While wandering around the woods recently, I came upon a mutation of thrushes. That’s what a group of thrushes is called: a mutation. Ancient scientists believed thrushes mutated on their 10th birthday, growing new legs or something, which is strange because they only live 9 years. Scientists used to be so stupid, not the infallible […]
Archive of posts tagged Harmonic Series
The Mystic Chord
Alexander Scriabin, the great Russian tone poet, was particularly fond of a 6-note chord that his disciples dubbed “the mystic chord.” Drag horizontally over the bass and treble to hear the top 3 and bottom 3 notes separately, or drag vertically and lickety-quickly to hear the full 6-note chord. The Mystic Chord is known as […]
The Oldest Song
We made a video for The Oldest Song—a music video, as it were. The Oldest Song (Hurrian Hymn no.6.) was discovered on clay tablets in the Ancient Syrian city of Ugartit and is estimated to be about 3,400 years old. This version is performed half on toy classroom instruments, and half on traditional rock ‘n’ […]
The Train in Spain Falls Majorly on the Fade
Trains are in major keys, just like cars. The rhythms of the railroad helped shape Jazz and Rock music, like the shuffle of the human heart and the swung gait of a walking horse, major trains in 4/4 paved the way for the dominance of drumming in all music (after a brief buoyant classical period), […]
Intervals
In our relentless pursuit of musical education, it is important that we frequently return to the source, and that is the tone at the beginning of all creation―the Om Tone. This sacred syllable, discourse particle, wordless melody, or what have you, is said to be the background microwave radiation from the Big Bang, the tinnitus […]
Picardy Party
A picardy is a minor-major switcheroo. When music is sad, and suddenly turns triumphant, this is the picardy at work. And it is all thanks to one little note – the Third or Mediant. In the example above, the Mediant is the note in the middle – the Third. In C Minor the mediant E […]
Toney Toney Tone
Every single musical tone is a chord that contains a scale. The secret scale inside every tone is called the Harmonic Series. The Harmonic Series begins with the Fundamental, in this case the C. This is the tone that you hear as pitch. If you strike this tone on a piano, the rest of the […]
