31-EDO Music Theory: Basic Triads
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- Опубліковано 28 тра 2024
- I am planning to make a lot of 31-edo music theory content. I've been finding and creating lots of cool systems inside 31 I want to share. However, let's start with some basics!
31edo has 6 basic triads:
- Sus4
- Supermajor
- Major
- Neutral
- Minor
- Subminor
In this video we listen to all of them in their most bare settings.
I really wish more people were as articulate and as free as you are when describing these intervals. Looking forward to more
No need. Just keep coming back to her channel
holy crap finally an understandable video on microtonality with examples and stuff
31-EDO is awesome! 0-10-18-25-36-45 is a great chord which stacks five different types of thirds on top of each other to create a 4:5:6:7:9:11 chord.
I only like 88 note chords
To me, the subminor triad is more characteristic of the dark 12TET minor chord than the bright 31TET minor chord is. Super interesting.
As an early music enthusiast I love 1/4 comma meantone, and for me meantone is a gateway to microtonal music. 31 TET is practically the same as extended 1/4 comma meantone, so even on my 12 note keyboard tuned in 1/4 comma MT I get to play around with subminor and supermajor thirds and harmonic sevenths, but only in a few keys. I love F minor in 1/4 comma MT because the tonic and subdominant chords are actually subminor.
You're tempting me.
How do you tune your keyboard to quarter comma meantone? I've never been able to find a tuning file in the right format, and I'm a bit too much of a noob to make one myself
Harmonically speaking, I find that neutral thirds are especially interesting in stacks - 4, 5, or more stacked atop each other.
Melodically speaking, N3s are intriguing in that our ears are strongly conditioned to hear thirds as either minor or minor: If a melody uses a N3, it will sound major in one context and minor in another.
In fact, somebody can listen to the exact same melody with a N3, twice in a row, and the first time it will sound major and the next time minor!
I absolutely love your emotional interpretation of the triads. Emotion is music is often pre-conditioned, there is nothing happy about major chords and nothing sad about minor chords, except we have given them that meaning through context. 31edo meets us in a clean slate, therefore hearing people's perceived emotions to its colors is a rare and wonderful thing.
correction: the gx should be a g= (accidental can't be typed). I missed that. I'm still getting used to "standard" 31edo notation after using my own up and down notation.
the sharp # is worth 2 steps up in 31 and the double sharp x is worth 4 -- rather than 3 as pictured here.
Wow that neutral triad, its crazy how it goes from so uncomfortable to so serene once your ear adjusts. Its like, bells in a wide open field.
Awesome work, Amelia! Great sound examples and creative, relatable metaphors, this is a fantastic resource! We're looking forward to more of this series
Thank you! Love your work!
🎵 Hearrr beeeeetweeeeen theeeeeeeeee liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiines 🎶
Is there anything more joyful than the exercise of trying to convey the feel of a microtonal interval? I think with 12-EDO we've all been sort of "programmed" by the ideas of what intervals and changes feel like, which one is happy, which one is tense, foreign, etc. But with this weirder stuff? Man I am engaging my most non-verbal monke brain and thinking about my body and my ears and how I literally feel. It's a closeness and naivete with music that is just incredible, rejuvenating. Yes, I am high, thank you for asking.
couldn’t agree more. there is so much to be heard. entire universes of new tonalities and sensory experiences. 31 is cool but ultimately the harmonic series is the most transcendent of all tunings. ♥️
This feels like learning things like tones or cases in a new language
(And i find it cool, i love languages)
Between both channels, I learn so much from you, Z
Thank you! I'm grateful to have a platform to share knowledge from!
There's another channel? I don't even know if I'm scribed
@@The_SOB_II it's not a music channel though it's one for vocal excersizes
@@_CaptainCookie Hi I'm from the future and I know what you're talking about now
7/6 subminor is often sung by skilled acappella groups so that's not weird at all, unlike the supermajor, which resembles me of a slightly off tune brass instrument.
Yes yes yes
i am absolutely crazy about those short hands now.
