#and teaches them basic music theory

[spoonietimelordy]

Music was much easier to play when I was 8. Should go back to playing xylophone it was easier than guitar. (My dyslexic brain has a really hard time with tabs)

[neil-gaiman]

i'm unsure if this is meant for you or david arnold but you seem to have an easier mode of being able to be asked questions about things so here it goes;

i'm a music major, one can't really tell but i am, and i'm a literature minor as well, so i love books. i read good omens and watched the show in 2019, and when season 2 came out in 2023 i had already been through two semesters of music theory and ear training (basically being able to understand and analyze music in its own language and prospects. i'm sure you know this to some level). when the season 2 sound track came out, it was in the middle of last semester, where i was taking my third semester of music theory and ear training and i listened to it on repeat for about two months straight.

my question is this: are the musical motifs within the soundtrack tied to the greater narrative in any way? characters? characters and their relationships with others? i've noticed some (such as the high pitched violin coming in around aziraphale's internal realizations, and decisions, or the deep chime whenever crowley is inherently relevent, or the bagpipes when we go to edenborough). if so, did you have any input on these? do you have any explanation to any of them, or is it just david being a magical genius?

thank you for teaching me a little more about music in the process and for making this past semester a little easier. i now go onto my fourth with stronger ears because of it. thank you! <3

You would have to talk to David Arnold.

[jinnie-ret]

skz with a 9th member who grew up in england so sometimes they use slang they dont understand or sometimes their british accent gets really strong when theyre tired or drunk and the boys think its funny.

it's a brit thing

stray kids x ninth member!reader (platonic)

genre: fluff

content warnings: swearing, alcohol mentions

word count: 1.2k

summary: the boys find it hard to understand their british member a lot of the time...

Hi! Sorry for such a late response to your ask! Loved writing this one! Love to my fellow British Stays. Also I love a Yorkshire accent, just putting that out there haha...

As always, like, reblog if you enjoyed, and my asks are open for any requests you may have. And let me know if you'd like to be tagged when I post :)

MAIN MASTERLIST

aka five times the real brit in y/n appeared

1) tired

You were tired, so tired. After a long flight back from LA to Seoul, all you wanted to do was get back to the dorms and go to sleep. Just simply get out of the airport, get into the cars, and listen to some music before ultimately entering a calm, unconscious state.

Yet with the experience of the paparazzi and screaming fans awaiting you, your plans were ruined. They swarmed you, and even as you formed your usual chain amongst the rest of the members and your security it didn't stop the flash of the cameras blaring in your face and fans getting too handsy.

Other times it would overwhelm you but this time it was just annoying. You would say you were just agitated, but the boys thought you were grumpy.

"Oh no, she's grumpy," Seungmin teased from beside you as you squeezed into the back between him and Changbin.

"Fucking twats the lot of them," you grunted in English, digging through your backpack for your airpods as your northern British accent came out.

"That wasn't Korean but I'm not entirely sure that was English either..." Changbin said with wide eyes, only vaguely recognising the swear word and nothing else.

"Chan can you translate?" Jeongin asked curiously, watching as you entered a calmer state when you started playing music.

"Basically she's annoyed at the paps and fans," Chan laughed after translating what you said.

"T-twateu?" Jeongin tested out, and your music just happened to go silent before changing to the next song, meaning you heard what he said.

"You what?!?"

2) vlive

It was time for your bimonthly vlive, which Stays managed to guess when you'd go live, getting used to your system of interacting with them.

"There aren't really a lot of British idols out there, are there?" you chatted with the fans, face near the screen as your eyes squinted to read the comments, forgetting to wear your glasses.

"Haha! Yes Han is our honorary British member," you laughed as you read the comments, hand going over your mouth.

"Wait doesn't Jennie from Blackpink speak with a British accent?" you double checked you theory with the fans, letting out a successful cheer when they confirmed your thoughts.

"Yes!!! Up the Brits! There are too many Aussies I swear..."

"Teach us some British phrases? Okay hmmm, what can I teach my Stays?" you wondered, tapping your chin comically.

"You can say 'I'm gutted', which means you're really upset about something, like you're so sad you feel it in your gut. Or, 'I'm knackered', which means you're tired. Or you're 'pissed off', which means you're angry," you explained to the Stays, frowning when they started saying you sweared on vlive, the staff now staring at you awkwardly.

"Ani, ani, no, no," you pointed to the camera, fake scolding the fans, "I don't think it's swearing, right?"

3) drunk

You and the boys had been out drinking, celebrating the promotions for Case 143. And let's just say, you had a few too many, at least you weren't the only one.

"I'm fucking hammered mate," you slurred, stumbling into Minho who wrinkled his nose at your alcohol breath as all 8 of you walked home from the bar.

"Hammered?" Han asked curiously, his doe eyes somehow more apparent in his intoxicated state.

"Like tkk tkk?" Hyunjin tested, pretending to hammer a nail as he recognised the tool name.

"I'm trollied, I'm so out of it, mate," you giggled, facepalming yourself, well, you thought you did and then realised you accidentally smacked Felix in the face, collapsing on the ground in a fit of giggles.

"Y/Nnie, get uppppp," Felix groaned, rubbing his face drunkenly as he tried to pull you up.

"She's speaking nonsense," Jeongin said with wide eyes.

"Not until you can understand me," you poked Felix in the chest with each word.

"Yah, you're so touchy tonight, Y/N," Changbin laughed at your slow yet somehow affectionate movements as he and Chan lifted you up, you clinging onto their arms for balance.

"That makes me sound so noncey," it was your turn to wrinkle your nose.

"No one can understand you right now, and we are fluent in English," Chan laughed as he supported most of your weight and gestured to Felix next to him.

"I'm too wankered," you groan, now feeling the headache set in and just wanting to be in bed.

"Woah, what did she say?" Seungmin pulled a confused face, his features scrunching up.

"She's uncontrollable," Minho said bemusedly.

4) school memories

In a new episode of SKZ Code, they were all back to school, dressed in different school uniforms.

"Why is Y/N's uniform so different?" Han pointed out.

"It's cute, though," Hyunjin cooed.

"This is what we'd wear," you do a cute spin in your dark green checkered dress, white socks, dolly shoes and bows in your hair. Of course, you wore a green cardigan with it, representing the colour of the uniform designated by your primary school.

Then you went onto other school experiences, and the boys were interested to hear about how yours differed.

"And then, around Easter time, we'd sing a song like this. 'One mother hen sat on four little eggs'," you began singing, doing actions alongside that you remember being taught by your teachers.

"'Keeping them warm in her little egg nest, then one day she heard a crack!'" you widened your eyes as you mimicked the egg cracking with your hands, the boys giggled at this.

"'And a little voice said as the egg was hatched... I'm a spring chicken! I'm yellow and small...'" you sang the song, the mood becoming more joyful as the boys clapped in time for you and you stood doing the actions.

"'Chicken, I'm a chicken! And I'm having a ball!'" you excitedly finished, a big grin present on your face as you flapped your 'wings'.

"Wahh, that's too cute, surely?" Changbin thought it was adorable, copying the last line.

"Maybe Y/N should replace Bbokari!" Lee Know smirked.

"No!" Felix yelled out laughing, hand over his heart.

You carried on reflecting on your experiences.

"Or at our schools we'd be sorted into different coloured houses," you informed everyone.

"Harry Potter! Harry Potter!" Seungmin cheered.

"Woah, so you went to Hogwarts?" Jeongin gasped, a playful look on his face.

"No, I was in yellow house," you I formed, folding your arms.

"Hufflepuff!" Chan pointed at you.

"Noooo," you shook your head, gosh, how did you deal with them on a daily basis?

5) accent

Y/N was on the phone, talking to her friends from back home.

"The British accent really is... woah," Felix whispered to Hyunjin who nodded.

"So pretty," he added on.

"It's kinda, sexy?" Han wiggled his eyebrows, trying to copy what you were saying.

Ah yes, the Y/N simp line, back at it again.

This was all caught on a SKZ talker, and British stays had a field day with it in the comments.

Why is it so funny that the boys think a broad Yorkshire accent is sexy

The boys think it sounds pretty? I'm flying to Seoul rn brb or maybe not

I just googled how to be Y/N

Y/N got bitches but no one here notices me and we literally sound the same lmao, tough times

tagged: @skz-streamer @kiraisastay @hannahhbahng @backintomykpopphaseagain

[leviathans-watching]

Do you have any random headcanons about any of the Obey me characters that no one's asked the right question for you to share / don't fit with any headcanon post you've made?

misc hcs of the brothers

includes: the brothers

wc: .7k | rated g | m.list | pt. 2

a/n: omg?? this was so fun to write i'm def going to have to do one of these for the dateables at some point. thanks for requesting!! my inbox is open to that, req, or leave feedback, so come say hi!

please reblog :))

➳ lucifer wears makeup. after someone (mammon, most likely) not-so-kindly pointed out the bags and dark circles under his eyes, lucifer went to asmo for help and learned the basics of concealing, which eventually grew into a whole bag of products he applies most mornings, unbeknownst to everyone but asmo. he does a light coverage foundation, concealer, pencils in and shapes his eyebrows, some light contour on his nose and jawline, and some hardly-noticeable eyeliner. his whole goal is for it to look as natural as possible and he’s gotten really, really skilled over the years.

