etc pay for those foreign students). It is obvious that China exploits the US educational and research system in a way that doesn't benefit us in the same way, apart from hoping that some students would stay and become productive members of society here who have no interest in funneling IP back to China.

unc0n

3 года назадdiscuss

Why should we care where money comes from so long as it is legal and so long as there is not a national security concern? Should there be any preference for a private french citizen's money as compared to a private chinese citizen's? Isn't that one of the things that makes this country better than places like China which place all sorts of arbitrary restrictions on who can buy certain things there? I agree that the opaqueness of LLCs can be a problem but the fact we have such hysteria about a random student just because he's chinese smacks of racism. Those who are truly concerned about the malign influence that comes along with chinese money would do well to vote with their wallets and not support businesses that end up sending work to china in exchange for money (That and holding accountable the politicians who allowed china to exploit the system of world trade while not playing by the rules). That is your prerogative but the general fungibility of money in a ostensibly free-market system is a virtue that should be preserved.

unc0n

3 года назадdiscuss

I'm actually quite good at transposing by any arbitrary interval (by ear), and can also play music both from sight reading and from ear. The problem is I have both an instinctive link between sounds and fingerings (or keys on a piano when I play that) and between the notes in the score and the keys they map to on the instrument. Alas I didn't encounter c clefs until rather late in my musical training (they weren't relevant for any of the instruments I played) and by that time I didn't have a compelling reason to practice reading scores. I'm adulthood I more or less only play solo piano so transposition is a moot point.

unc0n

3 года назадdiscuss

I'm an experienced musician and this really resonates with me. It's possible to see a scale written out in the score and know exactly what that means in terms of how it's supposed to sound, what fingering I should use, and whether there are any "aberrant" notes in there that I should watch out for. The same goes for many other common note patterns. Trying to decode something like this into something that makes sense to me musically is a huge additional burden that doesn't exist. That said, having been through the journey of being able to sight read music myself and then trying to teach it to a number of people, I agree that reading a score in real time is one of the greatest hurdles to beginner and intermediate players alike, and probably a huge impediment to many people learning to play a variety of instruments.

There is one particular instance in which getting away from traditional notation can help. I have absolute pitch, and I've played transposing (woodwind) instruments before. The mental link between specific finger positions and specific tones / notes on the score, is one that causes me untold issues with transposing instruments. If I could just focus on the finger positions without the distraction of the score, that would help me. I don't think this is a common problem though.

unc0n

3 года назадdiscuss

This sort of childhood trauma occurs in many societies, among people with varying backgrounds. But I think it is more prevalent in societies with more sacred cows, where eg fathers, and elders, are told they are in an elevated position by dint of who they are, and thus they must be obeyed, and must seek not to lose face. When you foster these pockets of power, one should not be surprised that power often corrupts. Until Chinese (by here I mean the ethnicity, and not the nationality) society (and other societies with similar power structures) can look at itself critically and understand the full implications of such cultural imperatives, tackling the epidemic of abuse will be an uphill battle.

unc0n

3 года назадdiscuss

When I played in a youth orchestra our music director told us that certain European orchestras use A=443Hz (he said ones in Vienna specifically but there might be others). Perhaps you have a history of listening to many recordings with such tuning.

unc0n

3 года назадdiscuss

What are you hoping to get from knowing music theory? It seems like many of the commenters are assuming a specific goal from this (etc being able to more easily understand/memorize what you are supposed to play or being easily able to transpose music). Perhaps that is not your goal. And I would offer that music theory might not be the magic bullet for being able to read music much faster (eg better sight reading).

I taught instrument playing to a number of people, and I would say that associating the written note to a logical note and then associating a logical note to finger movements to play can be done with little to no formal music theory. These two things are orthogonal, and at least for younger learners, I find that the former (going from written notes on a score to which tone it is) is the most difficult part. That is, if I were to simply call out the notes in turn, the student could play at a much faster rate than if they had to read it themselves and decide what note it was. I found that mobile apps and websites that present notes to you and ask you what they are, helps tremendously for making this process faster. That is, speeding up the whole process is nothing more than repetitive practice. Once single notes are easily and quickly decoded in the mind, multiple simultaneously notes actually come faster because you decide one note at first and then can figure out the others by looking at the relative distance. Music theory can help here by providing some heuristic shortcuts but honestly, I don't find it is necessary or that helpful.

Don't worry, the whole process takes time. I would say that if you were already a competent pianist, but one who struggles with reading scores for sight reading, it would probably take months to years to see satisfactory progress, focusing on sight reading alone. That was consistent with my personal experience as well. I would stay away from trying to transpose music, unless you have absolute pitch, in which case transposing music would be easier than reading it in the first place.

comments