Engineers learn music theory (I) try to understand music

Preface

I came into contact with music theory very early , But I haven't learned it yet , The more you learn, the more questions . Personal feeling , The main reason for this is that the relevant teaching materials are too difficult to understand , Describe the unknown with the unknown , confused . I bought a guitar a few years ago , Bought a course , I studied on and off for several months , Because I didn't understand the chords , Then I gave up .

Recently, I have been doing audio and video development , The main research objects are audio and video , So I renewed my interest in music . After picking it up again , Find something you didn't know before , I'm getting it . Remember that this phenomenon seems to be an available learning method , It doesn't matter what it's called .

Recently found a very good tutorial ：《 Music theory for science and engineering students 》, It is different from the formal music theory teaching materials , Its content tends to use mathematical language to explain and describe music theory , It is very suitable for partners in science and engineering , Strongly recommend .

After reading , I also have a lot of ideas and opinions , Write it down here by blog , Share it out . So before reading this article , Please read it first 《 Music theory for science and engineering students 》.

Understand music through video

A person who has never listened to music , Or people without music culture , Must also have their own visual aesthetic . Because when we were born into the world , I have been observing the world . Video images are relatively , More intuitive than sound . The word intuition itself , Also contains “ view ”, Also is to see , This just illustrates this point . Our minds are more familiar with images , The processing ability of the picture is stronger . Based on this , Let's go on , Will try to use the things we are most familiar with —— The angle of the video image , Analogical analysis of sound —— We “ Familiar and strange ” Things of .

frequency

Let's start with the smallest unit of sound , The scale begins to speak .

I taught physics in middle school , Sound is produced by the vibration of objects , Different vibration frequencies produce sounds of different pitches ; For the light reflected from the image , Different colors of light , Different frequency .

In music Scale , It is divided according to the frequency of sound , The bass frequency is low , The treble has a high frequency ;
Color in image , It is divided according to the wave frequency of light , The frequency of red light is low , Purple light has a high frequency . As shown in the figure below ：

thus , We can easily find the common ground between sound and image ： frequency .

Some friends may say , The amplitude of sound and the brightness of light have something in common , It is the range of fluctuation . Yes indeed . But the size of the sound , The brightness of light , On the one hand, it is difficult for people to perceive the small changes , On the other hand , The amplitude is in the process of propagation , More affected by the environment , It is easy to cause the information carried by sound or light to be affected or ambiguous , The frequency is less affected by the environment . It may be precisely because the frequency can carry information stably , So the human brain evolved to be very sensitive to frequency , Its processing capacity is also stronger .

Music and video

Music and video （ Especially an image ）, The two are very similar . Suppose we are playing a movie now , By comparison, we find that ：

From a static point of view ：

1. At some point , The audience can see a picture , You can hear all the sounds in the movie at this time . At this time, we can give it a name , It's called sound picture .
   In the picture , The picture is made of m*n Composed of color dots , There are people in the content , There's movement , The context in which something happened .
   In the sound picture , Sound is made up of scales , There is a voice in the content , With melody （ Singing or pure music ）, There is a music background composed of multiple sounds playing simultaneously with the melody .

2. At some point , Different things in different positions in the video together form a picture . Similarly , Play sound through multiple channels , It can also convey the position information of the sound for the audience , Let the audience feel immersive .

Analogy results ：

1. The human voice in music is equivalent to the character in the picture , The beautiful song is the same as the beautiful and handsome protagonist , Let people enjoy beauty .

2. The action and behavior of the protagonist , It is equivalent to the pitch of the music melody and the direction of the melody .
   There are two forms of melody , It can be a paragraph Single note The sequence of components , You can also sing the melody with human songs . The information contained in the melody is simple and direct , It's just one sound after another , That is, the scale sequence , At the same time , There is no superposition of multiple tones , Its purpose is to make music the most intuitive , The most memorable way to present to the audience , It is the theme of music , Mainline cable . Can we remember the accompaniment when we listen to the song , Of course not , The simplest and most direct are the easiest to remember （ Brainwashing ） Of . The melody is like the main line of a movie story , We can still remember the main story a long time later , But the details are probably lost .

3. Generally speaking , The main melody needs accompaniment , It's like in an action movie , There should be a spectacular explosion scene behind the handsome and unrestrained figure of the hero , The accompaniment is the same as the background , Can play a very important role in setting off the atmosphere . That's what chords mean , It's also the key to understanding chords .

4. The sound is the same as the picture , There's location information . But ears are better than eyes , It has no eye's ability to distinguish position , therefore , The sound contains location information , It's not that important , Not exactly , Generally speaking , Two channels can meet the basic needs . Yes, of course , The more location information （ Multichannel ）, The more immersive you feel , Like Dolby sound .

5. There are many color dots in the image , Huge amount of information , by comparison , The number of sound or musical scales is very small , It expresses less information . It is precisely because the amount of information about music is less than that of images , So the feelings it expresses are more general , It can express a certain kind of feelings 、 Set off a certain kind of atmosphere , So , Music is more versatile . for example , Short video App There are thousands of videos that use the same song as the soundtrack , This reflects the universal characteristics of music .

From a dynamic point of view ：

1. Images and music are advancing with time , It constantly conveys information to the audience .

2. Because of the lens in the video , people , Everything is moving , So the video that the audience sees , The color of each part changes over time ;
   Corresponding , The sound that the audience hears is also changing , Music melody is also advancing with time .

Sound and video , The expression logic of the two can be said to be completely consistent , We can understand sound by understanding video . This sound is invisible , Unable to touch , But there is an audible presence , In our analogy , Gradually showing the true face .

Understand and create

Now it is 2022 Years. , Short videos have been popular for a long time , It's hard to stop short videos .

We all know what video is good , What does each video mean , It's like we know what songs sound good , What songs express what feelings , It's simple , Every ordinary person has this ability . But let you take a good video , It won't be that simple . It's like writing a song , listen , I can , Let me write , That's all right , To borrow a word from fanzhiyi ,“ You don't have that ability, you know ”, And women's football .

So music creation and video creation are similar , You need to learn some expression skills , For video , It's the lens , scene , Transition . For music , It's the mode , Arranger , Transfer and other skills .

In terms of content , Children like watching cartoons , I like small and lovely images . So is music , Children like simple and cheerful nursery rhymes , I like lovely tunes .

Conclusion

in general , Use video to understand music , It's perfect , Very successful . In every way , Music and video are very similar , And the two are almost always together . When you can't feel the emotional color in the music as mentioned in the textbook , Don't doubt that you are a soulless carrot , Think of pictures corresponding to music in your mind , Sound makes a picture , Communicate with pictures , So as to understand music , Feel the music .

This article mainly explains the basic logic of understanding music theory . Only when I understand , The following skills can be learned without confusion , This is also a good way to learn , Learning must pay attention to methods .

It was already 1:30 a.m. when I finished writing . We will continue to update when we are free , If there are too many comments , I will write an article as soon as possible .

This article by the public number Qt Original release by future engineers .