➳ mammon not only knows how to sew, but makes many of his own clothes himself. nothing on the market was eclectic or unique enough for him so he took matters into his own hands and not has a closet full of custom-made and designed pieces. he doesn’t tend to show off his talent (for once) preferring to let others think they’re obscure designer clothes or made by difficult-to-book designers. every once in a while he can be convinced to make his brothers something, but not unless they agree to an exorbitant price.

➳ levi is an adobe girly. not only does he use almost all of their services, but he’s really really good at them too. mammon and asmo will have him photoshop pictures for him, lucifer will go to him for help with document creation, and even belphie had him teach him the basics of premiere pro. the reason he has such high-powered computers and machinery isn’t for gaming, as most assume, but so they can handle adobe optimally without lagging or overloading. additionally, upon hearing adobe flash was being retired, levi scalped the mechanics of it and created a knockoff that functions just as well, something he shares liberally at rad.

➳ satan has a prodigal-like talent for instruments, able to pick them up and teach himself how to play decently in very little time. he also has perfect pitch, can sightread excellently, and composes music in his free time. his favorite instruments to play are the violin, the piano, and the harp. though his not in any music-based classes (as those are all too basic for him of course) he offers help to students in the classes that are struggling with theory, composition, or playing. he’s also the reason the music wing is rumored to be haunted, as he often plays at weird hours.

➳ asmo is the most independently wealthy of all of his brothers, thanks to all of his economic ventures. not only does he model and act, but he also has shares in many major companies in all three realms that show large profits even if they aren’t super successful when he first invests. he works with barbatos to manage his money and has several bank accounts, and though he lives lavishly, is careful not to show the extent of his wealth, leading people to believe it’s family money he’s spending. although this was done, in part, intuitively, he’s also taken several finance and business classes over the years to help him learn and improve.

➳ beel really really enjoys all of the booktok books, and even discusses them at length with solomon and thirteen, when the two can be civil enough to speak to one another. his favorite genres is dark fantasy and belphie makes fun of beel to no end when he catches him reading. beel keeps his kindle on him at all times, and for his personal favorites, buys a hard copy and annotates it with sticky notes–the whole nine yards. for his birthday, satan gives him a book cover so that he doesn’t keep walking around with those embarrassing overs on display. beel doesn’t use it.

➳ belphie is notorious for stealing his brothers’ clothing. for some reason, he finds them more comfortable than his own and every few weeks the others force him to empty out his drawers and give them everything back. his personal favorites to steal are beel’s shirts and asmo’s sweats, but he’s not picky. he wears them to sleep, around the house, while running errands, and would wear them to rad were there not a uniform. at the beginning, it was out of laziness; him grabbing whatever was close. but over time he developed favorites, and, well, there was no going back from that.

leviathans-watching's work - please do not copy, repost, or claim as your own

[roseaesynstylae]

A Collection of Posts about the Jedi, Part 1

I am pro-Jedi and interested in worldbuilding. Here are some a lot of posts I've found on Tumblr. Some are long, some are short, all are interesting. Hopefully you'll find them helpful, inspiring, and/or useful. There's also my collection of fics, My Favorites of Jedi Appreciation.

They're not really in any order, but they are roughly grouped by subject.

Edit: I'm just going to keep updating and organizing this with any interesting posts I find.

Here is Part Two, as Tumblr made me split it.

Jedi Defense

why the jedi couldn't walk away from the republic

Debunking more myths in the GFFA: the Jedi and the clones.

Mace Windu

before the acolyte releases

agape love

i would not want a romantic relationship if i was a jedi

the jedi did everything they could

jedi are aro

When a Star Wars writer engages with the material but not the narrative.

jedi and attachment

jedi and attachment 2

jedi and dbt

in defense of the jedi

the je'daii order

shmi skywalker adhered to the jedi code more than anakin ever did

Attachment Theory and Master Yoda - the Jedi Way to Security

The Parallels Between Antisemitism and Certain Arguments Against the Jedi

Jedi do not steal children

Some basic points to remember

Color and Jedi

Jedi as peacekeepers

Three flaws in the Jedi order you can concede

in defense of the jedi 2

The Jedi Council were reasonable in the Wrong Jedi Arc actually

The Jedi are not out of touch

An analogy

A defense of Ki-Adi-Mundi

Every instance of touch between a Jedi and another physical being

Jedi are allowed to visit their families

Jedi are allowed to leave the order

Jedi do not steal children 2

Kanan and Hera are not against the rules

Mace and his troops

Jedi do not steal children 3

Why the Council couldnt've prevented Order 66

1000 Jedi isn't a lot

The Jedi aren't corrupt & slavery isn't their fault

Padme, the Jedi and slavery

Prosset Dibs is a moron

"Jedi-Friendly" bashing of the Council is not a thing

Yes, the Jedi have flaws (everything has flaws)

Jedi and compassion (+ Ki-Adi-Mundi)

Mace Windu is a compassionate person

The Jedi aren't eugenicists (that's the Kaminoans)

Padawans are not child soldiers

Debunking the lightsaber vs bullet thing

Legends!Luke is not better than the PT Jedi

Jedi Culture

psychometry

jedi culture

martial arts

jedi-as-family

Guide to Jedi Ranking Terminology

jedi "labels"

jedi melting pot

jedi gifts

jedi healers

jedi culture 2

young jedi

jedi and taxes

jedi sects

jedi weddings

jedi robes

jedi order corps and subdivisions

jedi order bureaucratic structure

Jedi robe significations

Jedi clothing

Jedi Temple Guards

Jedi culture 3

Feelings soaking in

Jedi and teaching

Jedi are empaths

Bag of flour and the 212th

Plo Koon

Jedi debates

Jedi views on blood ties in Lucasfilm canon

Other faiths in the order

Jedi meeting their bio families

Different adoption scenarios

Jedi music

Telekinesis

Jedi healers

Jedi and emotions

Padawan attire and conduct

Jedi younglings

[gotham-daydreams]

Fun fact: Dick used to play guitar and is still fairly good at it. Jason has an Electric guitar in his old room at the Wayne manor. Stephanie quit playing the piano but she can still the basics, and Damian plays violin.

Im not sure if it's completely right, but if it was, how would that go with the whole reader being a musician thing?

Ohhh that's interesting! I actually didn't know that before, but that's cool! (Jason definitely seems like the type to pick up an electrical guitar.)

If it was completely right I'd say that they'd probably have the reader play with them, or have the reader teach them how to play again/how they can improve. (Since again, the reader can play multiple instruments.) Though of course by 'have' I mean force.

Dick in particular would definitely always try to have a duet of some kind, or constantly suggest that hey, they should make their own song together! At least he asks even if he'll visibly sadden if the reader says any variation of 'no', but Damian does not. He will just barge in on whatever the reader is doing and either force them to listen to him play, and say how well he did, and or also force them to play with him. (Kind of like how he'll be with the whole art thing.)

Even if Jason doesn't play anymore, I think he'd kind of use it as a "oh, I used to do that too" sort of thing so he can bond with the reader more. (In theory.) He might pick it back up, but would heavily 'appreciate' lessons so he can refine his skill again, and maybe even become a lot better than he used to be, who knows?

Stephanie I feel is less forceful, and seeing as she did quit she'd probably prefer to listen to the reader's music than play with them, but she wouldn't necessarily mind if they played a simple duet either. Sure, she might be a little rusty but... if the reader's willing to help then she won't turn them down.

All in all, suddenly they're as interested in music as the reader is, and are definitely going to use it to bond with them in any way they can manage. With some being a 'bit' forceful when it comes to their attempts, compared to others.

Which may or may not 'ruin' music for the reader, or at least certain sounds for them. Since they'll begin to associate certain instruments and such with certain people, and, well, that definitely doesn't begin to mess them up after a while. No wayyyy.

Oh! Also, the other remaining members of the family might either feel compelled to learn an instrument, or just want to listen to you play that much more. Tim would at least think about picking up an instrument, same with Babs, and Bruce would join Alfred in listening. (Though lets be honest, Bruce can probably play something too.) Cass would probably do a bit of both if she can help it.

