Hello, welcome to my channel! I’m Jay Beard and I’d like to thank you for being interested in great music.\u2028\u2028This channel is about providing viewers with a deeper understanding of music through accessible informative videos. I share my own original compositions here and often focus on dissecting music from my favorite composer, Alexander Scriabin. I hope to expand my content to topics related to music theory for fellow composers and theorists to learn from. \u2028\u2028You can follow me on Instagram, Facebook, and RU-vid @JayBeardMusic. Thanks for watching and subscribing.
Hi Jay! Let me ask you for your opinion on this: I used to play professionally and now I make music for pure fun and personal enjoyment. I have been playing at least one instrument for over 20 years now but I have never studied theory formally. Part of the problem is that I am visually impaired and this keeps a lot of the study material out of my reach, but that is the smallest part of the problem. What really made me put theory aside was the fact that I was never able to understand its usefulness for my "musical case". After discovering Set Theory, it was like a new world opened up and I understood the language that was being spoken. I believe that the real reason why my relationship with theory was so distant was the fact that I was looking for logic in a system made for a certain type of music that is not the type of music I aspire to. One (kinda) funny thing: I was recently thinking about organizing my own system to structure and understand music not based on the major scale. Obviously I researched the subject and soon discovered that, as always, when I have an idea it is a sign that someone smarter and more capable than me has had that idea before hehehe.. Anyway... In Set THeory I found the logic I was looking for. What do you think about that? Would you agree with the statement that the student needs to be guided to find a method that he understands if the traditional one doesn't make sense for them? There is a lot of ways to perceive things like sound... I don't supose we can actually choose how we do it... anyways... I'm learning a lot here, thank you for kindly sharing your knowledge. All the best for you!
Yea, there are some good examples in my series on Scriabin's Atonality. Check out the 4th episode on Scriabin's Supersets. You can hear the change in harmony between mystic and catatonic sets.
On ordering modes: You can pick ANY objective function which projects the data from each mode into a single number, and use that single number as the order of modes. As you said you can measure their compactness and then order them based on that. But why is that the only natural choice for function to decide how to order modes? What about, say, mapping the mode into a word with characters W/H only, and ordering based on alphabetical/dictionary ordering? Obviously each mode will be unique in that sense too and would provide a distinct ordering relative to your compactness measure. And there's a lot of other ways of ordering them as well. I ran into this problem when trying to find "The" natural ordering of all possible quarter note/rest rhythms for a single bar of 4/4. You can always define a metric, and that metric produces the natural ordering of the rhythms. But there is no natural metric by which is the ultimate lens for determining how those rhythms should be ordered. There can always be another natural way of looking at it which produces a distinct ordering.
Hello Jay Beard! I'm only 30s into the video so far, I will finish it, but to me, "Set Theory" is the branch of mathematical logic which describes collections of objects. An example of a set could be infinite strings of binary digits, and one can prove that set is in some sense the same size with the real numbers (decimals) using logical steps. (If you're curious what 'same size' means in the context of set theory, we say two sets are the same size when we can define a natural function which maps from one set to the other without ever having two distinct inputs map to the same output and every output has to be hit by at least some input). Cheers, I will now continue into your alternative definition of set theory! Maybe there will be some parallels into the mathematical set theory which is why it is named as such. By the way, I am deep into tuning theory and appreciate that we need to invent new analytical structures to understand structures embedded in music, so I'm all for analysis and new analysis techniques. That's probably why YT recommended this video on my front page. Cheers and I'll continue the video now.
@@johnphillips5993 So glad you appreciate it! Sometimes it’s hard for me to convince people to get into set theory so it’s great finding people that appreciate it!
Scriabin Sonata 3 mvmt 4 is his sonata movement which I like the least. The practice of repeating a soft theme intensely in the climax is executed better in Symphony 3 (Divin Poeme) because the thematic material is more pleasant in the final movement of the symphony. I find the "Theme 1" of the fourth movement of sonata 3 to be the most cacophonous theme which Scriabin ever wrote. And it's cool how the mvmt 3 theme was able to make a comeback, but honestly it sounds kind of forced and it clashes with the crazy mvmt 4 theme (no cohesion). The mvmt 3 theme as played in mvmt 4 covers 3 measures where the same thematic material covered a single measure in mvmt 3. This means that 6 measures are needed to repeat the basic rhythmic motif of movement 3 (I bring up the rhythmic motif instead of the theme in its entirety because the theme of movement 3 isn't even played entirely in the climax). But the rhythmic motif of the mvmt 4 theme is based on sets of 2 measures, not 6. And this theme is started on the third measure (not including the leading measure of course, which should be thought of as such because of the leading beat of the theme in mvmt 3) of the recap of mvmt 3 theme. This leaves 3 measures for a rhythmic motif which is based on groups of 2 measures. Sounds lopsided and my mind can't get used to it no matter how many times I listen to it.
