Archive
IJMSTA - Vol. 7 - Issue 1 - January 2025
ISSN 2612-2146
Pages: 13
On the Concept of Brightness in Music
Authors: Carmine Cataldo
Categories: Journal
Abstract - In Music, the concept of Brightness has progressively become a topic of heated debate. According to several authors, when a significant number of Modes is involved in a comparison, it is not possible to exactly establish a brightness hierarchy devoid of inconsistencies and ambiguities. A method to solve the problem is proposed in this paper. Firstly, in order to avoid counter-intuitive solutions, the Brightness of all the Seventh Chords is determined; subsequently, by resorting to a Reference Scale arising from the Overtone Series, all the inconsistencies (e. g. occurrence of Modes yielding the same Absolute Brightness) are removed.
Keywords: Brightness, Music, Scales, Modes, Pitch Class Set, Intervallic Content, Spectrum, Evenness, Propriety
Download paper
