A little heavy culture and a heavy chord. It's the notes F-B-D#-G# played together. It appears in Tristan and Isolde. It is much discussed.
If you take the hype seriously, the thing about the chord is that it leaves you utterly confused as to what key you are in. Here is the thing, though, it was used in music before Wagner did it without raising any hype at all. So why did this particular use of the chord cause such excitement?
The short answer is because of the duration and emphasis it receives.
A little more theory. There are a lot of pieces of music that are not at all bewildering to the ear that have some truly wonky chords hiding in them. These chords generally occur in between other familiar and solid sounding chords. The music is going from one chord that is as solid and familiar as an old barn to another one as comfy and cozy as afternoon tea. But barns and teas, however comfortable they may be by themselves, rarely appear side by side. So to get you from one to another, the author of the piece has inserted some harmonic moves that all by themselves would be a little disturbing.
And the music comes down with emphasis on the comfortable barn and tea chords and not on the wonky transition harmony so you barely notice it. The emphasis is on what is solid and the more jarring chords are not accented or prolonged.
But what if you did it the other way around and emphasized the wonky transitions? Well, then you'd have something like what Wagner did. And your audience would be left uncertain as to where exactly the music was coming from or where it was going.
It seems to me that there is a lesson here about living a virtuous life. There are parts of your persona that are like solid, comfortable chords. They send clear and easy to understand messages to everyone about who you are and where you are going. And then there are the things you do to smooth out the connections, to get through the night and so forth, especially the and so forth.
It seems to me that the proper thing is not to emphasize these things. Let them do their business of making connections but don't emphasize them so the whole world knows.
Moralists will immediately object that this is just the usual hypocrites papering over of things. And, yes it is. Furthermore, if you think you can get through life without any odd harmonic moves to back you up, then you should just go right ahead and never be a hypocrites. I'll be the first to take my hat off to you.
If you take the hype seriously, the thing about the chord is that it leaves you utterly confused as to what key you are in. Here is the thing, though, it was used in music before Wagner did it without raising any hype at all. So why did this particular use of the chord cause such excitement?
The short answer is because of the duration and emphasis it receives.
A little more theory. There are a lot of pieces of music that are not at all bewildering to the ear that have some truly wonky chords hiding in them. These chords generally occur in between other familiar and solid sounding chords. The music is going from one chord that is as solid and familiar as an old barn to another one as comfy and cozy as afternoon tea. But barns and teas, however comfortable they may be by themselves, rarely appear side by side. So to get you from one to another, the author of the piece has inserted some harmonic moves that all by themselves would be a little disturbing.
And the music comes down with emphasis on the comfortable barn and tea chords and not on the wonky transition harmony so you barely notice it. The emphasis is on what is solid and the more jarring chords are not accented or prolonged.
But what if you did it the other way around and emphasized the wonky transitions? Well, then you'd have something like what Wagner did. And your audience would be left uncertain as to where exactly the music was coming from or where it was going.
It seems to me that there is a lesson here about living a virtuous life. There are parts of your persona that are like solid, comfortable chords. They send clear and easy to understand messages to everyone about who you are and where you are going. And then there are the things you do to smooth out the connections, to get through the night and so forth, especially the and so forth.
It seems to me that the proper thing is not to emphasize these things. Let them do their business of making connections but don't emphasize them so the whole world knows.
Moralists will immediately object that this is just the usual hypocrites papering over of things. And, yes it is. Furthermore, if you think you can get through life without any odd harmonic moves to back you up, then you should just go right ahead and never be a hypocrites. I'll be the first to take my hat off to you.
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