Expect the Batfam to be very interested in music suddenly, with them either asking for lessons or to play with you, or patiently waiting for you to play so that they can listen.

[brights-place]

Hello!! I read some of your Trolls stuff and I really really like them! May I request Trollex, Branch, and Floyd with a super supportive s/o who’s experienced in a lot of genres of music and dance? They have a TON of instruments and they know how to play every last one like girl where did you get these???

Sheet music and music theory knowledge is through the roof like you’d think they teach it as a profession, and if they give them physical affection and compliments and actually just normal relationship stuff??? They are a puddle on the ground they are NOT used to someone close actively caring so much about them besides like family they love that shit, giving AND receiving 😎 (they can be shy about it sometimes tho it’s adorable)

Uhhh tldr local music nerd is smitten with their amazing s/o, they down bad tbh /j

If this is too much in a single request, don’t hesitate to message me in case this is too long!

Them Dating an Music Theory! Troll

Pairing: Trollex X S/O, Floyd X S/O, and Branch X S/O

Warnings: Lots of Fluff, Mild cursing

A/N: OOOOH I LOVE THIS REQUEST! this is so good okay okay! plus I do music theory myself so this is fun! >:D

Trollex

- Trollex loves the way you explain music theory in a way that is easy to understand and engaging

- He enjoys listening to them talk passionately about music.

- He enjoys watching you play music for you and analyze the pieces in depth

- He listens when you rant and explain Music theory to him explaining that music theory covers things such as pitches and scales, intervals, clefs, rhythm, form, meter and time signatures, phrases and cadences, and basic harmony for music which he nods his head listening to you - Trollex loves how you play many instruments and stares at how you play it with ease - Trollex listens to you rant about it and is very patient with you even with his short attention span and endless energy.

- loves the way you light up when you talks about things that are about music

- He asks so many questions and forgets since his brain is re-setting sometimes - He can't help but admire your dedication to studying and refining your endless knowledge of music - He loves that they challenge your preconceived ideas about music and open you up to new perspectives of different musical styles and genres.

- He loves your creative ideas and imagination for how to explore and experiment with music.

- He values your willingness to share your knowledge and experience with you.

- He loves the way you express yourself through music and many genres not sticking to one and enjoys how you dance with him to techno music

Floyd

- Floyd loves to encourage you to express yourself creatively and explore your musical side more around him which you obviously do

- He appreciates how you share music tastes with him and discover new songs to listen to together

- He finds your knowledge of music history fascinating and enjoy learning new facts about the origins of different musical styles.

- Floyd is fascinated by your ability to deconstruct a piece of music and understand how the different elements interact to create a cohesive whole

- Floyd can’t help be impressed by the way you can find common threads between seemingly disparate pieces of music and make connections that he had never noticed before and would ask more

- You love the way your shy emo partner aka Floyd opens up to you and shares his emotions through music with you

-You two enjoy discussing the deeper meanings of songs and analysing the lyrics together though he mainly stared at your face to see your focused face

- He loves to play you a song that relates to your current emotional state and makes you feel understood and comforted.

- He can’t help but be drawn to how your musical knowledge and understanding of music theory can shed light on your personality in ways that you may not have been aware of but he was aware of it

- He finds it amazing how you can deconstruct your emotions using music theory and communicate with you on a deeper level which he also does I mean he is the sensitive one and knows about emotions

- He can’t help but be amazed by how much you can learn through many genres of music and their musical knowledge… I mean he’s Pop Rock but he can’t help but be shocked how you know ALL the genres

- He can’t help but be charmed by the way you approach music with pure enthusiasm and wonder as he stared at you lovingly.

Branch

- You both feel a strong connection with each other through music and can tell that you're both on the same wavelength even though he doesn't show it much,

- He can't help but admire the way you are fine with how branch can effortlessly switch between serious discussion and playful banter

- He finds it adorable when you become shy and blushes after realizing you have been rambling on about music for too long.

- He loves when you start sharing your favorite songs and artists with each other and discovering new music together

- He loves to support your creativity and encourages you to express yourself through music. - Branch can’t help be impressed by the way you can find common threads between seemingly disparate pieces of music and make connections that he had never noticed before and would ask more about it towards you

- He's impressed by your intelligence and knowledge of music theory.

- He finds himself admiring at your musical skills and wishing he could play or compose music the way you do.

reblogs + comments are appreciated ⸜(｡˃ ᵕ ˂ )⸝♡

©brights-place 2023 — do not repost on another platform, copy, translate or edit my works! if you fit my DNI list please don't interact!

[aragornsrockcollection]

The silly post about Elrond’s healing just being very strong Dad Energy™️ made me want to put forth a theory I’ve had for a while about what Melian is the Maia of, and how that affects the powers of her descendants.

So it’s no secret that the Valar are a pantheon in the style of the Pre-Christian Europe, like the Greek and Norse pantheons; head-honcho god has bird/sky themes, and all the big archetypes are filled: war, nature, forge, spring, death/doom, chaos, sea, weaving/history, hunting, dancing, dreams, healing/medicine, stars, and pity, the last one being Nienna and a bit of an outlier who makes a lot of sense filling the role that Mary fills in Catholicism, which makes the whole group align better with Tolkien’s Catholic worldview of compassionate deities, a concept that was NOT prevalent in those pre-Christian gods.

A few main members of the archetypal pantheon are missing, One is a god of music, which makes sense because ALL the Ainur are gods of music due to the nature of the universe. Others are taken up by maiar, such as Arien and Tillion being the sun and the moon, Tillion being a Maia of Orome the hunter, which draws Artemis connections, and Arien being a Maia of Vana the ever young. Eonwe is the messenger and

Melian’s role is never expressly defined unlike Arien and Tillion and others. She’s associated with both spring and healing through Vana and Este, and her contribution to the song pre-children seems to be songbirds-more specifically teaching the nightingales to sing songs, since birds should fall under Manwe or Yavanna’s purview (she is said to be akin to Yavanna, but that’s vague and not fleshed out).

But she’s also seen as one of the more powerful Maia, and I don’t see that justified by being the Maia of songbirds. Again, music is ALL of the Ainur’s thing, and what do songbirds have to do with healing, the main power her descendants inherit?

Well, what do songbirds have to do with spring? What is the point of their songs?

It’s attracting a mate. Birds in spring is euphemistically associated with love and sex.

Melian is the only Maia we know of to marry one of the children, and this pantheon is MISSING a goddess of love and marriage and motherhood. Her daughter then goes on to have THE romance of legend, and while Luthien is acting out of love for Beren she is basically unstoppable.

We never see Luthien use her power any other way, outside of her love story, and the idea that she would NOT be as powerful when her songs were not in service of saving her love is actually pretty compelling to me. And also solves the problem of “Why did Luthien, who can put a spell on MORGOTH, let Celegorm and Curufin keep her hostage for a bit.”

The idea of Melian being the Maia of Love and Motherhood also makes sense in context of her abandoning Doriath. If her power comes from love of her husband and daughter, then the girdle was doomed once Thingol died whether she stuck around or not, so her leaving is more forgivable.

Love being such a huge theme in Tolkien’s work, it makes sense why Melian and her descendants are SO powerful. And why they are canonically the most beautiful creatures to walk the earth, as beauty and love are usually intertwined in these figures of mythology.

And Tolkien connects love and healing many times in his work. Aragorn working in the halls of Healing specifically orders Eomer to be the first person Eowyn sees, because her love for her brother is more true than her toxic obsession with him. Also as noted in the other post, his magic healing includes giving them a kiss on the forehead.

Faramir and Eowyn’s whole relationship plays out in the halls of healing, and Eowyn’s arc in this time is seeing no value in healing, either herself or others, until she finds love and hope in Faramir and basically in the same breath vows to become a healer.

Elrond’s compassion and Big Dad Energy and love for everyone is indeed what makes him the best healer in middle earth. And I’m going to argue there is a legit reason for that, with the source of his family’s healing talent being this world’s goddess of love. And of motherhood, which I think translates well to Elrond being everyone’s dad. Perhaps I should say “parenthood” since that is so obviously passed down.

Tl.Dr. Melian is the Maia of love, romantic and familial, which is the source of the Peredhil’s healing powers (and extreme attractiveness).

[onceuponatown]

The Loomis Radio School, Washington D.C. ca. 1921.

The school was located at 401 Ninth St. N.W. and operated with the call letters 3YA. By 1920 it was offering a six month course enabling the graduate to obtain a first grade commercial radio license and by January of 1922 was offering a four year course with a degree in Radio Engineering bestowed on graduates.

The school was founded by Mary Texanna Loomis, pictured in the last photo.

