Since I spend most of my free time studying music anyways, I can’t help but relate to it in stupid metaphoric ways.. most people won’t understand or care at all, but I can’t help but think about this a lot in relation to my life.
the tritone is the “devils interval”. It sounds harsh and unstable. But regardless, there are 2 natural tritones in any diatonic key/mode. That being the V7 chord and the VII chord. (G7 and B diminished in C major). .
If you’ve ever heard Amazing Grace, you know the importance of the V7 chord. Despite its dissonant sound, and tritone interval, the V7 is crutial to the scale. The tritone notes B and F have specific functions in this case. Those 2 notes are each a half step away from the closest adjacent note. And as a result, they want to resolve to them. B wants to move up to C, and F wants to move down to E. And by doing so, you move yourself into the I chord, C major.
The V7 chord is the strongest want to resolve down to a tonic. So in theory, you must create strong tension before you can come to a steady resolution.
So knowing that, it got me thinking. What if the tritone, doesn’t resolve? Because I feel like that’s how a lot of us are on this site.
We are like a orchestra where we have lived through major chords, minor, augmented, suspended… and then one day we got to the V7 tritone, which doesn’t sound too great, but which in theory resolves peacfully down to the tonic. But as the conductor was playing this tritone, something happened.. he just, stopped conducting.. he kept us there, on that tritone. Just a half step away fro C major, but with him gone, we no longer have anyway to get there. We are trapped on the devils interval, waiting for a resolution to this dissonance that may never come.. sometimes minutes go by, sometimes years..
That’s it I guess.. that’s my stupid metaphor. I couldn’t think of anything else to write about and I wanted to write so.. imma go now..
7 comments
Hey dw, thanks for reposting this! This is a mind boggling metaphor. And, as much of my life that I’ve wasted studying this stuff, it’s never occurred to me to equate the resolution of a chord (or lack thereof) to a life. But it seems so perfectly appropriate.
Before we even get to the tritone, what do you think of this thought… If each life is a song awaiting some harmonic resolution, the chances of that life ending on the major tonic is very slim. This is because death almost always comes unexpectedly, so it’s like interrupting the song somewhere in the middle. Now here’s where it gets trippy…
The chance of interrupting a song on the major tonic (assuming that’s the desired resolution–which isn’t necessarily so, see what I say at the bottom), depends on how complex a song is.
If you take the song “Milkshake” (2 chords: I & VII7) and chop it somewhere in the middle, it’s a 50/50 chance you’ll hit the lottery and nail the I.
But now suppose your life isn’t Milkshake. Suppose you’re more of a Beethoven’s 5th kinda character. Well, correct me if I’m wrong, but I think that song, in Cm, goes some 40 minutes before we finally resolve to the C major at the very end. So if you chop it midway, chances are you’ll end up with a Qm13dim#82 or some whackass chord like that.
You can probably guess where I’m going with this. Which song is more meaningful? Which song would you rather be in the history books? Sure, Milkshake is tons more fun to shake your booty to. But as far as depth and spiritual value, ya gotta go with Beethoven. Ultimately what I’m saying is, I totally agree that all of us here got stuck with a madman for a composer. Tritones left & right, devil’s intervals modulating us into crazy new keys every day. It’s brutal. But in some sense, even if we never resolve, isn’t it fair to say that we experienced life more intensely than the 2-chord “normies” who waltz through life resolving to the major tonic on every measure?
And a last thought you pointed out in the other thread, which really woke me up, is that the diminished 7 has two tritones, meaning it could resolve to any chord. Let’s think about that. True effing freedom. It could go anywhere it wants. Even if it goes nowhere, I’d say that’s a pretty badass way to end a life, donya think?
Hey Salt, I have an idea. I think we should each compose a musical piece. Either online or on an actual instrument. And basically, compose our lives I suppose. Like a timeline of our existences. An example would be displaying “age 10” and then playing major chords and melodies, and then displaying age 11 when sommething sad happened or whatever and suddenly the song transitions to minor. And then age 12, you play a lot of dissonant tones because that year everything went crazy and hectic.. you know what I mean. I think that would be such a cool way to tell a story. Instead of reading about someone’s life, you can kind of like, feel their life.. that sounded stupid lol you know what I mean. Do you think that would be cool? I’ll probably do it anyways, but I’m not sure how well it’ll turn out for me because I’m not very good at composing, let alone something that will need to have a lot of dissonance at times. It’ll just sound like jibberish lol but maybe that’s the point.
