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HIGHLY_THEORETICAL_NOTES

                                              January 30, 2005

I was pacing around,
envisioning doing a         Which is a
lecture on music theory.    pretty funny
                            ambition on my      I am not precisely
                            part.               an idiot about such
                                                things, but I'm
                                                definitely a guy
                                                who learned his
                                                music theory on the
                                                street.


I was thinking about explaining
"counterpoint" by playing
a C major chord with each hand,            Our definition of
then playing the notes individually        "keys" and "chords"
with each hand, playing one chord          are cultural artifacts,
upward and the other down; one time        right?
in synch, another time staggered
alternating each hand.                        How do other
                                              cultures structure
A couple of points:                           their musics?

(1) the notes being played
are clearly harmonically
connected.                     You can probably
                               over do this, yes?   Best to take it easy
                                                    on the sugar, use
                                                    harmony and rhyme
                                                    cautiously (if not
                                                    sparsely).

(2) When in sync, clearly
you've got counterpoint:
two separate melodies
overlayed, both
rhythmically and
harmonically connected.

     When played out of sync,
     is it two melodies in
     counter-point, or one
     angular melody?

          A matter of perspective.

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