RE: Why is the Pentatonic Scale *Everywhere*?
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You should really write a post on "music appreciation" with some examples of tension, dissonance, and resolution.
Music posts have been an ongoing thing for ages here, I'm sure I've at least touched on this subject but it's definitely worth considering more directly so - even though music posts are consistently the least interacted with blogs I write. Reflects my life really lol. Anything I'm passionate about, nobody gives a rats arse about.
I love music but fail so strongly to articulate why and how
Tension-release is a big part if not the majority factor I'd bet. People never understood how I'd listen to Cradle of Filth every day growing up (hence my tinnitus I suppose). But it was the moments of operatic singing, the orchestral interludes and the poetic lyrics that were squeezed between all the screaming and banging that made the whole journey worth it.
and they were poetic:
We've woven hearts a thorn arbour Tension & release
Left tear streaked reason upon the shore
And bereft of compass, star or more
Set out for this World's end
Few at the prow, most slave below
Painting coal a perfect gold
But for all it's worth, the engines slow
Dead in the brine again
Oh good. You like Cradle. They're great. I love Gothic / Symphonic / Doom / Operatic metal. Anything that swings between the soprano female and a death growl or even clean male vocals does that tension game perfectly in music.
Ditto with the double bass kicks and melodic guitars giving way to violins and pianos playing as though Bambi is frolicking in a field, before it all swells again into a cacophony of awesome.
It's a rush. I love it. I wish I had better headphones to appreciate it all with. A closed back pair, but it is such a challenging genre for speakers and headphones.
Your best best for indoor listening is to get yourself good open backs - typically, the Sennheiser HD's - which gives the best balance, then learn the tricks of the trade to boost and cut what you need to really flesh it out the way it was meant to be!
But in some cases it really is just the original production, not much you can do about that.
There was a period around maybe the late 90's to 2000's, where music was just mega-compressed to the point that these days I find it hard to listen to. Cradle of Filth, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Muse... listening to their albums around this date is insufferable now - which is a shame because I find the music itself so great.
(If you don't know, compression makes the quiet parts loud and the loud parts quiet, overall maximizing total volume. The peak of the 'loudness wars', and it was a curse upon music everywhere)
I can hear that compression on most of KoRN's work from the 90s even without a discrete ear. Other stuff sounds like sludge - but it... works, such as Pearl Jam's album Ten.
I have these (Audio Technica AD-700X) I used to have the 200 (or 500) but after 15 years of service, the purple meshed beast failed - with the voice coil on one channel dying.
I want a 2nd set of headphones that are closed (knowing the sound stage would be smaller) one day to ensure sound doesn't leak from my cans into my mic when I'm streaming. It's a minor problem to have, but a problem all the same.
Oh yeah open backs are a nightmare in any other context than just sitting in a silent room alone/production lol.
I just have Sony MX3000 or whatever for those other contexts, cause they have good noise cancelling. I sacrifice all quality for that alone for my daily work life
But yeah sounds like you know exactly what you're doing!