I mean besides pitch of course.

I’m curious because in English there are few ways masculine sounding voices differentiate from feminine sounding voices. Obviously pitch plays a role, but after that the largest tell seems to be intonation. Feminine voices inflect much more and with greater range, with inflections tending to go up to create emphasis. Masculine voices have much less variation and often go down for emphasis instead of up.

I’m assuming this just isn’t the case at all in tonal languages, as no matter what gender you have to vary pitch quite a bit to say the words correctly. What makes a voice sound particularly masculine or feminine in these languages (I’m learning Mandarin so I’m most interested in that but I would also love input from other languages/dialects).

Anyone have some good example sentences with interesting patterns of Mandarin tones? I'm trying to get some practice internalizing tones, and I'm finding that I keep encountering sentences where individual words are easy, but stringing together all of the tones in fluid speech is a challenge. But it can also be fun!

My most recent example: 这本书有八百多页 。(Zhè běn shū yǒu bā bǎi duō yè. / This book has more than 800 pages). That string of alternating 1st tones and 3rd tones is just fun to say.

I'm not really looking for all the well-known tongue twisters -- just tone practice specifically. Thanks for any help!

Edit: So the picture I'm getting is that emphasis in mandarin is done entirely with pitch. There's no rhythm at all. Please correct me if this is wrong.

I was wondering whether anyone has come across any kind of musical patterns (specifically patterns) that are used to heighten one's sensitivity to an internal 'landscape' of phenomena? Or any kind of recorded instance of using tonal patterns as a way of unlocking a path or summoning spirits for ritual purposes?

I understand that one aspect of music is about expressing your internal state of mind through the music, in order for others to experience where you are coming from. I have found that when I play certain musical expressions from musicians that i admire (i play jazz guitar btw) i experience the same sort of feeling and state of mind each time i play the aforementioned expression. This is where my question comes from. Has anyone ever created a sonic pattern that induces a state of mind in which the listener is inclined to accept a summoned 'spirit' or 'deity' or 'metaphysical force' (in other words a forced internal emotional response) associated with a spirit?

I know that monks, shamans, etc. often use mantras and chants in order to induce altered states of consciousness. What i am asking is whether the same thing has been done with music. If so, i immediately want to integrate these qualities into my guitar playing to pass the message on, so to speak. Thanks fellow occultists!!!

p.s. - Any kind of discussions, sources, opinions, etc. is welcome! Thanks again!

I work an eight hour shift as a custodian and really like using this time for audio based theory learning that I can listen to throughout the night. Is there anything I can practice in my head while working?

So far I have been running the musical alphabet forwards and backwards, and will sometimes try to name a chord and try and list the notes in that chord. Any other recommendations?

(I would also appreciate any other audio based resources, so lang as they are mostly hands off)

Hey. Hey designers. Unless your pattern is stockinette or reverse stockinette - can we NOT make all the pattern photos in some wacky speckled fiber? I would like to see the stitch pattern, please, if you want an ice cube's chance in hell that I purchase and knit your pattern. TYSM

Hi guys, I'm a neuroscientists trying to study how the brain recognizes patterns. Hopefully I'm about to do an experiment and use the song electric counterpoint III (fast) by Steve Reich as a control to see how the brain recognizes patterns.

I'm certainly not a musician however I plan on talking about music theory in depth, firstly what are the key patterns that the brain is going to pick up on? hopefully I can measure activity in the brain and plausibly see the music theory in that neurological activity (Leave that part to me).

In general I was just asking for predictions regarding what the brain will pick up on. In essence, what are the patterns in the music that you predict most brains would pick up on?

Here is the song

https://youtu.be/qLMNN4hDO-Q

give it a listen and tell me what you think.

Thanks,

Neuroscientist

Here's last year's post

Same as last year, I'll post my top 5 (in no particular order) for each calendar month of 2020, varying from popular favourites to ones I feel like deserve way more attention in the general conversation.

Jan 2021

• One, Two, Three (1961) - To me, Billy Wilder's movies are some of the most accessible movies anyone could watch from old classics, if you're looking to get into classic cinema, then he's one of the best places to start. I know a lot of people struggle with the pacing of movies from decades prior because of the different pacing, humour and acting. But One, Two, Three is such a consistently funny comedy with rapid fire dialogue that the runtime flies by. Not to mention, James Cagney is more than up for the task with his animated, live wire performance. Plus the satire is so razor sharp that it hasn't aged a day, a lot of the barbs at corporations and Cold War politics remain just as relevant today.

