A picardy is a minor-major switcheroo. When music is sad, and suddenly turns triumphant, this is the picardy at work. And it is all thanks to one little note – the Third or Mediant. In the example above, the Mediant is the note in the middle – the Third. In C Minor the mediant E […]
Search results for picardy
Sex, Lies, and Videogames
In honor of its 10-Year Anniversary, Onebody is now available on digital radio. Onebody was recorded nightly from 2005–2007, while we were working at a train-yard for a paper company. Saugerties-stylies. Grimy brow. Finger-cuts. Living up that Aughties bubble. Eating out at Friendly’s every night. You know, real blue-collar shit, except we wore white crew-neck […]
Knock Knock Song
Have you heard this song come a-knock on your door? It’s like sonar, baby. Even without the melody, everybody knows this song from the rhythm alone. How many songs are identifiable as such, that you can play it on a door without pitch or timbre or nothing? Probably just this, William Tell Overture, “Immigrant Song”, […]
Halloween
It’s Halloween and that means it’s time for minor chords. Aeolian and Melodic. Hungarian and Harmonic. Chromatic like a carnival. October is the month of minor pop odes like “Thriller”, a mostly Dorian groove, and the reverse picardy choruses of the mostly Mixolydian “Ghostbusters”. Speaking of which, all the classic Halloween themes come from movies. […]
Black Unstemmed Noteheads
The second song off our new album is a bright up-tempo tune with a whole-tone hook. Drag over the black stemmed noteheads. “Black Unstemmed Noteheads” is a song about songs—a kind of metasong if you will, and I know you will. If this blog could write songs, it would sound like this. A kind of […]
Mockingjays
Spring has sung, and the birds are back. And not just the songbirds either, but naughty little fuckbirds1 too. Black-Capped-Fuckadees that go fuck-a-dee-dee-dee2. Songless Woodfuckers3 who can only drum out their love. Bluefucks and yellow-tailed whippoorfucks. Perhaps they are speaking the divine dirty ‘language of the birds’. Or just letting their harmonic throats do the […]
Bloggies
Lost Sound Mike Tyson Entrance Music Clown Horn Verifone AhwoogaBa Dum Tss Pong Sounds iPhone Alarm Amazon Chime Bike Bell Whippoorwill Oatly Jingle Nailed It The Losing Horn Duolingo: The Sound of Failure Duolingo: The Sound of Success The DiC Bumper The Diarrhea Song Air Horn Jigglypuff Melody Nard Dog Melody Braying Melodies Red-Tailed Hawk […]
