ColorMusic
Education • Art • Music
200 | M.C. Escher and Music Theory
Exploring Escher's artwork to master music
March 31, 2023
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If you want to understand music theory, study the works of M.C. Escher.

Escher is the greatest graphic artist of all time. (In my opinion anyway.) He lived from 1898 to 1972 in the Netherlands and was, for lack of a better word, amazing.

But the thing is ... he wasn't even a musician. Not really. He dabbled with the piano. He practiced the cello a bit (but didn't excel due to having small hands), and even tried the flute (despite his thin lips). Yet he always loved music and was an avid fan, listening to records of Bach for hours on end as he crafted his art.

And wow, his art. It was good -- like unbelievably good -- for at least 3 reasons:

1. Because it's mind-bending, with images that explore (and defy) the nature of space and time ... like these, for example:

2. Because it's also true craftsmanship ... since Escher didn't use a computer to produce his prolific output. Instead, he created these surreal images by hand as woodcuts, lithographs, and mezzotints. 

3. But the reason Escher's art is especially inspiring is because of the way it provides insight into the nature of music theory. For real. Let me explain.... 

Back in the day, when I was first wandering into the thorny underbrush of music theory -- venturing into its dense thicket of musical symbols and arcane rules -- it all felt overwhelming.

Frustratingly so, since music itself has always sounded so simple and intuitive.

But in the process of exploring various musical relationships, studying scales and chords and notes and intervals, one thing became evident:  Music is just patterns. Clear and predictable patterns. Repetitive, logical, and simple patterns that all began to hint at an underlying framework of natural beauty.

And while pondering this nature of music, walking through the hills staring at an early diagram of note patterns, a lovely thought arrived -- which was that the diagram I'd printed (a rudimentary dissection of the guitar fretboard) looked an awful lot like one of Escher's woodcuts ... the tessellation called "Sky and Water I" from 1938:

And with this realization, that there's a kind of order to music -- an order and structure that can be graphically depicted, explored, and mastered -- I immediately became obsessed with charting this unseen musical territory.

In that moment, it suddenly became possible to see sound, to pick it apart and reassemble it using its own natural patterns. To discover (and truly understand) the order of music within the chaos of sound. And to see that music is the audible convergence of space and time.

In fact, it's surprising that it took 200 posts to finally mention M.C. Escher here (!). Because his art and perspective directly (and indirectly) inspires many of the diagrams you'll find here in the community.

To show you what I mean, the following are a few examples. And I highly recommend exploring all of his works -- because they'll help you find further connections -- drawing more inspriation in this journey of discovery we're on:

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354a | Creep (video)

An explanation and PDF is in the following post (354b).

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350 | Extended chords explained

Extended chords are easy to understand -- once you know about the Circle of Thirds.

Essentially, fancy extended chords are built by adding notes incrementally from a key's Circle of Thirds. By including ever more intervals of a third, you can play increasingly more complex harmonies.

Had I only known this in the beginning!

Without the Circle of Thirds, exotic chord names seem mysterious and complicated. WITH the Circle of Thirds, however, everything clicks into place.

🎥 This short video gives you the gist.

For more details on the construction of these chords, check out Lesson 17 in the course: https://mikegeorge.locals.com/post/6051473/296-lesson-17-pdf-video

And the PDF referenced is ChordBook 2 here: https://shop.mycolormusic.com/products/colormusic%E2%84%A2%EF%B8%8F-guitar-chordbook-modebook-bundle

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345a | Theory Course LIVE - heads up

Hey! Join Sunday's stream for the first in the Theory Course LIVE series.

We'll be going through the course lessons page-by-page, playing the exercises, etc. -- with questions, answers, and sidebars along the way. It's a new and insightful look into music theory.

(The live stream link referenced in this video is actually in the NEXT post.)

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363 | Daily Dose

Here's a snapshot of the C Mixolydian mode -- in both pitch space (circular format) and on the guitar fretboard -- which you can play in any octave.

Mixolydian's b7 note gives the pattern a distinctively cool sound, as you can hear when you play it.

The QUESTION is, what is the source scale of this particular mode?

(Hint: Mixolydian starts on the fifth scale degree of its underlying source pattern.)

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361 | Color notation (technical knowledge)

Hey, all -- question for you:
Do you have any thoughts on ways to colorize notation?

Folks regularly ask about software to use. And because we have engineers of various types in our community here, I'm hoping some of us may have ideas, or technical know-how.

I think creating an open source tool for community members is an excellent project! It will be very powerful for dissecting and composing songs. With a tool like this, our collective knowledge will rise exponentially.

See this post for context -- and please tag us if you're interested:
https://mikegeorge.locals.com/post/6059027/hey-all-mikegeorge-ive-been-really-loving-your-lessons-ive-worked-my-way-through-12-of-them?cid=8082688

356 | Harmonic Concept

POLL: If you could master one harmonic concept, which would it be?

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365 | Theory Course LIVE - Session 6

Join us for the sixth session of the theory course live. Today, where we're talking about the visible relationships between notes and intervals. These are fundamental concepts that every songwriter MUST know.

⏰ Time: THURSDAY, May 15 at 6:00 p.m. (UTC-6)

🔗 Link to join:

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364 | Cascading Fourths

Great chord progressions are informed by the circle of fifths / fourths. By simply playing chords of successive fourths in sequence, you can make excellent music.

Weezer's song, "Island in the Sun" is a nice example.

The song cycles through a simple pattern of:  Em - Am - D - G (or chords vi - ii - V - I in the key of G). Within the circle of thirds, you can see that these harmonies progress through states of stability (vi), change (ii), tension (V), and stability once more (I).

But when you look closer at that the root notes of these chords, it's clear that the pattern follows a sequence of successive fourths (Em - Am - D - G):  yellow, orange-yellow, orange, red-orange.

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362 | Theory Course LIVE - Session 5

This week, the Theory Course live stream is on *THURSDAY*.

Join us for the fifth session, where we're talking about notes and intervals -- the true essentials of music theory.

Time: THURSDAY, May 8 at 6:00 p.m. (UTC-6)

Link to join:

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