Category Archives: Music Theory

Norms, Interesting, Abnorms, etc.

if music with cooler rhythms and harmonies was NORMAL, I’d be normal in a heartbeat.

but it’s not about being normal, it’s about what’s INTERESTING… to ME…

so, are you telling me,

A. many people ARE interested in “norms”
B. many people are in fact NOT, nor are they even IN TOUCH with what THEY ACTUALLY ARE interested in, and they just “conform because for some reason they are afraid of, even noticing that they don’t know what they would like,” much less admitting it, much less looking for or discovering it?

(it seems so.)

or, maybe many people just have simpler tastes than I and ARE satisfied by what is typical. maybe a lot of both.

I wanna do what’s interesting to ME.

don’t see what’s wrong with that.

either many people are just boring (to me,) or many people WOULD BE interesting, but haven’t faced up to it and become their would-be selves yet. likely a lot of both.

so many ideas and goals, have I

I’ve SO. MANY.
goals and Ideas I want to do, but doing day-to-day things get in the way of them so often, as does procrastinating said day-to-day thing. (I don’t even have that many day-to-day things, Imagine being married, a parent…)
I lose track of them.
writing them down doesn’t help “much”, I misplace the things they are written on, particular if they are written in a computer.
I don’t know often HOW to work towards such things, (often the way that seems logical to ME, is lambasted by others (but what do they know, indeed (but too often, I give them my thoughts, and end up self-underminging my own instincts, getting all stressed…)
then I calm down, reconnect (ahhh, one of those elusive words that yoga people and hippies use) with myself, and my own instincts, and then repeat, but there so many of them.
I do need better habits.
I’ve had good habits for two days.
there are just so many of these nifty goals and ideas…. they are chaos, they overwhelm. I shall not be told that I must go against my own instincts in the HOW TO advice from others who do not understand what being me is all about.
if any of you friends are or are to be my “partners” in such ventures, I ask you to get together with me often, so we can do these things.

crawling before walking “is” true, but

it seems as I become older, that I somehow DO see more and more that “doing the basics” and not moving beyond where you can handle, when it comes to learning music, (and everything, (such as me learning how to “have relationships (which frankly, we’ve not even beGUN, I’m still in the “I like myself, I deserve to be happy” phase…)

is wise….

you really DO need to crawl before you can walk.

unless you are super gifted and insane, like Anakin…

so in THAT case, one size does NOT fit ALL, just many.

don’t ignore the exceptions.
(that, ignoring the exceptions, has LONG been my Major concern, it is merely occurring to me, an obviousness, that most people are not in fact exceptions.)
but some of us (like me) are. at least sometimes.

a minor thought about the Dorian Mode

wonder what percentage of people who know how to play in what is effectively THE DORIAN MODE (any time you are in minor, but using Major 6ths and still minor 7ths (and major 2nds, etc)
wonder what percentage of such people who know how to PLAY It realize that
THE FOUR CHORDS (the IV chords are MAJOR in it, and this is one of the distinctivenesses (nice word) it has.

and one of the awesomnesses. (nicer word, and apparently not one, also.)

is MY high stimulation music right for you

so, as a HYPER dude (an ADHD dude, whatever…)
what RIGHT do I have, to TELL OTHER people who are ADHD, that MY MUSIC OF CHOICE might be right for THEM?

that it might help THEM feel EXTREME JOY and give THEIR some direction as well?

(this is rhetorical)

(I PLAY a lot of said music, I organize groups and rehearse and perform it, not just listening (though listening is the bomb as well.)

I want to maybe do it with YOU TOO, whomever you are, if you are the right person, THE RIGHT MONKEYS….

today it’s this, though I don’t currently have a SAMBA group (and never HAVE had, one of MY own, though I’ve been in others’s a little.)
more of this, more of this, yes.

