The second song off our new album is a bright up-tempo tune with a whole-tone hook. Drag over the black stemmed noteheads. “Black Unstemmed Noteheads” is a song about songs—a kind of metasong if you will, and I know you will. If this blog could write songs, it would sound like this. A kind of […]
Archive of posts tagged Major Thirds
uh Phone
there is a phone call that makes a kind of native guatemalan greeting everytim it calls you. you may have heard this thing. i can’t remember what phone it’s for. i’m not good with the brandnames. it seems the phone companies and other multinationals are following the old-time inspiration of classic TV and radio by […]
The Devil in Music
Behold and Hearken! The Blessèd Circle of Fifths… Beginning at the top with a low A and following clockwise, we cycle through the 12 tones of Equal Temperament, spanning seven octaves, ascending a fifth at a time, till we return once again to the octave and back to the A. Drag your mouse in clockwise […]
Major Laugh Made Ya Laugh
People in the 40’s used to laugh in major keys. Man’s guffaws and woman’s’ cackles were tuned to each other―an octave apart―and the glee of their sons and daughters lol’d like a pop choir. But those were jazzier times then, when it was okay for boys to laugh like birds, and girls to cry like […]
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), […]
Never Jam After Midnight
Once in an eternity, a mogwai comes along with a voice of silver and a heart of gold. Most of his kind are shady Chinese spirits who suffer midnightly cravings and a bad case of aquaphobia. They certainly can’t whistle Dixie and play little keyboards in key. Fully acculturated, Gizmo sings a C# Major folk […]
Oh! Oh! Canada! Canada!
This little bird has a big song. He double-tracks the melody like John Lennon in his syrinx. It’s so loud, you can easily pick him out of your local biophony―other oscine song, insectival drone, and mammalian utterances―high up in the Seventh Octave, comfortable in his perch above Middle C. Ornithologists have even set nationalistic lyrics […]
