Why “Chromatic Mediants” sound so good!

Pitches be flippin

This is that dream where you show up for class and there's a test and you haven't studied or even attended all semester.

Usually I’m unimpressed by music theory videos on RUclips (they give me the same energy as fitness RUclipsrs explaining science) but it’s clear you’ve done your reading and know the work. Great video.

Hey! I took jazz guitar lwssons from you back in 2022, and you changed the way i look at guitar. Got this video reccomended, and by 30 seconds i realized it was you lol. You continue to give MOUNTAINS of knowledge to people all over the world and thats awesome B) keep it up king

This is pretty cool, you did all the hard big brain work and then showed how it worked in simple terms

I was into the theory part, but never expected you to play such great guitar music to demonstrate the ideas! (I'm sure there a lot of people who can theory their way to the stars, yet not play their way out of a cardboard box, and vice versa)

I hadn't yet been exposed to this type of analysis, thank you, this is awesome. I like how the chart shows how Dorian is symmetric about inversion, it follows that aeolian is mirrored mixolydian, and locrian is mirrored lydian. worth noting that this type of thinking (graphically on a scale representation) can be applied to the circle of fifths, where similar symmetries show up. Any major scale is a simple consecutive sequence of notes on the circle. In that system chromatic motion jumps across the circle, suspended chords are small groups & major/minor tonality can be seen graphically. The old trick of moving a major 7 chord up or down a major 3rd is a good example. What would be really cool is a way to look at this that incorporates multiple octave spread, like the fabled 7#9 Hendrix chord (which you most certainly can't play in any old inversion, say with the #9 in the bass). sorry for the long comment. too much coffee. shout out to logitech ergo trackballs.

I don’t think I have ever encountered this level of analysis and i love your sharing and your sound

Holy christ, I can't believe I found this video today. I was literally just trying to explain the relationship between C major and Ab major to my father this morning. This was the best explanation of this I've seen so far. Thanks so much!

Mind: Blown!
Also, the best mic drop ever at 17:23: "Any interval relationship that exist in a major key, if you flip it, it exists in phrygian", and proceeds to not give any further explanation.
Very cool visual explanation of these concepts. Thank you!

I only have one year of theory, but I stumbled across the realization that everything could pivot around the tritone when I was looking at intervals on my guitar neck. I knew there was something to it but could never really figure it out. You just filled in all the blanks for me. Thanks so much.

I was a student of Noel's several years ago. One of the best minds and humans in the business.

It makes it even easier that flipping the intervals mean that every flipped interval is not a note of the original key but since the 1,4,5 are perfect intervals there ain’t going “out of key” if u flip them, that’s why even when you flip the whole key, the 1, 4 and five will work every time!!
Aman

Stunning… feels like entering a parallel universe, accompanied by beautiful sounds and melodies🙏

You've just explained something I've done instinctively for years but (beyond modes) never understood exactly what or why of what was happening until today - the mirror image concept floored me: thank you, Noel!

Absolutely never came across this symmetry, and I was struggling to follow you, but once you played through those chords, the mirror was revealed. Fascinating, thanks for breaking it down!

oh my god I love this. I've been intuitively aware of this sound for a long time but to hear it explained so thoroughly makes me so happy!

Damn.. this really brings some of those nice smooth Holdsworth type runs into focus. Thank you for making it so easy to see these relationships. Amazing!

I have intuitively understood this but could not figure out the symmetry. This is a wild way to look at harmony, but it makes complete sense. I could never figure out how many combinations of weird chords sounded so great together. Now I know. Thank you!🎸

nice. i've always seen this but it never occurred to me to use a circle, which is way more useful. i always laid it out in a straight line. 1=1, b2=7, 2=b7 etc... i appreciate what you're doing. thanks!

Not quite got it theoretically from one viewing, but tonally from the playing demo, my ear gets it. You’ve definitely inspired me to read more about the concept.

This is the best theory lesson I've had in a very long time, between the easy to grasp visualizations and your clear and concise teaching style, it's given me a lot to think about and work with. Thank you much!!

I used to explore rotations of scale shapes on the fretboard: taking a given scale pattern and going down instead of up. I noticed the Dorian thing too. If you rotate it 180 degrees on the fretboard, it's still Dorian. Ionian is TTSTTTS (tone, tone, semitone, ...). Dorian is TSTTTST. And of course, that is a palindrome. I did also notice that when you rotate a major scale pattern 180 degrees on the fretboard, you get the Phrygian shape.

