Harmony Explained: Progress Towards a Scientific Theory of Music
I don&#x27;t like the tone of this book, it gets too hung up on the literal word &quot;theory&quot; in music theory, and also badly explains a lot of concepts in music theory while insulting them.<p>For example, the circle of fifths doesn&#x27;t explain at all why the circle is cool or useful for chord transitions. It&#x27;s not a coincidence at all. By rotating around the circle, your key changes by only one note at a time.<p>It&#x27;s also just waaaay to objective about subjective things. Other cultures use of limited or different musical scales or temperaments is because they are missing out on real harmony? A major triad sounds best because a factor of 3 and 5 are the &quot;most interesting&quot; intervals?<p>Section 4.3 is where I&#x27;m just quitting.<p>&gt; &quot;Play C and F# on a piano; it sounds awful&quot; [...] &quot; because someone has even written a piece of music based entirely in the most un-harmonic of intervals, the Augmented Fourth, and gotten away with it.&quot; [...] &quot;There are people who can abuse themselves to the point of re-calibrating their expectations to all kinds of strange inputs, including thinking that getting beaten with whips is fun or that McDonald&#x27;s tastes good. That doesn&#x27;t mean that those inputs are natural or good or beautiful or true. &quot;<p>So I don&#x27;t really like dissonant music, I&#x27;ve only tricked myself into thinking it&#x27;s good? The Ben Franklin quote after it just sounds like someone comparing pop music to anything else. Just because it&#x27;s Ben Franklin doesn&#x27;t make it definitive.<p>It starts by insulting the assumptions that the diatonic scale and triads are a given in conventional music theory. But then goes on to make even greater assumptions as to why some harmonies sound &quot;better&quot; than others. Please prove it, or it&#x27;s just as meaningless as the work you&#x27;re insulting.