I’ve been quiet lately because I’ve been working on an animation of my song Real Girl. It’s a complicated one, a dance of harmonic tension and resolution. The bass and melody chase each other around the lattice like courting butterflies. Meanwhile, there’s more to be extracted from the Be Love video. A mode is a…
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…
Be Love was written and arranged on the lattice. I consciously used the lattice as a tool to make the music do what I wanted it to do. Working with this song has taught me a lot about leading the ear. Different parts of the lattice have different sounds. The upper right, the northeast, is…