How Music Works

Just as on electron tubes we reference voltage to cathode, on music we reference intervals to bass.


Bass comes from the Hellenic word "Βασις"meaning root or foundation.


Default intervals added to bass is 1,3,5 . This is the usual major or minor chords. For example using C as bass, C E G on the right hand define the C major chord . Using D as bass we have D F A which is D minor, etc...


If our scale for example is the G minor scale which has Bflat and Eflat,
Then bass E automatically means Eflat, and the 1 3 5 chord is E G B which automatically becomes Eflat G Bflat.
So everything defines itself and we do not have to remember anything.


The game of music becomes really interesting when we depart from the usual 1,3,5 vector to other vectors.


For example 6 above the bass...
Example:
A time for Us - Nino Rota, Ray Connif
(When it says ,Us, the melody is D but the bass is F!



Other examples:
Just Hold Me - Maria Mena
(The fist thing we hear at 0:01 is A bass but melody B which is a 9th above!


Other examples
Close to you - Carpenters
(When it says ,Birds, the melody is 9 scale notes above the bass)


Music is a great game of consonance and dissonance and sometimes the dissonance sounds much more interesting
Example: Symphony 40 in Gminor - Motzart


A nice example of different intervals above bass is:
Us and Them - Pink Floyd, the bass is D all the time at verse (pedal bass) but the vector or code (upper hand chords) keeps changing guiding us to the mystery...