Music Theory and paranormal showes!

Ok so I have to apologize for this but I need to vent and go off on a rant. I've been put in charge of training this new guy at work and he's one of these Ghost Hunters people. Whatever with that. Live and let live. Today I kinda snapped on him because he's been going on and on about these shows and he's been showing me YouTube clips non-stop for two weeks straight. So today he's at it again with another YouTube video and I told him do me a favor and mute the volume. It took some persuading but he finally did and predictably after about 30 seconds he loses interest. So I explain to him that from age 8-14 I studied classical guitar. At 14 I went off in a different direction. I went on to get my Bachlors in music theory. I explained to him that you don't realise it but these shows are manipulating you. Listen to what's going on in the background. The music and sounds are weird and creepy. Fore those of you that don't know ill try to explain what's going on. In music theory there's something called dissonance. If you want creepy the Flated Fifth, or it's sometimes called an Augmented Fourth is THE go-to thing to use. The math is weird with it because there's no perfect fifth and if you play the notes a certain way you can create a paradox called a Shepard Scale. I'm not going to try to explain it but trust me it can and will mess with you. It was also given the nickname of The Devils Key or Interval. There's some exaggerated story's about people being put to death for using it but there's no real evidence to support those claims but trust me when I say it's creepy sounding. If you really want to kick the weirdness up look no further than the Locrean Mode. When us musicians write songs we have a kinda cheat sheet for figuring out chords to use. Normally in a key you have 3 majors 3 minors and at the seventh interval you have a diminished. The diminished is strange. In Locrean you get allot of diminished and other strange sounding cords that scream dissonance to your brain and you desperately want a resolution. In Locrean you never get it. Lorenan and Flat Fifths are used ALLOT in Heavy Metal. Most Black Sabbath songs use these 2 things. If you grew up in a western country like the U.S. or a European country you've been conditioned to hear certain things in music and when you don't hear them it stresses your brain out big time. If you click on the link below there's a YouTube video that talks about dissonance in music. It's kinda long but if you jump to about 1:46 you'll get the basic idea. Again sorry about the rant but I had to vent!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DPypnrXR8iQ

Have your IT guy block youtube from your work servers.

Last week he was going off on Bigfoot...I told him you understand why science has issues with Sasquach right? So he says Bigfoots "elusive". My reply was: It's 9ft. tall, it screams at the top of its lungs at night, throwers rocks at people, leaves footprints the size of an elephant, it stinks to high heaven...some people claim to have been kidnapped by it...when you get right down to it Bigfoots kind of an A-hole! That's NOT elusive! Someone's that's deaf,blind and or dumb should have no problem finding the damn thing!

Who vetted this guy?

Haha. This was interesting. Thanks

There was this guy on B&B that just went on and on about music theory. I was like...

oh, wait a second...I'm in that thread.

Ghosts and Bigfoot. Two things I need to see to believe.

Well maybe not ghosts. I've never seen one, but to hear my mother and father and a few other people I trust talk ghosts are out there. They kind of tell convincing stories.

Bigfoot on the other hand....*insert whacko emoticon here*

So let me make sure I understand what you're trying to say.... Bigfoot screams and throws rocks and the ghost are restless because they don't like the music???

I know exactly, yes exactly what you mean. Playing any Led Zeppelin album in reverse will get you the same results.

Lol! One thing that sucks about Music Theory is you can't really talk about it to non musicians because it's confusing. For allot of people that have some knowledge of music when you start talking about things like Modes they can't wrap there heads around it. For me it came easy because I'm severely dyslexic and for whatever reason music tends to come easy for dyslexics. Something to do with the way our brains are wired. My spelling sucks and I struggle with simple math but I can dissect the crap out of a piece of music!

HolmerJ said:

Lol! One thing that sucks about Music Theory is you can't really talk about it to non musicians because it's confusing. For allot of people that have some knowledge of music when you start talking about things like Modes they can't wrap there heads around it. For me it came easy because I'm severely dyslexic and for whatever reason music tends to come easy for dyslexics. Something to do with the way our brains are wired. My spelling sucks and I struggle with simple math but I can dissect the crap out of a piece of music!

