{"id":374,"date":"2012-11-17T11:41:12","date_gmt":"2012-11-17T19:41:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.garygarrett.me\/?p=374"},"modified":"2017-08-18T09:01:33","modified_gmt":"2017-08-18T16:01:33","slug":"the-tonic-major-chord","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.garygarrett.me\/?p=374","title":{"rendered":"The Tonic Major Chord"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a title=\"The Tonic\" href=\"http:\/\/www.garygarrett.me\/?p=187\">tonic<\/a> is the center of the lattice. A <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Drone_(music)\">drone<\/a> note on the tonic establishes the center of that particular musical universe.<\/p>\n<p>Adding a major third and a perfect fifth (5\/4 and 3\/2) further reinforces the center and starts to carve out some territory on the map.<\/p>\n<p>This is the tonic major chord:<\/p>\n<div class=\"entry-content-asset videofit\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Major Chord\" width=\"720\" height=\"540\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/OtyHYASRmS4?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>In my view, the tonic major helps the ear grab onto the center, by adding two notes that point directly at it. The ear has more information to work with.<\/p>\n<p>The mind has amazing real time mathematical ability. Maybe a more accurate way to say this is that the mind has an amazing ability to quickly analyze and predict physical phenomena. The physical phenomena can be described by math. I don&#8217;t think the mind is working with arithmetic calculations at blinding speed, like a computer. It&#8217;s more of a massively parallel, holistic analog processor, that achieves a similar result.<\/p>\n<p>Willie Mays used to catch fly balls with his back to the plate. Here&#8217;s a famous one:<\/p>\n<div class=\"entry-content-asset videofit\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Willie Mays the Catch\" width=\"720\" height=\"540\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/7dK6zPbkFnE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>Mays watches the ball start its flight, calculates the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=EUqpyia45PM\">parabola<\/a> it will follow (fine tuned by the conditions that day), and sets out at top speed for the spot, 400+ feet deep in center field, where he knows it&#8217;s going to land. He doesn&#8217;t (can&#8217;t!) look at the ball until it&#8217;s almost upon him. Marvelous.<\/p>\n<p>So the ear hears a note, another one at 3x the frequency (remember octaves don&#8217;t count, 3\/2 works like 3\/1 in this regard), and another one at 5x. All three notes are direct signposts, pointing exactly at the tonic. Here we are, says the mind.<\/p>\n<p>This may be why the\u00a0<a title=\"The Major Third\" href=\"http:\/\/www.garygarrett.me\/?p=292\">equal-tempered major third<\/a> gives me that slight queasy feeling. The tonic is the tonic, all right, but that equal-tempered third doesn&#8217;t point right at it! It&#8217;s close enough that the ear correctly identifies it, but it&#8217;s actually pointing at a note about 1% sharp of the tonic, and something sounds subtly off, like day-old sushi.<\/p>\n<p>Here it is again: pure third, <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Equal_temperament\">ET<\/a> third, pure third. The middle note, the ET third, has a ratio of about 5.04\/4.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.garygarrett.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/JI3-vs-ET3.mp3\">JI3 vs ET3<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Is it slight tonal vertigo? Where is <em>home<\/em>?<\/p>\n<p>Next:\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.garygarrett.me\/?p=383\">Compound Notes<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The tonic is the center of the lattice. A drone note on the tonic establishes the center of that particular musical universe. Adding a major third and a perfect fifth (5\/4 and 3\/2) further reinforces the center and starts to carve out some territory on the map. This is the tonic major chord: In my&#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":[112],"tags":[298,53,12,10,27,45,37,34],"class_list":["post-374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-thelattice","tag-book","tag-chord","tag-equal-temperament","tag-just-intonation","tag-lattice","tag-math","tag-third","tag-tonic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garygarrett.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374","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=374"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.garygarrett.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1994,"href":"https:\/\/www.garygarrett.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374\/revisions\/1994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garygarrett.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garygarrett.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garygarrett.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}