I’ll reapond to everything else you said I swear, but ya my sisters birthday today so I must spend some time doing stuff with/for her. I’ll be back here later tonight and reply to your comment. Thanks lots 🙂
That’s a KILLER idea, I’ll take a whack at it. I’ve never tried composing anything autobiographical so this’ll be an interesting experiment if nothing else lol
I understand what you’re saying. I like to think of each chord as an emotion your going through in your life. Let’s say your life is already prewritten into Beethoven’s 5th. That piece doesn’t get happy until the very end, so in theory, you won’t truly feel happy until you reach your elderly years. However, dying younger, say at 50 or so, means you were never able to live to the major transition, even though you were so close to reaching it.
I suppose the part that sucks the most is, we don’t know what song we’re living. And to be honest, a majority of us would say the song of our lives are more on the end of nonfunctional harmony than functional. C major one moment to F#minor to Bb major.
I wonder if each of us gets our own composing god.. a god in which some are brilliant composers that knows proper resolutions and chord shapes, and some gods who have never played a chord in their lives and thus doesn’t even know how to construct a proper major or minor. You look at some people, they’ve never worked in their lives, never felt grief, their parents passed down millions of dollars.. they’re living in a 1-4-5 progression or something. While us, we’re seen more diminished and augmented chords than we ever thought possible..
And what about people? I used to think of this a while ago.. I would compare people, places, and things do chords… like the girl I had privately posted to I’ve always thought of as a Major9 chord. A total of 5 notes so it can be a bit complicated, but it’s a gorgeous sound with the 9 giving so much depth and personality. Apart from a standard major 7, I’d definitely argue a M9 is definitely the most stable and beautiful extension chord to me.
I don’t know, I think way too much about music and less about reality..
Do you know a lot about music theory by the way? I really want to learn more about it. I’ve been trying to study modal interchange, but I can’t find any good explenations online that teach how to do it. Most just give examples.. I understand you borrow from parrelel modes, and I know the modes, but I don’t understand the execution of it. Or knowing what modes to use or, yeah lol. I should probably just go to college for it already xc
Haha yea before we go any further, I should point out that my musical theory education stops at the building blocks. Meaning, I know the language of music, but I stopped short of learning how we’re supposed to put it all together. On purpose.
I come from a long line of uneducated musicians (people who could play the hell out of an instrument without knowing what notes they were playing), and I always admired their “ignorant” (i.e. creative) approach. But I wanted to learn enough to know what I’m doing & be able to converse with other musicians like we’re doing here. But nah, I purposely avoided learning the science of compositional techniques lest I fall into the trap of regurgitating what I’d been taught, losing that creative “ignorance” that leads to fresh artistic ideas. If that makes any sense haha.
That said, we’re both talking the language and I hear what you’re saying. Going to your example of the major 9, I agree it’s possibly the most beautiful chord …and totally NOT my personality. Historically I’ve sought out & surrounded myself with major 9 type people. Although now that I’m thinking about it, I gravitate more toward major 9 #11 personalities, because I like that hidden “dark side” which sounds beautiful on the surface. So if we’re in C major, the notes would be C, E, G, B, D, F# and that F# sounds gorgeous in context with the D & B. But in relation to the C – there’s that tritone!
Personality wise, I equate that chord to someone who is very optimistic and stable, and yet they are fully aware of the darker elements, incorporating it into their lives without letting dissonance dominate. Who knows if that’s accurate, but I think it’s really interesting to view people’s personalities in terms of chords. Maybe that’ll give us a better idea of who’s a good personality match.
