Cybergrunge.net Music Guide

Music: Art and Science

Composing/writing/performing music is typically thought of as an Art, more than a scientific or mathematical thing. But, there are definitely "scientific methods" involved in composing and performing. Like composing, mixing/mastering/producing is both Art and Science.

There are no "rules", just guidelines and the best way to learn is to experiment, as a scientist would. However, there are methods and practices that make for More Effective Experimentation. The best rule of thumb is to make sure that you frequently try doing things you have never done before. Like in science, you can learn about experiments that other people have done: "peer review".

However, keep in mind:

Science can often give you (good-enough) answers,

but only to the questions you choose to ask...

Philosophy determines the questions you ask,

and how you use those answers...

Things the SCAM music industry doesn't want you to know:

What is considered "good" has changed enormously in the past century, from decade to decade, and even year to year.

Things being popular doesn't mean they are good. Duh.

Music and Art are some of the most unequal trades to work in. There are MILLIONS of artists on this planet, but only a few hundred that you will ever hear of, and a tiny few that can make any money or have a career. Does that mean the 0.01% of artists are just geniuses, infinitely more talented than everyone else? Of course not.

There is no "objective" criteria for "good" music.
Pretending this isn't the case is just an excuse to be mean.

FACT: Anyone can learn to produce music that sounds "good" for free and in limited spare time.
FACT: Free and open source software can sound just as "good" as expensive software and gear.
FACT: The music industry is not about albums/tickets/merch. It is not about retail sales. It is about production fees, royalties, contracts, legal fees, advertising, & systematic fraud

It doesn't take a profound, well-thought-out Marxist-Leninist critique of political economy to recognize this stuff.

Why GRUNGE?

I take a lot of my ideas from Steve Albini, who, in the early days of grunge gave scathing critiques of the music industry's corruption and inequity. Albini's criticism was shared by pretty much everyone involved with Grunge. What set Grunge apart from punk and hardcore, and what earned it so much hatred among those old-school punks was that Grunge was never really afraid to "sell out" - as evidenced by the enormous success of Nirvana, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, RHCP, and so on. I think that Zach de La Rocha of Rage Against The Machine described the idea of "selling out" best, describing that there was, for him an agitprop purpose to music - instead of the extremely insular punk scenes that preceded Grunge, which prided themselves on exclusivity and alienating the public, RATM, while not necessarily Grunge, sharing the attitude of many Grunge bands, were completely open to making their music accessible and "radio-friendly", and questioned the Punk Orthodoxy that doing so was inherently incompatible with making "authentic" music.

While Grunge is often sidelined as a prime example of Generation X's perceived apolitical nihilism/pessimism, I think a re-evaluation is long overdue. While the fact that Republicans can somehow unironically play Rage at their rallies may seem to be a signal that not only has Grunge long jumped the shark, but has been proven to be another instance of impotent subcultural transgressivity, I don't think this means Grunge has nothing to offer us whatsoever. Maybe I am just caught up in a nostalgic love affair, but I have always felt like there is real value in the attitude of Grunge. The way it expressed the dream-like stupor of suburban life, the way it proposed the state of suffocating boredom among Pre-Millenium youth as a possible unexpected path to Satori, juxtaposing the mundane and sublime. Maybe this is just because it speaks to me too personally, but I think it spoke to so many millions of people (as evidenced by record sales) because it got at a concrete universal human experience that just wasn't spoken to by the more niche sub-cultures that came before and after.

DISSONANCE vs RESONANCE: The Core Principle Of All Music and Sound

This is one of the most important things about music. What is dissonance?

Dissonance is not something abstract or deep or complicated. It is simply destructive interference.

It just means that if you add a sound wave to its exact opposite, you get silence. In other words: 1-1=0
1-1=0 is why dissonance (destructive interference) in music production causes things to sound less "powerful" or "loud" or "full".

You can understand, then, why much of music avoids dissonance. it doesn't just "sound bad", but interferes with our ability to actually hear things

Whether you make EDM or punk or House or industrial or even noise music, you probably want people to hear it.
The primary cause of destructive interference in music production is phase cancellation.

The phase of a sound wave describes its angle over a given point in time.

Positive phases cancel out negative ones, so the more sounds/frequencies you layer at once, the more phase cancellation happens.

The opposite of dissonance is consonance. This is a bad name, though, so it is normally called resonance instead.

Resonance means two waves sync up making a louder sound. In other words: 1+1=2

On a side note, this is why folk, solo piano, and chiptune music is so "pleasing to the ear": it almost only uses positive intereference, that is to say, 
because you are only dealing with simple, square and saw and pulse and triangle waveforms, and because those simple waveforms are playing 
simple melodies, there is less opportunity for destructive interference, it is all just layers of positively-reinforcing vibrations.

So, now you know the foundational secret of music: Resonance = nice because more sound. Dissonance = bad because less sound.
except... obviously, there is a little more to it.

One of the features of resonance/dissonance, is that you can create "imaginary" extra frequencies... If you play two notes that are close together, you will notice a "pulsing" effect. As the notes get further apart, the pulsing speeds up, until you start getting a lot farther and then it slows down again. Some people a long time ago realized this, that playing certain notes at the same time could make an interesting and complicated sound, that playing many notes at once could make a sound that seems "greater than the sum of the parts". This is how chords were invented. When it comes to composing music, all this is called harmony, or whatever...

When it comes to production, mixing/mastering of music, it is more complicated because you typically aren't dealing with simply note frequencies, but notes played on instruments that have complicated waveforms and each note has different frequencies, harmonics, etc.

You can think of mixing/mastering of music as similar to composing music but instead of dealing with notes at whole intervals, you are dealing a whole spectrum of phases, frequencies, and amplitudes. This complexity is why "producers" tend to be giant fucking assholes, because they think that because production is so complicated, they are geniuses for learning how to do it.

Sub, Low, Mid, High

you can get more specific if you want, such as low-mid, mid-mid, high-mid. low-high, mid-high, high-high.... etc... Lets keep it simple for now:

There are "MORE" high frequencies than "mid" frequencies, and "more" mid frequencies than "low". (unless you want to be pedantic)

There are only 10 frequencies between 40Hz and 50Hz - "sub-bass" range ---- you can't make much with that few of frequencies!

There is only 100 frequencies between 0 Hz and 100Hz - the "low" range ----- you can't fit much different sounds in there..

There are 1,000 frequencies between 100Hz and 1 kHz - the "mid" range ----- you can fit a lot of sounds in there!

There are a zillion frequencies between 1 kHz and 14 kHz - "high" range ----- thats almost too many frequencies to keep track of!

How to interpret this?

0: "overcrowding" frequency ranges makes things sound muddy/less loud/confusing to the ears. Give individual sounds their own "home" range.

1: Careful not to add too many different sounds layered in sub and low frequencies, it gets crowded easily

2: Mid range has a nice happy medium where you can layer a lot of stuff manageably.

3: Very high frequencies require special attention, because there are so many of them.

4: High frequencies also carry more energy, so they sound "louder" than mid or low.

Mixing/producing on HiFi gear?

Starting off a mix on low-quality speakers is actually good practice in my experience.

If it sounds good on bad speakers, thats a good starting point.

Mixing with headphones and high-quality monitors gives you a... warped perspective on how your audience will hear things.