A Rant About Notes

Notes piss me off sometimes... As a musician who plays music primarily from the classical genre I get overwhelmed at times with the amount of notes I have to deal with. To be proficient in classical music, or western music in general, one must understand that character, purpose and tendency of every note contained in the piece they are playing. This can be frustrating to say the least.. I'm actually starting to question the validity of this mode of thinking. Playing in this manor is equivalent to coloring inside the lines in a coloring book. Actually if you think about it, it's more like coloring inside the lines using the same color as everybody else who has ever colored that page. Shouldn't we be able to decide for ourselves how notes are interpreted? Call me crazy but I think so! Another thing that I think is interesting while I'm on the subject of notes is that there are notes in western music that are considered "unusable" because of their harmonic relationship to other notes in the harmonic series. The reason these notes are considered unusable is because we made them that way. The equal tempered series, the collection of tones that western music is based on, is modified into 12 equal semitones. This is what causes certain notes in the natural series to be out of tune within this modified harmonic series. I believe this was done partly so that they could make the tuning on the piano more feasible which is why the piano sounds so good! Here is a good article from wikipedia that explains the mathematics of the harmonic series and if you scroll down to the "Harmonics and Tuning" section it talks about the 12 tone equal-tempered scale that most, if not all, western instruments are tuned to. Despite all my bickering, notes are the building blocks for music and without them we wouldn't be able to convey our musical ideas as easily. You cant live with em and you cant live without em..