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That's pretty neat though. What's your favorite genre?

I can visualize musical patterns and notations in the forms of colors and shapes.

No kidding.

Aliens do it for me. I'll be happy to claim that BigFoot is an alien ghost.

Batboy is my witness.

Chadao said:

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If you stare at this picture long enough it starts to shave.

Toothpick said:

That's pretty neat though. What's your favorite genre?

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I still like Classical just not playing it so much. I used to have this teacher with one of those pointer stick things... If he caught you slouching or if you didn't have your thumb planted in the middle of your guitar neck he'd crack you on the head. At 14 I told him if he cracked me on the head again I was going to kick him in the balls so hard he'd be choking on them...that was my last session with him...my mother was really pissed and I was grounded for the rest of the summer. After that I got a job after school saved up and got an 84 Gibson Explorer (that kinda crooked hourglass guitar James from Metallica plays and sometimes Billy Gibbens from ZZ Top playes) a Marshel half stack and started jamming with meatheads from school. That really pissed mom off....heh you gotta love teenagers. Nowadays I'm all about blues and classic rock. You might be surprised to hear that Classical and Metal are EXTREMELY closely related. Allot of guitar solos are straight classical techniques. Nicolo Paganini had more impact on Rock and Metal than Jimmy Hyndrix ever did. Paganini even started the whole show off thing you see guitarists do all the time. He was also rumored to having sold his soul to the devil too...ops...sorry I'm ranting again.

Music theory is fascinating, there is so much psychology to it. I have played with the flatted fifth to create sadness, but I'll second that it is in the creepy hall of fame. Sadly I'm self taught, so I don't have the insight you do, but I suggest anyone who is into music learn more about it. Even a little bit will vastly increase your enjoyment.

And I must admit that I love some of those ghost shows. I know I'm being manipulated, but just to turn my mind off for a bit isn't too bad.

I don't have a problem with ghost shows just people that are waaaay to into it. Who doesn't like to be scared and weirded out from time to time? Sorry if I'm ranting again but I can't help but notice Sjch80 has the Freemason symbol. My grandfather was a Mason and my mom was a Jobes Daughter my sister was a Rainbow Girl and a Jobes Daughter...all my uncles were....you get the idea. Anyways whenever you hear people talk about how closely music and math are what there talking about is pythagorean theorem. Pythagoras saw music as a form of geometry which when you consider what your doing it is. Your manipulating an objects geometry to produce different sounds. It apply's to pretty much any instrument.

Music is very purely math. Frequencies, time signatures, Rhythms, harmonic arraignment, all very direct applications of mathematics. That is a great point HolmerJ.

Btw, have you ever considered swinging by a lodge open house?

Sjch80 said:

Music is very purely math. Frequencies, time signatures, Rhythms, harmonic arraignment, all very direct applications of mathematics. That is a great point HolmerJ.


Btw, have you ever considered swinging by a lodge open house?

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Well hears the thing with that...my grandfather was I believe a Master Mason. He tried really really hard to get me into it. One thing kept getting in the way though....how can I put this...After work...I'm feeling lazy. I want to crack a brewskie watch some sports play some guitar...you get the idea. Laziness and being a slacker doesn't go over well with Free Masons. They tend to frown on it...cause you people are always doing stuff. My grandfather was 90 something when he passed away and man I used to work up a sweat just watching him and his lodge buddy's doing all this community stuff. I'd tell him gramps chill out for a few relax some. He always said the same thing " Ill rest when I'm dead"! You know what? I can tell you for a fact he was lying through his teeth! I know damn good and well he's up their with the big man driven him nuts....doing Mason...STUFF with his lodge buddys. But to answer your question yeah I think about it. When he passed away I swear every Free Mason within 200 miles must have shown up at his funeral.

I agree with OP that music theory is a fascinating study. I took one introductory class in college and enjoyed it. Your new employee definitely sounds strange. Does he wear a tin foil hat to work?