When Things Go Black

[ashcatlt]

4real's talk about whole tone scales inspired me to inflict this on y'all.

The working title was "Whole Tone Grunge Blues". It's grungey, I guess. If you squint you might find some blues in there. It certainly is based around the whole tone scale, though! Fun with major 3rds and diminished 5ths. I was shooting to play up the angular nature of the scale. Or something.

Because I like you guys I'll warn you that it devolves into pure noise at the end and that part gets pretty frickin loud.

When Things Go Black

[4real]

Oh...I can't seem to work out how to play or download from that site Ash...it downloaded a 0 byte numbered file and when I tried the actual player it comes up "on playable songs"....or is that the point, they are unplayable LOL...or am i just not savvy?

[ashcatlt]

Well, they're mostly unlistenable, but...

I can't recreate the problem. I click through and there's a play button next to the title and clickcing that makes the noise come out of the speakers. When I clicked to download I got 17.4M file.

Anybody else having this problem?

[JFrankParnell]

worked for me. I listened to...most of it

[4real]

ok...so...lack of "savv" on my part...I'll work on it...computer...needs...reboot...rewind...stand by, might take a few days...

Nope...there's a play all button and the player comes up...

"Sorry, this playlist doesn't have any playable songs :-("

oh dear...do I have to sign in or join myspace or something....weird

....

Glad that little exercise got your fingers moving. Whole tone and symmetrical scales are odd things...they are "special use" kinds of things to me, make a good 'exercise' more than anything...but there are places occasionally.

They have this tendency to "float" and lack direction and I think of them kind of as "dissolving" a tonality...after all, the 'ultimate' symmetrical scale is the 12 tone or full chromatic scale.

To me the whole tone scales tend to feel even more 'floaty' and generally I associate it with the Augmented chord, typically as a V+ chord and might touch on it briefly where you have this chord. I've been using the V+ a lot lately...it's an interesting sound, that V#5 is also the minor third of the root key and has this lovely "pull" towards the major third.

It opens up all kinds of ways of 'modulating' the thing, or messing with stuff...like as with all symmetrical scales and chords, they can be interchanged, in an augmented chord, simply by playing the chord every major third or 4 frets.

I used to have a fascination with symmetrical things and apparently I am not alone but really, the lack of direction makes it tricky to use for any kind of prolonged period or a whole composition....maybe if you are into some kind of impressionist type stuff like a Debussy or Stravinsky you might get away with it.

It is an interesting thing as the six notes of the augmented scale means there are only two available from the 12 tones...so it is like a half 12 tone system in a way and somewhat 'atonal'.

...

Still...it was an important exercise to appreciate the power of other scales and those semi tones. For instance, if more a pentatonic based player (which includes myself) the V+ is a good place to use the minor pentatonic in a major key...like a blues player.

Touches of the whole tone scale appear within other scales.

The "altered scale"...usually explained as the "melodic minor up a step from the V7 chord" is an interesting one.

On a G7 chord, you get the notes
G,Ab,Bb,B,Db,D#,F,G
1,b9,b3,3,b5,#5,7,R
...in the key of C you can see that this has a lot of "out notes" and between the B note and the upper root is just the whole tone scale.

In fact, if you lose one note and move another, you have the whole tone scale
G,A,B,Db,D#,F,G
1,9,3,b5,#5,7,R

This 'altered scale' is a really important note set to know for a lot of music, jazz of course but increasingly in blues with guys like say 'robben ford' on a V chord where he can sound a bit "out" or give you a brief 'woah, where did those note choices come from' effect.

The upshot though is that if you try and use this kind of thing to create "a tune" it is likely to be less than satisfying because of this 'lack of direction' or tonal centre...it's more of a temporary effect of restlessness and directionless...highly effective if that's what you are trying to produce.

The other 'special use' then is to dissolve a tonality to transition into something really "out" (perhaps noise)...and to get "back in"...generally, unless you are into some kind of free jazz, you got to know what IN is, and that generally means asymmetrical scales we all know and love like major, minor and various modes.

...

Personally, my music and sensibilities have become ever more 'triadic' interestingly enough and kind of shun these things as kind of lacking the power and direction to know where home is.

I do use the Augmented chord a lot these days and the WT scale may seem the obvious choice, but I tend to think of this as just an altered V7 and hear that min to maj cadence into the I chord.

The Augmented chord is built from stacked maj 3rds or every second note of the WT scale...as such it shares this kind of flavour. In particular a V+ to I cadence creates a really "dreamy" sound familiar with a lot of tunes from the fifties and comes up in music by the beatles and others for that kind of effect (the first chord of "oh darling" for instance)

I've also use the augmented/dom 7 chord a bit too...adding the 7 gives it a bit more of a resolution.

...

