Comment on Why do we associate reverby electric guitar with the ocean?
xmunk@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
It seems like some chord arrangement are natural (they were developed independently in different parts of the world and maybe be specifically well tuned to how our ears work) but pretty much everything else is cultural though sometimes you need to dig really deep to find the source of those cultural roots. Some are informed by animals but even those have mostly transitioned to cultural learnings - instruments associated with birds, horses, dogs may have some basis in their call but at this point they’re mostly spread by cultural learnings.
BearOfaTime@lemm.ee 6 months ago
There’s so much variability in tonal systems, I don’t think we can make any kind of claim about “natural”.
Western Europeans are used to an 8 tone system that’s been even tempered. Move away from that at all and it sounds weird to most people. Even what most people think of as classical would sound odd to them in their original un-tempered forms with contemporary instruments.
Hell, most people don’t know what to make of minor chords, let alone something like pentatonic systems or even more “weird” to us.
Aatube@kbin.melroy.org 6 months ago
"Oh, Susana" has 5-tone verses. Or, did you mean temperament (which I assume means the "distance" between the tones) when you said "move away".
BearOfaTime@lemm.ee 6 months ago
Yea, temperament. I should go back and edit.
Re:move away
Move away from today’s temperament in pop music (or even how classical is played with modern instruments) and most people would probably be confused.
I’ve heard classical played with historically accurate temperament using instruments adjusted to try to reflect the sounds of the time - very different.
Check out prof Greenburg - pretty sure he does it in one of his lecture series.