A theory of everything musical (ToEM) or ultimate theory.

Bo Legg · Posted 14 Jul 2015 3:50 pm

So what would happen if you approached music as a non musician (a person for whatever reason could not or did not want to play) and a non vocalist (a person for whatever reason could not sing did not want to sing).
You pretty much then are limited to listening and observing.
Pretty much the way we learned about the universe.

Einstein â€œIf I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music.â€

My question is would you as a steel guitar player laugh at him or criticize or verbally attack him if he wrote something down and gave it to you as a suggestion of something you might want to try on your Steel Guitar?

Barry Blackwood · Posted 14 Jul 2015 3:56 pm

Charlie McDonald · From: out of the blue

I would think he'd have observed and analyzed it pretty quickly and would be silly not to apply it immediately, obviously,
particularly since he played violin.
He would probably be able to sit down and play it shortly, seriously.

Your thesis is good, the way a musician or a scientist would approach things:

Frank Freniere · From: The First Coast

Charlie McDonald · From: out of the blue

Frank 'n Barry: tomorrow, I'm going to get the t-shirt.

Bo! PM sent.

Bo Legg · Posted 14 Jul 2015 7:59 pm

Might have known if you mention Einstein you get the jokes that go with it, but Einstein and the formula for casual sex I didn't expect.
Mean while back at the topic.
The ToEM for music in our western culture is the Chromatic Scale.
You can make a map and go where no man dare to go or you can just sit down at the steel and go where God only knows.

Charlie McDonald · From: out of the blue

I didn't find the casual sex reference, but i'm seriously going to go out today and make that on a t-shirt.

I would think you might have to quantify the equation to get a firmer response. I was reading a criticism of using scales
for noodling the other day. I find relativity in chords, similar to the circle of fifths, or Mingus' way of moving around,
rather than a linear progression. But then, I may be Chinese. I try to imagine Einstein's way, but alas...
I am only a fool, as Lao Tzu sez, doomed to follow God only knows where and usually enjoying it.
Enlighten me, Bo.

Joachim Kettner · From: Germany

Most people you meet, obviously don't live for music. They turn on their radio until I have to ask them to turn it down if I don't like what's being played. When they ask why, I tell them I know to play music myself giving a hint that I can better tell than them what's good or bad. Hell I can even say what is quality, even if I do't like it (example: EW&F). I don't want that they think I'm arrogant, but I really feel bad being exposed to music I don't like.
But than there a record collectors who barely play an instrument or none at all who have great tastes. I've known so many over the years. Somewtimes I was amazed of their diversity. I knew a guy who was a Grateful Dead collector very early on, and we always wondered why, because he was very straight, no long hair or anything. Laughing

My mother who couldn't sing in tune had great taste also and I often thought her hearing had a supernatural quality. I once put on a Jerry Lee Lewis record, and she said (very quiet) "He must be mean".
I like suggestions by non musicians, to answer your question, that are interested in music.
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Charlie McDonald · From: out of the blue

Going into a store where the radio/muzak is running loud in the theory that it helps people listen, I like to leave soon.
It appears to me that it's an assist in people not listening (to the background, which is important in listening), tuning it out
rather than what I do (tune it in to tune it out).

If what I'm hearing is a feature, where the musicians are putting energy into it, like The Sitting Crew (I muchly enjoyed
Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands, JK) then yes, it promotes listening.

I don't know how this fits relativistically, but muzak radio and TV (while no one watching!) is relatively disruptive, to me.

chris ivey · From: california (deceased)

Barry Blackwood · Posted 15 Jul 2015 8:35 am

Charlie McDonald · From: out of the blue

Yep, Barry; my niece is crafty.

Now that we've obliterated Bo's thread:
(you know how it is when the crowd gets ravenous)

Charlie McDonald · From: out of the blue

Barry, I bit the bullet and bought the shirt. It's better this way.
Nieces can be so flaky.

Has Bo left the building?

Ian Worley · From: Sacramento, CA

Barry Blackwood · Posted 17 Jul 2015 10:05 am

I've found that â™girls = evil... Oh Well

Ollin Landers · From: Willow Springs, NC

And

#Girls are good too but only when they're being bad.
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Bo Legg · Posted 20 Jul 2015 12:12 pm

Sorry if I was wrong but seemed obvious and somewhat funny to me that this meant.
Urban Dictionary, internet slang, craigslist etc..
FB is just sex on a regular basis without having any other type of relationship with the other person.

