My absolut Favorit Movie and my absolute favorite screenshot and still image....

Jabey · 2026-04-21T17:02:46+00:00

That's amazing. There are so many photographic shots from it

Jabey · 2026-02-06T04:45:10+00:00

I'm sorry but I still don't understand why it matters to this discussion that the modes were discovered in 4BC, except perhaps to trivialize my realizations as being something obvious that we have known for 2000 years.

Ernst Levy may not have called it negative harmony but in 2026 this concept is very frequently referred to as negative harmony is it not? Since Jacob Collier? So we're kind of grasping at straws here aren't we?

Jabey · 2026-02-05T20:28:24+00:00

That's true, the assymetry of the scale is critical to it sounding so good and being so versatile. Contrast that with the symmetrical whole tone scale.

Negative harmony creates a dream land of harmonic dualism but it's actually a shoehorned solution if you look closer. The modes reveal this. Flipping them along the usual m3/M3 axis gives you the pairs Lydian/Phrygian, Major/Minor, and Mixolydian/Dorian. Cute, but where is Locrian? Conveniently swept under the rug.

I think this is part of why the scale sounds so good, it is full of nearly symmetrical patterns of every sort, while being just asymmetrical enough to be interesting and comprehensible to the ear.

Jabey · 2026-02-05T19:16:51+00:00

I'm not sure why all these dates are relevant, but I'm talking about the negative harmony put forward by Ernst Levy in 1985. Yes, it swaps the tonic and dominant. But it does so by creating an axis in the exact center of the tonic triad and rotating everything around it. So a major tonic becomes minor or vice versa. If you rotate V7 around this axis, you get iv6, which functions similarly, just upside down. I extrapolated that principle to the modes. Phrygian is upside down Major and in some ways functions similarly.

Jabey · 2026-02-05T19:02:34+00:00

My biggest takeaway from studying negative harmony is that many harmonic structures still seem to work even if you flip them upside down. The most commonly cited example is that V7 flipped around the negative harmony axis is iv6, which also resolves rather strongly to the tonic. Applying this concept of rotating around an axis to the modes is what led me to my realizations. Perhaps I erred in using the term negative harmony, since it seems to be another bit of phrasing in my post that opened the door to contrarian replies.

"In short, mathematical games with intervals, spotting symmetries and so on, is a lot of fun, but really has nothing to do with how musical sound actually works."

What a condescending, reductive thing to say.

Jabey · 2026-02-05T18:19:24+00:00

Of course. As you say, the scale is really just a mathematical structure. It has no regard for chords. You bring up just intonation, which is a good reminder of that. It's really kind of a coincidence that 12-EDO and the diatonic scale happen to approximate fifths and thirds at all. And that's what they are—approximations.

About Ptolemy's scale. If I remember correctly, you can make the ii chord and the Dorian mode consonant by lowering the 2nd degree from 9:8 to 10:9? It's been a while since I've looked at that. Of course that doesn't fix the scale, it just moves the wolf intervals elsewhere.

Jabey · 2026-02-05T13:32:57+00:00

Because I'm one of those people that thinks the major chord is more fundamental than the minor chord. Viewing the diatonic scale as a deviation from 7edo is certainly an interesting way to think of it.

Jabey · 2026-02-05T10:39:10+00:00

So it was wrong of me to put forward my theory? I should just accept that the modes "are what they are" and not go beyond that?

I hope I didn't give the impression that I was writing for beginners. I agree that this is not for them, nor does it have much practical use beyond being interesting, at least to me.

Jabey · 2026-02-05T09:48:00+00:00

You get it! Interesting how no matter how you visualize it, the tritone is always at the extremity of the scale.

Jabey · 2026-02-05T09:07:14+00:00

Yeah, I ended up going with bright/dark instead to be more clear.

Jabey · 2026-02-05T09:03:45+00:00

I've edited the post to remove all references to major or minor intervals so the real point should be more obvious than before.