Esin7
Asaj7
if everyone in 20 years calls subminor chords sin chords, my work on this planet will be done. lol
hope you continue this. I always thought the supermajor interval in 31EDO approximates 9/7
It depends on your allowed margin of error. I don't think the 31-edo supermajor third really sounds that much like 9/7 so I don't identify it as such. Traditionally, microtonal theorists have allowed a larger margin of error in describing ji approximates from edos because of the beauty of regular temperament theory. The supermajor third here certainly can function as a 9/7 approx but it's a different identity to my ears. :)
I've been into microtonal music theory (and the music itself) since 2015 or so, and 31-EDO has long been my favorite tuning system. As a TVL fan, seeing you make this video totally made my day.
Wow, excellent video. I mess around a lot with 24edo and this video made it clear to me that most of the sounds I like in 24 are also available in 31, plus some pretty-much just stuff.
Thanks so much for posting this! I grew up listening to traditional Persian music and really miss hearing non 12-TET intervals.
31 EDO is really quickly becoming my favourite tuning - the neutral and sub minor triads are so beautiful 😭
Could you recommend some things to listen to?
I like the persian music I've heard, but not knowing Farsi or even the script, it's hard to know where to begin to find more🙃
Randomly researching this and surprised to quickly recognise your voice 💖 I didn’t realise how DEEPLY you were passionate and knowledgeable about sound until I found this channel !
We need more of these 31-TET music theory videos.
I absolutely adore the sound of the subminor triad here. Love the video & really looking forward to more!
please bring these 31-EDO music theory videos back!
Really good explanation. Thanks for sharing the knowledge!
Been waiting for a drop on this channel for a while and not disappointed! Thanks Zhea :) Can't wait to go deeper...
Didnt read the channel name, but knew your voice immediately! Love everything you do
Caught this super early. Really excited for this series and how the knowledge of an established musician like you will be able to make microtonal music more approachable / understandable / interesting to the masses. :)
I've never had any musical talent to speak of. You have such an amazing talent for sound that you've been developing and I'd be interested in seeing what you do with this in the future.
yes! I've been learning about microtones and wanted to get further into it. this is amazing
This is such an inspiring video on what can be capable in this system as an extension of functional harmony. Thanks so much.
the way you described the sound was amazing ! Especially the neutral one with the bells. And now I start to understand a little more about the name you gave to the chord in other video.
Thank you very much for this excellent resource! It's great to have a video like this that shows all the different notations for the triads along with their sounds; makes it a lot easier to learn.
As much as I enjoy reading through articles on the Xen Wiki, they tend to get rather complicated and are full of obscure terminology, whereas this is delightfully easy to understand. Will definitely be coming back again and again!
I’ve been searching for something like this for so long!! Thank you Z! :))
I love to see more xen pedagogy, and well done at that!
I sometimes feel like other xen video tutorials are made by people who are still relatively new to the field, or just aren't as well versed into pedagogy, but this looks promising. I'm really looking forward to this new series!
Great.
Makes one want to Dive deeper into the Word of shrill Chords that WORK!
Thank you for such a clear explanation of a complex tuning
Dude this is incredible! Thank you!
Holy cow. Thank you so much for making this video❤ I have been wondering how people play microtonal music for so long... I never dreamed it was something *learnable*! I thought some people were just geniuses who thought in microtones and the rest of us were stuck with 12 tones. I'm so, so excited to find out that there is a method to it that might be accessible to someone like me! Your teaching style is absolutely lovely too. Thank you for making this wonderful lesson for us ❤
this was super informative!
Very nice. Looking forward to more!
Your music really took me into JI but when it's about EDO... I just don't know how to use it. This video hepls a lot to undertand better the EDO and how to use it!
yay!! :D
yea I love JI and prefer to write in it. But equal tunings are useful for many reasons and serve as great environments to learn inside of! :D 31 is cool cause it has a lot of close approximation to certain ji ratios.
@@ZheannaErose nice primer, thanks! I just moved a piece from 31-edo to 31-ji and there is a certain hard to put your finger on 'zing' to the ji, but it did make me wonder at what point in octave division that the difference ceases to make a difference?!
