Yours portly released a new album earlier this summer, Heptadic Structure. It’s an exploration of pieces in 7/4, 7/8, and 7/16 time. Each piece is twenty-one written measures, for a total of 147 measures across the seven pieces. Also, 14+7=21. Math is fun!
You can listen to and/or purchase the album at the following links:
This week I’m featuring the final track from that album, and my second favorite after “Balladic Processional“: the experimental tone poem “Akhenaten“:
Yours portly released a new album earlier this summer, Heptadic Structure. It’s an exploration of pieces in 7/4, 7/8, and 7/16 time. Each piece is twenty-one written measures, for a total of 147 measures across the seven pieces. Also, 14+7=21. Math is fun!
You can listen to and/or purchase the album at the following links:
This week I’m featuring the sixth track from the album, “Nobles Gases.“ I did not realize until now that I mistakenly titled this piece “Nobles,” with an “S”; it’s supposed to be “Noble Gases,” but I apparently copy-pasted that errant “S” into all of the versions of the song, including what went to digital streaming services, so the title is now, and forever more shall be, “Nobles Gases”—ha!
Yours portly released a new album earlier this summer, Heptadic Structure. It’s an exploration of pieces in 7/4, 7/8, and 7/16 time. Each piece is twenty-one written measures, for a total of 147 measures across the seven pieces. Also, 14+7=21. Math is fun!
You can listen to and/or purchase the album at the following links:
This week I’m featuring the fifth track from the album, “C20r4735 (Chorales)“; the numbers in the title add up to 21—hey-oh!
Yours portly released a new album in July, Heptadic Structure. It’s an exploration of pieces in 7/4, 7/8, and 7/16 time. Each piece is twenty-one written measures, for a total of 147 measures across the seven pieces. Math is fun!
You can listen to and/or purchase the album at the following links:
Of course, now I have an even newer album out, White Boy Summer. I’ll be featuring some of its tracks in the weeks to come. For this Lazy Sunday, however, I’m taking a look back at the first three Open Mic Adventures to feature tunes from Heptadic Structure:
Happy Sunday—and Happy Listening!
—TPP
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Yours portly released a new album earlier this month, Heptadic Structure. It’s an exploration of pieces in 7/4, 7/8, and 7/16 time. Each piece is twenty-one written measures, for a total of 147 measures across the seven pieces. Math is fun!
You can listen to and/or purchase the album at the following links:
This week I’m featuring the third track from the album, “Balladic Processional.” It’s a tuba solo with harpsichord accompaniment. I boasted on Facebook that it’s the “best tuba and harpsichord piece ever composed (because it might be the *only* tuba and harpsichord piece ever composed)”; that was incorrect. There is piece by Mack LaMont called Seven Movements for Harpsichord and Tuba. It’s worth a listen in and of itself.
Regardless, I really like “Balladic Processional.” I hope you will, too.
Yours portly released a new album last week, Heptadic Structure. It’s an exploration of pieces in 7/4, 7/8, and 7/16 time. Each piece is twenty-one written measures, for a total of 147 measures across the seven pieces. Math is fun!
You can listen to and/or purchase the album at the following links:
This week I’m featuring the second track from the album, a duet for violin and cello called “Angularity“:
My latest album, Heptadic Structure, is out now. I’m writing this post before the album’s publication date (Sunday, 7 July 2024), so I don’t have all of the links to the album on various streaming platforms, but it’s available on all of them except Spotify. You can also purchase it for $7 on Bandcamp.
Apple Music listeners can listen here.
For the next few weeks I’ll be featuring YouTube videos of the seven tracks from the album. Today we’re starting with the title track, “Heptadic Structure“:
My latest release, Heptadic Structure, is out today on Bandcamp!
It’s one of my more unusual releases. It’s an experimental electronic album consisting of seven pieces written in variations of 7/X time signatures (7/4, 7/8, and/or 7/16). Each piece consists of 21 measures, for a total of 147 measures of written music. 14 + 7 = 21, and 21/7 = 3. 3 represents the Holy Trinity, and 7 represents God’s Divine Number.
If that made your head hurt, no worries—you can just listen to the music and enjoy! Ranging from classical (“Angularity“) to weirdly experimental (“Akhenaten“) to melodious (“Balladic Processional“) and beyond, Heptadic Structure is a mathematically musical journey through time and space.
The title derives from the somewhat dubious field of Biblical numerology. When I conceived of an album built upon the number 7, I cast about for a good name. I searched online for “Heptadic Stucture” and came up with the numerological concept.
I would caution believing Christians not to dive too deeply into Biblical numerology. While I do think it’s fascinating that there appears to be some kind of underlying mathematical structure to God’s Word, it’s too easy to fall into Gnostic heresy. As Christians, we should rely on God’s Word, not an alleged pattern of numbers that may or may not be woven into it.
Regardless, it makes for a cool concept for an album!
You can purchase the album for $7 (ha!) on Bandcamp.
It’s also streaming on all the major platforms (except Spotify):
Happy Listening!
—TPP
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Yours portly took a brief break from composing to catch up on some other work, but I’m back to composing, albeit not with quite the same intensity as during the late winter months. I released Leftovers II earlier this month, and Four Mages is coming very soon (2 May 2024). I’ve also completed a funk album, Advanced Funkification, which is coming on 7 June 2024.
If you’d like to listen to Leftovers II, you can find it at the following sites:
Bandcamp ($5 digital download; free streaming for the first three plays): https://tjcookmusic.bandcamp.com/album/leftovers-ii
Amazon Music: https://amzn.to/3xhlvpf
Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/album/leftovers-ii/1735073852
Qobuz (I didn’t even know this service existed!): https://www.qobuz.com/us-en/album/leftovers-ii-tyler-james-cook/hjdpc1g41uucb
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4tLWAlU5O8&list=OLAK5uy_mHn2PKIwpFAbXD8MicZpWdGLHzkql9DvgI figured that was a pretty good slate of releases, and that I might take a rest. But then I started jotting down a little melody in the incredibly rare (and, admittedly, self-indulgent) time signature of 7/16:
What resulted was the piece “Heptadic Structure.” The piece itself is exactly twenty-one written measures (although it’s technically longer with repeats).
That gave me an idea: if I wrote seven pieces in 7/X time consisting of twenty-one measures each, I’d have a total of 147 measures of music. 14 + 7 = 21. There’s a beautiful mathematical symmetry there.
Why 21? It’s the multiple of 3 and 7. Three represents the Holy Trinity; seven is God’s Number, a heavenly number. So 21 is a reference to the Trinity and Heaven.
I came upon the term “Heptadic Structure” when looking for a title for this piece. Apparently, the concept of a heptadic structure is nothing new, and is a major concept in the rather esoteric field of Biblical numerology. The argument is that various portions of the Bible breakdown in mathematically consistent and beautiful ways, always with the number 7. It’s a fascinating concept, one about which I only possess a passing familiarity, but I love these mathematical structures. Maybe it’s all a grand coincidence—or, more likely, it’s all part of God’s Grand Design.
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