Re: Elliot sharp's --> mathematic processes cnanging your hearing

[Douglas Baldwin <coyotelk@optonline.net>]

> > Per Boysen wrote:
> > > One thing he said was very interesting IMO: "It changes the way you
> > > hear music when you start working with mathematic processes". Can
> > > someone on this list tell about similar experiences?
> >
> > Briefly: Draw the chromatic scale out like a twelve-pointed
> > circle - a dodecahedron - and note the locations of various
> > chords and scales on this circle. This simple geometric view
> > of intervals will quickly reveal numerous patterns in the
> > music you care to chart in this way, and in the construction
> > of music generally. Now I often "hear" these shapes and
> > associate the shapes with certain sounds. I am amazed that
> > this simple process is not used in music education. Douglas
> > Baldwin, coyote-at-large coyotelk@optonline.net
>
> Very interesting, indeed! This system implies certain audible
> characteristics of, for example, "triangular" scales and chords as well
> as... he, he.. "squarish" songs ;-)

Exactly. I think it's great fun to discover these for yourself, so I won't
give away the shapes, but I will say it gives a whole new meaning to
"symmetric" scales and equivalent chords! You'll see in a whole new way WHY
C7b5 and F#7b5 are the same.
    Loop content: when I'm looping long dronal things and I want to move
from one key or tonal center to another, I often choose them according to
their placement on the circle and my associations with that placement.
Douglas Baldwin, coyote-at-large
coyotelk@optonline.net