Talk:2788: Musical Scales

The page says it was last edited about four hours from now. I'm wondering wether the lineage of in the hall... is worth mentioning. ie Grieg composed it for an Ibsen play. 172.70.175.178 23:06, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

(It's server time. Which is set as UTC. Currently matches central European summer time, I guess, but is one hour behind me (using BST in ordinary life), but matches me nicely when I'm back on GMT. If I read you right, I'm guessing you're on the US east-coast TZ (or equivalent, elsewhere in the Americas), and if you're on DST right now you'll find you have to mentally adjust by five whenever you're not. I imagine that logged-in people can configure dynamic time displays to local time (for themselves), but 'hard written records like on these signatures probably aren't converted 'live' (no good way to not mess up with false-changes/false-nonchanges) so there's probably no point doing that anyway. Just realise that you need to remember that it's an offset of four/five/whatever-it-might-be for your current time and place and rejoice that (with a spherical Earth, not somehow unified under one global political system that can tell all people to work with ever stranger hours of daylight, therefore with necessarily disjointed timezones) at least there's no possibility of falling off the 'edge' and perhaps into the jaws of the world-serpent. There are plenty of other problems, but not that! ...and no doubt there was discussion as to whether to align with Randall's habitual locale, instead, but more people know how to convert between their local UTC±whatever and straight UTC (or don't have to) than might be expected to reliably cross convert between two different ± values, correctly and accounting for whether either or both are DST at the moment. So I don't just say I'm happy with the situation because (for half a year) it matches my own TZ, I think it's just best all round. And doubtless various Europeans think so too (especially the other half of the year!). With apologies to Kiwis, Hawaiians and everyone else for the minor (but predictable) time-shifts they pretty kuch always have to consider, but still would even if you were happily aligned by circumstance... ;) ) 141.101.98.220 09:42, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

No, central European summer time is TWO hours away from UTC. -- Hkmaly (talk) 20:06, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

The UTC times are usually 4 hours ahead of me, and I'm Eastern, the first North American time zone, same as New York City and Miami (i.e. now it's just past midnight, on the West coast of North America it's just past 9pm). Usually I find my friends in U.K. are 5 hours away from me (and my time zone is always listed as -5), my family in Europe tend to be 6, but I think that changes with Daylight Savings (we ALMOST got rid of the stupid useless Daylight Savings last year, I'm hoping for this year). UTC always seems to resolve to the middle of the ocean, I always wonder why UTC exists at all, why not go with Greenwich Mean Time in such cases??? So, yeah, the "last edit" was probably just before your comment, and you're in the same time zone as me. NiceGuy1 (talk) 04:22, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

UTC==GMT (for all practical purposes), i.e. Greenwich-zeroed, straight down the Prime Meridian (solar time) and UK-wide time when not we're not on BST==UTC+1. East Coast US is 5 hours from us, except for the week or three when either the entry or the exit from DST (I forget which one, but it is just the one or other) is not the same weekend for both UK and US, so we're disjointed by an hour (I think it reduces to 4 hours, but it's been a while since I needed to know that to avoid disturbing anyone's sleep/lunch). However, UTC definitely isn't in the ocean (well, not the main bits) like you seem to say. 172.70.85.169 05:25, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

No, UTC=/=GMT, they're an hour apart, usually. Whenever I check. That's why it doesn't make sense. I'm not sure if it cuts into the western part of Africa, but if not that entire time zone is ocean (which may be the point, to not favour anybody). GMT, a.k.a. the time in England, is 5 hours from me, time for my friends in England are 5 hours ahead of me in Eastern, and any time I have to set my time zone it's listed as "GMT -5", usually along with one of the major cities in this time zone (like New York, Miami, Montreal, Toronto). UTC is 4, as proven by my 22 minutes past midnight comment being marked as 4:22am. EVERY time I check where 4 hours is, it's the middle of the ocean. Since it sounds like you're in the GMT zone, did you not comment at 6:25am? Two things are for sure: I'm "GMT -5" and UTC is +4 for me, making it GMT -1. NiceGuy1 (talk) 06:05, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

Greenwich Mean Time==Coordinated Universal Time+0. I would be in GMT zone but (like your other friends, here) I'm technically in British Summer Time right now, which is +1 to either of those two. I commented then at 5:25 GMT/UTC, but it was actually 6:25 BST. Midnight+22 minutes in your timezone is 4:22am UTC/GMT right now(/then). Because whilevyou are UTC-5 for half the year, you are UTC-4 right now with DST shifting you Eastwards, into the ocean, effectively, like it shoves me 'eastwards' (into the time that Paris/etc would have, if it wasn't for Central European Time places now being Central European Summer Time at +2...).

