# Blotted science, can you explain this to me please guys..



## dudeskin (Jun 20, 2013)

Hi all,


i love what i hear, but dont understand the note groupings on the 'clock' or anything else really.

whats going on? hahaha

cheers

Joe


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## The Spanish Inquisition (Jun 20, 2013)

I don't know, but I do know this sounds awesome as hell.


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## Carver (Jun 20, 2013)

the dude has pretty much created his own theory for combining jazz and progressive metal. he is explaining it the way he created it, it is very greek to a lot of players. but if you sit down and try to forget everything you know, and then approach this video, its very insightfull when you start to feel the progression. its all in feel with this style and that is strange to dudes that are looking for a sound. the man just makes it so natural, but at the same time so mind boggeling, pretty much its like taking 30 years of jazz theory training and summing it up in a 6 minute song. while putting a heavy twist to it. i love this band... simple as that. i was just listening to them this morning on my way to work.

they have a video out where they created an entire album to be synced with this horrible made for tv movie filmed in ontario called "swarm" the album is amazing, but even more amazing when you watch the movie synced up with the album.

cool dudes. wicked approach, i will like these guys for a long time i think.

bass player from cannibal corpse. yes sir!


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## Fred the Shred (Jun 20, 2013)

Twelve-tone technique - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The 12-tone-technique has been around for quite a while, Schoenberg being the original developer of the final form. That is what Ron is explaining in the video. The clock symbolizes note groupings formed from the mandatory inclusion of all 12 semitones, which will be used to form the patterns you hear, i.e. "tone rows". The point is to not have a dominance of any note over the other 11, so that no dominant key can be established.


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## The Spanish Inquisition (Jun 20, 2013)

Fred the Shred said:


> Twelve-tone technique - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
> 
> The 12-tone-technique has been around for quite a while, Schoenberg being the original developer of the final form. That is what Ron is explaining in the video. The clock symbolizes note groupings formed from the mandatory inclusion of all 12 semitones, which will be used to form the patterns you hear, i.e. "tone rows". The point is to not have a dominance of any note over the other 11, so that no dominant key can be established.



Meshuggah also uses this I think, but I don't know whether they do on purpose or not...


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## Fred the Shred (Jun 20, 2013)

Fred's a bit of a contemporary music nut, so I wouldn't be surprised at all if it was intentionally the case.


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## cronux (Jun 20, 2013)

well, Blotted Science is the shit - Ron is just insane


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## dudeskin (Jun 20, 2013)

Thanks guys, i was suppose to post this in the theory section but didn't somehow haha.

Cheers dudes.

Ill have a look into it more.


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## dudeskin (Jun 20, 2013)

can a mod please move this to the theory section.
i cant figure out how to, 
cheers


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## sevenstringj (Jun 20, 2013)

IIRC, it's just a bunch of diminished chords. Basically. 

EDIT: Sorry, I was thinking of this video:


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## Xiphos68 (Jun 20, 2013)

Fred the Shred said:


> Twelve-tone technique - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
> 
> The 12-tone-technique has been around for quite a while, Schoenberg being the original developer of the final form. That is what Ron is explaining in the video. The clock symbolizes note groupings formed from the mandatory inclusion of all 12 semitones, which will be used to form the patterns you hear, i.e. "tone rows". The point is to not have a dominance of any note over the other 11, so that no dominant key can be established.



Actually, I do not believe it is the same.

Ron has mentioned the way he does is slightly different compared to the original 12-Tone-Technique. 

But I believe that was the original ground for what he was trying to figure out.




> This &#8220;fragmented rows&#8221; 12 tone system uses groups of notes (unlike Schoenberg&#8217;s &#8220;matrix, inversion, retrograde, etc&#8230;&#8221; 12-tone system), all which are consecutive on the clock. I just recently learned that the composer Peter Schat (1935-2003) also arranged the 12 tones on a continuous &#8220;clock&#8221;, so this system that I&#8217;m using may have some similarities to what he used to write 12-tone pieces. I'm not really sure. In any case, this &#8216;fragmented rows&#8221; system is MUCH simpler than the system(s) used by Schoenberg, Berg, Stravinsky, Bartok, or Schat, etc&#8230; All I&#8217;m doing here is sectioning off groups of notes into various set combinations, then I have the freedom to do whatever I want with the notes. - Ron Jarzombek



Source for more: http://www.ronjarzombek.com/CretaceousChasmTab1.html


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## vansinn (Jun 20, 2013)

Very interesting way of subgrouping notes, and then allow oneself to be confined to those groupings one-at-a-time.

