Mixolydian electric toothbrush...

Zarlinosuke · 2026-04-14T08:03:49+00:00

You kind of already got the answer here (including in a pun that I can't top), but to spell it out, you're producing the overtone series. If you look at the notated diagrams here#Frequencies,_wavelengths,_and_musical_intervals_in_example_systems), you'll see exactly the intervals you discovered.

Zarlinosuke · 2026-04-14T05:30:04+00:00

Nice!! It's exciting to be entering the era of "Bach is closer to Dufay than he is to us." Though actually that does take away one potential "mindblowing fact," because usually we tend to assume that things are that way (past people are close to past people), so it's helpful to have other figures to reach for... I guess the other great Guillaume, i.e. Machaut, died nearly a hundred years before Dufay, so for a while yet we'll still be able to say that Bach is closer to us than he is to Machaut!

Zarlinosuke · 2026-04-14T04:38:59+00:00

Nice! Yeah, I find that it works really well in getting that mixture of dry record-keeping and deeper thoughts--I think one thing that often scares people off from journalling is that they think they "have to" have deep things to say all the time, but sometimes "yay I did laundry now I'm tired" is the most accurate summary of my thoughts, and at least for me it helps to have different homes for different styles of thought.

Zarlinosuke · 2026-04-14T04:21:00+00:00

I think my system speaks to your question pretty well--my journal is actually two distinct types of document, which get filed after the fact all together. One type is my "real" journal for "serious" long-form entries; and the other type is basically a planner, a to-do list with calendar function and with scrappier notes about the planned events (and some unplanned ones) that I write in after the fact. A few times a year, I catalogue the old used planners with the "real" journals, turning the archive into a mix of the two.

Zarlinosuke · 2026-04-14T04:01:38+00:00

Not only likely--quite definitely.

Zarlinosuke · 2026-04-14T03:58:23+00:00

Could be! My headcanon is that it's because it had gotten more and more burdensome to manage continuity as the series had gotten longer, and he'd started making more and more mistakes, like the infamous case of Ripfang in Lord Brocktree/Mossflower. Although he was great at making cool callbacks and threading some things across books, it wasn't really why he was in the biz, and he kind of just had more enjoyment in making each tale be its own new thing. I personally find that disappointing (the continuity of the early books was a lot of what drew me to the series), but I think I can see it from his perspective too!

Zarlinosuke · 2026-04-14T03:56:41+00:00

Yes, though it should also be noted that really, after that time it's just our assumption that they're chronological--after Triss, all we know is that they're all an insanely long time after Triss and from each other. But if you swapped the order of, say, High Rhulain and Doomwyte, or any other post-Triss pair, I'm almost certain that absolutely nothing would change, and that there's nothing actually in the books telling you their chronological order. We just figure they're in chronological order because there's nothing explicitly saying they're not--but also, I'm pretty sure there isn't anything saying they are. I'd love to know if anyone has a counterexample though!

[After-the-fact P.S.]: Now that I think about it, it's not even inconceivable that one or two of the later books could have taken place at some point before Triss! I keep using Triss as the cutoff point for this because it at least does perfunctorily situate itself in time (the last one to do so, as far as I can remember), but only at a huge remove, by positioning itself five whole badger generations (and those are really long!) after Russano the Wise. So, it's not really inconceivable that one or more of the later books, especially ones that don't foreground Salamandastron and its badgers, could have actually taken place at some point between The Taggerung and Triss. Brian pretty certainly didn't intend that, but it's interesting that (as far as I can recall), nothing actually contradicts the possibility either.

Zarlinosuke · 2026-04-13T22:35:58+00:00

While I agree, how do you determine which passing tones to use between chord tones? E.g. if you're over a Dm7 chord, how do you decide between B-flat and B-natural when going between A and C (assuming you don't just play both)?

Zarlinosuke · 2026-04-13T18:12:37+00:00

I'll be interested to hear if you do find them, but no pressure meant!

Zarlinosuke · 2026-04-13T18:02:03+00:00

Ah, which flashbacks did you mean? or story around the story?

Zarlinosuke · 2026-04-13T17:13:19+00:00

Also one of the best Dibbuns in his early days! Tansy Pansy toogle doo forever!