An interesting "augmented sound" is what I think of as the "james bond" chord...the featured chord at the end of the "james bond theme...

(0)-10-9-8-7 = Em9maj7 I guess you'd call it perhaps.

I 'hear' it more like a B augmented (say 7-10-9-8-8-(7)) and gives you that delicious menacing king of thing resolving to the above chord....nice use of 'augmented' sounds in that tune and you can hear the effect fairly distinctly. In a minor key these restless sounds do sound a bit more 'menacing' or mysterious compared to the syrupy cadences found in fifties tunes and things like "oh darling" even where it might sound a bit 'twee' or overly melancholy.

There is often a kind of 'ying and yang' with these kinds of things between major and minor modes...if you find something overly 'sweet' in one, say a major seventh chord...make it minor and see what that evokes.

...

Another common place to find WT sounds is in the briefly popular shredders mode, the Lydian Mode....this give Vai's music a lot of that kind of sound. Again, can sound a bit 'floaty' and lacks the natural 4th degree for suspensions of say the common IV chord.

...

An exception in my playing is perhaps the diminished arpeggio, stacked minor thirds...I increasingly throw these into things like minor blues or tunes which have a bVI-V-i cadence (such as F-E7-Am ending)...so this is very common and a staple cadence of say 'surf tunes' and can hot rod them up...also can be used and is a sound used quite a bit in jazz, country and rockabilly for a similar effect.

As I say though, a sound you should know if only to avoid it and a good finger exercise as I was originally suggesting...gets a bit of a stretch in there...and as a theoretical exercise if only to appreciate the need for steps and whole steps to give some kind of 'direction'.

...

One reason to spend the time on such esoteric things is to kind of force you to learn the notes on the fretboard...infinitely more important than knowing a bunch of "scales". While working out fingerings for these things, it kind of forces you to find the notes and name them, realize the relation to the chord and hear them in relation to a key...all that kind of thing.

I pushed my 'learning the fretboard' pretty early on at least as far as where all the notes are so it's kind of hard to remember how it felt to have trouble locating a note and knowing how it related to a chord or key.

For quite a while I was fascinated by symmetrical scales, but I suspect it was more the 'idea' of them...the human brain is programmed to look for symmetry after all...but the beauty and power seems to be more in the exceptions to symmetry in most things...like art, peoples faces, etc....and of course music.

The fact that, although been explored by great composers over the years, none of these have produced much in the way of music that had wide spread appeal or that amazing (although, some of debussy's things are pretty good in a floaty kind of dream like way)...well, that should have been a bit of a warning flag right there to spend more time with major and minor scales...LOL.

Still...there is some kind of fatal attraction to such things and all things symmetrical and in small touches, it can be an effective sound or 'effect' to highlight the asymmetrical nature of tonal music and after a bit of 'lost the key' phenomena of say the WT scale, it can add power when you return. Otherwise, it just sounds a bit "lost"...if you are into film composing though, and someone is lost (I sometimes play to the TV with the sound off)...the WT scale may well be just the ticket!~

[4real]

Oh...and I still cant get anything to play on ilike...hmmm...it would play enya at me...i assume this doesn't sound like enya? So, the players working and I even 'signed up'...so can't explain it...never heard of ilike before, I've used soundclick before which seems like the same kind of thing.

[sumgai]

ash,

Sorry to say, but about 40 seconds into that, the cat got down and barfed, really hard. At least he got down off my lap though..... guess I should be thankful, eh?

Otherwise, my wife now knows beyond a doubt that I'm tone-deaf! (I left it on while cleaning up the cat's mess, making her leave the room too! Can I have some more of that, please! ;D)



sumgai

[ashcatlt]

Pete, I really don't know what to tell you about it not playing for you.  iLike is the "official" music app for Facebook, with some features for integration and whatnot.  It used to be directly linked to GarageBand which was a music hosting/promotion site with peer reviews and charts and stuff.  GarageBand is now defunct, but I went to them because they gave me the option to recover the songs which I had posted on mp3.com before Cnet took over and gutted it.  Unfortunately, I only got like 4 of the 130 pieces which were up there.  Some of the others were mixed from 4-track and uploaded and then not backed up, and I haven't taken the time to remix, so they're gone.  Mp3.com used to pay for plays.  The most money I've ever made off Lorenzo's Tractor came from streaming my own music.

Funny that you mention Enya.  iLike has a "sidebar" application which is supposed to run alongside iTunes and Windows Media Player and report to your Facebook profile the music to which you are listening.  Unfortunately, it attached itself to iTunes on my living room machine and refused to do WMP instead.  I have piles of stuff on WMP and that's what we use for normal listening at the house.  The only time we ever used iTunes was to play Enya while trying to get the newborn to sleep.  So my Facebook page showed that all I ever listened to was Enya!