Good introduction, and these chords really do sound good, including the xenharmonic ones.
We really do need more people like you having fun with microtones.
Omigosh yes, very looking forward to this series
I'm so excited that this finally mostly makes sense to me and I can start incorporating it into my music learning :)))))
This microtonal stuff is way over my head, but I’ve enjoyed the different chord sounds you’ve made in vids. It’s neat to look at.
thank you . will start my 31 journey here
Love the neutral triad, what a sound!
It's fantastic that you keep the math on the screen during this video.
It does get a little confusing when using terms like "third" or "fifth" because those generally describe 12-edo modal intervals, but describing things as "EDO steps" helps that a lot.
beautiful presentation, ty!
bless! thank you.
Not really related to the content, but I enjoy the video format choice to make the sections of the video where you describe and explain the major/minor chords in light and dark themes respectively. Sets the mood in an interesting way
This is changing my life right now 😮❤
Zhea You responded to my comment about my first ever baby hearing your song as his first ever hearing experience next to his mom’s voice. Although I am universes away from understanding this video, as well as my already mentioned baby boy, I believe this knowledge will influence his cognitive development and higher brain function that he will recall when he is older. I wish I could show you him, to track his progress as a baby that simply loves his entire experience. Thank you so much. The first person after mom to calm Archer down. The Avila family loves and appreciates your work.
His life will be greatly enhanced by your ratios of applied microtonal music.
Great stuff, love it!
Excellent! I especially like your word descriptions of the various intervals. Some of them I personally hear a little differently, but that just makes it all-the-more interesting to hear your descriptions.
I’ve been into Microtonality since 1977, but until I got my Lumatone (obviously much more recently!), I haven’t had a really practical way of exploring 31TET. So, it’s great to hear how you’re approaching it!
Just a subminor (😂) nitpick: I don’t think sus chords technically qualify as “triads,” since triads are defined as constructed in thirds. (That’s not super-important, but this video is partly about Theory, so…)
gotta admit the thing thats most shocking about this video is how neat your writing is @_@ sMin and Neu are the best sounding ones tbhh imo
that compliment actually delighted me. thank you lol. only when doing music! i care a lot about the beauty of how music looks on a page or thoughts about music look when codified
Please more of these videos!!
As someone who has spent his career tuning pipe organs in 12 equal, this is so refreshing.
thanks for the video, this part of music is quite intereting
This is sick, i love it
That neutral triad reminds me of things falling apart.
Great video!
Ever since I got into microtonality I've found modern music education's failure to mention any tuning other than 12-EDO as a major annoyance. I also sing, but I got into it via contemporary worship music even though I'm classically trained on piano. Now that I've heard plenty of microtonal songs, I personally feel like 31-EDO would be a much better tuning for most contemporary worship songs than 12.
In fact, I've had many of my friends listen to the chords of Mosaic MSC's "Tremble" (look up the lyrics "Jesus You make the darkness tremble") in 12 and 19 EDO, and so far all of them say that it sounds better in 19-EDO. This is after I heard what the chords sound like in 19 and 31, and I can already see Tremble sounding much better in 19 and 31 than 12. 12 has a very bright sound to it, which makes it suitable for many types of music and a lot of worship songs, while major keys in 31 sound noticeably darker to me so I think that it would be much more suitable than 12 for slower, more "serious", or more "passionate" (if you get what I mean) songs. I'm seeing a lot of potential for the use of alternative tunings as a means of expression, even for strictly diatonic music.
omg aaaa excited!!!!
THANK YOU FOR THIS
Damn that sub minor sounds so good
Excellent explanation. I'd definitely like to explore the 31 EDO in more depth. Quick question: what software or hardware do you use to generate the 31 EDO sounds and where do I get one?
I don't like the neutral nor the supermajor, but the sus and and subminor sound awesome
For overtones 7 to 14, if the overtone number is n, the interval n/4 is a type of nth interval. For example, 11/4 is a type of 11th.
idk what this is quite yet but i must mater it!
