Melancholy and the Picardy Third

[solitary]

'Being young, and dipt in folly,
I fell in love with melancholy'

The words of EA Poe, and I claimed them while still in grade school. Not depression, not mind- and spirit-numbing sadness and hopelessness, just melancholy. A wistfulness, a longing, a yearning for something just beyond my vision, something gone but not quite forgotten, a misty, grey picture in my mind of an empty crumbling castle, a feeling of forlorn and loss. A love of clouds and wind and thunderstorms, that delicious shiver with the first rumble and raindrops.

And the music. I heard Beethoven in my head long before my ears heard him on the airwaves and hi-fi. The first movement of Moonlight Sonata was my inner lullaby when I was a baby.

Oh, that minor 3rd. How I love aeolian mode.

And the Moody Blues singing 'Melancholy Man' back in the 70s.

'When all the stars are falling down, into the sea and on the ground,
And angry voices carry on the wind;
A beam of light will fill your head and you'll remember what's been said
By all the good men this world's ever known.
And we're going to keep growing, wait and see.'

But as I went along in this incarnation I learned to love the Picardy third, that change of just one semitone in the final tonic chord of a composition, that sound that brought all the sorrow and sadness to a positive resolution of hope and joy.

That's why we're here, my fellow wanderers. For the Picardy third of this 3D symphony that has been played in a minor key for so long.

[βαθμιαίος]

Wow, what a post. Thank you so much for that!

[solitary]

You are so welcome.

[AppleSeed]

A lovely thing is the way the resonance of the universe supports the Picardy third. If you play a minor chord in a boomy acoustic, as in a lot of the old European churches, the major third of the overtone scale will eventually win out over the played minor, and the ear will hear a major triad.

btw, in the days of humor medicine melancholy was seen as very creative.

[solitary]

Ah, yes, black bile, cold and dry and stored in the spleen, with the least amount of nutrients.

The old Greeks were pretty much on track. Weren't they the ones who came up with the modes? Like, soldiers weren't allowed to listen to aeolian?

And the music of the spheres. When I was a kid I thought flying saucers could zip through the dimensions on sound waves.

[AppleSeed]

Ah, yes, black bile, cold and dry and stored in the spleen, with the least amount of nutrients.

Rather black bile than yellow (isn't that the choleric?)! Oh, well, I guess we need them all.

The old Greeks were pretty much on track. Weren't they the ones who came up with the modes? Like, soldiers weren't allowed to listen to aeolian?

Yep, but I'm not sure anyone really knows what their scales were really like. Probably closer to the arabic or persian scales of today, than the church modes. I love those middle eastern scales.

And the music of the spheres. When I was a kid I thought flying saucers could zip through the dimensions on sound waves.

Sweet! I had the idea that maybe one could stick the head outside of the atmosphere, and hear the music of the spheres.

[solitary]

I went to a Styx concert once, and thought I heard it then when they did Come Sail Away. Before that, it was the first time I heard the Pachelbel Canon (and it's in D major). These earthlings can make some awesome vibes. Makes me anxious to hear the real thing. Again, maybe.