Talk:Kite Guitar Exercises and Techniques by Kite Giedraitis

This idea of "Rotations" that you are beginning to talk about, and thus this "Negative Harmony" concept by Jacob Collier, sounds like my concept of "Treble-Down Tonality". If Jacob Collier only came up with this in the last five years, that means I've already beaten both of you to the punch as I was working with this concept as early as 2013. I've even gone so far as to label each of the Treble-Down diatonic modes, and I've noticed that these are none other than the original Ancient Greek modes. --Aura (talk) 05:27, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

Trust me, if you and Jacob think you have this realm of Treble-Down Tonality figured out, think again. Now that I'm learning microtonality, I have a lot more tricks up my sleeve than I did in 2013, and I'm more than willing to show them off. --Aura (talk) 05:48, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

The basic idea goes way back. Didn't Harry Partch talk about how a minor triad was an upside down major triad, with the old root becoming the new 5th? IIRC he actually went further and said the 5th *was* the root. My contribution is to show how the fretboard shapes on the Kite Guitar rotate 180 degrees. As they would on any isomorphic fretboard or keyboard. The lattice shapes also rotate, but someone else must have noticed that before. I do like your term Treble-Down Tonality. Please do share any tricks you have! --TallKite (talk) 08:04, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

Yep, it sure does go way back- back to Hugo Riemann in fact, and then all the way back to the Ancient Greeks. --Aura (talk) 08:10, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

It's an extension to tonal harmony, not modal. I suppose you can't attribute everything to ancient Greeks. FloraC (talk) 08:33, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

On the contrary, tonal harmony developed from modal harmony, so the idea of Treble-Down Tonality is in some ways just a similar innovation stemming from the more authentic forms of the Ancient Greek modes as opposed to their Romanized equivalents. --Aura (talk) 08:38, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

Did I mention that my ideas as to how the Diatonic "modes" function as tonalities of their own were based in no small part from their more traditional modal harmonies? Indeed, I consider each of the traditional Diatonic "modes" as having the potential to give rise to their own form of tonality. --Aura (talk) 08:47, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

Treble-Down Tonality actually flips the diatonic functional hierarchy upside down so that the note located a perfect fourth below the Tonic becomes the Dominant, and swaps the relations among other notes in the same, mirrored fashion, which has the effect of producing backwards-sounding chord progressions. Moreover, as Bass-Up Tonality has strong connections to the Overtone Series, Treble-Down Tonality has the same connections with the Undertone Series. Furthermore, it also inverts the musical roles of the treble and bass, meaning that harmony is very likely to located up in the higher octaves and basically hangs off the highest note in the chord, while melody is likely to be down in the lower octaves. One thing to note is that neither Treble-Down Tonality nor the more familiar Bass-Up Tonality like dissonance in close proximity to their respective chord roots. However, since the chord roots are located up high in Treble-Down Tonality, that means that the more dissonant intervals are likely to be found down low. I'll have to try and incorporate some of this into a song I'm reworking called "Welcome to Dystopia". --Aura (talk) 08:20, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

Now, everyone knows about Major and Minor from Bass-Up Tonality, but in Treble-Down Tonality, their counterparts are Antimajor and Antiminor respectively. Just wait until we get into the Treble-Down Diatonic Modes- if there are 35 Bass-Up Diatonic Modes due to different tunings, there are also 35 Treble-Down Diatonic modes for exactly the same reason, making 70 diatonic modes in all, and that's just the variants generated by my kind of tuning. --Aura (talk) 08:32, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

Bad news... I don't think I'll manage to get Treble-Down Tonality in "Welcome to Dystopia" as it doesn't fit the aesthetic of that song, though I do think I can try again with another song. On the flipside, I do think I can finally show off what a good chain of patent 11/8 modulations sounds like. -Aura (talk) 23:14, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

Finally, a Treble-Down Tonality Example...

Hey Kite, remember how we were talking about Treble-Down tonality before? Well, here's a 12edo sample of it.

Any thoughts on this "Study in Contraionian"? --Aura (talk) 22:54, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

Sounds good! If you give me a score I could analyze it much faster. BTW I still really like "Folly of a Drunk" and want to translate it to 41-edo. Could you supply me with the midi file? That would allow me to try out different translations very easily. --TallKite (talk) 05:55, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

@Aura Sounds really good. I'm also interested in the score (and in understanding your treble-down tonality concept). --Xenwolf (talk) 08:12, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

Here's the score...

File:Study in Contraionian (Score).pdf

Unfortunately, it seems that most people can't hear Treble-Down Tonality, at least in it's most basic form.

As for a MIDI File of "Folly of a Drunk", Kite, I'm not sure one exists, but I know enough about what the JI intervals are for the quartertones in Folly of a Drunk that I could help you manually translate it into 41edo. --Aura (talk) 17:26, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

Do be warned, Kite. "Folly of a Drunk" utilizes a lot of 11-limit harmony, and even some 13-limit harmony as well. It also utilizes 27/16 over 5/3 in a lot of cases as well- especially for the major sixth above the Tonic- which is important because as much as you don't like wolf fifths, they could potentially better capture or even enhance some of the song's intended quirky, drunken character compared to the original 24edo. --Aura (talk) 17:40, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

Oh I see, SIC is mostly minor triads, and the voicings are all upside down, with 3rds only in the bass, imitating the subharmonic series.

Fm Cm Fm Bbm = rotation of C F C G

Fm Cm Bbm Db Cm Fm Cm Bbm = rotation of C F G Am F C F G

But yeah, I didn't catch that just listening casually. Anything in 12edo with only diatonic major and minor triads inevitably sounds pretty normal. It might be interesting to do this with a famous song like Pachobel's canon. Or maybe have a B part of SIC that goes C F C G etc.

I'm curious how you recorded FOAD if not with midi? --TallKite (talk) 20:44, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

Hmm, writing a second Study in Contramajor might indeed show off more of what Treble-Down Tonality is capable of. That said, it seems I must do something to reinforce that C is the actual tonic of C contramajor, despite it having a key signature identical to F Minor. Perhaps I should even showcase how F minor actually differs from C contramajor in terms of chord progression behavior.

As for how I recorded "Folly of a Drunk", I simply entered the notes into the composition software itself using a desktop computer, tuned the notes and added the accidentals manually, and used the export function of the software to produce the audio. --Aura (talk) 02:34, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

What software did you use for this, do you still have the composition file? --Xenwolf (talk) 09:52, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

I used MuseScore- and MuseScore 2, and MuseScore 3. I do indeed have the composition files, and I say "composition files" because having worked on this song over the span of multiple iterations of MuseScore, there's a sense in which having multiple composition files is not a bad idea. --Aura (talk) 13:55, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

Okay, at least MuseScore 3 is able to export MIDI. In the main menu, you'll find: File →Export.... And in the Export dialog you can choose MIDI in the Export To drop down control. --Xenwolf (talk) 19:54, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

Bad news... I tried exporting the song "Folly of a Drunk" to MIDI only for the program to completely wipe the quartertones out of the resulting MIDI file. How unfortunate... Anyway, this means that using MIDI is not an option. --Aura (talk) 23:10, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

What is this Tuning?

Down major? Sounds absurd.

On a unrelated note, I play mario kart. It's pronounced mAREio. MTEVE (talk) 04:23, 2 December 2023 (UTC)