• Dragged Across Concrete (2018) - By S. Craig Zahler's standards, this film went under the radar compared to his previous outings and I'm scratching my head a bit as to why that is, I guess maybe because it's his longest film so far, and the fact that people couldn't quite decide what Zahler's politics are from this film, he doesn't talk about his political views in public as far as I'm aware, so people extrapolated the film's intentions from the politics of the two lead actors, Mel Gibson and Vince Vaughn. But to me, it's paced just as well as Bone Tomahawk, and Brawl in Cell Block 99. It builds flawlessly to a tense climax with satisfying payoffs and I'm pretty sure from the ending I know where Zahler's intentions lie. The stakes for each character involved in this whole mess is clearly defined and yet we root for them all even if it's a zero-sum game, I think Zahler did something very special here.

• The Tenant (1976) - Polanksi's attention to detail and the craft is always so meticulous, he's just one of those directors that came fully formed out of the gate with Knife in the Water and The Tenant is another of Polanksi's great psychological horror films much like Rosemary's Baby, it feels very modern and it's gorgeously photographed by Sven Nykvist, Bergman's regular cinematographer. It taps into some deep-seated paranoia and makes us squirm and squeal (in a good way) and Polanksi is surpisingly effective as an

If you’ve ever wanted to play Chopin on the piano or need some advice for his more difficult works, this article is for you. The first 5 points cover some of the techniques you need to master to play Chopin on the piano, and the second 5 points focus on expression, how to take your playing from being just note correct to a piece of beauty.

Chopin’s work is beloved for its depth of expression that is just built in to the music itself. These five points will help you tap into that and show you how you can begin to interpret the music in your own unique way.

1. Choose Pieces Around the Right Level for You

This might seem like a obvious one, but the tricky part comes with knowing what level you are as a pianist and what level a piece is.
The goal should be to work on a few pieces at a time: one that you can nail in a couple of weeks, one that will take a month, and one that will likely take longer. You can use level numbers to help you figure that out, but it’s also important to pay attention to the specific skills that you struggle with the most, as that will add learning time onto pieces that have those skills (at least until you get comfortable with them!).

Examples of skills would be fast arpeggios, chromatic scales, homophonic (chordal) playing, large leaps, things like that.

While you can use the many level numbering systems out there to serve as a sort of guide, you do need to also look through a piece and pay attention to the skills you’ll need to play it.

If you haven’t played any scales at all ever, it’s probably not a great idea to play the Etude in A Minor, Op. 25 No. 11, “Winter Wind,” for example. It’s full of fast arpeggios and scales that go up and down the entire length of the piano.

Etude in A Minor, Op. 25 No. 11, “Winter Wind”

If you’re new to Chopin, Alfred’s has a great book of his easier pieces: Chopin: An Introduction to His Piano Works.

Additionally, you can visit IMSLP.org (free, public domain sheet music—just don’t click on the ads…I’ve had people do that and given their credit card info away…you won’t need to enter any payment info on IMSLP). They have a handy sort by instrument and difficulty level, so here’s [that page for piano](https://imslp.org/wiki/Special:Diff

Getting beat up on the phones today. No love!

Curious for some good, genuine pattern interrupts for an intro first cold call.

“A pattern interrupt involves breaking an individual's routine, habitual thought or behavioral pattern so as to shake it up”

Something like, “Hey (contact), if I told you this was a cold call, would you hang up?” Likely they say “yea”, and then follow with “great well I’m glad I didn’t start with that!”

Just something to help get guards down to at least have a conversation.

I often lead with “Hey (Contact), I know you weren’t expecting my call, so if you’ll give me 20 seconds I’ll put some context as to why I’m calling and you tell me if it makes sense to talk further”.