Born August 18, 1880 near Goliad, Texas. She was the second child born to Alvin Isaac and Caroline (Dryer) Loomis. Though born on homestead in Texas in 1880, by 1883 her parents had returned to Rochester NY and then on to Buffalo where Alvin became president of a large delivery and storage company. Little is known of her early years, but appears she had a fairly middle-class up bringing. She seemed well schooled, with an early interest in music and language (she mastered French, German and Italian) Her early years were spent in Buffalo, NY and she later relocated to Virginia. 

During the early years of World War I, she became interested in the new field of wireless telegraphy. There was a family precedent; her cousin, Dr. Mahlon Loomis, had conducted early wireless experiments with moderate success and may in fact have been the first person, in 1865, to send and receive wireless signals. 

Mary soon became proficient enough in wireless telegraphy to be granted a license by the United States Department of Commerce. Thoroughly fascinated with the field now called “radio”, she decided to turn her expertise into a career. Also, she wanted to do something that would honor her pioneering ancestor. Her idea was to do this by founding a radio school. 

Though radio was indeed, for many years, a profession dominated by men, Mary Loomis around age 40 took no notice and in 1920 founded the Loomis Radio School in Washington, D.C. and it quickly gained an excellent reputation. Ms. Loomis set high standards for the school and it attracted students not only from the United States but Europe and Asia as well. Loomis enjoyed teaching as much as she enjoyed radio itself. In an interview, she said, “Really, I am so infatuated with my work that I delight in spending from 12 to 15 hours a day at it. My whole heart and soul are in this radio school.” 

As president and Lecturer of the Loomis Radio School, Mary authored a definitive book on radio, named “Radio Theory and Operating.” 

By January 1922 the school was offering a four year course with a degree in Radio Engineering bestowed on graduates. Loomis also intended that her students understand more than just the inner and outer workings of radio. In addition to a radio laboratory (with equipment constructed almost entirely by Mary herself), the school maintained a complete shop capable of teaching carpentry, drafting and basic electricity. She reasoned that many of her graduates might find themselves at sea, or in other challenging situations and she wanted them adequately prepared. “No man,” Ms. Loomis said, at the time, “can graduate from my school until he learns how to make any part of the apparatus. I give him a blueprint of what I want him to do and tell him to go into the shop and keep hammering away until the job is completed.” 

The school appears to have been in existence at least through the early 1930's, but it has not been possible to find information after that.

In an interview given to H.O. Bishop of the Dearborn Independent in 1921, Mary was asked: “What sort of young men are taking up the radio profession?” to which she replied:

“The Kind who have grit and want to get there! Virtually all of them are ambitious and enthusiastic over the possibility of visiting every nook and corner of the world. My students are not only enrolled from various sections of the USA and Canada but from many foreign countries, such as Sweden, Ireland, England, Poland, Russia, Austria, Rumania and the Philippines. One of the brightest pupils I ever had was Prince Walimuhomed of Far-away Afghanistan. He was an extremely modest young man, keeping his real identity a secret until after graduating. He said he had no idea of earning his living by working at radio, but just wanted to know all about it. He does.You have no idea how much happiness I get out of the success of each individual graduate. My boys keep in touch with me from all parts of the world. Scarcely a day goes by that I do not get some trinket or postcard from some remote section of the world. I have made the wonderful discovery that the only way for me to get happiness for myself is to make some one else happy. I find that I am making these young men happy by teaching them every phase of the radio business so that they can earn a comfortable living for themselves and their dependents and at the same time, see the great big beautiful world.

As far as we can figure out, Mary Loomis left Washington D.C. around 1935 and moved to San Francisco where she worked as a stenographer. She died in 1960 and is interred at Woodlawn Memorial Park, Colma, CA. 

Source

[slexenskee]

You might have already mentioned it, but what songs did Gojo sing as a kid with that band, the Band Aides? Cause I'm really curious what teen Gojo screamed into the microphone and what people thought of this crazy punk kid with super great music. Also, will the Scrub fans ever unearth a video someone probably took of little Gojo coasting around random alt-rock venues? Cause that would be hilarious.

We're actually going to get into it in future chapters!! 😁

He 100% plays Mr Brightside and basically he starts getting into the whole plagiarizing music thing by realizing that a lot of the bands he loved are either a) entirely missing from the timeline or b) missing some of his favorite songs from them and sets out to fix that.

The full backstory:

I don't really get into Band Aides much, but basically it was a garage band put together by Satoru, this high school first year, and his college freshman brother, and idk, maybe one other person haven't figured it out yet. But they play in the brothers' garage and their dad was in a band back in the states which is why he has all this random old equipment in his garage and also an undying love for classic rock music.

So they start out playing a lot of songs that Satoru does know - famous stuff from like before 1990 basically - and at first he's just jamming and having a good time actually realizing that he likes playing all the music he used to listen to in his last life, and just figuring out how music even works. The dad is super helpful in this since he was a musician in a band himself and can at least teach Satoru the basics of guitar, sound engineering, and all the technical stuff. They're still not great or anything, being a bunch of kids and all, and Satoru himself is still going from 0 to 100 learning about instruments and music theory.

Anyway, then he hears an 'album' from The Killers, realizes they only put out one album in this world and it was not Hot Fuss, and immediately sets out to try to re-create Mr Brightside for his band to play.

Because of the way this happens > him 'learning' about bands and music, then coming immediately after with songs resembling the bands he'd just listened to, it feels really organic to his band and the people who knew him at the time. Like yeah of course he made a song that sounds like The Killers after listening to their album, that's literally how all music is made. You get influenced and inspired by something and then create your own version. It's just in this instance, Satoru wasn't 'creating his own version' he was literally adding to their originally discography.

Eventually he stops playing songs that come from bands with missing discography and starts playing songs from ones that he realizes don't exist at all, but there's still enough of a trajectory that it still seems 'plausible'.

So, tbh, people who don't 'know' music think he's just a cool punk who makes epic songs. People who do know all those old genres and bands are like 'damn this kid has great taste' and also thinks he makes epic songs that really pay homage to that era.

I'm kinda torn on what The Band Aides would play on open mic nights actually.

Realistically they would mostly play cover songs bc even if Satoru wanted to be getting them to play 'his' songs, he wouldn't be at a point where he could properly articulate what he wanted it to even sound like. But I also want to sneak a bunch of Blink-182 songs into their tracks haha. And probably All Time Low too? All American Rejects??

Honestly they can play whatever you want them too, since I probably won't get into it beyond Mr Brightside! And yeah that would be so fun to have clips of lil' baby Satoru rocking out at like a talent show or something lmao

[emeliejeannie]

Some more yan sim headcanons!

*Ayano used to date a boy back in middle school, one of her many failed attempts to feel emotions. She also tried to date a girl at the time, in case she was queer, that didn't work out either.

*Ryoba and Jokichi have the same job (because of Ryoba) it's even hinted at in the last basement tape, I think.

*Now that Ayano has experienced "the Senpai effect" she can now feel more emotions to some extent. Her sense of taste has also been improved (as stated in fandom.com) all her senses have improved. She now has opinions on things like music, tastes, colors, fashion, etc. But of course, anything her senpai thinks is more important than her own preferences.

*I have a theory that the Aishi condition is a curse that can be cured by a ritual of some kind. It would be cool to have an option in the game to join the Occult club and try to get help from them by participating in a ritual. This would cure Ayano and every other Aishi that will be born after her, banishing the curse for good. This could be a secret ending.

*Jokichi have in secret preached to Ayano that violence of any kind is wrong. And has explained to her how love is supposed to be like. Teaching her about consent, how to handle rejection etc. Basically doing everything in his power to raise Ayano so she won't turn out like Ryoba.

[turbulentscrawl]

I LOOVE your Luca he's soooo <3 may I please request some headcanons for him with an s/o from the future? (As in our time) like they time traveled back to the manor and are now stuck there. Sfw and if you can think of anything nsfw then go for it!

Thank you! And I love writing for Luca, he's definitely a favorite of mine <3

I may have missed the mark a tad here? I think Luca would largely treat an future-s/o the same as one who's not...but technology definately plays a factor in some aspects of the relationship.

Also the whole time I wrote this i kept thinking about what skills someone from the future would have. It would be hilarious to blare music to speed up ciphers, or maybe chug a preworkout and get a kiting boost hahah

-So first of all, everyone is completely mindblown by this development. It’s not like anyone really knew anything concrete about the manor’s time-space situation, but this just proves even the most popular theories hold no weight. Are you from a different era, or a different timeline all together? Why are you the only one—or are you just the first?? Has more time passed than they suspected, is anyone here even from the same universe???

