Music theory for nerds (2016)
I really don't understand all the hate in the comments for this article. This seems like a really fine introduction to a lot of the concepts. I had to scour the web a long time before understanding that the scales were constructed because of the simple/reduced ratio of root note to the others, which is clearly spelled out in this article.<p>Music theory is, in my experience, typically taught as a list of facts to remember. Deriving it from first principles, insofar as it can be, is not common. This article is attempting to start that process.<p>Some commentators are saying that the article doesn't address why we have 12 notes but I wonder if they even know why (one answer is because it's a good compromise between number of notes and that have simple/reduce ratios to each other [0]). I'm also skeptical of music theorists that can't even attempt an answer to basic questions about note length frequency, why some chords are "sad" or "happy" and other basic questions. It's difficult because music theory is a hodge podge of theory that's attempting to describe what's effectively an evolved language (with different music evolution for different regions), but there are some basic tenets that probably apply.<p>I don't claim to have deep knowledge but there are a few key facts about music and music theory that are really obscure unless you know where to look. Any attempt at coming to music theory from a more rigorous foundation should be encouraged.<p>[0]  "Measures of Consonances in a Goodness-of-fit Model for Equal-tempered Scales" by Aline Honigh (<a href="https://github.com/abetusk/papers/blob/release/Music/measures-consonances_honingh.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/abetusk/papers/blob/release/Music/measure...</a>)<p>EDIT: corrected spelling (thanks for the comments pointing it out)