> You can't come at music and think about it like you're building a computer program.
I think the absolutionist take here is unproductive.
I would argue a writing a fugue is analogous to "building a computer program"; to say little of 12 tone chromatic atonal music compositions that usually sacrifice 7 tone based harmonies for interesting structure, like palindromic reflection of ascending and descending musical ideas, and optimising for a high number of pitches in a melody.
Additionally, 7 note diatonic music theory can be completely summed up with two statements:
1) tick-tick-tock-tick-tick-tick-tock
2) permuate all the things!
Most common western instruments are literally built to only play 7 tone diatonic music theory.
Look at a piano. It can literally ONLY play "semi-tones". It's impossible to explore music beyond the 12 note chromatic scale without first modifiying the physical construction of the piano.
The problem with coming at music like building a computer program is that, while it theoretically can work when you look at it from thousand miles away, no musician actually does that. It reminds me of when Dijkstra wrote that all computer science students should always start with manipulating symbols before touching a machine, and Knuth replied that nobody learned programming that way. There's no empirical data of such thinking actual work.
What makes good music good is ultimately human ears. Fugues, for example, might seem to be programmatical at first glance, but get your hands dirty and compose one yourself, based on nothing but the mechanical rules. Doesn't sound good? It doesn't.
It's like writing English based on syntactical rules. You'll end up with a music equivalent of "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously".
I think the absolutionist take here is unproductive.
I would argue a writing a fugue is analogous to "building a computer program"; to say little of 12 tone chromatic atonal music compositions that usually sacrifice 7 tone based harmonies for interesting structure, like palindromic reflection of ascending and descending musical ideas, and optimising for a high number of pitches in a melody.
Additionally, 7 note diatonic music theory can be completely summed up with two statements:
1) tick-tick-tock-tick-tick-tick-tock
2) permuate all the things!
Most common western instruments are literally built to only play 7 tone diatonic music theory.
Look at a piano. It can literally ONLY play "semi-tones". It's impossible to explore music beyond the 12 note chromatic scale without first modifiying the physical construction of the piano.