-Basically, there’s a lot of chaos, spoken and unspoken. Everyone is varying degrees of scared, distrustful, and excited. It’s mostly the last one, in Luca’s case, which is why he’s one of the first people you get to know. Instead of avoiding you, he’s constantly around you. Question after question after question—it probably gets tiring after a while.

-But he’s just so earnest! His excitement is contagious, and despite running his mouth a lot he’s incredibly respectful and well-mannered. When he gets a moment with you alone, he concedes that this must all be more overwhelming for you than it was for everyone else, considering that you’ve lost about 100 years of development along with the regular shockers. So he asks you to come to him if anyone treats you too harshly. He promises to be a respite from that, if nothing else.

-And he is! Luca doesn’t often let people in his work spaces for several reasons…but he makes an exception for you. Just don’t touch anything, okay? You’re safe in his messy spaces. It’s during a visit there that he tells you about what happened to him, all the things he’s been told but doesn’t remember. He’s open about having been in prison, of course, but he doesn’t give the details to just anyone. This is his good-faith peace offering, strange as it might seem. And you can share your life with him when you’re ready.

-If any of your technology happened to come through with you, he’s going to want to look at them. I don’t…entirely suggest letting him? It’s up to you, but just know your phone may not survive the thorough disassembly-inspection he wants to give it. On the other hand! I think Luca could charge your phone just by holding it so no worries if you didn’t have a charger in your bag.

-Years down the line, you two will still have things to teach one another. Culture and technology both are very different in each of your homes, and the little details show themselves at the strangest times. Luca, in all his genius, does his best to replicate the things you miss most about home. It’s only fair that the manor be populated with creature comforts for everyone. It’s not that he’s trying to impress you or anything.

-At some point he starts to ask about dating modern culture. It has its perks, obviously, like being able to stay in immediate touch long-distance, but honestly he’s a bit disappointed to hear about the rush and informality of it. Luca returns the favor, explaining how courtship tended to work from his time…so you know what he’s doing when he starts courting you. He can speed things along if you really want him to, but Luca would enjoy a month or so of gentle flirting and pining. Anticipation is part of the enjoyment!

-After being together for so long, he starts to pick up some of your mannerisms and modern dialect. It’s funny for him to suddenly be throwing out pop culture references when he doesn’t fully understand them. It’s like teaching your grandparents slang; he doesn’t get it but he’s happy to be involved. I’m 100% sure there’s no wifi at the manor but if you have any funny videos saved to you phone they become Luca’s favorite thing. You are now designated manor documentarian! Make sure to catch all of everyone’s embarrassing and funny moments.

-On that note, it’s also incredibly helpful for Luca if you film the two of you a lot. Literally anything, him mumbling to himself while he works, silly jokes, him playing the piano. It’s so much easier to show him things when his memory fails, than to try and explain your relationship from the ground-up.

[canmom]

Music Theory notes (for science bitches) part 3: what if. there were more notes. what if they were friends.

Hello again, welcome back to this series where I try and teach myself music from first principles! I've been making lots of progress on zhonghu in the meantime, but a lot of it is mechanical/technical stuff about like... how you hold the instrument, recognising pitches

In the first part I broke down the basic ideas of tonal music and ways you might go about tuning it in the 12-tone system, particularly its 'equal temperament' variant [12TET]. The second part was a brief survey of the scales and tuning systems used in a selection of music systems around the world, from klezmer to gamelan - many of them compatible with 12TET, but not all.

So, as we said in the first article, a scale might be your 'palette' - the set of notes you use to build music. But a palette is not a picture. And hell, in painting, colour implies structure: relationships of value, saturation, hue, texture and so on which create contrast and therefore meaning.

So let's start trying to understand how notes can sit side by side and create meaning - sequentially in time, or simultaneously as chords! But there are still many foundations to lay. Still, I have a go at composing something at the end of this post! Something very basic, but something.

Anatomy of a chord

I discussed this very briefly in the first post, but a chord is when you play two or more notes at the same time. A lot of types of tonal musical will create a progression of chords over the course of a song, either on a single instrument or by harmonising multiple instruments in an ensemble. Since any or all of the individual notes in a chord can change, there's an enormous variety of possible ways to go from one chord to another.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves. First of all I wanna take a look at what a chord actually is. Look, pretty picture! Read on to see what it means ;)

So here is a C Minor chord, consisting of C, D# and G, played by a simulated string quartet:

(In this post there's gonna be sound clips. These are generated using Ableton, but nothing I talk about should be specific to any one DAW [Digital Audio Workstation]. Ardour appears to be the most popular open source DAW, though I've not used it. Audacity is an excellent open source audio editor.)

Above, I've plotted the frequency spectrum of this chord (the Fourier transform) calculated by Audacity. The volume is in decibels, which is a logarithmic scale of energy in a wave. So this is essentially a linear-log plot.

OK, hard to tell what's going on in there right? The left three tall spikes are the fundamental frequencies of C4 (262Hz), D♯4 (310Hz), and G4 (393Hz). Then, we have a series of overtones of each note, layered on top of each other. It's obviously hard to tell which overtone 'belongs to' which note. Some of the voices may in fact share overtones! But we can look at the spectra of the indivudal notes to compare. Here's the C4 on its own. (Oddly, Ableton considered this a C3, not a C4. as far as I can tell the usual convention is that C4 is 261.626Hz, so I think C4 is 'correct'.)

Here, the strongest peaks are all at integer multiples of the fundamental frequency, so they look evenly spaced in linear frequency-space. These are not all C. The first overtone is an octave above (C5), then we have three times the frequency of C4 - which means it's 1.5 times the frequency of C5, i.e. a perfect fifth above it! This makes it a G. So our first two overtones are in fact the octave and the fifth (plus an octave). Then we get another C (C6), then in the next octave we have frequencies pretty close to E6, G6 and A♯6 - respectively, intervals of a major third, a perfect fifth, and minor 7th relative to the root (modulo octaves).

However, there are also some weaker peaks. Notably, in between the first and second octave is a cluster of peaks around 397-404Hz, which is close to G4 - another perfect fifth! However, it's much much weaker than the overtones we discussed previously.

The extra frequencies and phase relationships give the timbre of the note, its particular sound - in this case you could say the sense of 'softness' in the sound compared to, for example, a sine wave, or a perfect triangle wave which would also have harmonics at all integer frequencies.

Perhaps in seeing all these overtones, we can get an intuitive impression of why chords sound 'consonant'. If the frequencies of a given note are already present in the overtones, they will reinforce each other, and (in extremely vague and unscientific terms) the brain gets really tickled by things happening in sync. However, it's not nearly that simple. Even in this case, we can see that frequencies do not have to be present in the overtone spectrum to create a pleasing sense of consonance.

Incidentally, this may help explain why we consider two notes whose frequencies differ by a factor of 2 to be 'equivalent'. The lower note contains all of the frequencies of the higher note as overtones, plus a bunch of extra 'inbetween' frequencies. e.g. if I have a note with fundamental frequency f, and a note with frequency 2f, then f's overtones are 2f, 3f, 4f, 5f, 6f... while 2f's overtones are 2f, 4f, 6f, 8f. There's so much overlap! So if I play a C, you're also hearing a little bit of the next C up from that, the G above that, the C above that and so on.

For comparison, if we have a note with frequency 3f, i.e. going up by a perfect fifth from the second note, the frequencies we get are 3f, 6f, 9f, 12f. Still fully contained in the overtones of the first note, but not quite as many hits.

Of course, the difference between each of these spectra is the amplitudes. The spectrum of the lower octave may contain the frequencies of the higher octave, but much quieter than when we play that note, and falling off in a different way.

(Note that a difference of ten decibels is very large: it's a logarithmic scale, so 10 decibels means 10 times the energy. A straight line in this linear-log plot indicates a power-law relationship between frequency and energy, similar to the inverse-square relationship of a triangle wave, where the first overtone has a quarter of the power, the second has a ninth of the power, and so on.)

So, here is the frequency spectrum of the single C note overlaid onto the spectrum of the C minor chord:

Some of the overtones of C line up with the overtones of the other notes (the D# and G), but a great many do not. Each note is contributing a bunch of new overtones to the pile. Still, because all these frequencies relate back to the base note, they feel 'related' - we are drawn to interpret the sounds together as a group rather than individually.

Our ears and aural system respond to these frequencies at a speed faster than thought. With a little effort, you can pick out individual voices in a layered composition - but we don't usually pick up on individual overtones, rather the texture created by all of them together.

I'm not gonna take the Fourier analysis much further, but I wanted to have a look at what happens when you crack open a chord and poke around inside.

However...

