'Negative Harmony #1' - New Original Music! Electronic/Jazz Experiment + Walkthrough!

grapthar (74)in #music • 7 years ago

After watching some videos on YouTube,

specifically an interview with Jacob Collier discussing negative harmony, I decided to try and write a little progression in this way. Essentially, you take a normal harmony, say I, ii, IV, V, and invert the notes around the circle of fifths, so if I is C major, ii would be D minor, which inverts to Bbmajor. Anything major becomes minor (and vice versa) and anything perfect (using 5ths) becomes plagal (using 4ths), according to Collier. I used this to create a nice little jazz progression, then sort of just built up some other instruments around that harmony. Let's get into it!

Listen to Negative Harmony #1 here.

Track 1 is our main piano,

which begins on a Cmaj7, then goes to a Bbmin7 (I substituted minor for major here cause I'm a rebel, lol), then we move through all the inverses of the progression, using some really interesting chords like Ebmin7, and even some Minor Maj7 chords, which are definitely crazy. I've attached the progression written out below.

The main progression, described above.

Track 2 is those weird

digital stabs I've used before, just added some ambience. Track 3 comes in playing a synth, with a dancey rhythm, miming the chords in Track 1. Track 4 does the same, just an octave up. Tracks 5 and 6 are our drums, which stay pretty simple, just building up when they both play together. Track 7 is "voice" synth, which plays the chords arpeggiated.

Listen to Negative Harmony #1 here.

Track 8 is our bass line,

which also just arpeggiates the main chords a few octaves down. Last up is Track 9, which mirrors Tracks 3 and 4, just adds another layer to the build up at the end. Then, we fade out, and that's that!