While this relationship of inverted scales between C and A flat is conceptually interesting, I'm confident that it's not the reason why they sound consonant together. The reason any given musical device has a certain effect on us when we hear it is due to how it has been used to express a certain feeling in one culture's Musical history. Purely conceptual relationships like this scale inversion you talk about here don't affect the way we hear any musical device.
For example, the reason a minor add 9 chords sad to us is not because of some objective relationship between the intervals or ratios, it's just because that cord has been used to express sadness countless times in our musical history.
This is very similar to how words take on meaning in normal language. I think the palindrome example you gave is a good example for this. The words in that palindrome have absolutely nothing to do with each other in terms of meaning so unless a listener conceptually knew that this phrase was a palindrome they wouldn't feel or think that there was any special relationship between any of those words.
Rather, I think the main reason that these two keys sound nice together is just that the A-flat major chord is the borrowed bVI cord from the parallel minor of C and for that reason it has been used as a musical device in our cultural history and thus has taken on some meaning or consonance to our ears

I've never seen or heard of this pitch clock, but it makes my brain happy

My ears are enjoying the more recent technology. Thanks for lightening the sound space Noel.

Tuvok covers his cell with notes and diagrams, nobody can understand his deranged ramblings... but in the end he's right!
Actually I enjoyed this a lot, the theory and the playing. Great to have the key to your thinking on those chill licks.
Will definitely try it out.

Congrats, you uncovered all the outtakes from Steely Dan's Aja sessions. I'm sure Larry Carlton has a closet full of notes that work out every possible chord partial at each position. Any major dude would surely tell you this.

Had heard of this stuff but never seen it put in such a way where I immediatly grasped Flippertronical Concepts 👍

I like how you made this practical! Nice work!

Great explanation! This is all stuff I've picked up in various ways over the years, but I haven't seen it all distilled like this.

Movable Axis negative harmony for the major scale harmonizes with all 12 key centers. 7 modes and 5 "hyper" modes.
Axis line on and between key centers on the circle of 5ths works out the same as having all the notes in order around the circle.
C Major
F/C = C Locrian
C = C Phrygian
C/G = C Aeolian
G = C Dorian
G/D = C Mixolydian
D = C Ionian
D/A = C Lydian
A = C# Locrian
A/E = C# Phrygian
E = C# Aeolian
E/B = C# Dorian
B = C# Mixolydian
I thought that was how it all worked out. I had to check and share.
Great theory to work with!

This is possibly the most valuable lesson for fusion guitarists. Amazing!

This opened up my ears with the demonstrations & eyes with the diagram, Wow!

Causally drops the craziest palindrome and then just moves on

DUUUUUUUDE. 🤯
AND(!) I appreciate how you helped me realize how so much of all the “non diatonic” harmony I’ve been hearing in popular music works from a theory standpoint.

Holy shit i think this is exactly what I've been looking for for *years* now, thank you!

What an encouraging aditude.
Discovering common sense' how to's' inside harmonies vs theory vs thefretboard...Brilliant! Thank you for sharing

Great lesson! The chromatic mediants are so warm and enchanting. The major scale reversed is the Phrygian scale. Instead of a rising tetrachord from C to F, you have a falling tetrachord of the same intervals two whole steps and one half step from C down to G. There is a beautiful Indian Raga built on that symmetry. half the scale is from C major and the other half is from C phrygian. The Geometry of music is an aesthetically pleasing way to embrace concepts in music theory. I'm just getting into it but I'm willing to wager a lot that it will be a fruitful path to pursue.

This is the best thing I've discovered since quartal harmony

cool stuff man, thanks! The mathematics of music never ceases to reveal some mindblowing stuff. Its like everything we've learned from the beginning of our education just continues to be this never ending series of aha moments!

Wow, I've never thought of it like this.. it changes everything and really opens the concept up.. THANK YOU, subscribed !

Thanks man took me a minute to get it but this opens a whole new world to explore lol

Absolutely brilliant, I realise more and more that western music is really just all about having the twelve tones felt, and this is further poof, but like all scales and concepts, maps out a brilliant and additional way of exploring it all. Thank you!

I figured this out years ago messing around with inversions and understanding the relationship between intervals when they’re switched around.
I’m so angry I never saw this spatial relationship before as you represented! 😩
This would’ve helped me so much years ago!
Bravo! This is going to help so many people

I watched part 2 first, and felt like I better understood your explanations because of it. So interesting!

This is a fantastic video, I really like the way you illustrate all of this. Got me thinking, thanks for posting.

How modest you are and how generous with your knowledge. I’m now wondering what’s possible if this visual system is combined with cymatics somehow… cooooool 😊

Brilliant playing and utilization of visual tools. Long time admirer of yours, Noel. Cheers! ✌🏽

As soon as you started playing over that chord progression with all the 11ths, I immediately heard some Allan Holdsworth in there. Absolutely love that open airy sound and I'll be playing around with these ideas to see if I can't absorb anything. Great video!

