Most influential Individual in Music

[hit me with a crowbar]

If we were going to talk about individuals in rap Ice Cube takes a huge shit all over that guy, he wrote most of NWA's songs who are one of the most important groups in rap ever.

But Yeh God Dylan, has my vote.

[Stefani Eleni]

Robert Johnson.

[chief calm down]

Axl Rose.


Or I could be serious and say Billy Corgan.

[sharkbait_hoo_haa_haa291]

NO......

Yes there are a lot of parallels between Pythagoras work with ratios (most notably the golden ratio) and music. But musical scales weren't based on mathematical formulas until way after his death.

The western major scale actually comes from something called the overtone series. Witch is basically all the notes you hear when you pluck a string. (Hit a lower key on a piano sometime, if you listen very carefully you will notice that there is the main note and a bunch of higher notes sounding at the same time.) There are seven notes that are prominent in the overtone series. That is where the notes for the major scale came from.

Actually J.S. Bach is one of the reasons we use the system of pitches that is most common in modern music.

They used to tune instruments so that they would be perfectly in tune in one key (AKA they would only use 7 notes in all the songs). So if a composer wanted to write a song in a key they would tune so you had a perfect sounding major scale. And then if they wanted to be in another key they would re-tune all the instruments.

But then composers started messing around with the idea of using different keys in the same song. The problem was that if you tuned your instruments so they would be in tune for C major and you tried to play any other scale it would sound horribly out of tune.

This is because the notes from the different overtone series wouldn't line up at all. To cut a long story short (I know I'm starting to rarable) they came up with 12 note equal temperament tuning. Basically they made the distance between every note exactly the same. This did make it so when you played a major scale it would be a little out of tune (when compared to tuning to the overtone series). But it also made so you could play a major scale starting on any note and it would sound ok.

J.S. Bach wrote a lot of music with equal temperament tuning and showed people how much possibilities one could gain by using a 12-tone system. It is very commonly stated that Bach was the major turning point from "pure" tuning to equal tempered tuning. He also got people used to the idea of trying "new" scales besides ones that would come out the major scale.

So to answer the question of the post I would say Bach, because with out him we might be stuck listening to a lot more music that always sticks in one key per song and never uses accidentals.

[Pink Fluffy Slippers]

Who is the the most influential person in music...EVER? Now it has to be one person, so if you want to vote for a band you're going to have to narrow it down to who out of that band is the most influential.

I'm going to have to say John Lennon. I've only heard a couple of songs from him as it's not really my style of music, but nearly all my favourite banRAB list him or The Beatles as their reason for getting into the business.

[MrGizmo757]

Well since they were never recorded for all we know he could have been terrible at it.


Oh wait... forgot... Satan.

[phone expert]

For what he did to the genre they were put into, I think Issac Brock from Modest Mouse has been extremely influential to music, songwriting and so much more.

[emoangel]

Les Paul

[Chillen yet confused]

the first human that discovered by using their voice or hanRAB they can produce music, and then put on a performance to entertain others, would probably be the most influential. Too bad we'll never know who that person is... what a crazy thought.

I read the earliest recording ever produced of a person singing was on April 9, 1860 on a device called the phonautograph invented by Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville... he would be pretty influential for music production in general.

[Friz79]

I agree totally...

Before men like them, writing and performing music over 400 years ago, what was there?? - Nothing.

Some of the greatest tunes ever are being copied and played to this day. If that's not influential - I don't know what is.