{"id":1754,"date":"2013-10-27T13:26:17","date_gmt":"2013-10-27T20:26:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.garygarrett.me\/?p=1754"},"modified":"2017-08-30T15:44:42","modified_gmt":"2017-08-30T22:44:42","slug":"tonal-gravity-and-the-major-scale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.garygarrett.me\/?p=1754","title":{"rendered":"Tonal Gravity and the Major Scale"},"content":{"rendered":"

In my last post<\/a>, I proposed a simple way to graph tonal gravity<\/a> against the octave.<\/p>\n

Overtonal<\/a> notes, generated by multiplying, are restful, stable — they have positive polarity<\/a>, pulling toward the center<\/a>. Reciprocal<\/a> notes, generated by division, are restless, unstable — they push. I call this negative polarity<\/a>. Mixed-polarity notes have both, and I’ve chosen to simply add their overtonal and reciprocal components together to get the total polarity.<\/p>\n

Here again is the graph of the 13 most central notes of the lattice.<\/p>\n

\"Tonal<\/a><\/p>\n

The stable notes are gravity wells, and the unstable ones are peaks. Melodies and harmonies dance in this gravity field. Higher points represent tension, lower ones resolution, and the lower they are, the more resolved and stable. The\u00a0tonic major triad<\/a>, most stable of all, occupies the lowest spots — 1, 3 and 5.<\/p>\n

The polarity map of the major scale<\/a>\u00a0looks like this:<\/p>\n

\"Tonal<\/a>The notes are all overtonal except the 4, which is strongly reciprocal<\/a>, and the 6, which is mixed and slightly unstable.<\/p>\n

Here’s a split screen video showing the major scale, against a tonic<\/a> drone, on both the lattice and the octave. This is an example of how the lattice serves as a Rosetta Stone<\/a>, a translator between harmonic and melodic space<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Can you hear the push\/pull quality of the notes? Each note has its own feeling against the steady 1.<\/p>\n