Kinda the musical version of "well, that's the thing about bondage - you can't get away.."

Definitely something I'll want to study more in-depth. Thanks for a cool thread


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## Fred the Shred (Jun 20, 2013)

The ideal is the same - it's pretty much establishing a matrix from where groupings for phrases are selected, which is simpler than the original concepts from Schoenberg. 

While the conceptual depiction of how these series are being created may vary, the traits aren't too different, as even Schoenberg himself admitted different paradigms could be used to form a structural basis that allowed for a less restrictively complex use of the whole series (fragmenting the series like many of the composers that followed Schoenberg did / do is an excellent way of creating the idea of structurally sound songs). 

I simply pointed out the creator of the twelve-note system, as without the basis, the concepts of subdivision and serial subdivision appear to just "be there" for no apparent reason.  Personally, I find stuff like what Bartok did to be far more musical, as you aren't necessarily forced to play the "let's count the notes" game.


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## GSingleton (Jun 20, 2013)

Yeah it is not new. Just more foreign to more popular music. It can be used to create some cool stuff but some stuff just comes out sounds terrible in my opinion. I have had to write a few twelve tone pieces and if you follow the "strict" rules it can be insanely hard to write and sound good.


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## Wings of Obsidian (Jun 20, 2013)

Like...I think I understand it. But I don't get why the groupings of notes are in the order that they are in. (I mean, if he plays one of the groups of four, is there a specific one he HAS to go to next or select to play? The transition to the groups of six notes?)


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## Fred the Shred (Jun 20, 2013)

No, what he's doing is creating sections in which he can order the notes as he sees fit to create a pattern. He's not to go outside the notes available in that group (be they 6 or any other number per group), in the same way he sticks to the contents of the new grouping when he moves from one to the other.


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## Skygoneblue (Jun 20, 2013)

Sooo... He's basically playing in the key of Chromatic and using extremely obscure musical terminology to explain it? 

This song itself sounds cool as hell, but I don't see the benefit of this overanalysis. Couldn't you just as easily say that for each particular note grouping, he's really playing in the key of X while making use of Y as an incidental? 

To me, this just feels like taking a bunch of paint, haphazardly splattering it into something that looks really cool, and then going back and saying how you strategically mixed every single color in the visible spectrum by using some polychromatic artistic theory.


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## Wings of Obsidian (Jun 20, 2013)

Fred the Shred said:


> No, what he's doing is creating sections in which he can order the notes as he sees fit to create a pattern. He's not to go outside the notes available in that group (be they 6 or any other number per group), in the same way he sticks to the contents of the new grouping when he moves from one to the other.



Ah ok! I got it! ^-^ (damn, I was overthinking that!) Thanks Fred!


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## Wings of Obsidian (Jun 20, 2013)

Skygoneblue said:


> Sooo... He's basically playing in the key of Chromatic and using extremely obscure musical terminology to explain it?
> 
> This song itself sounds cool as hell, but I don't see the benefit of this overanalysis. Couldn't you just as easily say that for each particular note grouping, he's really playing in the key of X while making use of Y as an incidental?
> 
> To me, this just feels like taking a bunch of paint, haphazardly splattering it into something that looks really cool, and then going back and saying how you strategically mixed every single color in the visible spectrum by using some polychromatic artistic theory.



Does kind of seem that way...


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## GSingleton (Jun 20, 2013)

There is a system to it as fred has said, but he is using some creativity with how he is grouping things. It's not a strict 12 tone system.


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## GunpointMetal (Jun 20, 2013)

Skygoneblue said:


> Sooo... He's basically playing in the key of Chromatic and using extremely obscure musical terminology to explain it?
> 
> This song itself sounds cool as hell, but I don't see the benefit of this overanalysis. Couldn't you just as easily say that for each particular note grouping, he's really playing in the key of X while making use of Y as an incidental?
> 
> To me, this just feels like taking a bunch of paint, haphazardly splattering it into something that looks really cool, and then going back and saying how you strategically mixed every single color in the visible spectrum by using some polychromatic artistic theory.


 
kind of, but not really.....
couldn't just about any piece of music be explained by "playing in the key of X while making use of Y as an incidental". I don't think endless noodling could produce what he comes up with.


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## OrsusMetal (Jun 20, 2013)

I studied with Ron so I could understand it better. It is much more than many of you are stating. It is an extremely useful method to force creativity and write within certain means. It is brilliant.


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## facepalm66 (Jun 20, 2013)

YAY, something new to try and annoy my friends while jamming


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## Skygoneblue (Jun 20, 2013)

GunpointMetal said:


> kind of, but not really.....
> couldn't just about any piece of music be explained by "playing in the key of X while making use of Y as an incidental". I don't think endless noodling could produce what he comes up with.