Golden Days sung by Matt Bianco

funny story (funny may be the wrong word.)
in 2005 or therabouts at the Macy’s in Valencia CA (near CalArts of course, on a thursday even after African Ensemble.)
I was there and heard this song, with it’s TWO chord repeating… honestly, even just NOW, in 2015, I had to THINK for ten second about which chords they were…
they are G minor 7, a Bb minor 7, that’s all… but the bass line, it’s plays C and G, over the G, and then Eb and Bb over the Bb…. (a TAD confusing from a certain point of view… anyway)
I heard it, repeating, and was UTTERLY MESMERISED, somehow, in spite of the “cheezy” nature of the rest of the song, ( I mean, it’s sorta commercial, is all, I don’t mind though; harmony that I like, even as simple as gm7 and Bbm7…. is enough to enthrall me.
I stood there, under the speaker, STRAINING to figure a few of the lyrics…. all I got was golden something…. rays, lay, something….
I was desperately obsessed, HAD to have that song… didn’t even know what it was… and I knew, from prior experience, that big box stores don’t have the ability to “tell you what song that is” (starbucks and coffeebean TOTALLY do…:))
that night, I went on line, searched high and low, and SOMEHOW, found the song. GOLDEN DAYS (not the mario lanza version, no.)

just like the chords, and the, real or fake fender sound, or whatever it is, back there…
Sap. Me. Yes.

HIGH STIMULATION MUSIC, mine 1 24 15

There is some music and dance that I REALLY REALLY love to play, and listen to.

it is of SUCH intense joy, that it pretty much is my favorite thing in life.

my PERSONAL TASTE in such matters is pretty much as follows:
(in no particular order of puesto (course)
1. James Brown
2. Wagner, namely The Ring, Der Ring des Nibelungen
3. plenty of West African Dance-Drumming, from Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Ivory Coast, etc.
4. The Planets by Gustav Holst
5. The Rite of Spring by Igor Stravinsky
6. Brazilian Music, particularly Brazilian Jazz
7. and yes, there’s always “Jazz”, yes yes.
8. don’t leave out CERTAIN HARMONIES (I’ll get to which ones)
and
9. STEVE REICH’s Minimalist Music and that of
10.. PHILIP GLASS as well.

African Dance, yes yes yes…. doing that is one of the awesomest things ever… total exhaustion, VERY stimulating, so much so that at the end, you are exhausted… and yet, you would (and do) continue dancing for more hours…

THIS is what I want… THIS is HIGH STIMULATION.

THIS is LIFE.

James Brown once said something along the lines of “I want to give them MORE than they came for, I want to make them (the audience) tired, ’cause THAT’S what they came for!”

Energy Usage.




perhaps I am a Hedonist. (perhaps I should google such terms before I use them, not “completely
certain if I have the right word in mind. (but where’s the fun in that, where’s the fun in that, inDeed…)

minor third, minor second, repeating

half step, minor third. repeat. what do you get–another “symmetrical from a certain point of view” scale (symmetry is the wrong word… I know…)
C Db E F Ab A C…

or minor third minor second…
C Eb E-nat, G, Ab B C…. that one seems more interesting only because it contains a C major and Minor triad (to BEGIN the analysis from at least.., ‘specially if you are telling this to very young people who may have just learned what a major chord IS… (something I am prone to do, I love making them aware that the universe is huge, not just a bunch of boring whole and half steps, I like making them aware of this long before they have been put through years or flitting about with whole and half steps… not that they don’t HAVE to DO said flitting about, most certainly they do. but as a child, and still now, I always think, and indeed used to actually ASK THE TEACHERS, in first grade, “what does this have to do with me?” (i.e, why should I learn this, and not just because the school says so, but what is the ACTUAL REASON?)

anyway…

the second one, m3, m2 repeating…

Cm and CM are in it… with optional m6, M7, and #9, though without a b7… …
obviously, the same exact chord qualities and such will repeat off of E and Ab, augmented, M3rds apart of course….

shallst this be used to move from a “normal, diatonic, functional-harmony use of CM, or cm, to some OTHER chord, via THIS arrangement, instead of by 4ths?
certainly!