In Western music theory terms, we don't really think about all these different frequency spikes, just the fundamental notes. (The rest provides timbre). We give chords names based on the notes of the voices that comprise them. Chord notation can get... quite complicated; there are also multiple ways to write a given chord, so you have a degree of choice, especially once you factor in octave equivalence! Here's a rapid-fire video breakdown:

Because you have all these different notes interacting with each other, you further get multiple interactions of consonance and dissonance happening simultaneously. This means there's a huge amount of nuance. To repeat my rough working model, we can speak of chords being 'stable' (meaning they contain mostly 'consonant' relations like fifths and thirds) or 'unstable' (featuring 'dissonant' relations like semitones or tritones), with the latter setting up 'tension' and the former resolving it.

However, that's so far from being useful. To get a bit closer to composing music, it would likely help to go a bit deeper, build up more foundations and so on.

In this post and subsequent ones, I'm going to be taking things a little slower, trying to understand a bit more explicitly how chords are deployed.

An apology to Western music notation

In my first post in this series, I was a bit dismissive of 'goofy' Western music notation. What I was missing is that the purpose of Western music notation is not to clearly show the mathematical relationships between notes (something that's useful for learning!)... but to act as a reference to use while performing music. So it's optimising for two things: compactness, and legibility of musical constructs like phrasing. Pedagogy is secondary.

Youtuber Tantacrul, lead developer of the MuseScore software, recently made a video running over a brief history of music notation and various proposed alternative notation schemes - some reasonable, others very goofy. Having seen his arguments, he makes a pretty good case for why the current notation system is actually a reasonable compromise... for representing tonal music on the 12TET system, which is what it's designed for.

So with that in mind, let me try and give a better explanation of the why of Western music notation.

In contrast to 'piano roll' style notation where you represent every possible note in an absolute way, here each line of the stave (staff if you're American) represents a scale degree of a diatonic scale. The key signature locates you in a particular scale, and all the notes that aren't on that scale are omitted for compactness (since space is at an absolute premium when you have to turn pages during a performance!). If you're doing something funky and including a note outside the scale, well that's a special case and you give it a special-case symbol.

It's a similar principle to file compression: if things are as-expected, you omit them. If things are surprising, you have to put something there.

However, unlike the 简谱 jiǎnpǔ system which I've been learning in my erhu lessons, it's not a free-floating system which can attach to any scale. Instead, with a given clef, each line and space of the stave has one of three possible notes it could represent. This works, because - as we'll discuss momentarily - the diatonic scales can all be related to each other by shifting certain scale degrees up or down in semitones. So by indicating which scale degrees need to be shifted, you can lock in to any diatonic scale. Naisuu.

This approach, which lightly links positions to specific notes, keeps things reasonably simple for performers to remember. In theory, the system of key signatures helps keep things organised, without requiring significant thought while performing.

That is why have to arbitrarily pick a certain scale to be the 'default'; in this case, history has chosen C major/A minor. From that point, we can construct the rest of the diatonic scales as key signatures using a cute mathematical construct called the 'circle of fifths'.

How key signatures work (that damn circle)

So, let's say you have a diatonic major scale. In piano roll style notation, this looks like (taking C as our base note)...

And on the big sheet of scales, like this:

Now, let's write another diatonic major scale, a fifth up from the first. This is called transposition. For example, we could transpose from C major to G major.

Thanks to octave equivalency, we can wrap these notes back into the same octave as our original scale. (In other words, we've added 7 semitones to every note in our original scale, and then taken each one modulo 12 semitones.) Here, I duplicate the pattern down an octave.

Now, if we look at what notes we have in both scales, over the range of the original major scale.

Well, they're almost exactly the same... but the fourth note (scale degree) is shifted up by one semitone.

In fact, we've seen this set of notes before - it is after all nothing more than a cyclic permutation of the major scale. We've landed on the 'Lydian mode', one of the seven 'modes' of the diatonic major scale we discussed in previous posts. We've just found out that the Lydian mode has the same notes as a major scale starting a fifth higher. In general, whether we think of it as a 'mode' or as a 'different major scale' is a matter of where we start (the base note). I'm going to have more to say about modes in a little bit.

With this trick in mind, we produce a series of major scales starting a fifth higher each time. It just so happens that, since the fifth is 7 semitones, which is coprime with the 12 semitones of 12TET, this procedure will lead us through every single possible starting note in 12TET (up to octave equivalency).

So, each time we go up a fifth, we add a sharp on the fourth degree of the previous scale. This means that every single major scale in 12TET can be identified by a unique set of sharps. Once you have gone up 12 fifths, you end up with the original set of notes.

This leads us to a cute diagram called the "circle of fifths".

Because going up a fifth is octave-equivalent to going down a fourth, we can also look back one step on the circle to find out which note needs to be made sharper. So, from C major to G major, we have to sharpen F - the previous note on the circle from C. From G major to D major, we have to sharpen C. From D major to A major, we have to sharpen G. And so on.

By convention, when we write a key signature to define the particular scale we're using, we write the sharps out in circle-of-fifths order like this. The point of this is to make it easy to tell at a glance what scale you're in... assuming you know the scales already, anyway. This is another place where the aim of the notation scheme is for a compact representation for performers rather than something that makes the logical structure evident to beginners.

Also by convention, key signatures don't include the other octaves of each note. So if F is sharp in your key signature, then every F is sharp, not just the one we've written on the stave.

This makes it less noisy, but it does mean you don't have a convenient visual reminder that the other Fs are also sharp. We could imagine an alternative approach where we include the sharps for every visible note, e.g. if we duplicate every sharp down an octave for C♯ major...

...but maybe it's evident why this would probably be more confusing than helpful!

So, our procedure returns the major scales in order of increasing sharps. Eventually you have added seven sharps, meaning every scale degree of the original starting scale (in this case, C Major) is sharpened.

What would it mean to keep going past this point? Let's hop in after F♯ Major, at the bottom of the Circle of Fifths; next you would go to C♯ Major by sharpening B. So far so good. At this point we have sharps everywhere, so the notes in your scale go... C♯ D♯ E♯ F♯ G♯ A♯ B♯ C♯ ...except that E♯ is the same as F, and B♯ is the same as C, so we could write that as C♯ D♯ F F♯ G♯ A♯ C C♯

But then to get to 'G♯ Major', you would need to sharpen... F♯? That's not on the original C-major scale we started with ! You could say, well, essentially this adds up to two sharps on F, so it's like F♯♯, taking you to G. So now you have...

G♯ A♯ C C♯ D♯ F G G♯

...and the line of the stave that you would normally use for F now represents a G. You could carry on in this way, eventually landing all the way back at the original set of notes in C Major (bold showing the note that just got sharpened in each case):

D♯ F G G♯ A♯ C D D♯ A♯ C D D♯ F G A A♯ F G A A♯ C D E F C D E F G A B C

But that sounds super confusing - how would you even represent the double sharps on the key signature? It would break the convention that each line of the stave can only represent three possible notes. Luckily there's a way out. We can work backwards, going around the circle the other way and flattening notes. This will hit the exact same scales in the opposite order, but we think of their relation to the 'base' scale differently.

So, let's try starting with the major scale and going down a fifth. We could reason about this algebraically to work out that sharpening the fourth while you go up means flattening the seventh when you go down... but I can also just put another animation. I like animations.

So: you flatten the seventh scale degree in order to go down a fifth in major scales. By iterating this process, we can go back around the circle of fifths. For whatever reason, going down this way we use flats instead of sharps in the names of the scale. So instead of A♯ major we call it B♭ major. Same notes in the same order, but we think of it as down a rung from F major.

In terms of modes, this shows that the major scale a fifth down from a given root note has the same set of notes as the "mixolydian mode" on the original root note. ...don't worry, you don't gotta memorise this, there is not a test! Rather, the point of mentioning these modes is to underline that whether you're in a major key, minor key, or one of the various other modes is all relative to the note you start on. We'll see in a moment a way to think about modes other than 'cyclic permutation'.

Let's try the same trick on the minor key.

Looks like this time, to go up we need to sharpen the sixth degree, and to go down we need to flatten the second degree. As algebra demands, this gives us the exact same sequence of sharps and flats as the sequence of major scales we derived above. After all, every major scale has a 'relative minor' which can be achieved by cyclically permuting its notes.

Going up a fifth shares the same notes with the 'Dorian mode' of the original base note, and going down a fifth shares the same notes with the 'Phrygian mode'.

Here's a summary of movement around the circle of fifths. The black background indicates the root note of the new scale.

Another angle on modes

In my first two articles, I discussed the modes of the diatonic scale. Leaping straight for the mathematically simplest definition (hi Kolmogorov), I defined the seven 'church modes' as simply being cyclic permutations of the intervals of the major scale. Which they are... but I'm told that's not really how musicians think of them.

