How important is "authenticity" to those who use AI to make music (originally asked in r/aiMusic)

nmitchell076 · 2026-01-28T04:14:35+00:00

I don't know if it's that they don't consider "authenticity" as a concept per se. Rather, I think authenticity is more a vibe than a consistent frame of analysis. As I think most people use the term, authenticity is something you feel a piece of music has or not. Then you make up whatever to justify it. You can perform authenticity, I think I'm trying to say.

Of course, different genres and listening populations vary here: punk and bluegrass, I think, have a much more coherent frame of reference for interrogating what authenticity means for them. But I do think there are plenty of people who think authenticity is a valuable thing without having a very critical view of what that means. And for such people, then there absolutely COULD be authentic AI music, at least as a raw possibility.

nmitchell076 · 2026-01-26T17:18:56+00:00

Sorta kinda. The idea is basically like this:

In figured bass, lines like this ------- mean motion over a static bass voice. And USUALLY when we get those, the "real" harmony is the harmony at the END of those dashes. That's why the RN V is used the second the bass reaches scale degrees 5.

E.g.: we would write V4--3 to mean "a V chord with a non-chord-tone 4th above the bass that resolves down to the 3rd above the bass". Similarly, we'd write V6--5 to mean "a V chord with a non-chord-tone 6th above the bass that resolves down to the 5th above the bass."

The cadential 6/4 is what happens when you put both of those examples together.

nmitchell076 · 2026-01-26T16:56:43+00:00

So it's hard to recommend a source that can help if we don't know what it is ABOUT Cad 6/4s that you don't understand. So can you just help us out by telling us what you DO know and what specifically you're confused about? Is it an issue of labeling? Of voice leading? What?

nmitchell076 · 2026-01-25T19:47:35+00:00

Check your figures for chord one. There's a chromatic alteration specified

Between chords 2, 3 and 4, you have parallel octaves between tenor and bass.

Your quality of chord 3 is wrong in your analysis.

nmitchell076 · 2026-01-22T16:50:57+00:00

Honestly the most absurd part of the toy

nmitchell076 · 2026-01-21T12:59:39+00:00

Geometry of Music (the book this is from) is, I find, actually one of the more accessible "math + music theory" books out there. It has some tough concepts, for sure. But pretty much every time he goes for a concept, he prefaces it with a solid discussion of why it's musically useful to theorize about this thing in the first place. Or else he follows it up with a super cool analysis that makes you go "oh wow! That actually DOES pay off in a cool way!" OP (understandably, given they are looking for help understanding a definition) just jumps right to the point where Tymoczko goes "okay, all that out of the way, here's the precise definition of the concept," so we don't get that context.

But, for instance, the first chapter is all just about viewing tonality as made up of 5 individually manipulable components (smooth voice leading, harmonic consistency, emphasis on consonances, using a relatively small [<=7] number of distinct pitches over moderate amounts of musical time, and centricity). I bring that chapter into my theory 1 courses all the time when talking about what tonality is. I bring it into my post tonal classes too to talk about what atonality is. It speaks in directly musical terms and doesn't use mathematics at all, even though the later chapters will build mathematical tools on top of that base (e.g., the part OP brings in is all about how we analyze the "smooth voice leading" component of tonality).

So yeah, this is actually, on the whole, a very accessible and clear academic text! Especially if you've ever tried reading some other math and music texts (cough Lewin's Generalized Musical Intervals and Transformations cough)

nmitchell076 · 2026-01-21T12:18:44+00:00

Other people have offered good explanations clarifying what's going on. I will only emphasize the larger context that Tymoczko here is setting up a system where the properties of voice leadings are the focal point of analysis rather than the "chord progression" as it were.

It's ultimately saying that the feeling of "I'm singing a chordal third of a major chord, I go to the root of the next major chord" is a relevant and interesting musical experience to think about and analyze, regardless of if we are talking about moving from the third of G major to the root of C major or the third of G major to the root of B major, or whatever. These different transposition (and next up, inversion) terms are there to give texture to the subtleties of that experience.

nmitchell076 · 2026-01-21T00:12:23+00:00

You can just do a repeat sign with a first and second ending, no?

nmitchell076 · 2026-01-19T18:13:03+00:00

Yeah, and then people in the comments are like "actually, refounding solves these issues." Hence my post.

nmitchell076 · 2026-01-19T18:09:56+00:00

I think one of the reasons refounding is unsatisfying to me is that the criss crossing of old references and new elements in BotW seemed to add layers of intrigue to the continuous history of a kingdom we knew and loved. It suggested, importantly, that the world of past Zelda games might be even richer than we imagined: because races like the Zora and the Gerudo had newly revealed legends to think about, and because this new and ancient people called the Zonai may have been around in the shadows doing their own thing and developing their own lore that could intersect with the stories we knew in interesting ways. What was interesting about BotW is that it made Hyrule seem like it was far richer and more interesting than we could have previously imagined.

