Kreative Komments

My friend brought this up one day while I was procrastinating. I thought, What if music theory were likened to forming a relationship? This came about. Warning: Geekiness ahead. Approach with caution.

You start in C major. You find a girl at a bar (party, dance, gala event) and innocently begin talking with her. You make a move in G major as she and you begin to find comfort with one another. You might be a sly dog and go into F major, then back to G major. You continue this cadence as your new girl and you slowly but surely become friends.

This movement ends as you invite her back to your place. Starting in F major this time, you two become more comfortable and chat idly. Perhaps you pour her a drink. Perhaps you two get somewhat smashered. You two slip into the bedroom and hence into B-flat major, a key which signifies cheerful love. But you know what love you want. As you two make hanky-panky, a smooth ballad in E-flat major flows betwixt the both of you. Perhaps her soul will regress to C minor, scales of unhappy love, scales of “Why am I in bed with this strange man who I’ve only just met”. But you don’t go here.

A week after this encounter, and you two have been talking regularly. You’re past that wild and sex-crazed initial stage, and you two are considering going steady. D major plays; you’ve triumphed! Maybe this is it! Maybe you’ve found the love of your life! Hallelujah! You play A and G major along with it; these are all keys which signify some sort of feeling of love, innocence, or pleasantness with the world. This movement ends, and you are satisfied.

However, as you leave your apartment, the third of your D major chord lilts into something minor as you begin the third movement. You watch as your new girl walks down the street laughing and smiling — with another dude’s arm around her. They’re playing tunes in C major, but all you can hear is your D minor clashing with G-sharp, creating tritones and harmonic dischord. None of these chords signify anything happy. They are sad chords. Very, very sad chords. Cymbals clash, horns blare uncouthly, violin strings screech. Your orchestra of feelings is falling apart.

You sit at home and brood. You brood with an G-minor chord hanging above your head. A key of brooding. A failed scheme. Your relationship has failed. But you realize that you can’t just brood forever. So what do you do? You change that D into a C and suddenly you’ve got three notes of a C7 chord. Suddenly you’re feeling jazzy. You want to break out and dance. You dance to your jazzy feelings. You think, Who needs that chick? There are plenty of fish in the sea!

And so, ending your magnum opus almost where you left off, you dance down to the club to your C7 cadence in search of a new sonata.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is exactly my thought process when it comes to girls.

~William Sisskind
March 2, 2010