Autechre T ess xi harmony

T ess xi starts off with a chord progression, 16 bars long, shown in the attached image.

In bar 1 we have four notes (music harmony people: Eb major seventh chord). For our purpose here, think of those four notes as two intervals played simultaneously, the lower interval (coloured dark grey), and the upper (light grey) interval.

From this initial position in bar 1, the movement of those intervals for bars [1..8] is as follows:

• move the upper interval down 1 row
• move the lower interval down 1 row
• move the lower interval down 1 row
• move the upper interval down 1 row

Going from bar 8 to bar 9, the intervals change: their low notes are shifted up two rows (so whereas the intervals were perfect fifths in bars [1..8], they've now become perfect fourths for bars [9..16]). Following that, for bars [9..16] the "intervallic movement" stays the same as in bars [1..8], so again:

• move the upper interval down 1 row
• move the lower interval down 1 row
• move the lower interval down 1 row [!]
• move the upper interval down 1 row

Notice what happens in bar 15 (indicated with [!]): as the lower interval is moved down 1 row, two notes now overlap (in F#) and are fused together.

This progression is heard twice (so bars [17..32] are identical to [1..16]).  After that, the entire process is repeated but lowered by a semitone etc.

What genre is this?

  On 3/16/2019 at 7:55 PM, IOS said:

T ess xi starts off with a chord progression, 16 bars long, shown in the attached image.

 

Ae - t ess xi harmony.jpg

 

In bar 1 we have four notes (music harmony people: Eb major seventh chord). For our purpose here, think of those four notes as two intervals played simultaneously, the lower interval (coloured dark grey), and the upper (light grey) interval.

 

From this initial position in bar 1, the movement of those intervals for bars [1..8] is as follows:

• move the upper interval down 1 row
• move the lower interval down 1 row
• move the lower interval down 1 row
• move the upper interval down 1 row

Going from bar 8 to bar 9, the intervals change: their low notes are shifted up two rows (so whereas the intervals were perfect fifths in bars [1..8], they've now become perfect fourths for bars [9..16]). Following that, for bars [9..16] the "intervallic movement" stays the same as in bars [1..8], so again:

• move the upper interval down 1 row
• move the lower interval down 1 row
• move the lower interval down 1 row [!]
• move the upper interval down 1 row

Notice what happens in bar 15 (indicated with [!]): as the lower interval is moved down 1 row, two notes now overlap (in F#) and are fused together.

 

This progression is heard twice (so bars [17..32] are identical to [1..16]).  After that, the entire process is repeated but lowered by a semitone etc.

hey! thnx man!

does this have a name? is it a known technique in the theory?

thanks for writing this up!

Thanks for posting this! I had a little trouble understanding your diagram, but it seems like with the chord voicing, that the notes from one chord to the next move up or down either in semi-tones or whole steps. This seems to abide by the rules of classical harmony. I tried learning more about harmony once by reading Schoenberg's Theory of Harmony. Understood very little of it and did not do any of the exercises, but (if I understood your diagram) this seems to be textbook classical harmony - taking the shortest possible route (voicing-wise) when moving from one chord to the next. Schoenberg also mentions the idea of building chords with fourths and fifths (instead of thirds) as a means of building up to his more radical innovations, which seems to link up with your analysis. I could never get into his music (in spite of several honest attempts) and I also never heard Autechre reference him or any other classical musician pre-Stockhausen, but there are some interesting ideas there. The idea that harmony evolved based on humans discovering the natural harmonic series on their own and gradually making dissonances conventional (adding them into the harmonic vocabulary) is also interesting. Apparently in ancient Greece, there was a time when the only harmony was everyone singing in unison - Dionysian yes, but not all that interesting and definitely not up to par with the splendors of a piece like 'Vose In'.

cool.

 have audio samples of the melody playing ?

  On 3/16/2019 at 9:41 PM, xox said:

 

  On 3/16/2019 at 7:55 PM, IOS said:

T ess xi starts off with a chord progression, 16 bars long, shown in the attached image.

 

Ae - t ess xi harmony.jpg

 

In bar 1 we have four notes (music harmony people: Eb major seventh chord). For our purpose here, think of those four notes as two intervals played simultaneously, the lower interval (coloured dark grey), and the upper (light grey) interval.

 

From this initial position in bar 1, the movement of those intervals for bars [1..8] is as follows:

• move the upper interval down 1 row
• move the lower interval down 1 row
• move the lower interval down 1 row
• move the upper interval down 1 row

Going from bar 8 to bar 9, the intervals change: their low notes are shifted up two rows (so whereas the intervals were perfect fifths in bars [1..8], they've now become perfect fourths for bars [9..16]). Following that, for bars [9..16] the "intervallic movement" stays the same as in bars [1..8], so again:

• move the upper interval down 1 row
• move the lower interval down 1 row
• move the lower interval down 1 row [!]
• move the upper interval down 1 row

Notice what happens in bar 15 (indicated with [!]): as the lower interval is moved down 1 row, two notes now overlap (in F#) and are fused together.

 

This progression is heard twice (so bars [17..32] are identical to [1..16]).  After that, the entire process is repeated but lowered by a semitone etc.

 

hey! thnx man!

 

does this have a name? is it a known technique in the theory?

 

yeah. paralell fifths. And it's forbidden. :D ;)

Paralell suns

Forbidden planet

Why forbidden?

In classic counterpoint paralell fifths (and paralell octaves) are forbidden, because in that paralell movement the parts are not considered autonomous.

^ got it thnx

Awesome thread!

jass

Nice analysis. Maybe I'm slightly ignorant but this is just rave though right?

(Not posting to be aggressive/inflammatory. I just hear/see it as a rave thing)