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Validated and violated… by my phone!

tb-player

tb-player

Why so serious?
Mar 6, 2019
6,717
30,010
East Coast, USA
#1
This evening, I got bored with football so the wife and I found ourselves watching "The Voice." During one contestant's rehearsal, he told the band, "let's take that down 4 semitones to the key of G# major." When he said that, I laughed. My wife looked at me puzzled. I explained that I think he was trying to look smart in front of his judge, but he actually outed himself. I said, "There is no key of G# major. He should have asked to drop it 2 steps to Ab, because G# has 8 sharps, creating a double sharp in the scale. No one in a band would say that."

My wife didn't care.

You probably don't either. Or you may want to argue the point that G# is, in fact, a valid key. You would technically be correct. But we'd have to agree that it's pretty uncommon, almost nonexistent in popular music.

But what is extremely unsettling is the fact that 1 hour later, The following video of Victor Wooten popped up while I was scrolling on my phone. I've never seen it before. He's talking about practicing on one string to help with fingerboard learning. While giving his example, he makes a brief side comment (not at all the point of his video), "Once I learn a little bit of theory, I'll find out, 'Whoa! There is no G# major.' " (around 00:26)



That's how much our phones are listening and how media is catalogued. It can find a video from months ago and get that one statement in front of my eyes to validate what I just said (all the while making me feel a bit violated… lol).

Yikes!!! 😬
 
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#6
sometimes i wonder if its just confirmation bias, like we only notice it because it was mentioned earlier. otherwise, like everything else, it would just melt into the puddle of what used to be our attention span.
like have you ever noticed some unique / recognizable car while you're driving around and then you see it again later on and you think "what the..! i see that car everywhere! crazy!" but really you could have also been seeing the same nondescript prius over and over, all day long, but because it's nondescript, yould never even know.
is that even the same thing? i don't know.
 
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#9
tb-player said:
This evening, I got bored with football so the wife and I found ourselves watching "The Voice." During one contestant's rehearsal, he told the band, "let's take that down 4 semitones to the key of G# major." When he said that, I laughed. My wife looked at me puzzled. I explained that I think he was trying to look smart in front of his judge, but he actually outed himself. I said, "There is no key of G# major. He should have asked to drop it 2 steps to Ab, because G# has 8 sharps, creating a double sharp in the scale. No one in a band would say that."

My wife didn't care.

You probably don't either. Or you may want to argue the point that G# is, in fact, a valid key. You would technically be correct. But we'd have to agree that it's pretty uncommon, almost nonexistent in popular music.

But what is extremely unsettling is the fact that 1 hour later, The following video of Victor Wooten popped up while I was scrolling on my phone. I've never seen it before. He's talking about practicing on one string to help with fingerboard learning. While giving his example, he makes a brief side comment (not at all the point of his video), "Once I learn a little bit of theory, I'll find out, 'Whoa! There is no G# major.' " (around 00:26)



That's how much our phones are listening and how media is catalogued. It can find a video from months ago and get that one statement in front of my eyes to validate what I just said (all the while making me feel a bit violated… lol).

Yikes!!! 😬
Click to expand...

I'm playing a Christmas show this weekend. A couple tunes are the obligatory classical pieces that I will play arco on my DB.
If someone called a tune in the key of G# in a bar band, I would play it in the correct key. With over 50 years of gigs I learned it's necessary to be a musical chameleon.
 
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#11
tb-player said:
This evening, I got bored with football so the wife and I found ourselves watching "The Voice." During one contestant's rehearsal, he told the band, "let's take that down 4 semitones to the key of G# major." When he said that, I laughed. My wife looked at me puzzled. I explained that I think he was trying to look smart in front of his judge, but he actually outed himself. I said, "There is no key of G# major. He should have asked to drop it 2 steps to Ab, because G# has 8 sharps, creating a double sharp in the scale. No one in a band would say that."

My wife didn't care.

You probably don't either. Or you may want to argue the point that G# is, in fact, a valid key. You would technically be correct. But we'd have to agree that it's pretty uncommon, almost nonexistent in popular music.

But what is extremely unsettling is the fact that 1 hour later, The following video of Victor Wooten popped up while I was scrolling on my phone. I've never seen it before. He's talking about practicing on one string to help with fingerboard learning. While giving his example, he makes a brief side comment (not at all the point of his video), "Once I learn a little bit of theory, I'll find out, 'Whoa! There is no G# major.' " (around 00:26)



That's how much our phones are listening and how media is catalogued. It can find a video from months ago and get that one statement in front of my eyes to validate what I just said (all the while making me feel a bit violated… lol).

Yikes!!! 😬
Click to expand...


But did the Judges say anything about his comment? 🤔

Does seem odd, that the band (likely) practiced a thousand times a certain way, then the Minute before ethe BIG Performance... Change the key? (seems very unlikely to me).


T$
 
#13
Phone part of OP: Phone listening? Is it coincidence? Is it Behavioral advertising?

Music theory part of OP: You mean like when I am learning music theory and I see two sharps and I think, "D major!" And it says the piece is in B minor?

"Who is number one?"
"You are number 6."
"I am not a number!" I am a relative minor!
 
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#16
tb-player said:
This evening, I got bored with football so the wife and I found ourselves watching "The Voice." During one contestant's rehearsal, he told the band, "let's take that down 4 semitones to the key of G# major." When he said that, I laughed. My wife looked at me puzzled. I explained that I think he was trying to look smart in front of his judge, but he actually outed himself. I said, "There is no key of G# major. He should have asked to drop it 2 steps to Ab, because G# has 8 sharps, creating a double sharp in the scale. No one in a band would say that."

My wife didn't care.

You probably don't either. Or you may want to argue the point that G# is, in fact, a valid key. You would technically be correct. But we'd have to agree that it's pretty uncommon, almost nonexistent in popular music.

But what is extremely unsettling is the fact that 1 hour later, The following video of Victor Wooten popped up while I was scrolling on my phone. I've never seen it before. He's talking about practicing on one string to help with fingerboard learning. While giving his example, he makes a brief side comment (not at all the point of his video), "Once I learn a little bit of theory, I'll find out, 'Whoa! There is no G# major.' " (around 00:26)



That's how much our phones are listening and how media is catalogued. It can find a video from months ago and get that one statement in front of my eyes to validate what I just said (all the while making me feel a bit violated… lol).

Yikes!!! 😬
Click to expand...


Lots of people (usually coming from the guitar player or amateurish world) communicate in terms of sharp keys. People on the pro side tend towards flat keys because they're easier to think about in terms of accidentals, like you pointed out. I think the difference is just between who is used to writing things down/reading charts and knowing what a pain in the ass it is to read staff with a million sharps and a double sharp.

But there's really no reason a tune that is being described as Ab major is "wrong" to also be described in G# major. It's just in how you write it down on staff.
 
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#17
It's been happening for a long time (the phone eavesdropping, not G# Major), but they are just getting more brazen and sloppy about it now. IoT, "Smart" TVs, and those hell-spawned "Digital Assistants"...the more you can disconnect, the better.

Am I paranoid? Yes, I work in Cybersecurity and have the unfathomable burden of being informed on this crap :sour:
 
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