When you hear chords in your first thought on awakening, there's only one answer: you were hearing them already while you were asleep. In high school, it was amusing for the girls to ask, 'was it hard getting up in the morning,' but there's more to the night than sex dreams.
(Ed: not much more!)
Well, that depends on your company at the time, doesn't it, Howdy Doody!
On waking there was F# sus2 with the first part of the first Phrase of "Andromeda Weeps." Part of the reason it was there was, until yesterday, I didn't know what the chord was either. I'm not trying to be precious in naming the chord but rather I'm learning them as I go. I knew what it was on the guitar but not on a keyboard so that's why there's some desk work with this.
(Ed: you play things without knowing what they are?)
Most of the time.
Dehydrated music lesson: a chord is a triad of the first, the root note, the third above that, and the fifth above that. Chord inversions are when you change the order of the 1st, 3rd, 5th but that doesn't change the value of the chord, only the pitch and, to some extent, the 'flavor.' The 3rd is the note which is the variable since it determines whether the chord is major or minor. The sus 2 refers to the 3rd and suspending it means there is no major or minor so there's only one form of the chord.
To get a better idea, play a D minor chord on the guitar. Now continue holding the chord but lift your finger off the E string. Now it's D sus2. It's an exceptionally easy chord which is harder to describe than to play. It's an enormously useful chord because, with a Barre across the fingerboard, you can easily play it anywhere on the neck.
So the keyboard version of F# sus2 was in my head when I awoke and this is a time when calling a note a sharp or a flat makes a difference. The chord on the keyboard can be spelled F#-Bb-C# or Gb-Ab-Db but it's more logical for me if everything is in terms of flats.
F# major would be Gb-Bb-Db
F# minor would be Gb-A-Db - flatten the Bb a half step to an A to make the minor third
F# sus2 would be Gb-Ab-Db - I have no idea what got suspended but the Bb went two half steps down to the second (i.e. Ab is the second over Gb, Bb is the third, and Db the fifth - you tell me what got suspended or ... better yet ... don't)
(Ed: why get all poofy with these chords?)
It's not poof because the major chord is too regal, the minor is too depressing, and the sus2 is just right.
(Ed: why didn't you learn this a long time ago?)
Well, why don't they teach you in high school of the importance of keeping the house stocked with toilet paper whenever a lady friend will be there. You learn stuff as it happens (shrug).
The time for this is now so I get on with it.
In fact I did write the song a long time ago but I never perfected it to my satisfaction. So ... now.
In a much shorter read, the keyboard chords for "Andromeda Weeps" are now clear to me but it's not clear yet whether that knowledge makes any structural difference to the song more than adding beauteous sound combinations. It may because this permits a different intro on keys rather than guitar or whichever seems best-suited for it.
The major structure of the song is clear to me from the analysis recently. It needs the Trips section for the Beautiful Young People to be all mad in love with each other and maybe throw in some gratuitous sex. There also needs to be the Colonel Kurtz section ... and then it all resolves with the false alarm. No explanation of anything is needed beyond that because we all know what that means and it would be insulting to spell it.
The unclear parts are the intro / outro and these aren't difficult but they need to be there because they add quite a bit of flavor. The revised intro for "The End of the World in Fort Worth" surprised Yevette and it was an excellently good to see it was a good surprise for her. Unknown how many I tried before I was satisfied the final was it and, what do you know, it worked.
(Ed: why don't you talk to musicians about this?)
I find they rarely talk about such things. There's lots of promotion of things but little talk of the music or what makes it.
(Ed: not much more!)
Well, that depends on your company at the time, doesn't it, Howdy Doody!
On waking there was F# sus2 with the first part of the first Phrase of "Andromeda Weeps." Part of the reason it was there was, until yesterday, I didn't know what the chord was either. I'm not trying to be precious in naming the chord but rather I'm learning them as I go. I knew what it was on the guitar but not on a keyboard so that's why there's some desk work with this.
(Ed: you play things without knowing what they are?)
Most of the time.
Dehydrated music lesson: a chord is a triad of the first, the root note, the third above that, and the fifth above that. Chord inversions are when you change the order of the 1st, 3rd, 5th but that doesn't change the value of the chord, only the pitch and, to some extent, the 'flavor.' The 3rd is the note which is the variable since it determines whether the chord is major or minor. The sus 2 refers to the 3rd and suspending it means there is no major or minor so there's only one form of the chord.
To get a better idea, play a D minor chord on the guitar. Now continue holding the chord but lift your finger off the E string. Now it's D sus2. It's an exceptionally easy chord which is harder to describe than to play. It's an enormously useful chord because, with a Barre across the fingerboard, you can easily play it anywhere on the neck.
So the keyboard version of F# sus2 was in my head when I awoke and this is a time when calling a note a sharp or a flat makes a difference. The chord on the keyboard can be spelled F#-Bb-C# or Gb-Ab-Db but it's more logical for me if everything is in terms of flats.
F# major would be Gb-Bb-Db
F# minor would be Gb-A-Db - flatten the Bb a half step to an A to make the minor third
F# sus2 would be Gb-Ab-Db - I have no idea what got suspended but the Bb went two half steps down to the second (i.e. Ab is the second over Gb, Bb is the third, and Db the fifth - you tell me what got suspended or ... better yet ... don't)
(Ed: why get all poofy with these chords?)
It's not poof because the major chord is too regal, the minor is too depressing, and the sus2 is just right.
(Ed: why didn't you learn this a long time ago?)
Well, why don't they teach you in high school of the importance of keeping the house stocked with toilet paper whenever a lady friend will be there. You learn stuff as it happens (shrug).
The time for this is now so I get on with it.
In fact I did write the song a long time ago but I never perfected it to my satisfaction. So ... now.
In a much shorter read, the keyboard chords for "Andromeda Weeps" are now clear to me but it's not clear yet whether that knowledge makes any structural difference to the song more than adding beauteous sound combinations. It may because this permits a different intro on keys rather than guitar or whichever seems best-suited for it.
The major structure of the song is clear to me from the analysis recently. It needs the Trips section for the Beautiful Young People to be all mad in love with each other and maybe throw in some gratuitous sex. There also needs to be the Colonel Kurtz section ... and then it all resolves with the false alarm. No explanation of anything is needed beyond that because we all know what that means and it would be insulting to spell it.
The unclear parts are the intro / outro and these aren't difficult but they need to be there because they add quite a bit of flavor. The revised intro for "The End of the World in Fort Worth" surprised Yevette and it was an excellently good to see it was a good surprise for her. Unknown how many I tried before I was satisfied the final was it and, what do you know, it worked.
(Ed: why don't you talk to musicians about this?)
I find they rarely talk about such things. There's lots of promotion of things but little talk of the music or what makes it.
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