See my reply below, :) Though I thought GMT was simply the name for the time zone in England. My time zone being officially GMT -5 and UTC being GMT -1 by comparison seems to say you're incorrect? I swear, every country needs to just drop this Daylight Savings crap, it just causes confusion, it serves no practical purpose. NiceGuy1 (talk) 05:20, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

Your mistake is in believing that GMT is ever anything other than UTC+0. And it's not DST causing confusion, because GMT never includes any DST adjustment. That's what BST is for. c.f. your(?) own EST and EDT. "London time" (or "UK..."/"English..." or whatever region/town you wish to label) varies by moving between +0 and +1 offsets on top of UTC/GMT, identically.

The complaints about DST (in my country and yours) are well known, but different issues. Indeed, some people would prefer that we do one last "spring on" one year but then never "fall back" again. Then Greenwich (the place) might never again be at UTC, but I suspect that GMT will remain equivalent to UTC but now we'd be on British Standard Time (UTC+1/GMT+1) all year, rather than British Summer Time (likewise) for only about half of it.

Or there are those who always wanted to just miss one 'fall back' to then align ourselves with CET/CEDT of the large swathe of Central Europe (and most places that we would cross the Channel/North Sea/Bay Of Biscay to reach), but that doesn't remove DST and as for moving towards Germany/France/etc, I suspect people would either hate that or find it now pointless since the B-word was initiated. 172.71.242.83 21:34, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

GMT and UTC are basically synonyms, but both are only 'correct' time for England (and Wales, Scotland, NI, IoM, Channel Islands, non-British Ireland and the non-British Portugal; but not Gibraltar and of course other OTs ...except maybe an Antarctic base or two) for the non-DST half of the year. Wait six months, check time.is (or your favourite method of finding times in other places) and you'll be 5 hours adrift from UTC+0 and GMT. 172.70.91.66 06:32, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

Ah, but if you take the stance of "Daylight Savings is crap", from that viewpoint it's summer that the time is correct and proper, what would be the official time for each timezone. Meaning OFFICIALLY, GMT is an hour ahead of UTC. :) It's just during winter it happens to sync up (since presumably UTC does not observe Daylight Savings Time). DST is designed for winter, to adjust the daylight to more compatible hours during the winter, to save candle usage (shows how irrelevant and out of date this practice is), the winter time is the one that would be ditched if all the countries got their acts together and dismissed this DST silliness. When the practice is dropped, GMT will be permanently an hour ahead of UTC. Hence my comments of UTC being in the middle of the ocean. :) Last year when the countries were discussing it, the plan was to just not do the Fall Back last November and stay on summer time. Also, I can't check in 6 months because hopefully by then this nonsense will be abolished. NiceGuy1 (talk) 05:09, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

No, GMT (although replaced as a standard by UTC) is always the same as UTC, for our purposes at least. It is not the same as UK local time which varies by summer/winter. Iceland does not have daylight savings and is constantly on UTC so we could talk about Reykjavík time instead. 162.158.111.223 (talk) 07:08, 20 June 2023 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Now I have to re-listen to In the Hall…; I think there are some errors here.172.71.146.212 01:23, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

Can someone make a midi of Hall of the Mountain King but with an exponential time scale to "compensate" for the log transform? I want to hear a version that both starts and ends at 200 bpm. Is there any music that actually uses mathematically varying tempos? Quantum7 (talk) 06:35, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

I can't make a midi but I can make an mp3: https://voca.ro/17QJDbYxNnlh Viliml (talk) 20:25, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

Ein belegtes Brot mit Schinken, ein belegtes Brot mit Ei...(Germans will understand.) 198.41.242.94 06:50, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

das sind zwei belegte Brote, eins mit Schinken und eins mit Ei. Bischoff (talk) 07:28, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

und dazu eisgekühlter Bommerlunder, Bommerlunder eisgekühlt. 172.69.33.163 05:29, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

But what does that have to do with dead pants?? 172.71.26.254 13:36, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

I don't really understand much German, and my Dutch is too weak to compensate, so I used my translator... :) (NOW I recognize some words, LOL!) I suspect that's the German equivalent to the English saying "Six of one, half a dozen of the other", :) Basically "Eh, either way works". NiceGuy1 (talk) 04:30, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

It is a song by Die Toten Hosen that gets quicker and higher for each repeat until you can't sing anymore, https://www.dietotenhosen.de/diskographie/songs/eisgekuehlter-bommerlunder

