music theory stuff

all you need to know about music in one video

[DayE]

In case you’ve never heard of one of the chords listed, here’s what the three in this video are about:

Igor Stravinsky’s Petrushka chord
-the least convoluted one of the three… basically just any major chord played with the major chord a tritone away from it (musically the two farthest major triads played at once. Examples include: Cmaj/F#maj, Ebmaj/Amaj

Alexander Scriabin’s Mystic chord:
-The weirdest of the three because there doesn’t seem to be much rhyme or reason to its contents other than the clear quartal structure (harmonies based on the 4th interval). However the Mystic chord isn’t just stacked 4ths. That would be too easy. In reality, it’s a combination of augmented, diminished, and perfect 4ths stacked in a particular manner. Scriabin firmly believed that his music, and this chord in particular were essential to enlightening mankind. Strange guy, strange chord…However, keep in mind that this chord wasn’t used in its base form often. Usually the chord itself was developed in Scriabin’s compositions via transposition and permutation.)the exact form looks like this with note C as the root: C-F#-Bb-E-A-D. All intervals as you can see, relate to the fourth upon further examination.


Nicolas Slonimsky’s Grandmother chord
-There’s a reason for the scary name and intimidating look haha. The Grandmother chord was invented in the context of 12 tone thought, so interval grammar will now be changed to the number of half steps they are from for ease of explanation. This chord is the improvement to a solution found to the following question: can a chord be made where all intervals and notes are represented? The short answer is yes, and that’s how the Mother chord was born. The Grandmother chord came later and with some improvements. Whereas the Mother chord’s intervals were placed in an un-uniform pattern, the Grandmother chord alternates between odd and even intervals when ascending, starting with the largest odd interval in the chord (11), then the smallest even one (2). Going up, the chord decreases from the odd up until interval 1 as the last interval; the even increases to 10 as the second to last, meaning that the chord starts and ends in an odd interval. So visually, it looks like:
11-2-9-4-7-6-5-8-3-10-1
In terms of notes it would go:

Something I just realized while typing this, when you ignore the octaves and put the twelve notes into groups of two, it starts at A and G#, and descends to both Eb at the end. That’s really neat! See this video was educational after all… you get to learn about polytonality, mysticism, and 12 tone/set theory :)


TLDR: music theory stuff

[GeorgeCollier]

this is so chaotic, instant like and subscribe

[irissagar]

I'm laughing so hard I'm crying wtf why is this exactly my sense of humor 😭

[candlebrae]

I'm horrified in the best way by the knowledge that those chords have names. This is glorious and I'm absolutely looping it.

[samevans]

You have everyone else on Youtube composing things that are terrible and failing music theory, and then you have this man always remembering to resolve to the tonic

[indoor_vaping]

You can tell it’s a real song because it ends on the tonic

[fishboykoi]

the "tonic" was the cherry on top

[ben_walker]

every day, the internet gets closer to what bill wurtz has been doing for years

[MarcelYT]

An exploration of an artist's desperation and anxiety attempting to create an authentic piece of music while devolving into overly cognitive frivolous exercises while the emotional aspect is surpressed by trauma and the crushing weight of the threat of homelessness under capitalism

[theartsyfarmer]

An accurate representation of what it feels like to learn music theory

[sydposting]

That’s really all it is, just transcription, putting names to chords, a dash of mania, and 🙂

[collaborationist]

Это слишком хорошо для этого мира. Контент, который мы не заслужили, но который был нам нужен

[craigstephenson]

That was, indeed, music theory stuff. Thank you for sharing!

[MusicGodAndMyLaptop]

George Collier sent me. I am not sad he did.

[AnAmericanComposer]

Wow you didn't even do Wyschnegradsky's magic chord (Stacked diminished 7th chords separated by a Maj7th, like C Eb Gb A B D F Ab Bb Db E G)

[DayE]

This how I learned about the grandmother chord haha. on further research it’s pretty neat

[foxnoop]

I scrolled theough your channel and realized this particular video is as chaotic, as chaotically music sheibeposting appeared on your channel.

[noahm]

This is not my type of thing. I think I'm in the wrong place. I do photography.

[JYT]

Can't tell you how many times ive listened to this on loop and i just found your channel today

[loveclassicalmusicalot]

No joke, this video is a reasonably amazing video.