Love the analysis of the 4th movement, however I am surprised you dislike the first! Sure, it's quite bangy with all of those octaves from the first theme, but the second theme is one of my favorites from Scriabin.
1:02 he came with that chord by somehow listening to overtones, if i recall proprely. But no one indeed knows exactly Tbh he was pretty open about showing his work and pieces in progress. Although to only close friends. L.Sabaneev had plenty memories on how Scriabin viewed his process of composing in his books about him in Scriabin's late period. Exciting stuff to read
I have to say that Moonchild’s use of incredible and original chord progressions is pretty much the best in “pop“ music since Steely Dan. I wish I could say the same for their melodic invention. It seems somewhat arbitrary, like a lot of contemporary pop - melodies are not crafted with the care they used to be, but seem to be more about what the “improvisatory sung” line produces. Love the sound of her voice, but it’s almost as if Katy Perry or Taylor Swift suddenly got an amazing backing band, and didn’t know what to do with it. Someone, if not her, needs to write some melodies. They need to be aware of the interval collections within their incredible harmonies, and especially use the more disjunct fifth. seventh, and even ninth leaps, so that their tunes are as original as their background.
Some interesting analysis here. However, I think the video is a little misleading because you make it seem as though other composers were all still using traditional harmony, while Scriabin was pioneering new ground. Scriabin's late period in which he was exploring these sounds occurred more than a decade after Debussy's Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune, in which traditional music theory had already been broken. Debussy and Ravel were already composing music using chord colors, music that was not dependent on traditional tonic-dominant functions before Scriabin. Around the same time Scriabin was experimenting with these new harmonic directions, there were other composers doing the same thing in their own way for example Bartók in his 14 Bagatelles, as well as Charles Ives in various works.
Mmm yea there was some colorful harmony going on around then. By pioneering I mean that he specifically pioneered the mystic chord. Bartok and company started playing with novel harmony more so around the 1910’s I believe. Sonata 5 is from 1907. Debussy’s Faun piece is certainly innovative especially with the use of whole tone, but it’s much more tonal/traditional than Scriabin’s late era. Perhaps someday I’ll make a video about that piece! Thanks for the input!
@jaybeardmusic8074 While I wouldn't tell you what you should or shouldn't use, I do think that ai generated images are generally very uninspiring, to the point of being obnoxious. They kinda give a low quality/effort content vibe. I tend to avoid videos and articles if they have this kind of images/thumbnails. I clicked on this video only to see if someone commented about the thumbnail. But that's me, maybe most people like ai images just fine so..
@@jaybeardmusic8074 To be fair, this fake Scriabin blasting lasers with his eyes is funny to me, I don't know why people are upset. Not all AI is bad. That one made me laugh.
@@Contempl Would be a better result spending a minute in photoshop with a original pic. Its not like this would be hard to do, so i dont get it why so many creator using ai thumbnails when they look like trash. If the result would be passable i would understand but it just isnt.
Yea, he doesn’t get as much respect as he deserves! That’s why I took it upon myself to build a Scriabin community! Join the discord server to hear from fellow Scriabin fans!
Because people like this guy constantly lump him in with the incompetent composers of the 20th century. No, scriabin is not atonal. You cannot analyze his music through a non-tonal lens. Noone even attempts listening to scriabin because of the bad rep he has from being lumped in with the likes of schoenberg and boulez.
Thanks! I would, but I have difficulty remembering what I need to say, so I kinda need to read it off the script. I need one of those AI editing tools that makes it look like you’re looking at the camera.
Haha thank you! I am indeed openly autistic! What I lack in short term memory I make up for with a unique perspective of music theory and a special interest in Scriabin.