But, yeah, LT ain't much like Enya.  Much of it is "experimental" at best.  I use the whole tone scale as the primary key quite often, and partly for the reasons you've mentioned as reasons not to.  

I really dig the fact that it "floats" as you say, without any real direction.  Depending on how it's used, you can spend most of the composition wanting to resolve somewhere, but you just don't get there.  I dig the ambiguity and the fun of stacking a major third on top of a diminished fifth.  Not sure what that chord (1-3-b5) is properly called, but.  I also like that augmented chord.  Depending how it's used, it can kind of feel like a minor 6th - especially when played as a "power chord" with the 3rd omitted.

It can also come across as an angular kind of thing, with the stepwise motion.  This particular song seems to capture that aspect of it pretty well.  If I recall correctly, I recorded this after a night watching some pretty out there "math metal".

Anyway, maybe I'll try to find another hosting solution - if only temporary - so you can hear this.  Then you'll wonder why you even bothered.

[ashcatlt]

sg - that page links to other LT stuff, most of which will probably keep the wife and cat at least a couple rooms away!

[4real]

Thanks Ash....not sure at all why that doesn't play for me...I even linked it to facebook and joined...oh well, perhaps eventually...if only there was a no frills audio version of photobucket...or is there?

By the way, like the title...so many things you can do with the word "black"...we could sit around over a few drinks for weeks making puns and attempting to play "I want you black", "black in the saddle again"... (I had a band concept once where every song was "blue"...LOL)

...

Interestingly I've heard a few people try and make "blues' out of it...never successfully mind!

Played a bit with some whole tone things this morning...you can get some "monk" type melodies out of it...find a little interesting twist perhaps and add it to something more tonal...that's the point of trying these things, just expand the palette a little.

That said, most things I know the theory but you don't get to play things too often like this and I generally like to find some kind of "cheat"...I was about to add it to the things to play thread...might do, but may as well post it here....

How many "whole tone licks" does one need...well possibly none...however...over an A chord...

---------------------------------------------------------------
-------2-4------4-6------6-8--------8-10---------10-12---------12-14-------14-16-b17~~
--2-4------4-6------6-8------8-10--------10-12---------12-14--------14-16----
---------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------

This ones kind of a cool cheat that exploits the g/b string major third interval there to make a two finger sequence that can really zip along and ending by bending into the 5th that has been avoided all that time, the semitone to E.

Using two fingers you could hammer them or pick them and really get this thing moving...remember if played fast enough, and especially if there is some 'internal logic' to the patterns, you can get away with just about anything as long as you end on the perfect note at the right time...and in this lick, it does that and counters the scales directionless-ness with a powerful forward momentum.

Used like this, you get a bit of ear candy in a short burst and something impressive to play and looks good, but dead easy to achieve...as I say, I tend to 'cheat'...LOL

---

As always a pic with a lick...so something seasonal from the island...



Bloody tourists everywhere...

...

And just as an after thought...

I don't have synethesia or anything, but I do try and think of a lot of these things in terms of "colours"...to me, the WT things are anything but black, perhaps a really washed out grey...more likely a kind of pastel...perhaps mauve.

I tend towards earthy tones...but especially really bright primary colours these days it seems. And I tend to think of say a tonic chord as say Yellow in major, blue for the IV, Red for the V...that kind of thing. That minor sub-dominant affect we have been 'trainspotting' in franks thread perhaps a kind of Purple iv chord, an Augmented chord...not sure, kind of murky green perhaps?...an add 9 chord an almost fluro yellow to a I chord, a sus or add 2 a kind of washed out yellow maybe.

It's not that I can see these things, though synethesia is more common than people realize apparently, but it's that impression and you can kind of train yourself to think that way. It can be kind of cool to then be able to "work' with a tonal palette in that way in composing.

Un/fortunately I have something of an aversion for too many washed out mauve or pastels...

I do like 'black' though...not sure what I would consider 'black'...a ii chord is kind of orange, a ii chord kind of green...a vi chord kind of deep blue.

A lot of people associate diminished sounds with something, satanic but really, they seem like a more spicy V chord which is red...hand on, perhaps that is satanic then...but not black...

closest thing I can come up with is this kind of shadowy (not the band) thing that adds an add 9 to the classic minor James Bond Theme

---------------------------------------------
---0--1--2--1------------------------------------
---0--0--0--0------------------------------------
---2--2--2--2------------------------------------
---2--2--2--2-----------------------------------
---0--0--0--0------------------------------------

---------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------
--------0------0------0------0-------------------
------4------4------4------4---------------------
----2------3------4------3-----------------------
--0------0------0------0-------------------------

Yes...that's kind of "inky" and 'black'...

...

Anyway...a good exercise perhaps to play a chord or scale or interval and try and associate it with something like colour, or...as I say, don't have synethesia myself but it is probably an internal potential in most of us and you can train yourself to get the idea.

