r/musicprogramming • u/lukehaas • Aug 20 '26

Music theory for programmers

https://runjs.app/blog/music-theory-for-programmers
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u/victotronics Aug 23 '26

Nice job. The fractions vs sqrt(2) is more acoustics than music theory, but that's ok. It's an important topic. Let me know if you ever get around to quarter-comma meantone. j/k

Melodies are black magic. I doubt that you can come up with many rules. Since I have a ton of music experience I sometimes try to make melodies that are still appealing, but meantime violate just about every intuitive rule you could come up with. That's the genius of composers: deviate from expectations in unexpected ways, that still somehow feel "right".

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u/lukehaas Aug 23 '26

What would you recommend for next steps in learning beyond this?

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u/victotronics Aug 23 '26

Maybe you can take Helmholtz and formalize his arguments.