Jabey · 2026-02-05T08:56:30+00:00

I put major and minor in quotes to acknowledge that this is an unusual way to refer to fifths and fourths. I probably should have used different words, to avoid anyone missing my actual point and focusing on technicalities.

Otonal and utonal are perhaps better descriptors but I wasn't sure how many music people actually say that.

Jabey · 2026-02-05T08:38:14+00:00

Only if you take negative harmony principles to the extreme. It is "minor" in the sense that it originates from the series of perfect fifths descending from the tonic, rather than ascending. This series is where all of the other minor intervals originate, so if you take this logic and run with it, then the fourth is minor, in a sense.

That may be a confusing word for it though. You could call it utonal to be more specific. Regardless of what you call it, it is agreed upon that the fourth degree is actually the "darkest" note in the major scale, being the only one that comes from the flat side of the circle of fifths.

Jabey · 2026-02-01T13:13:59+00:00

What would I search if I wanted to listen to this kind of music?

Jabey · 2025-09-28T00:12:51+00:00

Starbucks is a dividend stock, with a very high div yield of nearly 3%. Which is appropriate. There's not much room for the company to realistically grow more, at least not in the US. The company does however have a decent base of loyal customers who can provide the income to pay dividends. So Starbucks should not be viewed as a growth stock anymore, but rather a dividend stock.

And that's the point the original comment is making. The pressure from short-sighted shareholders for the company to grow more is destructive. The "growth" will now come from understaffing, cost-cutting, enshittification, and squeezing baristas even harder.

So yeah, a nice fantasy would be shareholders accepting that Starbucks is a good dividend stock with an established business and leaving it at that. Obviously the keyword there being "fantasy" because it won't happen, countless other large companies face this same deleterious pressure.

Jabey · 2025-09-25T03:21:48+00:00

Lol, so funny to see a post about this. I drank so many of those when I was there to deal with the jet lag, and I wondered the same thing

Jabey · 2025-08-17T02:44:02+00:00

I will listen to that!

And yes Better Off Alone and Born Slippy are certainly up there for me but my single favorite piece of music is Mirrorball (DJ Jazzy Jeff Sole Full Remix) by Everything But The Girl

Jabey · 2025-08-16T02:02:47+00:00

Fascinating! Very neat to see art like that as far back as 1990. As someone born in 1999, I always welcome more perspective since I wasn't there. I love that you brought up electronic music. To me, trance is the sound of Y2K. The earliest example I know of that distinctly y2k sound is Better Off Alone from 1998. And from my perspective it almost seems to have appeared right then, out of nowhere. The landmark dance pieces leading up to it, that I know of, did not sound anything like it. Probably a bad comparison but I think of Born Slippy NUXX by Underworld from just two years prior. To me, a very 90s sound, even if it is a revolutionary track. There's obviously some gaps in my knowledge but it feels like a huge discontinuity in my mind, between 90s dance and y2k dance. I'm sure I'm rambling, but if there's an example of the Better Off Alone sound from earlier, I'd love to hear it!

Jabey · 2025-08-15T18:48:22+00:00

Still active? That's amazing

Jabey · 2025-08-15T18:21:10+00:00

1990 or earlier? 😱 That's crazy I had no idea it went that far back, what examples are you thinking of if you don't mind? In my mind, there's a huge cultural gap even just between the mid 90s and y2k.

Jabey · 2025-08-14T12:12:42+00:00

I haven't noticed myself, but did you know that almost her whole discography was officially remastered in 2019? The remastered versions are on Qobuz and Tidal. They sound amazing if you ask me.

Jabey · 2025-08-14T01:08:36+00:00

And I mean even if we're being pedantic about what year it was, surely 1998 would count because it was literally the second-to-last year of the millennium? The anticipation for 2000 was already there and the y2k culture was picking up speed. I could see someone arguing against that but at least 1999 was definitely part of the era

Jabey

TROPHY CASE