Inside the Decibel and Why It Matters

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Inside the Decibel and Why It Matters

by Nick Messitte, iZotope Contributor May 26, 2020

So much of what we do is quantified in decibels—e.g. “Bring up that vocal a dB or so.” If we notch out a frequency, we talk about that cut in terms of decibels: a 2 dB cut at 650 Hz, for example.

A History of Reverb in Music Production

A History of Reverb in Music Production:

Because the reverb must be captured in the recording process, studios invested in custom-built recording rooms to achieve the sound that they were after. Famous spaces like the main recording room in Columbia Records’ 30th Street Studio, renowned for their reverberant signatures, were utilized as the reverb source for some of the most famous projects in music (the legendary 1959 Kind of Blue album from Miles Davis was recorded at 30th Street).

I truly loved this room. Got to sit in (listening) to recording session with brass and a few strings. Good to have had a pro for a teacher/mentor — Don Butterfield. He believed in the experience of playing live with multiple players. Intonation? Always of paramount importance.

Don Butterfield — Wikipedia:

The Grove Dictionary of Music calls Butterfield’s playing style, “uncommonly florid, a skill that made him of value as a jazz musician… He was one of the first modern jazz players who, rather than simply marking out the bass line, rediscovered the possibility of bringing to the instrument a facility akin to that of a trumpeter.”

If you want to hear some very interesting music try Clark Terry’s album “Top and Bottom Brass”. Outstanding.

Minor scale — Wikipedia

Minor scale — Wikipedia:

In music theory, the term minor scale refers to three scale patterns — the natural minor scale (or Aeolian mode), the harmonic minor scale, and the melodic minor scale (ascending or descending)[1] — rather than just one as with the major scale.

I was listening to a podcast yesterday. There were two speakers, both claim to have been classically-trained with degrees in music theory and/or music performance.

Neither of them could “speak” the difference between the “minor” scales

  • natural
  • harmonic — seventh degree raised semitone — leading tone
  • melodic — raised sixth and seventh degree ascending, not raised descending

You’ll know it when you hear it.

Roman numeral analysis — Wikipedia

Roman numeral analysis — Wikipedia:

In music, Roman numeral analysis uses Roman numerals to represent chords. The Roman numerals (I, II, III, IV, …) denote scale degrees (first, second, third, fourth, …); used to represent a chord, they denote the root note on which the chord is built. For instance, III denotes the third degree of a scale or the chord built on it. Generally, uppercase Roman numerals (such as I, IV, V) represent major chords while lowercase Roman numerals (such as i, iv, v) represent minor chords (see Major and Minor below for alternative notations); elsewhere, upper-case Roman numerals are used for all chords.[2] In Western classical music in the 2000s, Roman numeral analysis is used by music students and music theorists to analyze the harmony of a song or piece.

A great place to find notation conventions. NNS gives me such grief…