Written in the rural reaches
of central California, where I settled with my teenage son, having recently
returned from concertizing in Europe. We lived next to the
Tuolumne River outside of Yosemite National Park. The lyric, coming
after the music, is based upon an Australian legend, of a bird that must
pierce itself to death in order to sing a song that stops the world to listen.
It is used here as a metaphor for the Messianic sacrifice.
Thornbird is a landmark
piece for me, resulting from time to more carefully explore the possibilities
of the music I had been involved with throughout my life - to somehow make
workable some of the harmonic practices of 20th century classical music
with the improvisating discipline of mainstream jazz. And further,
to make it singable as well.
Thornbird utilizes the
oM (diminished major) chord. In classical music it is identified as
an inversion of a 9th chord, voiced from the major 3rd and without its root
- the dominant minor 9th with major and minor 3rds - the “VII” chord, referred
to with quotes in classical theory, regarded as an incomplete V9 with major
and minor thirds.
In jazz, the oM is also a chord
we know as a dominant seventh with flat and sharp 9th. It is given
various root names, depending on a tonal center being referred to.
It is the basis of quartal comping by many mainstream jazz pianists.
The reasons I have given the chord its new identity can be found in my book,
The 8-Tone Quarto-Modes Concept.
NOTE
Each
note in the music is natural unless otherwise
indicated
by an accidental or tied to an accidental.
NOTE
The
symbol oM (diminished-major) is spelled-out in the Notated Piano
demonstration
of Thornbird, which version does not contain the
introductory
section of the Piano-Vocal lead below. See more about
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