Tasty Chords - Measuring Harmonic Flavour

A short, deep dive into harmonic consonance and dissonance and an understanding of harmonic flavour and spiciness. Dissonance curves, interval classes, vectors, All-interval tetrachords and introducing the Harmonic Scoville (or Scofield?) Scale.

[@MrMaxroach]

Such a mic drop moment at the end of this video! haha. Amazing stuff.

[@miltonline]

Thank you! The world's first interval vector analysis mic drop I believe.

[@mil3ston3s]

Mind-blowing as always!

[@miltonline]

Thank you so much for watching.

[@Jimantronic]

Awesome, thank you. Clearly explained with some great visual aids. Cheers 👍

[@chrisnewman9693]

Beautiful and fascinating! Thank you.

[@miltonline]

Thank you for watching!

[@dougstewart6581]

Your videos are so beautifully narrated. You remind me of Dan worrel from the fab filter tutorials who everyone loves for the way he speaks 😂

[@miltonline]

Very kind! *frantically google Dan Worrel*

[@jonathanj-g-yyelle6144]

Thank you for your _fascinating_ videos, Mr. Mermikides! I wished my Conservatory studies would have had a course that taught theory the way you do!

[@OzJazrok]

Great content! More please!

[@timalexander6623]

Thank you for these wonderful videos, Milton!

[@Remcore020]

Love the content mate, your videos have given me some great insights into things I didn't even know that I did not understand! Keep it up

[@miltonline]

Thanks so much! I shall continue 🥸

[@seanmiller7889]

💣 Mind Blown! Brings it all back to the Hendrix Chord. I am early on in my musical pursuit at 50 something and your presentation of Geometry / Math and Music is brilliant and inspiring. Thank you.

[@miltonline]

Thanks so much - enjoy your journey!

[@NikkiTrudelle]

Brilliant video

[@gilevansinsideout]

Thank you, what an awesome video. Sometimes I feel like I'm trying to hide the most interesting dissonances I can in any given phrase of music whilst still making the music sound 'good'. This was enlightening.

[@manolitosanchez]

That Max patch is amazing! Would you share it?

[@seraphieldj]

Hey Milton I really enjoyed this and I had to subscribe because I've been learning music on my own for almost a decade and no other channel comes close to conveying theory in such a simple way. You also give every lesson a spiritual feeling and beautifully link it the reaction music provoques in all of us. Thank you for your dedication and your idea to share your knowledge ^^ It's a pleasure to watch you talk about music.

[@miltonline]

Thanks for the very kind and supportive comment. It inspires me to make more :)

[@GabrielPerboni]

Yes! Those are my thoughts as well. Professor Marmikedes have both the knowledge and the skill, and kindness, to pass it forward. This is high level teaching. Also, such a dense content broken in very simple blocks. I'm and old musician learning theory fro the first time and I'm deeply in love with his elegant way to present it.

[@GabrielPerboni]

Does anyone know the name of that tool that Professor Mermikedes uses to display the interval vector? At 6m52s

[@RememberGodHolyBible]

Very interesting video. But I am not sure about that chart which maps consonance and dissonance. Because of concepts like those presented in the chart I was a big proponent for 5 limit just intonation music. But after working with it intensely for a decade, I came to realize that while out of context the intervals do not usually beat. Within the context of a piece of music, while listening not just vertically at the harmony, but also horizontally at the melodies and voices, listening in both directions, that it became abundantly clear, that 3 limit or Pythagorean intonation, is the true just intonation, both in chords and scales. I personally hear the Pythagorean major third at 81/64 as in tune and the 5/4 I hear out of tune, especially when in the context of a piece of music. I also now hear the 32/27 Pythagorean minor third as more consonant, more in tune, than the 6/5 ratio. The notes in these dyads at the 3 limit ratios have more distinction from each other, while also expressing a ratio that can be easily understood by the brain, even the untrained one. Because all is just ratios based on powers of 2 and powers of 3. The powers of 3 give you all the notes, and the powers of 2 give you all the octave doublings, and so the brain can very easily track and hear these in a piece of music. With 5 limit and higher limit harmonic notes with added dimensions and alternate versions of every note, the music while listening horizontally and vertically simultaneously (simultaneously is the key) sounds very out of tune. But the chart of dissonance and consonance in the video would have one believe that the Pythagorean thirds both major and minor sound not only more dissonant than 5 limit intervals, but also more dissonant than equal temperament thirds. This is not at all my experience. The equal temperament thirds definitely sound worse than both the 5 limit and 3 limit intervals, for there is neither the vertical in tuneness of 5 limit, nor both vertical and horizontal in tuneness as heard in 3 limit. So considering all this, I think the chart, while interesting in a way, is very over simplified when it comes to how we perceive consonance and dissonance.

[@musicalintentions]

❤️❤️🎵❤️❤️

[@IngridHurwitz]

❤ absolutely love your channel

[@miltonline]

Thank you so much - I really appreciate it.

[@IngridHurwitz]

@@miltonline I am so depressed you dont have 18m followers its ridiculous but I did find a friend today who LOVES your signification work and is making amazing music out of all kinds of things. I will share a link.

[@IngridHurwitz]

sonification autocorrect

[@miltonline]

@@IngridHurwitz Don't be depressed but thanks for you support. All best to you and your composer friend! (I've had to add sonification to my digital dictionary for this very reason).

[@IngridHurwitz]

I found the link. kzbin.info/www/bejne/i4DPfaaEi8R-bZo

[@stephenh8592]

This has so much inspirational potential! I want to write/hear a chord progression defined by a pattern of changing shapes or find the most dissonant chord I can play on my guitar fretboard

[@miltonline]

I support this.

[@outshined2301]

Really outstanding video, I learned a lot. So your version of the Hendrix chord is C sus2 sus4 b5 which is a mirror of C b2 b5 and the Hendrix chord is E7#9 voiced as E E G# D E G, just wondering if I got that right.

[@miltonline]

Shortest answer: Yes, that's right and thanks for the feedback! Short answer: we discard any repeats of notes so the Hendrix chord is just E G# D G. And we also reorganise it according to rules (below) so that all inversions are grouped together. 'C sus2 sus4 b5' is C D F F# - a D Hendrix chord which is the 'same' as the E Hendrix chord. So 'my version' of the Hendrix chord is how pitch-class set theory would automatically build it (0, 2, 5, 6) Yes that's a mirror of C Db E F# (0, 1, 4, 6 ) what I call the 'octatonic tetrachord'. Long answer:Okay so pitch-class set theory 'normalises' all chords so that transpositions and inversions of the same chord are all grouped together - so A minor and D minor etc are in the same group, as are any inversions of these chords. The way P-C set theory does this is by thinking of a musical object as a chain of intervals. Notes are all in the same octave with the smallest gap possible between the outer two. Let's take the Hendrix chord which (since we don't care about octaves) is E G G# D. If we reorganise them as D E G G# (se 10:50) then we create the shortest possible range between first and last. Since we are also conflating all transpositions we can put the D at the top of the circle.

[@outshined2301]

@@miltonline Thank you so much for your detailed answer. I plan to fire up my Mac to run your software as it looks like I can just enter in chords and have it calculate it so I can analyze the intervals. I am studying arabic music so its very important for me to study uncommon scales. About half the maqams (arabic scales) are diatonic, the rest use quarter tones.