I don't know the origins of fret makers, either but, I'm perfectly happy to accept this explanation. The tuning of western music has always struck me as a universally beautiful blend of math and art. The logic of the string arrangement makes perfect sense with the theory of 'dot' placement. Makes it easier to learn/teach, too. Winner, winner, chicken dinner!
My guess is that the dots just help you count frets really fast. You don’t need the one or two cause duh and then they chunk the fretboard into easily visualized pieces. I find they help me transpose the CAGED system. Since pros don’t need them they likely were added to help beginners and that fact has been lost in the mists of history. Or it could be some completely different reason :-).
Yes, it's true that tunings and a sense of "what sounds right" have been around for thousands of years, but it also depends on the culture and, just looking at the history of music in the West, the sense of "what sounds right" has changed considerably over time. In a way, the more or less universal adoption of equal temperament tuning has falsified music and, in some cirlces, is still a point of contention.
One small thing: your sentence "But our “rules” for tuning and sense of what sounds “good” has been around for thousands of years" has a plural subject -- "rules" and "sense" -- so the verb should have been "have been around," not "has been around." They has?
D'oh! Thanks for pointing that out. Music theory is hard sometimes, and grammar can be too. A bit more copy editing and I might have caught that. I wish there were an edit button on newsletters.
I hear you. Even the most carefully written and proofed texts can still let a few slip through. Here's a tip I learned when I used to proof my articles before sending them out to the publisher: start reading from the LAST paragraph, then the next to the last, etc., until you wind up in the first paragraph. By reading your article from end to beginning, you break the habit of subconsciously overlooking what toulwd otherwise be obvious typos or occasions for rewriting. It's sort of like what Betty Edwards did in
"Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain": she'd tell her students to turn the picture of what they were copying UPSIDE DOWN and the difference in results was amazing. That was back in 1979 when Roger Perry was doing his research into so-called "split-brain" patients (which led to him getting the Nobel Prize). Perry mentored Edwards a a classic was born. Not for nothing has that book gone through 4 editions, the third of which was translated into Chinese here in Taiwan.
Ya see: I let one get through with my linear thinking: "toulwd" in line 5 of paragraph one. OH! And a second one in paragraph 2: "a[nd] a classic." My BAD!
That didn't help at all. I don't understand what "3rds" and "4ths" are. I don't understand what "I - IV - V" means. I don't understand the concept of "key" or "scale." Where is the starting point for music theory? There has to be a way to express it as "step 1," "step 2," "step 3..."
You're right. Music theory can be confusing when you start in the middle. Where do you start? Here's how I'd explain "keys" to a beginner:
There are 12 notes in music. That's all. If you use all twelve notes together, some will clash and create unpleasant sounds.
Get rid of 5 of those notes. The remaining seven will work nicely together; we call that a key.
How do you know which seven notes to keep? We use the Major Scale as a formula to determine which notes go together and form a key.
Because there are 12 unique notes, we have 12 keys of 7 notes. If you replace the letters of the musical alphabet (A, B, C, D, E, F, G) with numbers (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7) you can use the same information to understand any key. No need to painstakingly memorize all 12 keys. They all work the same. If you spend some time practicing and working through the major scale, you'll get a better understanding of this theoretical stuff.
Learn and practice the Major Scale. I recommend it as the first step to understanding how music works.
The meaning for the markers have been a troublesome curiosity to my mind that’s never wet away. This at Least brings more reason to the table. I’ll keep looking for more reason, but this has been extremely helpful in its usefulness, and may well represent at least some of the original thinking behind the mystery.
Thanks for a decent answer, as there can be no random explanation, and simply to say they aid as position markers is far to easel an explanation. I have subscribed here, because reason over random seems essential
I don't know the origins of fret makers, either but, I'm perfectly happy to accept this explanation. The tuning of western music has always struck me as a universally beautiful blend of math and art. The logic of the string arrangement makes perfect sense with the theory of 'dot' placement. Makes it easier to learn/teach, too. Winner, winner, chicken dinner!
My guess is that the dots just help you count frets really fast. You don’t need the one or two cause duh and then they chunk the fretboard into easily visualized pieces. I find they help me transpose the CAGED system. Since pros don’t need them they likely were added to help beginners and that fact has been lost in the mists of history. Or it could be some completely different reason :-).
Yes, it's true that tunings and a sense of "what sounds right" have been around for thousands of years, but it also depends on the culture and, just looking at the history of music in the West, the sense of "what sounds right" has changed considerably over time. In a way, the more or less universal adoption of equal temperament tuning has falsified music and, in some cirlces, is still a point of contention.
One small thing: your sentence "But our “rules” for tuning and sense of what sounds “good” has been around for thousands of years" has a plural subject -- "rules" and "sense" -- so the verb should have been "have been around," not "has been around." They has?
D'oh! Thanks for pointing that out. Music theory is hard sometimes, and grammar can be too. A bit more copy editing and I might have caught that. I wish there were an edit button on newsletters.
I hear you. Even the most carefully written and proofed texts can still let a few slip through. Here's a tip I learned when I used to proof my articles before sending them out to the publisher: start reading from the LAST paragraph, then the next to the last, etc., until you wind up in the first paragraph. By reading your article from end to beginning, you break the habit of subconsciously overlooking what toulwd otherwise be obvious typos or occasions for rewriting. It's sort of like what Betty Edwards did in
"Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain": she'd tell her students to turn the picture of what they were copying UPSIDE DOWN and the difference in results was amazing. That was back in 1979 when Roger Perry was doing his research into so-called "split-brain" patients (which led to him getting the Nobel Prize). Perry mentored Edwards a a classic was born. Not for nothing has that book gone through 4 editions, the third of which was translated into Chinese here in Taiwan.
Ya see: I let one get through with my linear thinking: "toulwd" in line 5 of paragraph one. OH! And a second one in paragraph 2: "a[nd] a classic." My BAD!
"The price of error-free writing is eternal vigilance."
That didn't help at all. I don't understand what "3rds" and "4ths" are. I don't understand what "I - IV - V" means. I don't understand the concept of "key" or "scale." Where is the starting point for music theory? There has to be a way to express it as "step 1," "step 2," "step 3..."
You're right. Music theory can be confusing when you start in the middle. Where do you start? Here's how I'd explain "keys" to a beginner:
There are 12 notes in music. That's all. If you use all twelve notes together, some will clash and create unpleasant sounds.
Get rid of 5 of those notes. The remaining seven will work nicely together; we call that a key.
How do you know which seven notes to keep? We use the Major Scale as a formula to determine which notes go together and form a key.
Because there are 12 unique notes, we have 12 keys of 7 notes. If you replace the letters of the musical alphabet (A, B, C, D, E, F, G) with numbers (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7) you can use the same information to understand any key. No need to painstakingly memorize all 12 keys. They all work the same. If you spend some time practicing and working through the major scale, you'll get a better understanding of this theoretical stuff.
Learn and practice the Major Scale. I recommend it as the first step to understanding how music works.
I hope this helps.
Now THAT helped! A lot! THANK YOU!
The meaning for the markers have been a troublesome curiosity to my mind that’s never wet away. This at Least brings more reason to the table. I’ll keep looking for more reason, but this has been extremely helpful in its usefulness, and may well represent at least some of the original thinking behind the mystery.
Thanks for a decent answer, as there can be no random explanation, and simply to say they aid as position markers is far to easel an explanation. I have subscribed here, because reason over random seems essential
Thanks for signing up, and the comment. "Reason over random" - I like that a lot. Everything happens for a reason.