Hello r/musictheory,

I used to take piano lessons from the ages of 4-8. I had a teacher who would spend a lot of that time doing certain regiments though I never really understood what it was training for. Can anyone help me identify exactly what I was practicing? My memory is quite blurry but the general gist was:

1. I would sit faced away from the piano
2. My teacher would play a random key (and it got progressively more complicated with chords and melodies)
3. I turned around to play the same tune without mistake, no more and no less than what I heard

I remember being pretty damn good at this though I have not touched any instruments for a long time. What was this training called and what skill was I developing? Is there a specific name for this? Can I still harness this or practice it again? I have forgotten everything about the piano (and any music theory I learnt at that time) by this age (currently 21) but I was wondering if this is something helpful that I should continue to work on if I were to ever start playing instruments again.

Thank you!

regimen** oops!

I’m seeing a lot of people confused about a recent post talking about a chord progression, so I think this would be a good time to explain some very basics of music theory, particularly harmony. Remember, there are no hard rules, this is mostly just a way of describing music and communicating with others.

First, most western music is tonal, meaning that it uses collections of notes called scales and the relationship between notes is important. The two most common types of scales are known as major and (natural) minor, and have 7 notes in them. The first note of each scale is called the tonic, and you can use any note as your first one. To simplify, I’ll just use the two easiest ones: C Major and A (natural) minor. On a keyboard, starting on C and only playing white keys, you get C Major scale (C D E F G A B). Starting on A and only playing white keys, you get A minor scale (A B C D E F G). Play them if you can (or program them on the piano roll of your DAW) and see how different their sounds are, even though you are playing the same keys.

Now, if we number the notes on the scale from 1 to 7, we get the scale degree of that note. So on C Major (C-1 D-2 E-3 F-4 G-5 A-6 B-7), E is the 3rd degree, and G is the fifth. For each of those degrees we can form a type of chord called a triad: pick three alternating notes of the scale and play them together. So on the first degree we have the C-E-G triad, and on the sixth degree we have the A-C-E triad (we wrap around the scale when we get to the end). Each triad can be named by the bottom note and its quality (major, minor, diminished). To figure out the quality, we check how many piano keys are between the first and second note of the triad [Edit: we are counting keys to keep it simple, not semitones]. If there are 5 keys, it’s major (eg C to E has C C# D D# and E); if there are 4 keys, it’s minor (eg A to C has A A# B C). Going back to naming triads, C-E-G is a C Major triad and A-C-E is an A minor triad. A diminished triad is a triad that has 4 keys between both, the first pair of notes and the second pair of notes (eg B-D-F has B C C# D and then D D# E F).

So up to know we have scales (a collection of 7 notes starting on any note which we will call tonic), degrees of a scale (where in a scale a note or chord is), triads (chords formed picking three alternate notes on a scale) and chord quality (major, minor, diminished). Next step is notation.

As we said at the beginning, major and minor scales are families o

I'd say that after 2021, I'm not letting anyone disrespect how phenomenal of an idol and a performer he is. But that would be so disingenous because it was actually 2020 when something shifted.

Granted, things didn't change just for Felix. The youngest three of the maknae line all realized "wait, we're hot!" and then made my life hell, but this is about Felix. This is about Felix taking his iconic lines in God's Menu and Back Door and running twenty-five laps around the entirety of the world with them. This is about Felix having this one small moment in Victory Song that changed the trajectory of my life.

Felix is the main character.

He had everyone on Kingdom in the palm of his hand. Performances aside, people genuinely fell in love with him. With a voice like that and a personality like that, it's hard not to. He could simply walk around and suddenly it's the cutest thing you've ever seen. Seonghwa, Huta, Taeyang... he had everyone wrapped around his tiny little fingers. In spite of Stray Kids working on fast-paced and complex performances with tons of moving set pieces and difficult transitions, he still took the time to bake everyone cookies. He's a lovely soul with a lovely face and this clip of Huta being unable to resist pinching him is very representative to how I feel about him.

But then you get to the performances and... well, here's the real reason why he's the main character. Chan has said it before, that Felix's voice just makes Stray Kids music what it is (it's so funny how Chan is like "well, this is just my opinion" as if he isn't the literal leader and producer... okay, be humble Christopher). It's not their music if they don't have the power that Felix's voice gives them. He's like the core instrument of their sound, and part of what defines their unique mala genre is Felix, in tandem with their other signatures. He, Changbin, Han, and Hyunjin make such a well-crafted and defined rap line (as evident in their back-to-back onslaught in Domino).

Felix rounds them out by injecting some real, unrelenting bass into every line. It's easy for him to not get swallowed up by the other three, because they can't do what he can do. He's completely unique.

