CW16

The new major / new minor thing is very close to something I learned about pentatonic scales when I was in college.

It probably pre-dates John Coltrane, but a definite staple of post-Coltrane jazz thinking is examining pitch collections—triads, tetrachords, scales, whatever—against all twelve possible DOs. Everything has its own sound unto itself, and then twelve possible meanings in light of the context. I’m drawn to the image of changing between twelve gels on a spotlight on an actor on a stage, but the metaphor isn’t strong enough. Unless the actor just stood stationary while you clicked through the options, those changing gels would have to make the actor unrecognizable to the untrained eye; the shift would have to overwhelm the constant. Everything in music is really twelve things, twelve powerfully distinct bouquets of color and feeling. We study them.