PSA: Does anyone know anything about musical theory, construction & deconstruction, or know anyone who does?

@DavidK Yeh, I live in Germany :P

I love it when high rep users go, away with you low rep scrub your opinion is irrelevant.

Raoul haven't seen that yet

but I lurk only from time to time on Work SE

I downvoted something and the high rep user replyed in a way in which I made this Assumtion

Did he/she ask for reason for downvote?

But yeah, I know how easy it is to get into the whole assumption game

almost lunch

No, I always put an comment why I downvote.

Then there should be no reason why they would do so, assumptions are just that, majority of time they have no ground on Answers

Meh, he wrote an bad answer. I think people can vote to delete with the amount of downvotes it has.

@Kaz I started out in college intending to be a music teacher. What do you need to know?

@RaoulMensink a high rep in here only means that you throw a good deal of time in, and come up with the occasional good answer

@RichardU How would I go about trying to find "prior art" for some piece of music? And how would I know it when I've found it? There's more to a melody than just chord progression, obviously, but what else can I search for/can be quantified?

@Kaz there's recurring themes, such as Beethovan being fond of using three short notes followed by one long, most prominent in his 5th symphony, but used in his nineth as well, for example.

@Kaz You might check out music.stackexchange.com

@DavidK what am I, chopped liver?

@RichardU Thanks Richard. I don't suppose you have any advice on how to search all-music-ever-written?

@Kaz Music.SE has some folks with extensive experience in theory

but that specific prior art question is a bit marginal

@RoryAlsop Aye. Sometimes I wish people *didn't* have such high regard for my creative problem-solving abilities.

I mean, it's an interesting, fascinating problem, which I love.

It's also fiendishly hard.

@Kaz it is a question which has been in the news a fair bit recently - but it seems to come down to opinion, at least in court

@Kaz see theguardian.com/music/2016/jun/23/…

and theguardian.com/music/2015/mar/10/…

I don't get the question about "spammers" on monster.com, I used it myself and didn't have any problems maybe it's because this things don't exist that much where I am ?

@RichardU wouldnt have though you for the type.

@RichardU Also I spend a fair deal of time here. I just don't feel the need to put up 1100 answers. O.o

Turns out there's not a great, public, melody-search-engine

It would make my life so much easier

Ofcourse there is :P Just go to an old old dude owning an Music store relevant to the melody and Play the melody

@Kaz I know Verizon had one, but I haven't seen it in years

@RaoulMensink what type am I that you didn't think I was?

someone who wanted to teach music

Walfrat, which question? Search brings 2015 question for me

@RaoulMensink If he were alive today, Mozart would be a computer programmer.

@RaoulMensink that would potentially be limited to certain type of music if owner is older. Might be wrong but I wouldn't expect Tatu and Bieber knowledge, more like 70s and all that jazz.

@Walfrat Spammers are why I don't use Monster

@RaoulMensink I've also written music. It's a good deal like programming.

@RichardU and if you do chiptunes with Little Sound DJ, it's exactly that :D

@RichardU It's all maths. At least so far as the actual music is concerned. With a sprinkling of creative design thrown in.

@Kaz yep, writing music is programming in an Octal numeric system

@Kaz I went to a very difficult school for programming that typically failed 60-80% of the students. In my class, every last "survivor" was a musician of some sort

@RichardU wasnt Mozart's Music Primary an encoded message?

@RaoulMensink Isn't all music?

@RaoulMensink very much so. Another interesting aside. Mozart's music so closely followed the rules of "the tone" that computers can match his style easily. Mozart was considered the apex of "the tone" when it came to writing music.

I remember something about him being involved in sending messages to scotland useing his Music. However I never could confirm that.

@Kaz now you know why, at the last agency, I had numerous people check me out to see what I looked like, LOL

@RaoulMensink there are so many rumors about him that it's impossible to distinguish truth from the myth in so many cases.

He was rude and obnoxious, that much was evident by his letters to his father.

He and his wife also spent money even faster than a court musician could earn it

Mozart would openly insult the work of his colleagues, and would frequently curse in his letters to his father.

@RichardU Thats always the sad thing about history it is mostly build out of rumors.

@RaoulMensink One of my obsessions is history. After learning what I've learned with my own research, I am absolutely mystified at how the textbooks can possibly be so boring.

@RichardU Common Core Maths is even worse

@Kaz I've seen it. My daughter absolutely cannot learn that way. She's testing two grades ahead in Math though. Just like her dad

Common core math is a disgrace

@RichardU It's not even maths. That's my problem with it. Maths (as opposed to arithmetic) is simply inventing patterns out of pure ideas.

And then making bigger patterns out of the littler ones.

And yes, eventually, you need to start formalising some grammar and notation tools to construct bigger arguments.

But it's like teaching children about art by giving them a whole term (and endless tests) on how to sharpen pencils.

Sure, important skill, but if you start like that, and never get around to actually letting the kids make some bloody art, they're going to hate it.

@Kaz Exactly. I fail to see how dumbing down math can possibly benefit anyone. I've always wondered why America calls it math and other English speaking countries call it maths

@Kaz I always got dinged on my math classes for not showing my work. I'm an autistic savant. there is no work for me in math.

@RichardU You and me both.

To me, being asked to show my work in math made as much sense as asking someone to show their work when they identified a color as brown

One of the reasons I loved the olympiad. They gave you serious questions, and automatic full marks for a correct answer.

And 90% of the marks for a thorough proof even if you messed up a calculation somewhere.