His rendition of Peniel's rap in I'll Be Your Man was just as memorable as the

Previous: Mamoi and Midori Saiba

To clarify, Alice's offcial localized name is "Aris", with the origin of this name explained in this brief video. Although I normally refer to her as "Alice", for this analysis I will try to refer to her as "Aris"...although that's a bit easier said than done.

With that being said, this will be another philosophical ride, however, one that I actually understand to an acceptable capacity. Before moving on, this analysis will be very backloaded, where the section on Aris's character profile will be shorter than other characters I've done so far. This is simply for the fact that much of Aris's personality is best understood through explanation, rather than simple description.

Appearance and Personality

https://preview.redd.it/s9y10zri96981.jpg?width=442&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8172428fe682c61e02991100e6a5470db518726d

Characters with similar personality traits:

Iron-Maiden: Characters who are androids/robotic/synthetic counterparts to human. Often centered around learning various elements of human life, acting beyond normal standards in the process.

>Similar to: Aigis (Persona 3). The character I will refer to again later on in this analysis, Aigis is an artificial being who, after initially meeting the cast, was the very definition of a robot. As time progressed and Aigis was exposed to the human world, however, she gradually became more human, not just in speech and mannerisms, but understanding. Because of their strong parallels, Aigis will be key to explaining Aris's character.

As mentioned earlier, Aris is named after one of the most famous philosophers who studied under Plato's guidance, Aristotle. As a character, the best way to describe Aris is "progressive", where she starts off very robotic, but develops humanity as time goes on and she spends time with Yuzu and the twins. Due to the nature of her friends being nerds, much of Alice's mannerisms are developed from the games that she plays, making her a walking reference to retro RPGs (such as Dragon Quest), among other genres of videogames.

One such reference is, of course, the "jingles" Aris

More info HERE

Crawlers

Those creatures are related to dragons who colonised the cave system. They are descendants of small dragon group that was trapped after earthquake inside small and narrow cave section of the underground system with very spare food source. This environment let to deevolution of brains, due to lack of food to keep energy for its higher functions leading to losing sentience, and wings, due to lack of space for flying, into limbs adapted to catching prey. Crawlers have very good sence of hearing and smell (some subspecies even have a night vision but othervise their sight is almost nonexisting) and abilty to camouflage themselfs with the local types of stone. Unlike dragons, who are omnivores, the crawlers are pury carnivores and preying on all available fauna, including dragons.

***

Dragon tribes

The dragons are, like on rest of the planet, a dominant race on Pisaurida but from all civilisations that ever lived on the continent they are the youngest and shortest existing from all of them.

Like all tribes on the Agamidae, the three tribes of Pisaurida originates from Pyrrhia but they evolved to their current forms after milenia when first dragon setllers migrated from Pantala.

Pisauridan tribes are one of the smallest species of dragons on The Planet. Their small size is caused by relatively small size of the caves and lack of resourses to support larger bodies. Another negative effect caused by troglobite lifestyle is reduction of fly ability - because there are no much opens spaces inside the caves the local tribes are able to fly only for short distances and not very fast (the avarege flight speed is 30 km/h) - this is compensate by hight flight maneuverability.

Dragons were able to settle only the large caves located on north region of Pisaurida's main landmass.

Webwings

Webwings are the most numerous dragon tribe on Pisaurida who live in caves located under large mountains at north-west region of the continent. They are currently ruled by Queen Tarantula.

Webwings have bulky bodies, with eight limbs that have spot covered with hair-like ctructures for vibration detection and have unigue arrangement of four muscular legs and unusual one pair of bat-like wings and pair of slim, long hands - This adaptation was caused by ancestory between Sandwing and Beetlewings when a second pair of wings changed its purpose from flight to graspi

How do you go about memorizing pieces like that? I have a couple months til I need to have it ready, and I want to work as hard as I can until then.

Short on time, so I may edit or add more later:

Dexter from the start was a polarizing character, with questionable ethics. A true Anti-Hero. Most of the conclusions I have read, even accounting for this conflicted character by nature, always seemed limiting:

I) Dexter gets caught (and / or punished).

II) Dexter Dies (outright or from sacrifice).

III) Dexter Lives (and possibly gets away with it).

