My previous book, the Thesaurus of Diatonic Sets, describes the relationships between the content of the subsets of the diatonic or other seven-note scales. It served that purpose well, but I soon found a basic flaw in its approach to pandiatonisim. It is careful about the set content but woefully lacking in concern about how sets move, treating all sets… Read more →
The idea was just to write a chart…. Between finding chords for modal comping, three-note groups for Generic Modallity Compression, and pitch collections for improvisation it seemed I was endlessly listing sets derived from seven-tone scales. Tired of the repetition, I decided to simply create a table of the relationships between various sets and make it available to other musicians… Read more →
The Basics: The three Minor Thirds Cycles (like C, Eb, Gb, A) are the squares. The four Major Thirds Cycles (like C, E, G) are located in three note groups to the sides of center. Tritones are located directly opposite each other in the same square, just like in the traditional circle of fifths or chromatic circle. Perfect Fourths move… Read more →
I created this diagram to help with visualization of chromatic third cycles for tunes like Giant Steps, Countdown, or Central Park West. You can find out more about how to use it at Using the Circle of Thirds. Here the zip file containing the original svgs for pitch names, pcs, and a lines only template. Read more →