The Exciting Universe Of Music Theory

A new scale property

Added 2024-10-08 13:29:21 +0000 UTC

Hi!
Lately I have been corresponding with a music theorist named Brian Leonard, who has developed a measurement of intervallic content that he named "Brightness". I've added it to the scale detail pages, along with a notation system also used by Leonard in his work.

The Brightness property is very simple -- it is literally just the sum of the pitch class numbers (assuming the sonority is transposed so the root tone is zero). In other words, the total of the distances of each tone from the root. Added together, they tell you how much "brightness" exists within the sonority, with the definition that a higher/sharper pitch is bright, while a lower/flatter pitch is dark.

Leonard doesn't stop there; there are consequences and interesting conclusions that come from observing brightness that I haven't detailed on the website, but I am going to write about them in the book. This is all with Brian's permission and blessing -- he has been working with the brightness framework since the 1970s and his findings are quite robust, and I'm delighted that he shared it with me, to share with you.

Thanks to the new patrons who have joined! Your support keeps the web server paid-for and I even had a little extra (after taxes) to buy a new theory book by Allen Van Wert. I hope you are all well and embracing the seasonal transition.

Cheers
Ian