Yakoob on 9/1/2016 at 06:50

---

Just a silly thread along the lines of the happy one - what's something really dumb/mind boggling you learned today?

I got the (http://www.mccormick.com/Spices-and-Flavors/Extracts-and-Food-Colors/Extracts/Rum-Flavor) McCormick Imitation Rum flavoring for cakes and baking, and just learned it actually has 29% alcohol. Wtf? That's only 11% less than normal. I thought the whole point was it's alcohol free; at this rate I might as well just use regular rum.

Never change, US food industry...

demagogue on 9/1/2016 at 12:03

---

Well today I worked out that in jazz (piano in my case), if you have a phrase starting and ending with dom7 chords, you can get away with just walking dom7s down from the first to the last, whatever actual chords, if any, are in the middle, and it sounds cool.

I don't know how dumb it is, but it's something I learned. I suppose it could be considered a music hack, you're going off script with a kind of gimmick, so "dumb" in that sense. I'm just starting to get to the level where I feel ok breaking some rules for the greater jam.

demagogue on 9/1/2016 at 14:05

---

You'd go down by the circle of 5ths actually, from Vs to Is. from G7 to C7, well that's just 1 step so not a good example. But from like G7 to Bb7 you'd do G7 C7 F7 Bb7, which has a 6-2-5-1 look to it (if you had more than 3 or 4 steps between, you'd just go back from the last chord), but from your fingers' perspective, and this is what I learned, it's like you're walking chromatically down, because going down a half step with a 3&7 V magically becomes the 7&3 of its I (and now it's a V for the next step), and vice versa.

Edit. Walking down a circle of 5ths is a pretty basic thing. I just worked out you can throw it in basically anywhere to fill space whatever the music says, as long as you end where you need to be, and on a piano you do it by walking that tritone shape right down chromatically. I understand that's a key part I left out and I really misleadingly explained it, but I was being lazy and at the time just thinking about how my fingers moved.

Nameless Voice on 10/1/2016 at 03:06

---

Today, I learned that you can tip <s>cows</s> brahmin over in Fallout: New Vegas by sneaking up on them and giving them a push.

Thirith on 14/1/2016 at 09:54

---

It is indeed difficult to understand that having a different opinion from others on something and being a great big knob with respect to how you express your opinion are two entirely different things.