Student’s question:
I’m not trying to get too far ahead of myself, but in working with the harmonic environments, I¹m finding it both fun and useful to throw in a chord now and then that defines the environment. So for example if I am in the first harmonic environment, I might play a major seventh chord in one or two inversions right around the same area where I’m improvising.
OK, well and good. This all makes sense in the first harmonic environment because the chord tones are the same as the tonal numbers in the key of the music. (For example note 3 of the chord is also note 3 of the key.) But when I get away from the first harmonic environment and work on, say, the sixth harmonic environment, it gets more complicated. Now the chord positions no longer correspond to the tonal numbers in the key. For example, now the flatted third of the chord is actually note 1 of the key.
So here’s my question. When I’m concentrating on the way the notes relate to each other in a chord, should I still be thinking in tonal numbers relative to the key (e.g. “note 1” in my example above)? Or should I mentally name the notes relative to the chord (e.g. calling this note the “flatted third” of the chord)?
What’s your opinion? And, really, I’m not stressing over this at all. I just enjoy the theoretical part as well as the sound part. That’s also fun for me.
How we think about this in IFR:
I think you already have the answer because you have described the question so clearly. Both visions are part of one single reality. In the example you gave, the note in question is both things at once. It’s note 1 on your tonal map, and it’s also the flatted third of the chord you’re creating.
It’s no different from using relative versus absolute coordinates for anything else in life. For example, you might describe your house as being at 125 Maple Street or you might describe it as being 3 doors down from my house. Both descriptions are correct. But more importantly, if your goal is to really master this musical terrain so that you can improvise and express yourself with confidence and ease, then you don’t want to settle for being dependent on either one of these interpretations. You want to master BOTH points of view and also appreciate the relationships between them. You want to understand the absolute position of every note in this musical neighborhood, and you also want to understand very deeply the relationships that exist between them.
And just as you said, the most important thing of all is to embrace the entire project as a joyful one. It’s really about appreciating the sounds and enjoying making these personal discoveries of how all of the notes fit together and relate to one another.
If you want to bring all of this into a sharper focus in your mind, then you could take a moment to contemplate two drawings side by side. The first drawing is of the sixth harmonic environment the way we study it in Seven Worlds:
The second drawing is a modal analysis of this harmonic environment, showing the interval distance between each note of the harmonic environment and the tonal center:
Just take your time and really convince yourself that these two drawings coincide, and learn to see them both simultaneously as you improvise with these sounds. In other words, try to learn all of the lessons that these two drawings together can teach you.
SPECIAL NOTE: Beginners to IFR shouldn’t worry about this analysis. First we want to spend a lot of time exploring these sounds creatively, and it’s better to keep our mental model as simple as possible. But as you grow in your mastery of harmony, you’ll begin noticing connections and similarities between many of the chords that you’ve studied. That’s when it can be helpful to draw things out and compare them like we’re doing in this exchange. But you’ll be exposed to all of this through your IFR practice. One of the places where we explore these ideas together is in the theory lessons called “Understanding the Concepts” in our video courses Seven Worlds and Pure Harmony Essentials.
