Back to coding!

I've spent the last couple of months storyboarding my first batch of lessons, on Musical Sounds, the Harmonic Series, the Diatonic Scale, Modes of the Diatonic Scale, Diatonic Intervals, and the Major-Minor Axis.

Now, I'm going to start coding them up as interactive lessons, using Flex/Flash and some video. This is going to take me a while, as my coding skills are still pretty rusty. Adobe's about to release Flex 4, which I should probably use instead of Flex 3, so that my de-rustified coding skills can be as up-to-date as possible.

Once my first batch of lessons is online and gathering feedback, I expect to start storyboarding the next batch, covering Diatonic Triads and Modal Harmony, making extensive use of JIMS™ Tonnetz, which is of course aligned with JIMS™ Keyboard (see www.igetitmusic.com/papers/Perception.pdf).

The tonnetz is a great tool or exposing the relationships among triads. Consider this depiction of the neo-Riemannian PLR relationships between the C minor triad, labeled Q, and its three neighbors on a tonnetz:

This graphic shows that performing, on Q, the

• Relative operation produces Q's R-major triad (Eb-G-Bb);
• Parallel operation produces Q's P-major triad (C-E-G);
• Leading-tone exchange operation prodices Q's L-major triad (Ab-C-Eb).

Obviously, just because I'm using a tonnetz doesn't mean that I have to emphasize a neo-Riemannian approach to harmony. I can use a more neo-Rameau-ian(?), root-movement-oriented approach instead. The point is that using a tonnetz enables me to go either way, or to mix and match as appropriate.

The best thing about this is that JIMS Tonnetz is not some abstract representation of tonal space, but is, instead, a concrete aspect of JIMS Keyboard, as implemented on a computer's standard QWERTY keyboard:

Being able to relate JIMS Tonnetz directly to the sound-controlling JIMS Keyboard should make it possible for me to SHOW people how chords relate to each other, rather than trying to EXPLAIN it.

Also, the tonnetz is the dual graph of Schoenberg's chart of the regions, which is rather handy.

However, for now, I must stop thinking about harmony and start thinking about coding up the first batch of lessons.