I wonder if the uploader ever made an edited this but I found this by suggestion. A mashup of Brubeck and Satie and sounds wonderful. Do you know of any cool mashups? Share them here!
This is another dance I found in my old archives (composed in the sequencer a long time ago). It's a Gigue which is the last dance in a traditional Baroque Dance Suite. It's usually in a fast 6/8 meter so I tried to emulate that feel. I imported the midi into MuseScore and edited the slurs and accidentals (for correct enharmonics in chromatic sections). The overall form is ternary as there's a Musette (meant to imitate bagpipe drones) couched in the middle in between the Gigue sections. This dance uses what I have heard termed "shifted tonality" - where distant key centers are juxtaposed chromatically next to each other. Note: the contrabass is there because the whole dance suite is written for a string orchestra, even though it doesn't come in until the end of the musette. I would love to hear your comments, suggestions or observations!
Multi-tonic implies you split the chromatic scale in equal parts just to run over it with tonalities to reach the original one.
Most often_
By minor thirds: C - Eb - Gb - A - C
By major thirds: C - E - Ab - C
But you can do it by tritone: C - F# - C
or by tones or semitones.
In this cases there is always a tonic, but changing.
If you change tonalities out of this order, that's not multi-tonic.
If you change tonality at fixed intervals (semitones, tones, minor third, major third, or tritone, to cover up the chromatic scale and back to the first tonality) you are doing multitonics, which is a technique developed in jazz. In this case going back to a Giga.
I watched the video and now that I think about it - I don't really have a very well defined concept of what shifted tonality is. When I wrote this gigue I was thinking that the constant shifts up a half step were the shifted tonality parts of it. That would certainly include Banjo Kazooie and Yookah Laylee since they frequently step up by half or whole step in their chord structures. But I no longer think that that gimmick alone is what constitutes "shifted tonality" - maybe music that takes modulation as it's norm or frequently subverts the tonic with outlandish chords is probably more akin to that term (which that video you shared made me think of). How to use SPACE CHORDS to make epic progressions - this video also exemplifies how one can choose chords in such a way as to basically subvert any hint of a specific tonality all while still staying tonal (which seems contradictory).
Thanks for that video you shared btw! I didn't realize that I had missed some of 8-bit music theories content over the past few weeks.
I might be wrong and not be shifted tonality, since as I said I am not really well versed on the technique yet, just heard about it enough to roughly know what it is. I am not sure if the technique needs many tonal shifts in a row or if just shifting to distant tonalities in a chromatic matter would also count as "shifted tonality". I think I have heard similar effects in videogame music but since I rarely check out scores from videogames I cannot be sure where. However I remember this, since It is a recent video. It is about the music of Banjo Kazooie. The composer makes constant use of a similar technique but it might not be the same thing. Check out this video from 4:10 to 4:18. The composer shifts cromatically between two keys a tritone apart quite often. He uses that technique constantly throughout the music, but I am not sure whether it would be the same technique you were talking about.
https://youtu.be/TcEWPJPS7gc?t=242
Amazing, are these pieces you are posting part of the "lost suite" you told me about? I have always been really interested in shifted tonality, as I have seen it used many times with really beautiful results (this piece included). I believe it is commonly used in videogame soundtracks and in fact, it might just be me, but this piece gives me nice videogame music vibes. Amazing job! I am also planning to learn about shifted tonality in the future but I want to get a really solid grasp of common period music and tonality first, which I am still quite far from accomplishing 😅 .
Hey Monarcheon
I really like this, but it's kinda hard to follow along with the score with the SAMPLE stamps. I don't really follow where you are going aurally sometimes, and seeing a clear score would help. Maybe you're having this published soon? If so, keep me updated, I'd love to support you with the purchase of a score!