Maybe, maybe not. My point wasn't that any jackoff with an ear could have come up with this, but when you group notes into groups of 4 or 6, you're going to be in a key. 

For example's sake: C-C#-D-F#-G

All of those are G major notes with the exception of the C# (flat fifth). Can you occasionally use a flat fifth in G major to add flavor? Sure. 

Maybe a better way to explain this would be that it seems like he takes a really complicated route to get to something that could be explained in much simpler terms. 

(I hope it's understood that I mean no disrespect. I genuinely would like to understand the reason for using an approach like this.)


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## Wings of Obsidian (Jun 20, 2013)

OrsusMetal said:


> I studied with Ron so I could understand it better.



Tigga, you sound like Robert Percy....


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## Larrikin666 (Jun 20, 2013)

Listening to Christian from Obscura explain the system to me was awesome. He has a pretty good grasp of it since he and Hannes did that recording with Ron. There's a reason people call Ron the mad scientist. 

Awesomeness


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## ElRay (Jun 20, 2013)

Skygoneblue said:


> Sooo... He's basically playing in the key of Chromatic and using extremely obscure musical terminology to explain it?



Yes, in the same way that you can call Yakisoba "spaghetti with ground beef, onions and no tomato sauce".

To continue the food analogy, you can compose by picking a key, and working within that key, but adding a few outsiders (i.e. "We're eating Indian this week, but still having Flan on Wednesday"). Or you can compose by picking a chord progression (i.e. "We're having Indian on Tuesday, Mexican on Wednesday, Italian on Thursday, Japaneese on Friday, but I'm still serving Flan on Friday (a non-Mexican day).").

Rob's version of serialism is more like, "I've got these items in my kitchen. I'm assigning certain ingredients to each day and I'm making the best food I can with the ingredients selected for that day and I'm not going shopping until I've used everything." The difference between Rob's serialism vs. some of the other forms is that he's not chosing the sequences semi-randomly and sticking with mathematically transformations. For one piece, he may choose the divisions to basically be/strongly imply diminished chords in a semi-familiar sounding chord progression, much like a chef might basically stir-fry each day, but Tuesday is more-or-less Indian, Wednesday is more-or-less Mexican, Thursday is more-or-less Italian and Friday is more-or-less Japanese.

And to risk taking the cooking analogy too far, you're going to approach an "Indian, tomato-based, Eggplant Curry/Paneer" very differently than an "Italian, curry-accented Eggplant Parmesan". Yes you're using many of the same ingredients, but the end results are very different and you if you're trying to explain the menu and you use the first description when you're really cooking the second (or even worse, "I'm just throwing together something with eggplants, tomatoes, curry and cheese"), you're not communicating well.

Ray


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## Mr. Big Noodles (Jun 20, 2013)

Man, I love Ron and think his music is good, but I wish he would explain himself differently, or at least check his facts.

From here:



Ron Jarzombek said:


> In any case, this &#8216;fragmented rows&#8221; system is MUCH simpler than the system(s) used by Schoenberg, Berg, Stravinsky, Bartok, or Schat, etc&#8230;



Bartók wasn't a serialist, nor did he employ tone rows of any kind. No more than Mozart or Bon Jovi would have, anyway. And the serialists Ron mentions totally did do the "fragmented rows" thing. Here's a good summary of the serial techniques in Stravinsky's _Requiem Canticles_.

For the tl;dr crowd, this is what Stravinsky does. First, he starts with a row. Twelve pitches of the chromatic scale, arrayed so that no pitch repeats.

F G D# E F# C# B C D A G# A#

For simplicity's sake, we'll skip the I, R, and RI transformations and only work with the prime form of the row. Next, he chops it down the middle to get two hexachords. This is the same thing Ron does to his row in Cretaceous Chasm.

F G D# E F# C#, B C D A G# A#

Ron stops there, though. I've highlighted the first note in each hexachord to make this easier to see, because what Stravinsky does next is to transform the row by rotating each hexachord.

Hexachord 1:
F G D# E F# C#
G D# E F# C# F
D# E F# C# F G
E F# C# F G D#
F# C# F G D# E
C# F G D# E F#

Hexachord 2:
B C D A G# A#
C D A G# A# B
D A G# A# B C
A G# A# B C D
G# A# B C D A
A# B C D A G#

And then he does a bunch of dandy stuff with that. Stravinsky is more known for the technique of rotation than the Second Viennese School chaps, but Schönberg, Webern, and Berg all divided (or put together) rows into sets of trichords, tetrachords, and hexachords. Webern was particularly fond of doing this, and his rows are really impressive, not to mention the music he made with this system.

