{"id":204,"date":"2012-11-08T12:06:42","date_gmt":"2012-11-08T20:06:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.garygarrett.me\/?p=204"},"modified":"2017-08-18T08:54:27","modified_gmt":"2017-08-18T15:54:27","slug":"harmonic-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.garygarrett.me\/?p=204","title":{"rendered":"Harmonic Experience"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Over the next series of posts, I&#8217;m going to explain how the lattice in the <a title=\"Flying Dream on YouTube\" href=\"http:\/\/www.garygarrett.me\/?p=103\">Flying Dream video<\/a> works. Before I do, I want to take time to mention a terrific book.<\/p>\n<p>I started investigating <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Just_intonation\">just intonation<\/a> in earnest in early 2011. A couple of months in, my friend <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kayashley.com\">Kay Ashley<\/a> loaned me her copy of <a href=\"http:\/\/coldmountainmusic.com\/harmonicexperience.html\" class=\"broken_link\"><em>Harmonic Experience<\/em><\/a>, by W. A. Mathieu. Thank you so much, Kay!<\/p>\n<p>I spent a few weeks with Kay&#8217;s copy and very soon knew I had to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Harmonic-Experience-Harmony-Natural-Expression\/dp\/0892815604\/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1352403161&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=harmonic+experience\">have my own<\/a>. I devoured the book almost daily for at least a year. I still pull it out often, lug it to a cafe for browsing over breakfast, do <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Bibliomancy\">bibliomancy<\/a> with it if I&#8217;m stuck creatively, take it on vacations.<\/p>\n<p>Harmonic Experience is the only music theory book I&#8217;ve read so far that actually increases my understanding of music, rather than obfuscating it. It&#8217;s huge, which could be intimidating. But I found it to be immediately accessible and entertaining. Mathieu has a great, light sense of humor. The concepts are introduced at a beautiful pace. And the ideas he presents are <em>enlightening.<\/em> <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Eureka_effect\">&#8220;Aha&#8221;<\/a> experiences abound.<\/p>\n<p>Much of what I&#8217;ll present in this blog is heavily influenced and inspired by Mathieu. The <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Lattice_(music)\">lattice<\/a> itself goes back to <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Leonhard_Euler\">Euler<\/a> in the 1700&#8217;s, but Mathieu expands on the idea enormously, arranging it so it corresponds to traditional musical staff notation, using it as a means to understand <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Equal_temperament\">equal temperament<\/a>, harmony, melody, chord progressions, world music, and much more.<\/p>\n<p>Mathieu uses the term &#8220;positional analysis&#8221; to describe his system. For me, positional analysis opens the black box. It shows what&#8217;s happening in there. When my music is informed by the lattice, it makes more sense. I have more control over the effect it has on me and my audience. And it&#8217;s way more fun, because I know more about what I&#8217;m doing and why, rather than flailing around finding good sounds by instinct. And when I do compose by instinct (which is essential), I understand better why it sounds good, and can expand on my inspirations in a rewarding way.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;Nuff said! If music theory has been frustrating for you in the past, as it has been for me, I can&#8217;t recommend this book highly enough.<\/p>\n<p>Next:\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.garygarrett.me\/?p=223\">Between the Keys<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Over the next series of posts, I&#8217;m going to explain how the lattice in the Flying Dream video works. Before I do, I want to take time to mention a terrific book. I started investigating just intonation in earnest in early 2011. A couple of months in, my friend Kay Ashley loaned me her copy&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kadence_starter_templates_imported_post":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[113,120,112],"tags":[298,12,28,19,10,32,27,31,51,33],"class_list":["post-204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-background","category-justintonation","category-thelattice","tag-book","tag-equal-temperament","tag-flying-dream","tag-harmony","tag-just-intonation","tag-kay-ashley","tag-lattice","tag-mathieu","tag-positional-analysis","tag-theory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garygarrett.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garygarrett.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garygarrett.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garygarrett.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garygarrett.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=204"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.garygarrett.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1985,"href":"https:\/\/www.garygarrett.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204\/revisions\/1985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garygarrett.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garygarrett.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garygarrett.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}