Minors, maths, mixes, and magnatunes
KeithHandy posted in Business, Composing, Tools on May 15th, 2007
I just had a cup of coffee, cranked King Crimson’s The Power To Believe, and fell fast asleep for most of the duration of the album. Drooled on my pillow, even. (Wow, good thing I didn’t have a glass of warm milk and put on Brahm’s Lullaby, or I’d be dead.) Anyway, as I was nodding off, I thought of a simple musical idea: the next time I want to write a single-line countermelody for any chord progression, for any major chord I’ll focus on the third of the chord, but for any minor chord I will focus on the fifth, so I’m not emphasizing that the chord is minor — just letting the ear and brain do that. It might even be nice to try playing some familiar chord progressions, but leaving the third out on all the minor chords, just to see how well the “minorness” is implied by context and relationship. This seems like an interesting way to make the sad aspect of a bit of music more gentle and subtle.
WARNING: MATH
It also makes sense from a pitch ratio perspective. If you’re trying to keep your pitch ratios simple (consonant), think of this. In a perfectly tuned C major chord — putting aside that our tuning system is actually an imperfect compromise — the ratio of pitches in “C, E, G” is 4:5:6. Simple enough, because a major third (C to E) has a 4:5 ratio, and a minor third (E to G) has a 5:6 ratio.
When you play a minor chord, though, those two intervals are flip-flopped. The minor third is on the bottom and the major third is on top. So in a C minor chord (C, E-flat, G), you have a 5:6 ratio (C to E-flat) first, and then a 4:5 ratio (E-flat to G). To write this as one three-number ratio, you would have to first bump up the ratios to 10:12 and 12:15 respectively, in order to have a common middle number. You can then write it as 10:12:15, but you can’t reduce it any further. Still fairly small numbers in the grand scheme of the cosmos, and still a beautiful chord, but just something to have in your awareness when you find yourself becoming fatigued and “over-minor’d”.
MATH ALERT LIFTED, OK TO BEGIN PAYING ATTENTION AGAIN
So anyway, that list of songs that I needed to rescue is way down (less than ten), and I can feel my spirit being lightened. I’m even having nicer dreams. (I explained to one friend of mine that I’m not just copying folders and files, but actually re-organizing tracks and doing partial mixdowns, because the Cool Edit sessions won’t open in any other application.) When that ordeal INVIGORATING CHALLENGE is over with, my next objective is to finish up Fr. Hifta Ryphtor and try to get that accepted at Magnatune, an unconventional and forward-thinking record label that apparently needs more rock artists. They don’t give you advances, they don’t pay for your recording costs, they don’t give you limo rides; all they do is evaluate the album to make sure it’s not half-assed, and then make it available where it can be searched for and paid for with flexible pricing. Initially it was just (DRM-free) digital downloads and commercial licensing (so your music could be used in advertising and various media), but they’re starting to sell actual physical CDs too.
Some of the best songs on Fr. Hifta Ryphtor don’t have complete lyrics yet, so it looks like I’ll be needing to go into… that place… you know the one…