Ron's system differs from Schönberg's in that the Second Viennese School composers would use the whole row before repeating the series; they wouldn't stick around in one tetrachord for a while before moving on to another one. And even then, there are plenty of exceptions to that rule (repeated motives on the same pitch level, partial rows, etc.). However, Ron's system is closer to that of Stravinsky's, because Stravinsky concerned himself with the individual hexachords and didn't worry as much about the entire twelve-tone row being used.

Ron uses both a serialized pitch order, as well as some non-serial deviations from the tetrachords/hexachords (more so in the tetrachords), as the aforementioned serial composers did. It's really not that different of a system, though the music is ultimately much different because Ron doesn't touch klangfarbenmelodie and only uses the row on one pitch level.


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## dudeskin (Jun 21, 2013)

im still reading a the moment, its all way beyond my level to use.

does dream theater use this too? this seems to sound a lot like them in a lot of places where it sounds like they constantly change key etc. or am i wrong?

i cant remember a reference for that though hha


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## Malkav (Jun 21, 2013)

dudeskin said:


> does dream theater use this too? this seems to sound a lot like them in a lot of places where it sounds like they constantly change key etc. or am i wrong?


 
Nah, Dream Theater don't really - They jump the keys around in patterns, sometimes use chromatics, but nothing that is really in this ballpark


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## ElRay (Jun 21, 2013)

Malkav said:


> Nah, Dream Theater don't really - They jump the keys around in patterns, sometimes use chromatics, but nothing that is really in this ballpark


IIRC, Dream Theater uses/used a fair amount of "Pitch Axis Theory", which has some similarities to Rob's fragmented rows.

Ray


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## Osorio (Jun 22, 2013)

Question: What would you call the harmonic organization of such music? Atonal?


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## bondmorkret (Jun 22, 2013)

Interesting compositional concept! Did a lot with 12 tone rows at University, always an interesting exercise.


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## Mr. Big Noodles (Jun 22, 2013)

venneer said:


> Question: What would you call the harmonic organization of such music? Atonal?



"Atonal" is a quick and dirty descriptor. People will know what you're talking about. I think there is something wrong with the term, because on an objective level it means "without a pitch center", which is problematic when you start zooming in on the music, and on a subjective level because it's almost derogatory; imagine I identified myself as a "Californian", and everybody else was a "not-Californian". Wouldn't you rather be recognized for your own attributes and not be weighed against someone else's?

The music of the Second Viennese School is largely misunderstood because few people listen to it but a lot of people quickly form an opinion on it. A little disproportionate, no? How many of us think they know twelve-tone music because they read a Wikipedia article and see that you make a tone row, then they listened to the examples on the Wikipedia page so they know it sounds weird and random, so now they're the master? It is difficult music, no doubt, but it is intensely rewarding, and what's going on isn't actually too difficult to understand (though the microscopic nature of the music turns off most people, especially since the music does not conform to their notions on what music is). You have to get past all the rows and R, I, RI and all the "atonal" stuff to really have an idea of what's going on. Know that stuff for analytical purposes, but go a step beyond. Let's have a look at some of the actual music.

Anton Webern - Op.24, Konzert für neun Instrumente








Above is the first page of Anton Webern's Concerto for Nine Instruments. Pitch organization is the first thing that people think of when you bring up twelve-tone music, so let's look at that first. The Internet tells us that to make a tone row, you put together the twelve pitches of the chromatic scale in an order so that none of the pitches repeat, and then you make music by playing that over and over again. That is very surface-level thinking - Webern puts a lot more thought than that into how his rows are constructed. First, notice that the notes are presented in groups of three, in different instruments, so let's interpret them as written. In order of appearance:

Oboe - B B&#9837; D
Flute - E&#9837; G F#
Trumpet - G# E F
Clarinet - C C# A

You can piece these together to make a row, B A# D D# G F# G# E F C C# A, but let's not go that far yet. Look at what's going on intervallically.

B B&#9837; D - if you convert this to a pitch class set, you get 1 0 4 ("lowest" pitch class is 0), which, when ordered, is 0 1 4. What this means in that there is a minor second between B&#9837; (0) and B (1), then a major third between B&#9837; (0) and D (4). Moving on to the next one.

E&#9837; G F# - Minor second between G and F#, major third between G and E&#9837;. If G is 0, you might call F# 11 and E&#9837; 8, but it's really the mirror of what's going on in the previous set. This, too, is 0 1 4. You can check that here.

