Creating Musical Materials From Just One Chord

     In this post, as strange as it may seem, I will focus on ways of gathering materials from a single chord. And why would we do that, you may ask? - First, because it's fun! - Second, because this is a way of checking in with your musical knowledge and make the most out of …

Polyrhythms

     Polyrhythms are a way of introducing some freshness and novelty in the way you combine different rhythms played by different or a single instrument. Also referred to as cross-rhythm, a polyrhythm is essentially a combination of two or more different rhythms that follow the same basic pulse reference but subdivide it in different ways.      When …

The Close Relationship Between Tonic and Fifth

     We perceive sound as a whole but even if the fundamentals of that sound are not present (1st and 2nd overtones, etc.); our brain can still reconstruct the fundamental tone.      However, if we continue to remove the following overtones, gradually we begin to lose that ability. This means that the lower we are in the …

Polychords and the Harmonic Series

     Polychords may be built with materials from different tonalities, modes, synthetic scales, etc; and then such materials are explored according to musical context and intentions of the composer. But the provenance of materials for polychordal and polyharmonic technique is not exhausted there. When looking at the overtone and undertone series, we can see some chord …

Chord Voicing and the Perceived Quality of Dissonance and Consonance

     In this post I will be giving you some tips about chord voicing. In a previous article, I have tackled this subject but, as a refresher, it refers to how the notes of a chord are distributed or placed. And also, as a reminder, chord pitches may be arranged in close position (the most …

Scales and the Overtone Series

     A musical scale is basically a collection of notes that divide the octave in a certain number of scale steps. The reason why the pitches are organized within one octave is so we can proceed with the same notes or scale formation throughout the other octaves. In effect, this means that we can devise our …