Charlie McDonald · From: out of the blue

Now I get it....

I'm glad I got the corollary t-shirt.. no wait, I didn't...
dyslexsick....
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Bo Legg · Posted 20 Jul 2015 3:33 pm

I found this in Stuartâ€™s notes of somethingâ€™s he intended to write about here on the Forum but never got around to. It was this note that prompted me to post this topic
Stuart Quote â€œMusic theory is a metaphysical concept.
You canâ€™t hold the concept and it just sits there motionless like the words on paper.
As a consequence music theory does not seem very important or useful.
Seems eerily similar to how we feel about theories regarding the universe.
The word â€œtheoryâ€ regarding music is misleading because it doesnâ€™t accurately explain what a steel player should be learning. What Iâ€™ve noticed is that the good steel players have actually learned how to create harmony and melody through their steels, and in the process they ignored the idea of memorizing tons of patterns.
It seems that they have a tendency though to gloss over the most important aspects of music theory as in:
How else can you break down sounds without labeling the parts of music and turning them into concepts that we can then communicate to each other? Thatâ€™s just one part of what theory does. Otherwise youâ€™d be spending hours re-explaining every little musical and physical detail of the Steel in an effort to convey verbally what you are playing.â€

Bo Legg · Posted 20 Jul 2015 3:55 pm

Charlie McDonald · From: out of the blue

Stuart makes me think of Einstein running a hurdle relay around a 440 track.

But no, I didn't get Fb after all. I'll stick with Stu, try and follow him. I think he's right.. but no... yes.... I think I agree. I think.
Let me take you down, cos I'm going too....
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Bo Legg · Posted 20 Jul 2015 11:45 pm

This is just another of the usual subtle inside jokes that folks use when they want to drop a stink bomb on you and your topic.
Charley what I was trying to say is that I count you among the smart folks, the good folks who donâ€™t want to know or waste their time on trivial slang such as Fbs and the likes.
Because I knew makes me the one with egg on my face.
Iâ€™m just the messenger not the guy who threw the stink bomb.
I would like to see the topic get back on track.

Charlie McDonald · From: out of the blue

King Lear's fool was no fool, it was Lear, but this thread is a tough thesis to crack. Taking it from the top:

Your thesis asks a question in scientific (experimental) terms, supposing.
Your example is cogent: Einstein thought musically and tried hard to communicate what he saw for the potential use for all.
The question you ask is almost hypothetical--why can't we be grateful for what is offered aside from the source? Good luck with that.

Undoubtedly we all live under a paradigm or another, a set of beliefs. A paradigm is a table of equivalents (12"=1', E=Fb,
'Talking about music = dancing about architecture,' etc.). We try to equate this and that and they are often inequitable, but I digress already.

I've heard you play; you don't talk about your playing (your playing speaks for itself) and I can't hear how much theory goes into it,
but I see you're open to it. I didn't understand the B-flat lever (probably not a misnomer considering, but the nomenclature left me flat).
Then one morning I awoke with an epiphany and could finally see the use in it and wouldn't have except some fool mentioned it.

It could be that the paradigm of tab (belief that it is good musical education when it appears rudimentary, rote for rote, note for note)
and ignores possibilities for originality (it represents origin but is not origin, just copy) and mistakes, which I make thank goodness.
DNA copies; Bernstein copied, he said in the Norton Lectures that he couldn't do anything with all the music prior to him.
All human behavior exists by copying, we needn't apologize for the way we learn, but we to try to better it, often by making mistakes.
As has been pointed out, there were mistakes in Einstein's thesis, but they provide room to imagine better as he would do.

I have no solution, but this round, I for one, having exhausted all the words, I'm going to do it at the pedal steel,
following the few that do it like that without justification for what or how I play. It was hard for me to follow Stuart's tab
since I don't do string-finger--I do it by ear--but I followed his score (which I can read slowly) and got what I could.

But I read the carping. Players who spend their time carping aren't spending that time improving their game.
Bully for Stuart, and bully for you, blind leading the blind, blind like me, just like Buddy Emmons played in the dark,
pretending he was blind (in case he lose his sight like Lear's traveling companion Tom, whom he tried to lead)
so badly Emmons wanted to play the pedal steel. He never had time to put anybody down.
And that's all I have to say about that, to quote another man who had been put down and would never stoop to do the same.
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b0b · From: Cloverdale, CA, USA

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