Let's grab the chart of modes again. (Here's the link to the spreadsheet).

We can get to these modes by cyclically permuting the others, but we can also get to them by making a small adjustment of one to a few particular scale degrees. When you listen to a piece of music, you're not really doing cyclic permutations - you're building up a feeling for the pattern of notes based on your lifelong experience of hearing music that's composed in this system. So the modes will feel something like 'major until, owo what's this, the seventh is not where I thought it would be'.

Since the majority of music is composed using major and minor modes, it's useful therefore to look at the 'deltas' relative to these particular modes.

To begin with, what's the difference between major and minor? To go from major to natural minor, you shift the third, sixth and seventh scale degrees down by one semitone.

So those are our two starting points. For the others, I'm going to be consulting the most reliable music theory source (some guy on youtube) to give suggestions of the emotional connotations these can bring. The Greek names are not important, but I am trying to build a toolbox of elements here, so we can try our hand at composition. So!

The "Dorian mode" is like the natural minor, but the sixth is back up a semitone. It's described as a versatile mode which can be mysterious, heroic or playful. I guess that kinda makes sense, it's like in between the major and minor?

The "Phrygian mode" is natural minor but you also lower the 2nd - basically put everything as low as you can go within the diatonic modes. It is described as bestowing an ominous, threatening feeling.

The "Lydian mode" is like the major scale, but you shift the fourth up a semitone, landing on the infamous tritone. It is described as... uh well actually the guy doesn't really give a nice soundbitey description of what this mode sounds like, besides 'the brighest' of the seven, this video's kinda more generally about composition, whatever. But generally it's pretty big and upbeat I think.

The "Mixolydian" mode is the major, but with the seventh down a semitone. So it's like... a teeny little bit minor. It's described as goofy and lighthearted.

We've already covered the Aeolian/Natural Minor, so that leaves only the "Locrian". This one's kinda the opposite of the Lydian: just about everything in the major scale is flattened a bit. Even from the minor it flattens two things, and gives you lots of dissonance. This one is described as stereotypically spooky, but not necessarily. "One of the least useful", oof.

Having run along the catalogue, we may notice something interesting. In each case, we always either only sharpen notes, or only flatten notes relative to the major and minor scales. All those little lines are parallel.

Indeed, it turns out that each scale degree has one of two positions it can occupy. We can sort the diatonic modes according to whether those degrees are in the 'sharp' or 'flat' position.

This is I believe the 'brightness' mentioned above, and I suppose it's sort of like 'majorness'. So perhaps we can think of modes as sliding gradually from the ultra-minor to the infra-major? I need to experiment and find out.

What have we learned...?

Scale degrees are a big deal! The focus of all this has been looking at how different collections of notes relate to each other. We sort our notes into little sets and sequences, and we compare the sets by looking at 'equivalent' positions in some other set.

Which actually leads really naturally into the subject of chord progressions.

So, musical structure. A piece of tonal music as a whole has a "palette" which is the scale - but within that, specific sections of that piece of music will pick a smaller subset of the scale, or something related to the scale, to harmonise.

The way this goes is typically like this: you have some instruments that are playing chords, which gives the overall sort of harmonic 'context', and you have a single-voiced melody or lead line, which stands out from the rest, often with more complex rhythms. This latter part is typically what you would hum or sing if you're asked 'how a song goes'. Within that melody, the notes at any given point are chosen to harmonise with the chords being played at the same time.

The way this is often notated is to write the melody line on the stave, and to write the names of chords above the stave. This may indicate that another hand or another instrument should play those chords - or it may just be an indication for someone analysing the piece which chord is providing the notes for a given section.

So, you typically have a sequence of chords for a piece of music. This is known as a chord progression. There are various analytical tools for cracking open chord progressions, and while I can't hope to carry out a full survey, let me see if I can at least figure out my basic waypoints.

Firstly, there are the chords constructed directly from scales - the 'triad' chords, on top of which can be piled yet more bonus intervals like sevenths and ninths. Starting from a scale, and taking any given scale degree as the root note, you can construct a chord by taking every other subsequent note.

So, the major scale interval pattern goes 2 2 1 2 2 2 1. We can add these up two at a time, starting from each position, to get the chords. For each scale degree we therefore get the following intervals relative to the base note of the chord...

I. 0 4 7 - major

ii. 0 3 7 - minor

iii. 0 3 7 - minor

IV. 0 4 7 - major

V. 0 4 7 - major

vi. 0 3 7 - minor

viiᵒ. 0 3 6 - diminished

Now hold on a minute, where'd those fuckin Roman numerals come from? I mentioned this briefly in the first post, but this is Roman numeral analysis, which is used to talk about chord progressions in a scale-independent way.

Here, a capital Roman numeral represents a major triad; a lowercase Roman numeral represents a minor triad; a superscript 'o' represents a dimished triad (minor but you lower the fifth down to the tritone); a superscript '+' represents an augmented triad (major but you boost the fifth up to the major sixth).

So while regular chord notation starts with the pitch of the base note, the Roman numeral notation starts with a scale degree. This way you can recognise the 'same' chord progression in songs that are in quite different keys.

OK, let's do the same for the minor scale... 2 1 2 2 1 2 2. Again, adding them up two at a time...

i. 0 3 7 - minor

iiᵒ. 0 3 6 - diminished

III. 0 4 7 - major

iv. 0 3 7 - minor

v. 0 3 4 - minor

VI. 0 4 7 - major

VII. 0 4 7 - major

Would you look at that, it's a cyclic permutation of the major scale. Shocker.

So, both scales have three major chords, three minor chords and a diminished chord in them. The significance of each of these positions will have to be left to another day though.

What does it mean to progress?

So, you play a chord, and then you play another chord. One or more of the voices in the chord change. Repeat. That's all a chord progression is.

You can think of a chord progression as three (or more) melodies played as once. Only, there is an ambiguity here.

Let's say, idk, I threw together this series of chords, it ended up sounding like it would be something you'd hear in an old JRPG dungeon, though maybe that's just 'cos it's midi lmao...

I emphasise at this point that I have no idea what I'm doing, I'm just pushing notes around until they sound good to me. Maybe I would know how to make them sound better if I knew more music theory! But also at some point you gotta stop theorising and try writing music.

So this chord progression ended up consisting of...

Csus2 - Bm - D♯m - A♯m - Gm - Am - F♯m - Fm - D - Bm

Or, sorted into alphabetical order, I used...

Am, A♯m, Bm, Csus2, D, D♯m, Fm, F♯m, Gm

Is that too many minor chords? idk! Should all of these technically be counted as part of the 'progression' instead of transitional bits that don't count? I also dk! Maybe I'll find out soon.

I did not even try to stick to a scale on this, and accordingly I'm hitting just about every semitone at some point lmao. Since I end on a B minor chord, we might guess that the key ought to be B minor? In that case, we can consult the circle of fifths and determine that F and C would be sharp. This gives the following chords:

Bm, C♯dim, D, Em, F♯m, G, A

As an additional check, the notes in the scale:

B, C♯, D, E, F, G♯, A

Well, uh. I used. Some of those? Would it sound better if I stuck to the 'scale-derived' chords? Know the rules before you break them and all that. Well, we can try it actually. I can map each chord in the original to the corresponding chord in B minor.

This version definitely sounds 'cleaner', but it's also... less tense I feel like. The more dissonant choices in the first one made it 'spicier'. Still, it's interesting to hear the comparison! Maybe I could reintroduce the suspended chord and some other stuff and get a bit of 'best of both worlds'? But honestly I'm pretty happy with the first version. I suppose the real question would be which one would be easier to fit a lead over...

Anyway, for the sake of argument, suppose you wanted to divide this into three melodies. One way to do it would be to slice it into low, central and high parts. These would respectively go...

Since these chords mostly move around in parallel, they all have roughly the same shape. But equally you could pick out three totally different pathways through this. You could have a part that just jumps to the nearest note it can (until the end where there wasn't an obvious place to go so I decided to dive)...

Those successive relationships between notes also exist in this track. Indeed, when two successive chords share a note, it's a whole thing (read: it gets mentioned sometimes in music theory videos). You could draw all sorts of crazy lines through the notes here if you wanted.

Nevertheless, the effects of movements between chords come in part from these relationships between successive notes. This can give the feeling of chords going 'up' or 'down', depending on which parts go up and which parts go down.

I think at this point this post is long enough that trying to get into the nitty gritty of what possible movements can exist between chords would be a bit of a step too far, and also I'm yawning a lot but I want to get the post out the door, so I let's wrap things up here. Next time: we'll continue our chord research and try and figure out how to use that Roman numeral notation. Like, taking a particular Roman numeral chord progression and see what we can build with it.

