I study the structure of music and I make it easier to digest. I care about the order of notes (pitches). Right now I don't care about rhythms or timbres.
In a broader sense, I'm an educator with a lot of experience teaching various aspects of programming. I've created https://snakify.org/ and https://pythontutor.ru/, which is how I make my living. And, separately, I enjoy studying complex hierarchical evolutionary systems like human languages or music (possibly that's a complete list).
My main project is rawl.rocks where I employ colored music notation so that you see chords faster. I reuse a huge collection of MIDI files available in the internet (hehe) to show the real structure of Western harmony and arrangement, zoomed into styles and composers.
I firmly believe that the best way to study the anatomy of music is by reading and analyzing tons of scores of pieces you care about. Fortunately, many scores are digitized, allowing us to create more visually ergonomic tools for this task, surpassing the clumsiness of standard notation. These tools can enhance the reading experience, making it easier to quickly identify various patterns, including harmonic, voice-leading, textural and formal elements.
My current plan is to make at an interactive introduction textbook to harmony of different composers and styles, somewhat like a sequel to https://book-one.hooktheory.com/. My first book, if ever, will be on harmony in Musescore Top 100
I eagerly need to show my current state of work to people, so let's jump into a screen-sharing call.
Abandoned demos:
- https://vpavlenko.github.io/chiptheory/
- https://vpavlenko.github.io/12/
- https://vpavlenko.github.io/p/ and https://vpavlenko.github.io/p2/ (the last one won't work because of Audio Context protection)
Everything I do I do for Chrome desktop only.
Insitutionally, I consider myself doing a PhD in the pedagogy of music theory. However, I'm not affiliated with any institution 💀🤡. I hate bureaucratical systems, hierarchies and miserable people struggling in capitalism.
I run a free 1-to-1 online course on analysis of structures in Western music via problems - in Russian or English. DM to start.
I've recorded some lectures in Russian. I'd love to collaborate with designers of educational content – YouTube and TikTok creators – who wish to spread the joy of seeing structure in music. I can maybe give classes on the structure of music in your city in the UK or anywhere else - for free, if you can summon a stable nerdy audience.
I'm an independent researcher and I do open source research for non-commercial purposes. As soon as I won't be able to afford a Full English at a local coffee shop anymore, I'll add more ad banners into all my demos. "Everyone wants to be rich and against capitalism."
I might mentor computer science students who seek to do projects on the structure of music. Although my projects are really about music, not about technologies (read this sentence five times). Message me if you need a project to work on, although don't expect anything trendy or easy: https://github.com/vpavlenko/study-music/tree/main/research