{"id":521,"date":"2012-12-09T22:25:21","date_gmt":"2012-12-10T06:25:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.garygarrett.me\/?p=521"},"modified":"2017-08-18T09:11:17","modified_gmt":"2017-08-18T16:11:17","slug":"the-minor-second","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.garygarrett.me\/?p=521","title":{"rendered":"The Minor Second"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The last three notes (<a title=\"Reciprocal Thirds\" href=\"https:\/\/www.garygarrett.me\/?p=469\">b6<\/a>, <a title=\"The Minor Third\" href=\"https:\/\/www.garygarrett.me\/?p=481\">b3<\/a> and <a title=\"The Minor Seventh\" href=\"https:\/\/www.garygarrett.me\/?p=490\">b7<\/a>) are related to each other. They all contain a <a title=\"Reciprocal Thirds\" href=\"https:\/\/www.garygarrett.me\/?p=469\">reciprocal third<\/a>. There is a family resemblance of sound and function. (They also all happen to be a little flat in equal temperament. On a guitar it&#8217;s a nice trick to bend them a little to sweeten them.)<\/p>\n<p>Here is another note in the family, farther out harmonically, the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Minor_second\">minor second<\/a>:<\/p>\n<div class=\"entry-content-asset videofit\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"b2\" width=\"720\" height=\"540\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/c8GPcR6p6DQ?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>That&#8217;s a dissonant interval. The <a title=\"Reciprocal Thirds\" href=\"https:\/\/www.garygarrett.me\/?p=469\">b6<\/a> is already tense with reciprocal third energy. Now this b2- (The minus is an <a title=\"Names\" href=\"https:\/\/www.garygarrett.me\/?p=441\">accidental to show its exact pitch<\/a>; more later) is another reciprocal fifth beyond (below?) that note. Its ratio is 1\/15, which expands to 16\/15 &#8212; just above 1. See how the ratios show where the pitch of the note is? 1\/1 is the tonic, 2\/1 is the octave. 16\/15 is just a little bit greater than 1, so it&#8217;s just a little sharper than the tonic.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s not pitch so much that makes consonance and dissonance. It&#8217;s harmonic relationship.<\/p>\n<p>Music is all about tension and resolution. Here&#8217;s a very tense note. How to resolve it?<\/p>\n<p>One answer is just a half step away, a drop to the tonic.<\/p>\n<div class=\"entry-content-asset videofit\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"b2 1\" width=\"720\" height=\"540\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ya9S3gR-OKg?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>That&#8217;s a move in melodic space. The tonic is right next door and it&#8217;s an easy drop.<\/p>\n<p>On the lattice, the 1 is <em>not<\/em> a next door neighbor. How about going home through harmonic space instead?<\/p>\n<div class=\"entry-content-asset videofit\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"b2 4 5\" width=\"720\" height=\"540\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/yQFkEPQEeqs?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>Going to the 4 is an interesting experience for me. There&#8217;s still <a title=\"A Reciprocal Note: The Fourth\" href=\"https:\/\/www.garygarrett.me\/?p=397\">reciprocal tension<\/a>, but I&#8217;m much closer to home &#8212; I can smell the stables. It&#8217;s as though I felt a bit lost at the b2-, the harmonic distance was too great to really get my bearings. But moving to the 4 allows me to figure out where I am, and where the tonic is, so that the final move home sounds really right. The 4 says to me, &#8220;There is home, now go.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Then the melody moves to the 5, and there is resolution. The 5 sends just as strong a signal as the 4, but of opposite polarity. The 5 says, &#8220;Here is home. Now stay.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s a little story, a journey on a microcosmic landscape of attraction, repulsion and beauty.<\/p>\n<p>Next:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.garygarrett.me\/?p=525\">The Augmented Fourth<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The last three notes (b6, b3 and b7) are related to each other. They all contain a reciprocal third. There is a family resemblance of sound and function. (They also all happen to be a little flat in equal temperament. On a guitar it&#8217;s a nice trick to bend them a little to sweeten them.)&#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,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[126],"tags":[298,85,129,88],"class_list":["post-521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-notes","tag-book","tag-dissonance","tag-minor-second","tag-reciprocal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garygarrett.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521","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=521"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.garygarrett.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2005,"href":"https:\/\/www.garygarrett.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521\/revisions\/2005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garygarrett.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garygarrett.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garygarrett.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}