G# E F - Ordered: E (0) F (1) G# (4). Another 0 1 4 set.

C C# A - Last one. C# (0) C (1) A (4).

We have determined that the row is made of four interlocking 0 1 4 sets. Every one of those sets contains a reference pitch (0), a minor second from that pitch (1) and a major third from the same pitch (4). This is amazing. The guy has found a pitch set that can be transposed and be completely interlocking with no repeated notes, and it doesn't sound lame. Not only that, but did you notice that he applied the inversion, retrograde, and retrograde inversion transformations to the original three-note group?






Octave transposed to make reading easier.

1 is the "prime form", descending m9, ascending M3. 4 is the inverted form, ascending m9, descending M3. 2 is the retrograde form, ascending M3, descending m9. 3 is the retrograde inversion form, descending M3, ascending m9.

Now you do it. 

Just look at how well crafted the first three measures are. This is what nearly all of Webern's music looks like, and it only gets more involved as the piece continues. Every single pitch is meticulously handpicked; there is not a single vagrant or "random" note in his oeuvre. When you look at how structured the pitches can be, I don't think you can say "atonal" is a suitable definition. What is tonality, in the traditional major-minor sense, but a reference pitch (tonic)? There are many reference pitches here, and every pitch has the capability of being that reference pitch. You might go with the term "pantonal" to describe such music, to reflect the role and importance of each individual pitch.

For those of you who want to analyze the rest of the movement, here is the score and here is the matrix. We just looked at P0 (row in prime form, as it first appears). The piano at the bottom of the page is doing RI1 (row in retrograde inversion, with 1 [C] at the end [B is 0, because it's the first pitch in the piece]).

I've taken a lot of time to discuss how Webern constructs his row. Maybe I can talk about what he does with it later. For now, though, try to recognize that pitch is a single facet of this music. If pitch was the most important thing, Webern could have put all of these pitches on a single instrument, as Ron Jarzombek does in his twelve-tone explorations. Just as much thought is put into the instrumental color, or "timbre", of the music. Notice that the row is split so that the 0 1 4 motives all go to different instruments. He is reflecting what is going on in his pitch system in the way he orchestrates the music: each instrument in the beginning gets one of those three-note groupings. Check out all the dynamics - oboe, flute, and trumpet all have forte, and the clarinet starts forte and has a diminuendo down to piano. How about the articulation? The flute is playing accented staccati notes. Phrasing? Oboe and trumpet are slurred while flute and clarinet are tongued. The trumpet's color is altered by a mute, as well (immer mit Dämpfer). The registers and techniques of all the instruments are exploited, as well. This is color music. What about the rhythmic language? We have 4 different rhythmic divisions happening, and two of those rhythms are syncopated while the other two are on the beat. The tempo breathes, too. Notice the ritardando in measure 2, the return back to tempo at measure 3, and the next ritardando at measure 4. The performance is not supposed to be robotic. This music is geared at giving you a complex multifaceted image, something more than "happy" or "sad" or "angry".

By the way, Cretaceous Chasm is in C. I wouldn't liken it to Webern's way of tonal organization. Maybe more like Messiaen (though not in a twelve-tone sense) or Stravinsky (serial period). What Ron Jarzombek is really doing is making synthetic pitch collections that altogether form a full chromatic set.

Edit: Here is a video that helps to contextualize twelve-tone music: http://www.nytimes.com/video/2007/10/12/arts/1194817121260/12-tone-music.html


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## flint757 (Jun 22, 2013)

That sounds like the music I heard in an old silent film I watched in my German Film Class.


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## Mr. Big Noodles (Jun 22, 2013)

Was it an expressionist film by any chance?


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## flint757 (Jun 22, 2013)

Yep, it was.

Cabinet of Dr. Calagari if my memory serves.


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## Mr. Big Noodles (Jun 22, 2013)

It might have been something from the same composer, era, or style. The music on many silent films has been lost to history because players would improvise the soundtrack, or records were not maintained or do not exist. Modernism, Expressionism included, was condemned by the Nazis as degenerate art. That's how we got Schönberg, Bartók, and Hindemith to enigrate to the United States, and the soundtrack you heard might have been pieced together from period Expressionist works to match the aesthetic and historical context.


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## thesnowdog (Jun 26, 2013)

Visualizing Video Game Licks Or An Intro To Symmetrical 12 Tone Guitar Patterns | GuitArchitecture.org might be of some interest.


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## 80H (Jun 26, 2013)

my brain is now liquid


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