Most influential Individual in Music

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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.
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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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
I totally see where you are coming from with these names and I agree they are all highly influential artists (within' their respective genres) for future generations to come. I just can't help to think of the artists that influenced the artists you mentioned... and then who influenced them, and so on. To ask for THE MOST influential person EVER is pretty damn vague. Also, I know you agree with me on this... just restating my previous point, not really directing it at you.
 
I'm sorry but I won't class Kiss as rock. They are glam rock, which to me is basically calling them pop. I would also call Beatles pop. I know it might have been rock back then, but I'm young and living in the present so these banRAB will always be Pop to me. And yes influence and skill are totally different things-which is why I vote for Elvis.
 
never mind, sense popularity (not substance) seems to be what people care about now a days I'm going to say Paris Hilton because she is on tv.:banghead:
 
i think.. if it weren't for the Mama's and The Papa's disco wouldn't have happened.. i mean there nothing alike but really pop turned to disco well some of it (i mean kiss even had a nuraber one disco song) Mama's and the Papa's were pop of the 60's still then being considered rock of the 60's at the time. They were a rather popular band more so because of the movement with the hippies andwhat not, i think this band did have alot of influeince.
 
I wish he was able to put together full arangements of his work. He today only have fragments of what he played in the form lo-fi recordings.
 
John Hammond is the most influential person in music for his discoveries of Benny Goodman, Charlie Christian, Billie Holiday, Count Basie, Teddy Wilson, Big Joe Turner, Pete Seeger, Babatunde Olatunji, Aretha Franklin, George Benson, Bob Dylan, Freddie Green, Leonard Cohen, Bruce Springsteen, Arthur Russell, Asha Puthli and Stevie Ray Vaughan. He is also largely responsible for the revival of delta blues artist Robert Johnson's music.
 
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