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Magic chord
Musical chord From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Magic Chord is a chord and installation (1984) created by La Monte Young, consisting of the pitches E, F, A, B♭, D, E, G, and A, in ascending order and used in works including his The Well-Tuned Piano and Chronos Kristalla (1990).[1] The latter was performed by the Kronos Quartet and features all notes of the magic chord as harmonics on open strings.[1] The quartet has been described as, "offer[ing] perhaps the ultimate challenge in performing in a just environment".[4]
Magic chord (as played in The Well-Tuned Piano).[3]
Described as, "complex and throbbing", the chord does not contain its fundamental (see root chords),[5] E♭, and is a subset of the Romantic Chord,[6] G-Dorian in eight octaves, spelled G, A, B, C, D, E, F♯, G.[7] "When the Magic Opening Chord is obtained by playing the Opening Chord at one end of a room while the Magic Chord is played at the other (as Young set it up for me), the feeling-changes of the stereo effect as you move back and forth[-]are dazzling."[5] The opening chord consists of E♭, B♭, C, E♭, F, B♭ (ratios 4:6:7:8:9:12 ⓘ),[8] adding C[9] and E♭ to the magic chord when combined as the magic opening chord (ⓘ).
The Well-Tuned Piano is based on a pitch lattice of perfect fifths and harmonic sevenths, tuned as follows:[10][11]
For example, G (21/16) is the harmonic seventh of the perfect fifth (7/4 * 3/2 = 21/16):
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