Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Swan song

Swan song

Near-tonality

Something that fascinates me is the concept of near-tonality. I'm not certain if this is existing terminology, and if it means what I would like it to mean in the context of this blog post. I use it to denote music that somehow "almost" sounds tonal. A typical example would be a soloist playing something "out-of-key", while the accompaniment remains "in-key". The notes sound wrong in the context, but if you keep playing out-of-key systematically something funny happens: once you get used to the new musical language, it all starts to sound right again. You start to hear how different types of dissonances can evoke different moods, and what first sounded all weird and wrong suddenly sounds beautiful, comforting and soothing.

Music please?

As you may have guessed, all this was but a long introduction towards my most recent somewhat experimental LMMS composition: Swan song!

After 2 minutes of tonal introduction, I dip my toes into the rich world of near-tonality and atonality.

  • +1 @ you if you can listen to it once without questioning my mental sanity
  • +2 @ you if you can listen to it three times in a row without it getting stuck inside your head for the next two days ;)

3 comments:

  1. I really like your idea of 'near-tonality'. I think the concept is rooted in what most improv musicians already know - that if you hit a sour note and work it in to your riff, rather than 'correcting' it, the 'mistake' will be perceived as an interesting change up rather than a f@$k up, haha. Nice work!

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  2. Indeed! I think it's a special case of the more general "some of the greatest inventions happened by accident".
    Thanks for stopping by and listening.

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