I Was On The Moon

This is a stop-motion animation of Owen Plant’s song “I Was On The Moon,“ and how it moves in harmonic space. The song is cowritten by Owen and Christopher Tyng. The numbers represent intervals, organized into a lattice instead of a scale. “1“ is the tonic or home note, in this case E. The horizontal axis moves by fifths -- to the right is up a fifth to the “5“ and so on. The lower-left to upper-right axis moves by major thirds, so the next note up from the 1 is the 3, or Major Third. On this lattice, harmonious notes appear close together, and harmony becomes more visually intuitive. Major chords appear as upright triangles, minor chords as upside-down triangles. The dance of notes as they chase each other can be beautiful. Melody (yellow light) is the most mobile. It often runs in advance of the chords (red and orange), and leads them into new territory. The bass (red) moves slowly and by short distances, and the orange notes (acoustic guitar and synth) tend