I actually think there were some other possibilities. I also get that after years of criticism, from tv critics (and fans) who maybe didn't always get the core of the show, why the creators and especially Michael C. Hall wanted closure.

Dexter, at it's core, and at it's very best, was a thinly veiled Detective Noir /Suspense, with dark satire. It even had the first person voice-over narration. It sometimes had a nature vs nurture theme.

A few things that I noticed in the finale:

1. Dexter was selfish.

One could argue the "unreliable narrator" theme, but I often find that too easy, and a cop out sometimes, even in literature. If one goes that route, better make it clear. [But Dexter can also be selfless too, as we saw in both series]

2. Is this a plot driven detective story / or a character driven story about Fathers & Sons?

Both, but this definitely needed some work, development, and cleaning up.

3. Would Dexter have really broken Harry's Code to that degree, and killed Logan, an innocent, who he narrated about, risking both himself and Harrison, even to escape capture?

Possibly? But I think a hard No. After 8 Seasons of character development, and of James Remar's Harry constantly talking as Dexter's co-detective and conscience / even Deb as his conscience, it really seems unlikely and out of character.

4. Would Dexter have lost that much control, even under threat of law?

Rarely did he lose control like that in the OG. Likely not with Deb's spirit or memory there too. And in rare occasions when he did lose control, it was usually over a murderer, the threat to a loved one or his world, over injustice, or his overpowering urges. Dexter has too much to live for at this point, and he even says so in the last 2 episodes.

5. Angela, the minority/ female "sudden" Mary Sue:

No exploring Trinity or Oliver Saxon, who killed her lover's immediate family members in Miami. Magically, and quickly outclasses 2 major LE divisions, pieces all that BHB together (which should be a dead end legally, and realistically at this po

For context I'm a Refuse Driver (Garbage man) & today I was on food waste. After I'd tipped I was checking the wagon for any defects when I spotted a lone pea balanced on the lifts.

I said "hey look, an escaPEA"

No one near me but it didn't half make me laugh for a good hour or so!

Edit: I can't believe how much this has blown up. Thank you everyone I've had a blast reading through the replies 😂

Every time I write a piece, it’s always a square, predictable melody that’s very tonal. My professor wants me to break out of the limitation of writing tonal and predictable melody. I’m not sure how, and everything time I try, it sounds like a convoluted, non-functional mess that no one wants to listen to.

Edit: I’m reading all of your responses. I can’t find the time to give a substantial reply.

Intro

For a bit of context: I recently read some comments in a comment section somewhere, where some people were expressing their frustration/disappointment that the meaning of "roguelike" had changed from the classic "top-down, turn-based, grid-based, procedurally generated dungeon crawler" description of the genre, and now in popular culture meant what it means today (short, difficult games with heavily procedural and random number-generated encounters, rewards, bosses, etc). I felt confused, because I swear we all collectively got past this at some point in the past 8 years. But since it seems we haven't, I figured it might be worth spewing some words over this.

Alright, so if you've ever watched Game Maker's Tookit, in his video "Do We Need a Soulslike Genre" he brings up one group's personal definition of the word "roguelike", which they call "The Berlin Interpretation". Essentially a group of roguelike fans came together at a convention in 2008, and had a big discussion about what they think of when they think "roguelike", and then they wrote it down and gave it a fancy name.

The Simple Point About Languages

Now let's get the obvious response out of the way: all language changes over time, and new meaning, connotations, metaphorical extention, etc, get added to words. There's an apocryphal story that illustrates this well:

>Some words change in meaning for no apparent reason. Such changes explain the fact that the architect of St. Paul’s Cathedral was pleased when King James called it “amusing, awful, and artificial.” In those days amusing meant amazing, awful meant awe-inspiring, and artificial meant artistic.

(The story's probably not true, but the point about King Charles calling the St. Paul's Cathedral design "artificial", and in that time meaning what we now mean when we say "artistic" is well-supported.)

So we're done here, right? Well, no. I've got one more point: and that the genre names aren't equations or formulas, they're loose categories we come up with to try to convey something about something.

The Complicated Thing About Genre Names

For example, take the genre of "fantasy". What if there's no magic in the story? No elves or goblins? What if there's modern techn

We’re excited to announce the winners of our Comfort Zone challenge as well as our Best of 2021!

