Chords and other collections of notes have consistent, recognizable shapes on the lattice. A major chord is a triangle sitting on its base, a minor chord is a triangle on its point. Yesterday’s post has videos showing these chords. In the songs I know and write, the next most common chords after major and minor…
I want to show you some lattice movies of how I’ve used blue tritones in my own music. Real Girl has several examples. The clearest is a guitar lick in the chorus: That 7b5 is tasty over the bVI chord. For an instant, it makes a “barbershop seventh,” the 7th harmonic of the root. Here…
I have a favorite note. Don’t tell the others. It’s the septimal flat five, or septimal tritone. I call it 7b5 on the lattice. There are many reasons why I love this note. One is that Jimi played it, and he’s my favorite musician of them all. Another is that this note is rarely discussed…
I just recorded a new song, and it’s a perfect example of how equal temperament and just intonation can get along together. Here’s the cut: Reading this blog might give you the impression that I’m “against” equal temperament and “for” just intonation, or untempered music. True, discovering untempered music has been like sailing to…
Mirror twins are pairs of intervals, exactly opposite each other on the lattice. The two intervals are reciprocals of each other, which means their ratios are flipped — if one is 5/3, the other is 3/5. Harmonic distance is the same for each interval — the only difference is polarity. Listening to mirror twin pairs gives…
At the very end of the chorus, Be Love showcases one of my favorite notes, the 7b3. Most of the notes of the inner lattice can be approximated on the piano, but not the septimal minor third. It’s in between the keys. Blues pianists can evoke it by trilling between 2 and b3, but only variable-pitch instruments…
My favorite contemporary band is the Black Keys. I think Dan Auerbach is a harmonic genius. The video is funny. Dinosaur? What dinosaur? This song lives in the universe of 7. I just spent a half day taking apart the main riff and seeing how it works out on the lattice. It strictly uses a…
Every prime number generates a new musical universe. Prime numbers are numbers, greater than one, that can only be evenly divided by themselves and 1. All other numbers are composite — that is, they can be made by multiplying two or more primes. 1) Multiplying by 1 does nothing. 1 is a singularity, the universe before the…