I love that chord progression that you created. You are a mad scientist! 😂🤣😅😆😁

Noel, great video. I have noticed in my many years of study of tone root mirroring this: fifths lift and fourths force.
Meaning, on 2 levels, that that the 5th is a natural ascending harmonic in the overtone series and the same to the ear: 1-5-2-6 ^
Where, it's (mirror) opposite direction (4th) 1-4-b7-b3 'forces' a downward, non sympathetic 'grounding' path(os).
It can be determined by the tonal output which direction generates 'Lift' and which does 'Decent', Major = Up and Minor = Down.

Beautiful theory! Tks for sharing

i think every surprisingly good melody is essentially a diminished arpeggio. i don't have enough theorical knowledge to explain what i mean, but i am certain about what i said.
whenever i hear a good lick, riff or melody (especially a jazzy one), there is a diminished triad shape at the heart of the melody.
of course you can say the same thing for basically any other musical concept. C major triad is also an Emb6 chord. Depending on where you are looking from, everything is everything but my point is different than that.
what i'm saying is this, sometimes you discover a really good song. but throughout that good song there are peak moments where you feel euphoric momentarly. in these moments, i claim, something diminished happened.

That’s mindblowing lol I know a good deal about theory and have never thought about this even though I use chromatic mediants all the time in my writing. It’s like I never dropped out of music college. Thank you, sir

The fact that sound can work in a such a structured way says a lot about the nature of the universe.

Tasty melodies. Rich harmonies. For a classical musician who improvises, this is fertile ground information and thought provoking.

Any astrologers here? Note Red/Blue triangles at 0:01 . They outline a pythagorean 3:4:5 ratio triangle whose sides form three astrology aspects. From root #1 to #3 = Trine aspect of 120 degrees, #3 to #5 = Square aspect of 90 degrees, and from #5 to #1 = Quincunx aspect of 150 degrees. Treat the Root note as the Ascendant of a person's natal chart, then you can see that the Perfect Fourth and Perfect Fifth are the two places of very, very high tension towards the Root (The Ascendant). This is perfectly audible in chord progressions, engendering an almost bodily need to resolve back to the Root, right? The Ionian Perfect Fourth and Perfect Fifth are equivalent to astrology's 6th house cusp and 8th house cusp, respectively. These cusps are sensitive places that are known danger zones for somatizing health problems or experiencing death and letting go. It's interesting that, while the 6th and 8th cusp of astrology hold high tension towards the Ascendant, they do have an extremely easy going relationship with the other significant angle of the chart, the Midheaven. In music theory terms, the Midheaven would be the 6th

“Did I even say that?? Well let me say that” glad we cleared that up

Very cool! I discovered some of this on my own but love how you have flushed it all out, as well as that circular diagram is beautiful. Thanks! P.S. Love how the Dorian (my favorite mode) is so beautiful and symmetrical... that explains a lot!

You have just entered - Steely Dan song writing territory

Perfect timing. Dream weaving with those chromatic mediants. I love this explanation. I have always been drawn to chromatic mediants before i knew what they were called in music theory. Glad I found you! Sending your video to my theory teacher. Keep it coming!

Thank you so much, Noel. I really appreciate your knowledge and musicality.

Thank you so much for sharing this lesson and your viewpoint on it!!! Having the graphics were so helpful. I kind of wish I got this with my theory, but I guess an undergrad wouldn't cover it. I remember the complimentary intervals and even a bit about how some of these transpositions can happen; however, having the geometry there helped me "visualize" it all better, much like examining things through a Circle of Fifths. I'm sure my ears kind of understand it anyway. And I really enjoy the colors of modal interchange, adding so much color to the "bread and potatoes" diatonic major scale. Heck, just seeing all those note relations and then rotating to show Ionic to Dorian flicked on a light switch in my head. I'm going to have fun exploring more of this "flippening".

agree, interesting palindrome, and even more interesting and satisfying progression and melodic improvisation. Reminds me a lot of some of the early ECM artists. Very nice!

First Time Here. The visual stuff was not plugging in but when you started playing it was like you were telling me how I feel. Thanks for sharing the way you play and for knowing what you know and sharing the puzzle of your connectedness!

You're a Godsend! Thank you. An interesting point, the note inversion concept you explained is an actual INVERSION, mathematically speaking. Think addition (mod 12), then the inverse of a 4th (5 semitones) is a 5th (7 semitones), since 5 + 7 = 12 = 0 (mod 12), so -5 = 7 (mod 12), literally!

Woah! I found this video looking into some theory, but I did not expect to see a former classmate! Dunno if you would remember, but we were at USC together (92-93) under Richard Smith (then Paul LaRose before his untimely death). Glad to see you are doing well. Best of luck in the future!

