Friday 24 January 2020

mirrored melodies

A clever musician named Steve Cruickshank, brought to us courtesy of the always brilliant talent scout Nag on the Lake, has created inverted covers of classic rock anthems and other songs to an interesting, engaging and irresolved effect (see also).
The principle applied—that of negative harmony—was part of jazz theory articulated by London artist Jacob Collier and a progression by fifths is reduced and reflected back as one of fourths, converting, for example a C-Major scale into a G scale in phrygian mode. Here’s a sampling with Toto’s Africa but all are worth checking out, especially the Star Wars theme and march.