The event announcement is here: ITAP's End of 2021 Challenge. All challenge entries and winners are shown in our gallery site here: itap.gallery

Comfort Zone

All challenge winners will receive a framed print of their image from FrameItEasy. Winners will also receive a B&H Photo gift card, supplied with the help of Reddit's community funds project.

1st place, $1000 prize: (NSFW) ITAP of my friend trapped beneath glass [Comfort Zone] by u/cptnspaceboyfriend

2nd place, $500 prize: ITAP of a midnight chef [Comfort Zone] by u/tattooedyetiphotos

3rd place, $250 prize: ITAP of a train in the mountains [ComfortZone] by u/taytaylundin

Judges’ prize: $250 prize: ITAP of a hidden waterfall along the fairy tale coast of BC [Comfort Zone] by u/JKeith26

Mods’ prize: $200 prize: (NSFW) ITAP of my friend surrounded by headless mannequins. [COMFORT ZONE] by u/gibbler

Best of 2021

We were lucky to have an external judging panel of photographers and photography trainers this year. The panel chose their favourite images out of the most popular posts of 2021 and added them to 5 categories. Information about the judges and their comments alongside each winner is shown in our gallery (itap.gallery). Judges’ comments are shown in italics.

• 1st prize a category wins a $400 gift card.
• 2nd prize in a category wins a $200 gift card.

Animals and nature - 1st

[ITAP of my cat coming out of his hideout](https://www.reddit.com/r/itookapicture/co

They’re on standbi

Pilot on me!!

I’ve seen so many recent posts about how even the thought of Stravinsky or Schoenberg makes them gag. Why? Rite of Spring is one of my top 3 favorite pieces of all time. Prokofiev’s Symphony no.2 is right up there. Shostakovich is one of my top composers as well. There’s so much color and fun moments and it sounds so cool Why it get so much hate?

I just wanted to point out this quote from David Chase on the Talking Sopranos podcast. When I saw people first discussing this, they quoted him as saying that he thought the SHOW didn’t get darker.

I don’t think this can possibly be the correct quote, and what I think was meant is that Tony didn’t get darker as a person. Obviously the show got darker both literally in it’s lighting and visual tonal shift and in it’s motifs and events.

However, the argument can be made that Tony didn’t necessarily become “darker” than he was in the first episode.

Lets really think about this,

Tony at the beginning of the series is more troubled internally than he is at the end of the series. Why? In the beginning of the series he’s dealing with unknown stress and panic attacks caused by his mother and unanalyzed traumatic events in his past, such as the Satriales finger incident. Lets think about some of the darkest events in the show caused by Tony, starting with Christophers death.

While Tony was willing to give Christopher constant passes being family and all for six seasons, Tony was ready to turn on Christopher at any moment if he didn’t obey. We can see this in the first episode when Christopher threatens to write his screenplays, and later in D-Girl when Tony gives Christopher the choice of being with him or the movie life. The thing that made Tony finally turn on Christopher was a matter of external events rather than internal events. It was the perfect opportunity, Christopher had been using, had “defamed” Tony through Cleaver, and had now almost killed his daughter (had she been there) in the car accident. If all of these events combined happened to season 1 Tony, I don’t think the choice would be hard for Tony to kill him, especially because season 6 Tony has now dealt with 7 years of bullshit and relapses from this guy. Think about in Season 5 when Tony almost kills Christopher for believing the very real assumption that Tony had slept with Aide.

The second most depraved thing about Tony by the end of the series is probably his trigger-happyness and gambling problem. Tony has always been trigger happy, beating Georgie with the phone in the second season. Then again in Season 5. I think about the argument he has with Carmela over AJ’s depression that ends with Tony just saying “fuck you”. The marriage is falling apart, although, again, nothings truly changed by the last episode ; the couple is together and living their façade of a happy marriage. The gam

Dad jokes are supposed to be jokes you can tell a kid and they will understand it and find it funny.

This sub is mostly just NSFW puns now.

If it needs a NSFW tag it's not a dad joke. There should just be a NSFW puns subreddit for that.

Edit* I'm not replying any longer and turning off notifications but to all those that say "no one cares", there sure are a lot of you arguing about it. Maybe I'm wrong but you people don't need to be rude about it. If you really don't care, don't comment.

Do your worst!