Why "mistakenly"? Sure there are some-half notes in there, but it's generally linear in the sense that every 7 steps correspond to a doubling of the frequency no matter where you start from 172.68.51.197 (talk) 07:30, 13 June 2023 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

For the line spacing it doesn't matter much. A true linear-scale staff which takes half-steps into account would have spacings of 0.9, 1.8, 4 and 8. The one glaring discrepancy is that on a true linear scale, the note E5 (659 Hz) would be closer to F5 (698 Hz) than to D5 (587 Hz). Rick4 (talk) 14:29, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

Most sheet music is not truly linear in time to begin with. It's pseudo-logarithmic but in the sense that the shorter notes (8ths and 16ths and heaven forbid 32nds for us da**ed drummers) are given MORE space relative to the (fixed) size of the note heads compared to quarter, half, and full notes. This then affects the on-page length of measures: measures with faster notes are longer (as measurable with a small ruler) than those with longer/slower notes, even though -- assuming a fixed tempo -- their play speed (time duration) stays the same. And then you get modifiers like "rit(ardando)", "rall(entando)", "accel(erando)", "piu mosso", "meno mosso", and the like which modify tempo and throw the whole page-space-to-time relation out the window as if the page of sheet music itself (or the audience) sped to near-light speeds. Randall's going off the deep end trying to make this insane notation fit into fixed science rules; best to leave it to us crazy musicians and just enjoy the music. 172.69.65.46 10:44, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

"Randall seems to have mistakenly assumed" what? no, the entire point of the comic is that Randall knows standard staves do *not* represent a linear increase in frequency. A treble clef is centered on G4, which has a frequency of 392 Hz, F4 has a frequency of 349, and E4 has a frequency of 330. The drawn stave has one line between E4 and F4, corresponding to a jump of about 19 Hz. Two lines between F4 and G4, and we're assuming a linear scale, so that's about right to get to 392. The size of the games grows geometrically, as you expect. Again, this is the entire point of the comic.

That's not what it says, though. It says he may have assumed it's a linear increase in *pitch*, and therefore a *exponential* increase in frequency.172.70.86.2 08:40, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

is that not correct? Doesn't an equal temperament scale exactly mean that it is a linear increase in pitch? 172.70.114.240 16:11, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

An equal temperament scale means there's a linear increase in pitch by half-step/semitone, correct. However, any Western scale or mode regardless of quality will only include 7 notes, while there are 13 when including accidentals; the quality is determined by which notes are adjacent or separated by an accidental, or in other words if they are separated by one half-step or two. *However*, since standard notation uses other symbols to indicate deviation from the expected frequency and not separate lines, I'd argue that such would be the approach taken in a world where this sheet music was used. Therefore, I'd say this whole paragraph is unnecessary and misguided. Randall is taking a standard piece of sheet music and warping the scales of the axes, nothing more. He's not trying to make a valid, coherent new system of notation, he's making a graph joke. 162.158.159.125 17:27, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

But the point is that not only is his 'mistake' version 'wrong' (non-standard), but his remedy would result in notation that was 'wrong' as well, on both 'axes'.172.70.85.49 08:37, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

I'm not following. Don't the lines in a staff indicate equal spaced whole steps (between consecutive lines) or half-steps (between lines and spaces)? What is the "mistake" that randall is alleged to have made, and have we agreed that it is infact a mistake or not? 162.158.158.58 04:01, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

They do not. Each line in a staff is either a half step or whole step above the space below it, depending on the key. For example, C major has the notes C, D, E, F, G, A, B with no sharps or flats. Each one gets a line or a space between lines on the staff. But the interval between C and D is a whole step, while the interval between E and F is a half step. In equal temperament tuning, every half step has the same ratio, so the ratio in a full step is its square. On a log plot, that would mean the full steps would be twice as wide as the half steps, but they are in fact the same width. It gets even more complicated when you consider accidentals. For instance, D and D♭ are a half step apart but occupy the same line. Meanwhile, B and C♭ are enharmonically equivalent (i.e. the same pitch in equal temperament tuning), but they occupy different parts of the staff. And of course, double accidentals just make things worse. EebstertheGreat (talk) 15:12, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

All this musical theory talk is giving me a headache. I think I'll go put on some Zappa, RUSH, and Tool albums to relax. These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For (talk) 02:25, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

The first 1:40 of this song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-Lt5fRNgO8 162.158.222.37 08:03, 22 June 2023 (UTC)