🤯 thank you.
BTW, we already use a small x to represent double sharps sometimes, so that could get confusing.
these literally are double sharps still. a sharp is only worth 2/5ths of a whole in 31edo. Fx is not G. Fx is Gd.
@@ZheannaErose Then if we're using the natural sign in the minor triad, neutral should be one sharp, major should be a double sharp, and supermajor should be a triple sharp.
@Discrimination_is_not_a_right That’s not correct. A sharp is worth 2 displacements, not 1.
It’s not triple sharp you want then, it’s sesqui sharp. Triple sharp would be 6 displacements. If E to G is natural and minor, then E to Gt is neutral, E to G# is major, E to G#t is supermajor, E to Gx is ultramajor or subfourth. Triple sharp would be E to G#x which is E to At enharmonically. We dont use triple sharps in 31, not really a point.
We have:
-4 double flat
-3 sesquiflat
-2 flat
-1 semiflat
0 natural
1 semisharp
2 sharp
3 sesquisharp
4 double sharp
thus as you see, triple sharp would be +6 displacements, not 3.
Eb to Gdb is subminor
Eb to Gb is minor third
Eb to Gd js neutral third
Eb to G is major third
Eb to Gt is supermajor third
Eb to G# is ultramajor third
@@ZheannaErose okay
Sounds amazing.. are you using some vst to get access to the custom microtones..?
Hmm, great! I hear, classical diatonic is "embedded" in the 31 EDOs... is this a direct link to the JI?
I'm also interested in the reasons for the tension of steps in musical scales. Do you think the reason is just harmony?
I've been working on arguments to dispute this for some time now, explaining the tension as a consequence of the order, the distribution of the notes of the major chords. I'm sure both factors have an effect, but which one is stronger? That is the question.
More please!
I wonder why I haven't been shown this video sooner.
That begining sus chord is in the opening riff to "New Kid in Town" by the Eagles. Similar timbre, pretty much same key. Oh yeah and 31-EDO is pretty cool too I guess :)
I was able to follow allong on some microtonal generator online. this shit is crazy, in the best way.
Hey Zheanna, can you do one of these tutorials for 24tet (sorry new to this, so idk if it is 24tet or 24edo, but 24 notes per octave essentially😂😂😂)??? Love your work!!! Thank you!!!
Nice. How do you find the chords in a tuning? I know about this in Scala (a septimal major third is off maxdiff by 9.3 cents):
equal 31
set attribute notation
set notation e31
set maxdiff 7.0
chords/match/constrained
You mention that two neutral thirds equals a perfect fifth, and that it’s important. What’s the reason for it’s importance? Thanks for the vid btw. Tremendous.
Have you explored the “all interval tetrachords” of 31edo? Or whatever the equivalent is for it. Since there are only 6 unique pitch classes in 12tet does this mean there’s 15 for 31edo because you start getting closer to the octave between the 15th and 16th chromatic step? Also in 12tet the combinatorial math proves there’s only 4 unique flavors of AIT when you subtract transpositions (and really it’s like there’s 2 sets of 2 shapes that are mirrored to each other), so I’m curious how many unique pitch sets there are that contain every interval in this tuning? I’m completely new to xenharmonic music, so thanks for putting these beautiful materials out there for us.
What is the outtro song?? It sounds so sparkly and celestial!!
They opened a whole mew world of music 😮. I though i knew music theory
Gorgeous! What about the corresponding keyboard? "Fokker designed the Fokker organ, a 31-tone equal-tempered organ, which was installed in Teyler's Museum in Haarlem in 1951 and moved to Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ in 2010 where it has been frequently used in concerts since it moved. " (Wikipedia). Did you get a chance to play it?
We need more alien sounds!
This is amazing. I've been looking for it! Do you have any music written with this??
yes all over my channel
@@ZheannaErose awesome thanks. It's ALL made with this scale?
