Top all-time · #25932
alpof
Personal blog · alpof.wordpress.commathscience
alpof is a personal blog at alpof.wordpress.com about math and science. Since 2020, 3 different Hacker News readers have linked it 3 times. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-09-23, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (3) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link this blog's music-theory posts on chord progressions, Neo-Riemannian theory and the Severance main theme's harmony. One commenter calls the Neo-Riemannian explanation a wonderful, deep explanation.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 3 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Random thoughts about music and math, science and sometimes legos…
What Hacker News says?
This appears to be a mediocre piece of undergrad "research", which is to say, the theoretical material is entirely plagiarized without citation. Even the applied analysis (Beethoven's 9th, 2nd mvt. mm. 143-172) is directly lifted from another work. The application of group-theoretical ideas to music theory (in particular, the rules underpinning voice leading) is quite interesting, however! People have been intereste…
Comment linking /category/music/math-music/neo-riemannian-theory/
on “Chord Transformations and Beethoven (2011) [pdf]”Funny to see more praise for the technical/artistic details of the Severance intro. I recently came across another domain specialist geeking over it, but on a completely different aspect: harmony. https://alpof.wordpress.com/2022/05/04/severance-main-theme-... He dissects the chord progression into two "near-T6 transformations" and an "inverse Tarnhelm transformation". I followed along because I've been building my…
Comment linking /2022/05/04/severance-main-theme-is-as-mind-blowing-as-the-show-itself/
on “Rare yet Impactful – Orthographic Projection in Films and Animations”This is a wonderful deep explanation of Neo-Riemannian theory. This IS the "secret sauce" of modern cinematic music IMHO. https://alpof.wordpress.com/2021/10/09/neo-riemannian-exampl... https://www.youtube.com/@alexandrepopoff8628
Comment linking /2021/10/09/neo-riemannian-examples-in-music/
on “Microsoft Says New AI Shows Signs of Human Reasoning”