Thanks.It's a beautiful mood too.

Thank you! Amazing, I love the infinite use of theory. My professor who passed away had a masters in music theory. He was brilliant. Many didn't realize Pat Martino was guided by deep theory concepts. Joe Diorio was also guided by theory. People happy with little theory have limited their ability. Learning theory is the key to unlimited improv and limitless creativity. If you don't take time to learn, you will waste time in the end, showing in your playing.

So Cool! "Wind Cries Mary", my favotite song, all the Chords have Vs on the bottom, bewitching! Thanks for the visuals! And, Ive got a Tele with a firebird p/u in the neck, love it!

Waiting for the part where it sounds good. Halfway in

I've studied music theory for years (just as a hobby), but I've never even heard of this concept before!
Thank you Noel

we in Germany call that Komplimentärintervalle, "Intervall" is the name for the distance of two notes to each other, "Komplimentär" means, they complete each other to an octave. To explain it this way is actually much easier.
I find it important to recognize, that those complementair intervalls have the same character. 4th to a 5th (they both sound square), 3rd to a 6t (they sound both harmonic), 2nd to a seventh (they both sound disharmonic). So there are in fact only three different classes of sounds: square, harm,onic and disharmonic.

Man i love your tone

Came for the music theory, stayed for the playing, good Lord!

Nice work, Mr. Johnston. I subscribed with the hopes of seeing more about this topic in time. I "almost" get it. So I'm hoping to see something where you dumb it down a tad for us theoretically challenged. I've been playing for years, I actually do a lot of what you are showing, but by ear. To see it in structure is really satisfying. I am always in awe of the beautiful precision that music affords. Thank you, sir!!

Hey thank you for that tidbit of data. The fact that you ended it like that is totally valid hahahah

in practice, i find thinking about borrowing from the relative minor key to be much easier.
there are differences, (off by one flat), but if you play between C and Eb (C minor) you get mostly the same harmonic characteriatics and beauty as the one demonstrated in this video!
Thanks for sharing, i appreciate this as a hobby mathematician!

Great way to visualize notes without the confusion of keys.

this lesson is great, and I'm really diggin' your tone.

Thank you for sharing this, you made a lot of us better musicians

I noticed that if you take that C that inverts into an inversion of an F minor triad... once you have that f minor triad, you could also add in a C# as the root, and it becomes C# Maj7 with implications to using the Harmonic Minor Scale as a tool for some lines. But ultimately the relationship is pretty fascinating considering as far as scale relationships go, both those keys (Ab maj and C maj) are arguably pretty 'distant' sharing only 3 of their 7 notes. In any event I found this really interesting, would you mind if I created a lesson, In my graph paper method teaching style about this lesson? I'll give you and your channel full credit for the inspiration, of course and leave a link to this lesson in the description.

My favorite palindrome is “in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni”. Latin for “at night we walk in circles and are consumed by fire”.

Thanks man, this was great! it was so good to SEE the relationships of the notes!

One of the few Times when someone explains something more Complex About theory and it actually Sounds beutifull

Amazing playing and knowledge, I couldn't follow along that well but still learned a few new things. I think you could package/deliver this in a more concise or ready to apply sort of way and I'm planning to watch it again to see what I can distill out of it. The tone and plying a ton the 12 min mark was pretty incredible.

This more than earned a subscription. You're a good teacher dude. Good player too.

Very flippin' cool! So glad that I came across this video. It certainly made me click the like & subscribe buttons. Now I'll browse your channel and watch more videos. Cheers from Montreal!

Dude brilliant teaching I just subscribed good job man

im here not even knowing the pentatonic major scale but this rocks

Have never thought of chromatic mediants this way, fascinating stuff!

Dude I really like your professional attitude about Music.
Good teacher coming from another teacher

This is super interesting and new way of looking at theory than I've ever really seen taught.

Great video. Always wondered about why Ab sounds so powerful in C major. What an excellent explanation. Super valuable information here. Thank you!

That's really fascinating. I'm interested in representing pitch objects with geometric figures. In fact, any equal-tempered system, whether it's 12-EDO, 16-ED0, and so on - all of these equal tempered systems can be represented geometrically by inscribing a set of equidistant vertices around a circle. Personally I prefer the index notation to the tonal labels but that's because I'm an atonality geek!

I like how even you are marveling at this whole crazy thing! :)

Sounds great. Beautiful tone, so rare on YT.

Damn great video. Ive always wondered how my favorite rock/metal bands can switch to chords in a different key and sound amazing.

Noel just dropped the keys to a musical Ferrari on the world. 🔥