Leonard Angelo Art

Clockwise and the Color Wheel 11

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In music theory, the following seems to be true:

  • An octave consists of 7 individual tones, 5 transitional semitones and the original starting tone in a higher pitch.
  • The result is 7+5= twelve points of transition in the cycle from the first tone to the same tone in higher pitch, much like the clock face moves from 12 back to 12 to complete its cycle
  • The pitches are named with the letters A to G, that’s 7 letters that cycle back to A to complete a count of 8 (octave)
  • Although the alphabet starts with A and it would make a lot of sense that most musical cycles begin with A, that’s not how it works at all
  • An octave can begin with any letter, the only rule being that it cycles back to that same letter and skips from G to A wherever that occurs in the sequence
  • The most popular and simple of all cycles, unfortunately, starts with C, not A.
  • The C octave cycle would advance from C to D to E to F to G to A to B back to C.

    • Hold on, that’s only 8 and I said there were 12.

    Then things get annoying and confusing for complicated reasons.

    • There are 7 tone transitions represented by letters, but also 5 additional semitones (or inbetween transitions).
    • To get from C to D is 1 step, but between them is a half-step.
    • Representing this on the clock face/color wheel – C is 12 o’clock/Yellow and D is 2 o’clock/Green
    • Between is 1 o’clock/Yellow-Green

      • It’s a mess because of how music theory works, but I think I can find the way in.

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      Leonard Angelo ArtBy Leonard Angelo