Hope this has been interesting! I'm super grateful for the warm reception the last two articles got, and while I'm getting much further from the islands of 'stuff I can speak about with confidence', fingers crossed the process of learning is also interesting...

[malarign]

that’s a c-major chord

(when he helps you heal your inner child)

contains: bf!Heeseung x fem!reader | genre: fluff | tw! none! (i think) | wc: 0,8k

reblogs, likes and comments are highly appreciated!!!

author’s note: i was writing this while listening to Liszt’s Liebestraum, so i recommend reading while listening to it <3

The sound of message notification raised your attention from the book you were reading while waiting outside of the practice room for your boyfriend, Heeseung. Unlocking your phone you read the message saying: “When are you going to be here, angel?”. you smiled and answered almost immediately: “I’m already here”. Just after you clicked the “send” button the sound of a piano stool being moved away and a few steps preceding sharp opening of the door. They revealed Heeseung in his slightly worn-out pair of jeans and comfy hoodie, which you kept on stealing from him.

“Why didn’t you come inside?” He asked a little bit confused, a frown decorating his face. You smiled at his cuteness and stood up, deciding not to answer his question.

“Are you ready to go?” You asked instead.

“I have a few things that need to get some touch-up and I’ll be done for today. Do you wanna listen?” He looked at you somewhat shyly.

“Of course, why are you even asking,” you said and made your way inside the practice room, while Heeseung was holding the door for you. You sat on a chair next to the black grand piano ready to be surrounded by the beautiful music. “What are you practicing right now?” you asked curiously.

“Liszt’s Liebestraum,” he said sitting on the stool in front of the instrument. Not long after he started playing all the parts he had problems with along with passages that appear in the piece. After what seemed like a second he announced he was finished for today.

“Before we leave can you maybe play the whole piece? I love listening to you playing,” you said dreamingly to which he only smiled and positioned himself on a stool again. His fingers delicately danced on the black and white keyboard making the instrument emit sounds so vibrant and delightful that you wanted nothing more than to listen to them all day long. Seeing how serious he looked while he played, a slight pout visible on his lips and brows knitted in a slight frown, you thought to yourself that you couldn’t get any happier than right now. There was also another thought that pierced your head: “How I wish I could play like this…”.

With those thoughts flooding your mind you didn’t realize Heeseung already stopped playing and was staring directly into your eyes.

“What do you think? Was it okay?”

You stood up motioning him to move on the stool. You took a seat next to him and said while smiling brightly. “It wasn’t okay. It was amazing Hee.” You finished your sentence leaving a sweet peck on his cheek.

“Well, what were you thinking about?” He asked to which you answered with a confused look. “I know you, lovely. What were you thinking about when I was playing?” He dwelled on the subject.

You lowered your gaze to the keyboard, putting her left hand on it and pressing one key.

“I wish I could play like this. Play like you.”

He looked at you focusing on your facial expression that had settled on your face as soon as he asked the second question. Smiling he offered: “Do you want me to teach you?” to which you nodded slowly but unfalteringly. “Okay, let me just warn you, I really suck at explaining and teaching how to play, so you need to bear with me.” He announced sheepishly.

“It’s you who’s gonna have to bear with me. I never even touched any musical instrument.”

“Well, you’re wrong. You did just a second ago. The key you pressed over here,” he said while pointing to the specific key. “That’s a C, the first sound of the most basic scale in music,” he started explaining. And if you hadn’t stopped him, he would’ve explained the whole music theory in one go. But that’s actually what you admired about Heeseung, his passion for music never stopped growing, and kept expanding even on other people as if there was no space left in his heart and soul for that.

“That’s what I’m talking about” he laughed at his nerdiness. “Okay, let’s start from that C. We can either go into a more happy or sad tone. Which one do you prefer?”

You thought for a moment and said: “I think more happy one”.

“Then happy it is,” he said straightening his back and raising his hand to press three keys at once. “That’s a C-major chord and it contains sounds C, E, and G,” he explained pressing respective keys consecutively which resonated in the small practice room. You tried it yourself, soft and shy sounds emitting from the instrument.

“That’s right!” Heeseung cheered.

Both of you continued the lesson until late evening, forgetting about all the plans you had for the rest of the day. None of you complained though, that afternoon was better than any plan you could possibly come up with, making another passion connect the two lovers.

thank you for reading! back to the masterlist

[persefida]

(Wow, that's a long post)

I see so many people who like creating explanations about Hermitcraft/Life series, creating tons of lore and interpret relationships. Especially with Life series, because it's half roleplay server and has a lot of plot and stories potential. Do people remember their previous life? Do they die and reborn? Do they remember each other, do they have scars from previous death? All that lore stuff.

I'm just.. I don't know. I guess I'm not a big fan of more serious roleplay and don't really think about relationships between characters, or the world of Life series itself.

For me it's all just minecraft servers where friends can play and talk and laugh. When I watch Life series, I imagine not characters, but real people. When Scar is talking, I imagine actual irl Scar, sitting on the computer with microphone and talking with his salesman grin. They remember previous seasons and don't think about it as lore, they just remember good times from the past. And after an end of the season they all are in one big group in discord discussing, laughing and talking how they will edit the episode.

Basically, that's the reason, why I animate only funny moments and often draw the irl side of hermits. I would love to draw something more "serious" or create a dramatic amv and be a part of this fandom community, but sadly it's not really my vibe.

In their videos hermits talk a lot about their life and wifes and maybe children.

I remember when Scar wanted to ask something to Xisuma who was afk, Xisuma said, he heard Scar through the headphones across the room. And I imagine actual human Xisuma, his room, microphone, how he rushes through that said room to quickly join the game.

I actually think a lot about irl side of hermits.

I imagine Grian sitting in the living room and doing taxes. Impulse loads the dishwasher. Doc plays with Doccy and teach them about pigeons and sparrows. Joel's in a grocery store decides if he should buy more expensive cheese this time or buy the usual. Mumbo watching videos and procrastinating to go do laundry. Xisuma writes articles about new songs and having a little art block while creating his own music.

I drew irl Grian so many times lol. I really like the irl side of youtubers, they feel more alive.

I don't really know how some hermits (and other people) look, but I still try to imagine them.

So that's why I won't do any lore or angsty animatics. But I still like a lot of AU fanarts, if they are drawn really good or interesting.

So because of all that I feel a little bit outside of the fandom... Like, everyone are having fun, sharing theories, fascinating AUs, drawing cool fanarts for each others. And I'm like.. not into that, I'm sorry. I still want to talk to all of you! I just can't really contribute. So here are my lighthearted funny animatics with 0% angst and where people are nothing more than just good friends on minecraft server.

I believe, people like me don't really watch fanarts or animatics and don't actually know about this whole side of the fandom. I wonder how many of them are here on tumblr ot twitter.

Is there anyone here who thinks the same way?

[clefairytea]

The older I get the more I think we should stop selling the idea of like. There being an “easy” version of something.

Like ok I’ve always wanted to be able to do something musical but I’ve also always been pretty tuneless. Like “kid in primary school who couldn’t clap along with the beat in music class and got told to stop when singing” tuneless.

So last year I finally drummed up the courage to at least TRY. After a bit of research on “easiest instrument for stupid idiot babies” I bought a ukulele. Amid that, I read plenty of promises of “wooo you can learn to play a great song in A SINGLE WEEK on ukulele!”.

And…it was still hard! I couldn’t strum nicely or figure out how to switch between chords, I couldn’t keep a beat, a lot of the music terminology I saw completely confused me. And it made me feel SO stupid and useless like. This instrument they give literal tiny children because it’s so simple and easy and barely an instrument at all and I couldn’t get it.

I’ve been at it pretty consistently for a year and a half or so, and honestly I’m still not good! Id be pretty mortified to play in front of anyone that isn’t literally being paid to teach me lmao.

But I’ve gotten much better! I can strum much more nicely and play a couple songs, I’ve learned to chuck and fingerpick. And now I can pick out the beat in music much better, I understand some basic music theory. I have learned this stuff, even though I found it super hard and unintuitive!

And like. Man looking around online I feel like I’ve seen a lot of people who picked up an uke for similar reasons who gave up fast because it was sold to them as easy, and they felt like “well if I can’t get THIS then I’m hopeless”. But then there is no easy way to learn a completely new skill and get actually good at it, it still takes work and frustration and a lot of vulnerability.

And I think I see this with stuff like. Oh learn to code the easy way, learn to draw the easy way, learn Japanese the easy way, etc etc. and it’s like man. Are we better off just admitting that like. Most things for most people are hard, but you can still do it anyway? Like you can still do it! You can still learn and get better at it! It’s fine if something is hard and takes a long time! It really is!