Hansen

Basically, it would become a fascinating aspect of this thread if we could come up with definitive precursors of a comprehensive theory of symmetric chord building, be it by some 'universals of music' by Bruno Nettl or by ideas by Jonathan Harvey already explored in his own compositional work. @ Antiatonality: Nettl's Study of Ethnomusicology seems to be a very detailed book as it is, after its first publication in 1983, an expanded and revised second edition (2005). What kind of (three) universal truths about music do you see, AA, in Nettl's book? IMHO, vertical sound building wouldn't count for that, but horizontal melody/rhythm progression would do. Or should we now, after a long period of music history and associated research in musicology, and in ethnomusicology in particular, include multi-voiced sound building as a universal of music? @ Nathaniel Near: Jonathan Harvey's 'In Quest of Spirit: Thoughts on Music' is another case. This book of about hundred pages has even a chapter reprinted under Google Books, i.e. "2. The Role of Ambiguity". If you, NN, could guide me a bit so see where he deals with the topic of chord building? Or even better, if you could talk a bit about your own research and analysis, this would be great for me to reflect on. Seems to become a promising road to go.

A brief note for an article or something like that would be very much appreciated. By the way, "the ludicrously basic premise" is – as far as I remember – not "for a whole new compositional theory" but only for a comprehensive point of view of building chords, different from the traditional way of tertian layering of intervals.

Which of Nettl's books do you refer to in your "reading about 6 chapters of Bruno Nettl"? Your 'unification' idea makes me wondering whether I'm not on the way of doing something like this 'unification' with the "symmetry theory of sound"? At least, regarding your Postmodernism in music in a nutshell, I'm sort of a 'post-modernist' in my kind of theorizing (or 'armchair reasoning', if you like).

How far does it matter whom a theoretician likes - or dislikes - as a composer?

It's not so bad a thing to give you an extra laugh (even with "no education" as you presume). 4'33" as "one of the most important music philosophical questions in the 20th century"??? (OK, "no education" as you presume

No? Wasn't? Nevertheless, it showed, with your help, the childish character of Cage's 4'33".

At least you will concede that my 'experiment on Cage's 4'33" piece' has been an imaginative one! Hi Alexander, thanks for your comment. Whether a "symmetrical construction of chords based on frequencies" really sounds more "exotic" is nothing but a question of tuning. All intervals include frequencies, and if they are tuned in Equal Temperament or in Just Intonation

Thanx to Heckelphone and Jimmyjuicin for your comments! This is my first blues on a decidedly developed pentatonic scale (a ||: 2 3 :|| pattern repeated throughout five octaves). Hopefully, this scale will help me to devise some more interesting chorusses when improvising on this piece. Thank you both for criticism and advice for furthering my blues composition skill. Another help is the fine "Jazz Theory Book" by Mark Levine.

I really appreciate your endeavor to convince me that I'm on the wrong way with my "symmetry theory of sound" (BTW, let's take this term instead of "icochord theory" or something like that). However, in my understanding we both have only different approaches to meet "what music is about". Let me explain my approach a bit more. Basically, I'm a classical composer, predominantly in the style of Mozart. Nevertheless, I've also studied modern composition to a certain extent [i'm an old "Darmst

Contrary to your view, this "Pentatonic Blues" is a true piece of music which flowed out of improvising on the respective pentatonic scale. Basically, I wonder how it's possible to get the impression of typical blues changes

Thank you very much for your comment. Indeed, "certain blues conventions like the I, IV, V progression" floated easily out of improvising on the pentatonic scale which I invented for this case (on a regular ||: 2 3 :|| pattern of semitones). Although there are no real I, IV, V blues changes, only similar sounding ones. Do you know a good blues piano recording to listen to? Would be very nice to get inspired in this way.

If you're interested to listen to a piece of music which is completely based on the concepts of palindrome and isocord harmony, you may visit my "Pentatonic Blues" at Piano Music, Solo Keyboard.

This "Pentatonic Blues" is built on a special pentatonic scale which is completely symmetric with respect to its scale steps, from C1 up to C6

There will be, if this thread takes long enough (right now we have 160 posts with 4616 views since June 11).