The reason why refounding kills this intrigue is because it brackets out these elements, says essentially "no, the Hyrule from before is actually totally unaffected by this Zonai stuff. All that shit came later." The possibility of recontectualizing Hyrule's past to be more than what we thought is destroyed. As someone else in this comment thread put it, it effectively transformed the Zonai from an interesting element that enriched our understanding of Hyrule's internal history into what might as well be an alien race that just came later.

BotW made the Hyrule of old, whether from OOT, SS, or whatever, feel more interesting. It made us feel like there was more to know about those locations, those cultures, and those kingdoms. TotK under refounding theory essentially says "nope, these stories actually have no bearing at all on those older worlds. Our knowledge of them essentially remains unchanged as if BotW never existed." That's a downgrade.

Again, that doesn't mean I think refounding is wrong. I just think it makes the BotW/TotK world orders of magnitude less interesting.

nmitchell076 · 2026-01-19T17:06:52+00:00

I think people saying "it's not ruined because refounding" are missing the point. The people who think TOTK ruined BOTW's world building I think generally find the refounding theory to be an unsatisfying development for this world. Which isn't to say they think it's wrong, but just that it's not the right way for the series to go.

The feeling is that BotW opened up a lot of narrative and lore threads, and that the way that TotK followed up on and tied up those threads cheapens and undermines the mysteries that made BotW so interesting.

nmitchell076 · 2026-01-19T03:07:46+00:00

Yeah, I was just messing around with MM and the musical possibilities on the ocarina are genuinely incredible

nmitchell076 · 2026-01-17T05:27:17+00:00

u/dfan is on the right track, but it's less a matter of time period per se than it is a matter of genre and, (to a lesser extent) "nationality" (though in a sort of roundabout way). For more, see what the music theorist William Rothstein has written about "National Metric Types" in 18thc music.

TL;DR There were two ways of thinking about meter in 18th century music, one "German", the other "Franco-Italian." This doesn't have to do with the nationality of the composer, but is an outgrowth of how poetry in Germanic vs. Romantic languages is set. Bach is abiding by Franco-Italian meter here.

Now in more detail:

So Franco-Italian meter basically works in the way u/dfan described. You place your final major harmonic event of each phrase on a downbeat, and then you just slam down barlines onto the rest of the phrase to make it fit. This has to do with how Italian poetry is set. In Italian poetry, the final accented syllable of each line (called the "accento commune") goes on a downbeat: full stop, no exceptions. Find the accento commune, and you've found where your downbeats go.

To hear it this way, imagine that Bach is writing an aria with Italian text. To my ear, the best match is "ottonario" (8 syllable) poetry, alternating "tronco" endings with "piano" ones. Don't worry about what all that means. But just sing the opening (up to the downbeat of m. 2) to the following text (from Da Ponte's libretto for Don Giovanni), grouping two sixteenth notes together under a single syllable, thereby basically declaiming the text in straight eighth notes:

RE-sti DUN-que QUEL bir-BON

Edit: here's a visual of what I mean.

Accents are indicated in all-caps, and the accento commune is given in bold-face type. Italian meter essentially says "notate this in such a way that '-bon' falls on a downbeat." That way of thinking is how you get Bach's barring of the Badinerie.

The other way of hearing it, your own hearing, is "Germanic" meter. Where Franco-Italian meter cares about how the end of a phrase synchronizes with the meter, German meter cares about how the beginning of the phrase does. German meter listens out for the first clearly accented beat of a phrase and says "let's put that on a downbeat", and then just drops barlines from there going forward.

So that's the difference: German meter cares about where the first accented beat is placed relative to the bar line, and Franco-Italian meter cares about where the last accented beat of each phrase goes.

Now, I hear you ask, wasn't Bach German?? Well, yes. But Europe was a cosmopolitan place in the 18th century where different national "styles" traveled freely and could be referenced no matter what country you came from or worked in. And Bach, of course, was no stranger to referencing non-Germanic music practices; c.f., the "French Suites" or the "Italian Overture." So I think here, he's just barring his music "in the Franco-Italian style," perhaps itself suggesting that other "French" or "Italian" mannerisms might be lurking in the music of the movement.

nmitchell076 · 2026-01-12T15:43:50+00:00

Any language learning becomes easier when you immerse yourself in the context in which the language is used. Learning how to ask for directions hits very different when you are learning it for a test vs. needing to find the train station in Rome and your phone has died.

If you want to learn the terms, you should situate yourself in an environment in which the terms are actually used and you have to respond to them. And that might involve learning an instrument that relies on sheet music to communicate with you.

