From Kent Williams Sent Mon, Oct 19th 1998, 16:11
From Kent Williams Sent Mon, Oct 19th 1998, 16:11
On Sat, 17 Oct 1998, Dave Walker wrote: > Che wrote: > > > Does this mean Vibert is finally taking the time to make sure his samples > > are in tune and in key? > > The day I ever start to even remotely care about anything like that > someone please kindly take me out back and kindly > put a big-assed slug in the back of my head. > > pretty damned glad to have never > taken courses in music theory, I HAVE taken courses in Music Theory, and I never hear 'out of tune' samples in Luke Vibert's stuff, so maybe I have a wider concept of in tune and in key than Che. What Charlie Parker brought to jazz back in the 40's was extending the concept of what was in key. Hip Hoppers and adventerous samplers make things that 'sound right' even though they're juxtaposing things that are nominally in different keys. To some extent they're plowing the same row as Charlie Parker was. It all comes from the harmonic series. A C major chord is C-E-G, C Minor is C-Eb-G. If you add the flat seven (C-E-G-Bb) then you have a C7, the basic blues chord. If you add the sharp seven (C-E-G-B) then you have the basic jazz chord. What if you keep going up the chordal scale? You can have a 9th chord (C-E-G-D) or flat 9th (C-E-G-C#) or 11th (C-E-G-F) or 13th (C-E-G-A). Now, think on this: If C is your root key, and you start adding notes to the chord at the 7th, you have the C triad (C-E-G) and add in the seventh, nineth and eleventh (B D F) then you have a C chord up against a B diminished chord. B to F is a Tritone, or 'diminished' 5th, which is a dischord. But it can work harmonically to the ear if it's done right. Furthermore if you add the 9th, 11th, and 13th to a C major chord, you're playing (C-E-G) against (D F A) which is a D minor chord. But it can work to your ear, even though you're playing chords in two different keys together! So maybe that's too analytical for you, but the fact remains that the concept of 'in key' and 'out of key' are fuzzy concepts. And if you want to talk about 'in tune' and 'out of tune' I can throw up a similar argument about the concept of intonation. Did you know that 95% of western music is out of tune, and that it's done that way on purpose?