Some true synethetic people really do hear music as colours...now that would be weird...and recent experiments in neurology have been able to induce it in people with powerful magnetic things I believe for short times...and with drugs like LSD or mushrooms I believe...not sure I'd be going down that road to experience it...best to stick to the 'theory' and your imagination!

[newey]

Well, Ash, it is certainly experimental. I can't say I like it, but I'm not sure I dislike it either. The mental jury is still out, pending some further listening in a different frame of mind . . .

[sumgai]

Jan 18, 2011 21:37:13 GMT -5 newey said:

Well, Ash, it is certainly experimental. I can't say I like it, but I'm not sure I dislike it either. The mental jury is still out, pending some further listening in a different frame of mind . . .

I think you're already in that altered state of mind there, Counselor. In fact, judging by your avatar, you appear to be in an altered state of body too. That's gotta be affecting your outlook, being all short and shriveled up like that!





sumgai

[4real]

Ok...well ash sent me the file...don't know what is happening my end, had to load it into audacity to get it to play...very strange...I so need a new computer...anywhooo

I really liked it...not necessary something I'd play as a rule at all...and not so much for enjoyment....though there is some humour in it I thought...

My thinking when hearing it was like a theme of some relentless cartoonish post-apocalypse robot army or something...and as that kind of theme music it would be very effective.

As a use of a whole tone scale...it is annoyingly catchy and stuck in my brain a little...and yes, i even learned how to play it...it does avoid that kind of low octave part of the scale so could be seen to a part of that melodic minor whole tone scale, just not playing those notes...so it didn't have the whole directionless quality of a bigger theme that expressed those notes particularly...perhaps that is a part of it...but you certainly get a sense of a home note there all the same and not the meandering that you get with some jazz/fusion that has attempted to utilize the scale badly! Top marks for that.

So...I can see a purpose to it, and even a strange humour in it...perhaps a toy demented robot army!

The "noise part"...could do without...if you really wanted a 'bigger piece' like 7 minutes, I'd see it like some short movie...perhaps a little story of some little girl playing with "my little pony's" in a room of pink, cutting to the robot army coming down the hall to destroy them all.

If you wanted to sound a little less menacing and into the more 'floaty' side of the WT thing...something like this perhaps...

--8-----------------8-----------------8----------------------------
----11-9---9-11----11-9----9-11---11-9----9-------------------
----------11----------------11---------------11--11-9-------------------
-----------------------------------------------------------12-10---
---------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------

(don't know why the ASCII tab is looking a bit odd...hmmm

You might recognize those opening triplet riffs there...makes a kind of foil to that relentless robot march...because they are both different sides of the sme note set they could be indespersed with each other pretty liberally for the final "my pony vs robot" show down...or perhaps you vision is a darker industrial machine...in which case I see perhaps some weird terry gilliam animation that churned out of it's evil coal dust encrusted, toxic bletching apparatus...my little pony's...LOL...haha...or little kitty's or whatever! But then perhaps that just me...that's what I heard from it...something menacing and dark but with some kind of potential irony to it.

Had me in mind of Holst's Jupiter or similar work...different of course, but a similar kind of effect perhaps...well, for some reason. That music contains a really strange tune (very zappa-esque) that when inverted and messed around with appears as one of the best hymns every written in contemporary times in a subsequent part of that movement.

So, thumbs up...but not for easy listening but the images it evokes quite effectively and still having a theme and direction with difficult materials to work with.

If you want to express these kinds of 'world gone strange' apocalyptic kind of thing...this is the kind of material you need to deal with to make it generally...don't hear any 'blues' in it myself...closest I could come up with that was kind a 'blues' 8th note riff (triplet on last three notes and repeat as necessary) might be...

----------------------------|--------------------------------|---
----------------------------|--------------------------------|---
----------------------------|--------------------------------|---
------------10-10--8-8-----|--------------------------------|-------
-------7-7------------------|--9-9-11-11--7-7-----7-----|-------
--8-8-----------------------|--------------------10-10--|-------

See how in the first bar it outlines the dom7 chord except the 5th...then the second bar hits all the odd #5 b5 weirdness of the WT scale...so using all the notes it alternates between something kind of blues conventional with WT strange while sticking to that kind of rhythmic convention...plus gives some 'tonality' to something that might otherwise sound a bit "atonal" and rootless...as with the wtgb the "root" is clearly "C"...

"the simpson's theme" though not WT has some qualities of the scale in it...I think that uses this kind of "mode"...lydian b7 perhaps...C,D,E,F#,G,A,Bb,C....the notes Bb,C,D,E,F# are all a WT apart and adds something of that WT flavour to that tune that makes it so distinctive.

[ijustwannastrat]

Sounds like Les Claypool wrote a new song ;D