@@manuelvenegas4737 nope. the pieces that say 31-edo in the title are made in 31. i mostly compose in just intonation and play lumatone in 31. also this isnt a scale - its a tuning. :)
@@ZheannaErose yeah aigt
I think the subminor triad is the easiest for me because it's not actually a new sound; it often shows up in baroque music played on period instruments, depending on the key of course.
love watching these with absolutely no base-line knowledge of music theory.
What do you use to compose with this?
do you have a video that shows your setup? VST? MIDI keyboard? Something fancier? Notation?
alien music language. cool but how do I even use this
you can access microtonality through a few ways, i’d encourage you explore different tuning systems through “scale workshop”
other than that, you can use these chords to enhance the atmosphere and feeling of songs, for instance subminor chords have a very relaxed feel, while something like a supermajor chord almost sounds angry/frustrated
you can enhance dissonance and make the song more heart-wrenching (like in “frippe’s nocturne” - Hear between the lines) where the neutral chords are used to enhance the feeling of grief in 24edo
in some tuning systems, such as 17 edo, neutral thirds invoke a very soft and natural feeling. It sounds soothing and not as agressive as in 24, for instance. You can listen to benyamind for examples.
Go for it and explore, because microtonality can really add to songs!
@@AramaxTheHuman I like the sound but it seems difficult to access. I'm too used to the regular piano keyboard lol
Ill look up your suggestions
@@EpreTroll You could use a 12 note subset. The pitches will be tuned slightly(or majorly if you want) differently but you can still use a regular keyboard without octaves not being octaves.
Is there a program you use to write/playback microtonal music? I tried using a plug in for musescore 3, but it doesn't work.
Zheanna, I have a few comments and questions:
First, a comment regarding the neutral third: I can hear why it conjures bells in that the overtone series, as well as the divergent strike and hum tones of many bells are non-harmonic. While all tempered intervals (including neutrals) approximate harmonic intervals, surely the pure neutral thirds that are lowest in a harmonic series are still higher and thus less ostensibly harmonic than the pure major and minor thirds.
Second, a question regarding timbre: To effect good resonance, an orchestrator can form sonorities by voicing chords among instruments such that the partials of the various instruments mutually reinforce each other. As those partials are mostly very close to harmonic (especially for sustained notes) for most acoustic instruments, I am suspicious that intervals such as the neutral third can be effectively orchestrated except as fleeting chromatic passing tones. Please tell me: Do you have solutions to this? Do you use electronically synthetic timbres based upon non-harmonic partials that are especially 31-EDO-friendly? The piano/bell-ish timbre in this video does not seem very un-harmonic, but it does seem to have a sort of dullness, as if some harmonic partials are suppressed. I would like to know what, if any, insights you can give into this.
Third, a question regarding composing for reality: I love love love polyphony (canons, fugue, etc.) and might like to compose polyphonic music for EDO systems other than 12-EDO, but... I really do not want to have to focus on the technical difficulties of shoe-horning such music into 12-EDO-based software. Have you any recommendations for decent software for the notation and performance of such music? I mean something as easy and straightforward as the common 12-EDO software like Sibelius, Finale, etc.
By the way, I have zero intention of performing anything, myself. I compose for other musicians and/or computers only.
Any thoughts are welcome.
gorgeous handwriting. do you use a specific stencil for the staffs?
no, i just drew it in photoshop. now i'm notating in dorico.
When you’re talking about cents here is it relative to 12-TET?
I am having a challenging time following that.
Cents are brute force musical device which convert the octave into 1200 equal cents. One standard 12-edo semitone is 100 cents. So when I say something is "551 cents" that translates to directly between Perfect 4th and Tritone from 12edo. Cents have been used for about 140 years and are a very very blunt tool to make easier moving between Linear and Log domains.
Thanks, that clears it up!
The cent was only defined in the _late_ 19th century, _well after 12EDO took off as the default tuning for Western music._ So naturally the absolute cent was defined in terms of it.
Is there software for 31-EDO composition?
Time to start down a microtonal rabbit hole
I can't afford a Lumitone 😑 i do have Ableton on my laptop and a midi keyboard though, can anyone recomend a plug in or software i can try playing these chords at home with? Thnx !
what software do you use for 31 edo?