I disagree. It would take too much space to explain it, because diminished chords are a vast topic. Just this. A diminished chord is a chameleon, a dragon with 100 heads. I prefer the classical naming approach of traditional theory because it tries at least to establish a uniform acceptable convention. General music theory is so mature and well developed that it includes most music on this planet. Classical music and jazz are a happy marriage for me. But. In jazz there are many self-taught musicians who often use their own terminology. It is less formalized and less standardized. Chord naming in books such as the Real Book is a nightmare, often resulting from amateurs or students who are not able to analyse what is going on musically. Some jazz theories are conflicting in explaining the same music style, eg bebop. The weakest ones are from people who have no knowledge of general music theory or don't understand it. But after all, how you name it doesn't matter that much. It's only a way to communicate with others. What counts is the function of the chord in a specific context. If that is in your head, you can play.
Rather than looking for things where we disagree, I would immediately try to find common ground. I think if you put together the best of classical music, pop, and jazz, you're going to have a pretty complete system because so much music is included. My main point is that our objective is to be as flexible as possible. Working musicians have to make a living, and that means being good at playing all sorts of music. When I was young I was in a dance band one day, playing a Broadway musical the next day, playing something by Rachmaninoff, Mozart, or Bach the next day, then accompanying for almost any instrument that you can imagine the next day. I didn't have much money and I didn't come from a rich family. After a single degree in music I had to go directly to work to make a living. So I think I am a very practical musician and therefore a very practical teacher. To me it's all about what we can play, what we can compose, what we can arrange and what we can improvise. I think perhaps you will not disagree with that. The bottom line is that you should always know what chord you're playing, how you got there, and where you are going next. When you can do that you are beyond names in a pure sound world. I will add to that that if you are notating music, you have to know the smoothest way to make it all work on the page.
You say that each dim chord goes to four dom 7 chords. I think of each dim chord as *being* four (rootless) dom 7 chords. For example, Cdim7 is D7b9, F7b9, Ab7b9 and B7b9. Is this what you mean?
You are absolutely correct. For instance, if you play D7 in the left hand and in the right hand Cdim7, those two chords spelled properly go together to make D7b9. This works because Cdim7 and Eb dim7 are really the same chord with some enharmonic spelling adjustments.
Augmented chords tend to be very dark. If you use a whole bunch of them, sort of front and center, your music will also be dark. So if you want to write something that is carefree, light, optimistic or cheerful this is not the chord to use. That was the whole point of writing this piece, and I knew that some of my happier friends would be "repelled", in your words.
2,295E-6 it is the maximum standard deviation that we obtain among all the intervals ratio of a scale with equal temperament. 1,904E-3 for Pythagorean scale, any other way of constructing the scale gives a result between these two extremes. equal temperament is therefore the most stable and the most compatible for transposition as well as for large ensemble orchestration.
Let's try . . . . . G7 then Gmaj7 Dm7b5 then Dm7 G7b5 then G7 Gminmaj7 then Gm7 Out of all the usual triads and seventh chords, I find the humble minor seventh chord the hardest to grasp. It has a very smooth, nondescript, neutral kind of sound.
This is bizarre. I only see two words from you here. But in notifications I see that you wrote down the answers. I wonder why they are not showing up in comments here.
It was a lot of fun to write because I could explore how quickly I could move back and forth from major to minor and from minor to major. I think it's also important for students to know that we are taught systems that assume a piece of music is either in major or minor when so often it is a complicated mixture of both.
Maya, I have been dependent upon my friends, students and family to suggest music from video games because I don't play them. But I really think this music is a large part of what is going to be most important in the near future and maybe for a very long time.
That's a tough question to answer. I only use Roman numerals, when I am teaching, for very general concepts. I never use them for myself. For example, if I am in the key of C major or C minor I am aware that C is going to make some sort of I chord, F is going to make some sort of IV chord, and G is going to make some sort of V chord. If I have a G7 chord I'm going to think of that as a V7 chord. But I'm not thinking those numbers. I'm just thinking that those are my go-to chords for the key. The music that I prefer and the music that I compose is generally very chromatic, so I think about what key I start in, what key I am currently in, and how I am eventually going to get back to my starting key. I always know where I am and I always know why I am moving to where I go next. Roman numerals just get in my way for anything that is complicated or sophisticated.
As I started learning more about theory and applying it to music, I felt increasingly that the RN's had usefulness in particular contexts, but music is more flexible than that.
I think for pianists splitting something complicated into rather simple things for either hand is a great way to start off exploring some really cool sounds.
I didn't realize the Roman number chord analysis came from mass education in the 19th Century. I had just assumed it had come from centuries of doing it that way. TIL - today i learned, and all that.
I think it's pretty obvious that figured bass had nothing to do with Roman numerals. So from that we can probably intuitively figure out that Roman numerals came later, and that's exactly what happened. But I am mostly concerned with the insane idea of combining Roman numerals with figured bass. To me that puts us into a system that gives us the worst of two worlds.
I'm imagining the main culprits for this kind of stuff happening are repurposing works in different keys, and working under deadlines. Although I'm not sure the latter would apply for the Well-Tempered Clavier, since AFAIK Bach wrote it for his students and revised it often. Maybe he didn't expect people to play it from sight?
In the case of the C Sharp major prelude by Bach, there are a whole bunch of ways why composers at that time did not write in the key of D flat major. I believe I once did a search for Domenico Scarlatti and could not find one instance where he used this key for one of his sonatas, and this is a man who is famous for doing unbelievably original things. Using the tuning systems of the time, some keys sounded remarkably weird, and this is why Bach's tuning system is called "well-tempered" and not equal temperament. Whatever he used was closer to the way instruments are tuned today, but there were still noticeable differences from key to key. There have been other people who have researched this extensively, but you might get close by hearing a harpsichord player do this prelude. The difference in tuning is rather subtle to the ears of most people.