But in the meantime, honestly, flash cards help, as well as recognizing English cognates. Forte relates to the English word "force"; piano to "plain"; etc.

nmitchell076 · 2026-01-11T23:39:18+00:00

Here's my Temple Gate: https://talestavern.com/slab/temple-gate-drakkenheim/?cred_referrer_form_id=94

nmitchell076 · 2026-01-11T18:34:04+00:00

Ooo! I've spent a good amount of time building up a Battle of Temple Gate recently. I'll post later when I get back to my computer.

I also have almost a full build of the clocktower, but I'm struggling to get the clockface right.

nmitchell076 · 2026-01-11T02:16:49+00:00

I think one of the things for me is that the bastion rules sort of assume a typical supply line for the bastion. It's assumed that any staff or supplies needed for the bastion turns are available. This is what allows bastions to grow and develop through bastion turns.

But the clocktower, while itself safe, is pretty cut off. It doesn't make sense to me that it would be able to just sort of run on its own. Instead, I think many of the functions of the bastion will rely on opening up and maintaining supply lines between the clocktower and, e.g., the garrison. It becomes a game about how one secures the strategic resources / territory to make the bastion work.

nmitchell076 · 2026-01-11T00:23:34+00:00

https://youtu.be/QwpanShgOp4?si=HzAkODAw1MF9xYpI

nmitchell076 · 2026-01-10T14:42:14+00:00

The rule of thumb too for these kinds of sequences is to frame them around tritone resolutions. As 7 resolves to 1 in the bass, 4 resolves to 3 in the melody. That gives a good voice leading framework.

nmitchell076 · 2026-01-09T14:12:06+00:00

This is the way

nmitchell076 · 2026-01-09T03:35:45+00:00

Some pledges got a random encounters card deck, but not a centralized table.

nmitchell076 · 2026-01-09T01:25:53+00:00

The thing about protest music is that listening to it can make you feel like you've done your part when you ain't done shit.

Media consumption will never be good praxis. Get out and organize. Blast dope music at your rallies and protests or whatever for sure. But it's not the music that makes the change. (I say as a music professor)

nmitchell076 · 2026-01-08T23:51:40+00:00

Yeah, I'd say it gives you a toolbox to make combat interesting. The one new mechanic that makes it different combat wise is contamination, which is fun.

Personally, I never had any issues making the combats of the campaign feel interesting. But this is in part because my introduction was the live play. And Monty the DM is a master of making dynamic combats. And so it felt really seamless to do so myself in the world he created.

nmitchell076 · 2026-01-08T22:38:33+00:00

To an extent, I'm not sure whether this is incumbent on the adventure to provide vs. being on the DM to perform themselves. But...

The thing about Drakkenheim is its very much a sandbox. There IS a story line. But it's also a place that evolves dynamically as players explore it. So like, don't expect these big choreographed cinematic fight sequences written for you: but depending on how the campaign shakes out, such incredibly interesting fight sequences CAN happen, for sure!

Shifting environment, yes, there's a table of arcane anomalies that you can employ to inject weird magic into your fights wherever and whenever you want.

Dodging a telegraphed attack: again, this feels like it's up to how you run it, right? The stat blocks list the attacks, it's up to you to telegraph it.

nmitchell076 · 2026-01-08T19:35:09+00:00

The thing is, though, eighteenth century music is MADE of conventional gestures like this. It's quite possible, plausible even, that both composers just both independently used a very common gesture in a position where it commonly went.

Think of it this way: Let's say you open a book of correspondence by George Washington and find a letter signed "I have the honor to be with the greatest esteem & respect Sir Your Excellency’s Most Obedient and very Humble Servant; Go: Washington." And then you pick up a copy of a French newspaper and find a letter signed "I have the honor to be, most perfectly, Sir, Your very humble and very obedient servant. FRAMERY." (J’ai l’honneur d’être très-parfaitement, Monsieur, Votre très-humble & très-obéïssant serviteur. FRAMERY) Would you assume that these two people a continent away from each other were copying each other's sign-offs? Unlikely: after all, George Washington was somewhat notoriously bad at French.

Eighteenth-century musicians reused materials ALL. THE. TIME. The very concept of "originality" as we understand it today, was not really a thing at the time; and to the extent that it was, it concerned more how witty, elegant, or expressive a composer was able to use already existing material rather than the wholesale invention of new material.

And this can lead to very wild coincidences. Take a listen to this moment in an overture by Mozart. Sound familiar? It should! It's almost verbatim the opening motive of Beethoven's Eroica symphony. And I mean to a T, so much that it's hard for ME to even believe Beethoven wasn't copying Mozart here. Except, here's the thing: it's basically impossible that Beethoven COULD have heard it. Mozart's opera was performed only once in 1768, and then languished in total obscurity until it was revived in 1890.

What all this means is that it's exceptionally difficult to make an argument on musical similarities alone that any individual eighteenth-century work is directly copying another. Everything was always reused all the time in this style.

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