I think your analysis of the second theme of Scriabin 5 is mistaken. Though it never resolves to the B-flat tonic, the chord progression is pretty trivial. The first eight bars are entirely centred on the F dominant, alternating between a root position voicing and the 5th inversion over #11 (here spelled incorrectly as a b5, which he does often in this Sonata when it appears as the lowest note in the chord). He then shifts the tonality to E-flat as he moves to a dominant B-flat, both in root position and in 5th inversion again, this time over the natural 11th. Only two bars before the last statement of the initial idea does he transition briefly into a B dominant chord. The constant, aggressive use of the 5th inversion in Scriabin 5 is probably its most distinguishing feature. In the final coda, he even uses #11 in the treble together with the natural 11th in the bass. There is no mystery to the mystic chord; it decidedly evolved as a dominant 13#11 chord, as he uses it in it's directly as such in middle era works (see Op. 37/3, which conveniently also drops the fifth). The usage of the 5th inversion was also common in Scriabin's middle era music as a device to reduce the directional implication of dominant chords. He first used the fifth inversion over the natural 11th (starting with Sonata 4, I think). Inversion over the #11 progressively--not instantly--became more common as he entered his late era. Interestingly, in your first example, Op. 65/3, all three chords are in 5th inversion, G-Db-G.
Interesting! You have a decent argument that the mystic chord comes from extensions of the #11 13, as 37/3 has a similar chord functioning as a dominant. However, I wouldn’t be so sure, as the C# #11 13 chord I think you’re referring to doesn’t have a 7th and thus technically isn’t a mystic chord. The example I showed of its first use goes from whole tone to mystic, so it’s possible that was his thought process. Can you explain what you mean by 5th inversion? (Maybe spell out an example) You’re right that he moves the phrase up a 4th shortly afterwards, but I would be curious how you would explain the tritone movement that is central to the motif.
@@jaybeardmusic8074 We're talking about the same chord there, but the 7th, B, is held from the beat before. To be fair, the degree to which it can be heard varies wildly between performances. The 5th inversion is an 11 or 13 chord with the 11th as the lowest note. Like the 1st (over 3), 2rd (over 5), and less common 3rd (over 7) inversions; 4th, 5th, and 6th inversions are over the 9th, 11th, and 13th respectively. One voicing of a C13 in 5th inversion is: *F* C E G Bb D A. Then there's the particular chord in Sonata 5, the F13#11 in 5th inversion, *B* F Eb A D (et. al). Scriabin tends to spell the #4 as a b5 below the root in this work and ones shortly after it, likely due to some vestige of romantic era practice, but eventually stops doing so. Scriabin knows the dominant chord strongly implies motion by a 5th, but he would like to avoid such an assertive resolution, and in this relaxed section probably finds movement by 3rds or 2nds to be too exciting and out of character. To not abandon the concept of conflict and resolution entirely, he exploits small changes to his highly extended harmony for variety while holding still, to distract from "the tonic issue". These are things like resolving the whole-tone chord (b13) to the barely more consonant mystic chord (13), and using the 5th inversion over the tritone. I like to think of the 5th inversion as kind of a "mystic dominant". It being the highest inversion of the chord without creating a minor 9th (if the fifth is dropped) it has the sound most distinct from the root position chord, but because none of the notes have been directly changed, any tonal reanalysis done by the listener's ear is still pretty slight. It's definitely reasonable to hear this inversion as a C-flat 7#9-ish in isolation, but when you compare the F -> Cb in the beginning to the B -> F later in the section, it's clear that in the first instance, the resulting movement is significantly more subtle, because no _true_ harmonic motion has been made. He uses a similar concept in Op. 73/1, now bouncing between the 2nd and 5th inversions, and further distracting from the tonic (D, kind of) by contrasting the 9 with the b9, and sprinkling in some bright false relations.
Omg as a math/music person I am so excited for this and hope I can apply this to my compositions! I don't know if this sounds strange, but I wonder if there's a way to apply other logical foundations to music... very tangentially related, that's something I'll look into myself! On the other hand, I've been very interested in Scriabin and his musical world. It seems that your channel may hold the key to unlocking his soundscape for me! When I first heard the Nemtin-Scriabin Mysterium, I was absolutely floored. Anything Scriabin does is just absolutely next level, I'll be taking notes on this for sure! (Apologies if it's off-topic, I was very excited coming into this video :D)