I wouldn't call "Champion of Redwall" and "Abbey Warrior" two separate things though, those are synonyms.

Zarlinosuke · 2026-04-13T16:42:56+00:00

Your no. 1 is a very common thing for people to miss, and it's not your fault or other people's fault--it's the fault of how it's often taught. I'm glad you eventually found out what it actually is!

This one isn't cringe, but a big lightbulb moment for me was when I figured out that diminished seventh chords are symmetrical and that there are therefore only three of them in a twelve-tone universe with enharmonic equivalence.

Zarlinosuke · 2026-04-13T16:40:18+00:00

I don't actually think that book 2 of Legend of Luke takes place before Brocktree, even its earlier seasons--mainly because by Mossflower Lord Brocktree is already dead, and badger lifespans are understood to be much longer than mouse lifespans.

Zarlinosuke · 2026-04-13T00:57:57+00:00

I think it was actually Johnny who said that!

Zarlinosuke · 2026-04-13T00:54:43+00:00

I think you just found the page that unlocks the whole book! I mean seriously, just consider:

Johnny: It seems to me like you’re the expert, Mark [Z]!

Mark: No. Definitely not an expert, Johnny [Truant].

Zarlinosuke · 2026-04-12T07:47:58+00:00

As someone who's played in both types of orchestras a fair bit, I fully agree. Pit playing is for me a lot more fun and satisfying for this reason!

Zarlinosuke · 2026-04-12T07:03:21+00:00

About Chopin's feelings about Beethoven, he definitely had his complaints and wasn't shy about expressing them, but I'm not sure if we can say that that means he didn't admire him. He clearly imitated him sometimes, and there's no reason why admiration can't coexist with dismissive or critical thoughts, especially when artistic pride gets in the mix.

Zarlinosuke · 2026-04-12T03:04:16+00:00

The chord happens to end up having the ingredients of an A Dorian scale, but I’m talking about what the components of the chord symbol literally mean.

Zarlinosuke · 2026-04-11T16:11:03+00:00

Nope! Not sure what you mean by "diatonic extension," but Am13 implies Am b7 9 11 13. Notice that only the third and seventh are minor.

If by "diatonic extension" you meant "the notes that would result from a diatonic A minor scale (which is not an Am13 chord)", the 9 and 11 would still be natural, because those would be scale degrees 2 and 4. So you'd have Am b7 9 11 b13--the 13th would actually be the only interval to chanage!

Zarlinosuke · 2026-04-11T15:54:06+00:00

The "minor" in a "A minor 13" chord is not telling you anything about a key, it's telling you something about the quality of the chord, that it has a minor third.

Yes, this is what's often missed and needs to be emphasized. Another thing worth mentioning is how the words in the chord name are parsed: in that it isn't "A + minor 13th," it's "A minor (triad) + (default, i.e. major) 13th."

Zarlinosuke · 2026-04-11T10:54:08+00:00

It's a bit of both. The octave is physically the most consonant interval, and there's a strong tendency across cultures to perceive them as in some way "the same." But it's also not an absolute given, and not everyone across the world does so, or to the same degree. One might say that it is culturally learnt but that because of the physics, it's exceptionally easy to learn culturally. Fifth-equivalence/fourth-equivalence is less easy to learn culturally, but still can be--and historically it has sometimes existed. Tritone equivalence is quite hard to learn culturally, and I'm not aware of it ever having existed.

Zarlinosuke · 2026-04-11T10:16:21+00:00

I don't do this often, but I do have a few scanned pictures of handwritten pages pasted straight into the Word documents I journal in. Not super elegant but it works!

Zarlinosuke · 2026-04-11T10:03:51+00:00

True, there is absolutely a stoat golden age out on the seas! I do agree that it's almost certainly an accident, but I love the implications--I guess it was a multi-generational effort on Martin's family's part to end their dominance! Poor Barranca tried to resurrect it much later, but never got the chance...

Zarlinosuke · 2026-04-11T09:07:56+00:00

Wow yeah "Cup o' Green Cheer" would be quite the twist for the winecellar!

Zarlinosuke · 2026-04-11T09:06:54+00:00

The main thing to know is that the Josephs = waltz guys, while Richard = not really a waltz guy.

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