Saturday 29 October 2011

Theory in Practice

So here is something that twisted my noodle.
One of my classes that I take at school is a studio class.  That means that I have one on one music lessons on the piano.  My instructor is one of my favourite people at the school and I have recently been informed that she knows every piece on the planet.  Wow.  Anyway thats not what twisted my noodle.  I was working on some technique with my instructor (no good), when I discovered that there are only 3 diminished seventh chords ever.  EVER!  This is how it works:
A diminished seventh chord is made up of three minor thirds.  Because that is the case, it turns out that the root position of that chord is also the first inversion of the diminished seventh chord that begins a minor third down.  At the same time it also is the second inversion of the chord starting 2 minor thirds (or a diminished fifth) below.  At the same time as the chord is being those three cords, it also happens to be the third inversion of the chord that starts a minor third below that!!  Wow!  So when one chord actually equals four chords, and there are 12 keys in our tonal system, then only three of these chords are needed to cover all of the diminished sevenths of every key!  And the coolest thing is, that when you are playing these things on a piano, the fingering never changes!  Guitar will be much the same *if you want to change keys, just slide up the neck right?  Anyway I was thinking and from a composition standpoint, these chords could be used as a really nice pivot chord when you want to change keys and want to be a little sneaky about it.
Well, thats enough nerdy raving for today.

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