How do corporations rule the world when corporations rule the world? Why, with simple melodies played on idiophones like the hand chimes pictured left. Germans call them “ohrwurm”, meaning earworm. A catchy song crawls inside our ever-open ears like a musical parasite and lays egg-songs in our brains. There is no more insidious melody on [...]

The Major Third is probably the most popular interval in America. Everytime you walk into a convenience store, it plays for you. The Major Third is what makes things Major. In the above example, the E is the Major Third of the C – the Tonic. There is an inherently happy quality to this interval. [...]

     The clock tower song “Westminster Quarters” was composed by William Crotch in 1793.          The last C that strikes the hour sounds more like a C minor, because of the audible Eb overtone. This type of modulation, from a Major key to the same key in Minor, is known as a Reverse Picardy.                                                                                   The [...]