And omg yes, perfect analogy about the I-IV-V people out there. Perfect because I often find myself hating such people as much as I hate the latest I-IV-V hit on the radio. But then I wonder why is that? I guess pure jealousy. It’s frustrating to see people or hear songs that are so shallow. But at the same time, I would hate a world of nothing but tortured artists and Rachmaninov concertos.
I’m not sure where to put my music knowledge. Online videos I guess. I know I suppose just the simple non diatonic principals (tritone substitution, resolution chords like the flat 9 chord. But I just want to learn more. And it’s gotten to the point where, kind of ironically, I hardly even play the piano anymore.. it’s almost like I care only for the theory behind it and not the actual practice and execution of playing.. don’t get me wrong, I still practice, mostly sight reading.. but sightreading is such a slow and tedious process, that I often think of what new mode functions I could be learning instead.
I totally understand what you mean by coming up with great things by being ignorant about it. I used to be able to write music on the piano quite easily. Just come up with a melody, play the same 4 chord progression, and boom. Instant song. And back then, I didn’t know anything further than key signatures.. but now, that I know so much more… I find myself not being able to really write anything. I can write tons of songs online for some reason. But at an actual piano.. there’s nothing. And I almost feel like by gaining knowledgr, I’ve lost some creativity.
I’m a bit different from you though. I want to learn as many music “rules” as I possibly can. Because I feel that only when I have a strong understanding of how normal Music works, will I be able to break and bend them to my outmost leisure.
There’s 2 thought directions I was brought into when you mentioned the sharp 4. The first one was, that I think you’d be a hugs fan of playing in the Lydian key. Lydian being my favorite of the weird modes. Lydian if you don’t know, if the major scale, but with a sharp 4 in it. Although I have 0 idea on how to play any of the modes currently, I’ve observed and been told that it is a very other worldly feeling mode
My second thought of the sharp 4 was, how close to a polychord it was. A very common polychord as wel being the I and II major chords played together. (C and D major.) The only note your missing is A.
I don’t know anything about pilychords, and I sure wouldn’t ever try to use one unless I really knew what I was doing. It was just curious.
As for the chord by itself, I think it sounds lovely it creates a slight instability in the chord, but still sounds stable enough to resolve to.
If I had to choose a song to live, I think I’d choose Clair de lune. It’s gorgeous of course, but quite nondiatonic at times, it’s definitely different due to its unique time signature. What song would you pick.
By the way my favorite musician is a man named Giovanni allevi. I listen to so many of his pieces falling in love with his very weird and strange ones like on his 13 Dita album lol. Do you have a favorite artist?
Wow this was long..
This is so cool, I haven’t had a conversation like this, literally, ever. And I know we’re barely scratching the surface but that’s the best part.
So I messed around with the Lydian, raising the 4th, and you’re right I LOVE IT. What I like even more (I don’t know what it’s called) is the Lydian with a flat 6. So in C the notes would be:
C D E F# G Ab B C
Now we’re talking really other worldly. It has that Gypsy vibe, but the official Gypsy scale is minor so I don’t know what you’d call this with the major 3rd.
Yeah I hear what you’re saying about learning the rules before you break them, and that’s very true. I guess the 2 ways of approaching music are sort of like learning a spoken language. One way is to learn the precise written form, while the other is to learn the conversational form which doesn’t usually follow strict grammar. Ideally we should learn the strict rules of grammar and then knowingly break those rules in conversation.
Side note: people who speak with perfect grammar in casual conversations creep me out. I think it’s part of human expression to throw in deliberate “errors” like an occasional sentence fragment. And such.
So back to music, you’re right, learning the rules first is the way to do it. I guess my method is a cop out because I’m lazy. But like you pointed out, when you get too deep in theory you run the risk of becoming jaded. I also miss the days when I could sit down and hammer out a G to C chord progression and think it’s the coolest thing ever invented.
But here’s a trick I do sometimes when I’m feeling that way… I jump to an unfamiliar instrument. Pick up a mandolin or banjo, or hell even a guitar with alternate tuning, and suddenly music is new again because you can’t overthink something you’re not familiar with.
Speaking of composition, have you made any headway on that soundtrack to your life? I haven’t done squat although I’ve thought about it a lot.