Picardy Third

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picardy_third

by tintinnabula • 6 years ago

119 70 6 years ago

en.wikipedia.org

toomuchlove2• 6 years ago

Pretty shifty counterpoint in that example =)

baddox3• 6 years ago

This video has some good examples from popular music:

https://youtu.be/jGaNdKabvQ4

polygotdomain• 6 years ago

This is a very good channel if you're looking for explanation of topics within music theory with examples from popular music. I've found David's videos explaining key changes, time signature shifts, and modes very helpful.

sandov• 6 years ago

+1 to David's channel. You don't even need to know theory to enjoy his videos.

My music knowledge is limited to building major and minor triads (maybe adding a seventh here and there) and I still enjoy his videos.

tomconnors• 6 years ago

A Picardy third can be heard at the end of Avengers Infinity War as Thanos watches the sun rise on a grateful universe.

jessriedel7• 6 years ago

Tangent: Why does Wikipedia use a sound plug-in that doesn't tell you how long the sound clip is, nor allow you to drag a slider to move through the sound clip? This sort of decrepit UI (and the community's willingness to deal with it in perpetuity) gives open-source software a bad name.

And just look at the hideous stuff that pops up when you click "menu". It's an embarrassment.

baddox3• 6 years ago

There's really no such thing as "the community's willingness to deal with it." You're dealing with it, because you're not fixing it. I'm dealing with it, because I'm not fixing it. And that is true of every other individual, until one individual fixes it.

jessriedel7• 6 years ago

I do think there is such a thing as "the community's willingness to deal with it", and that rather than my statement being meaningless/confused, your objection is really a normative claim about who should be able to complain. But if it helps you understand, you can reinterpret my comment as:

(1) All the effort people put into collecting copyright-free sound files is drastically undermined by the lack of nice plug-ins; and

(2) The Wikimedia foundation, which collects huge amounts of money from unsophisticated donors, is negligent in spending that money on ridiculous projects that help only a small number of particular types of nerds while leaving things like this that could actually help the typical donor broken.

In other words, when I donate money to the Wikimedia foundation and they don't fix easy stuff like this, I am justified in complaining.

goldenkey• 6 years ago

Open-source changes from outside the core contributors are notoriously hard to get approved. There is usually politics in play. For instance, why is there not an easy way to copy a link to subsections?

The easy workaround is just to create a WebExtension. If enough people use it, then maybe the core team will take the hint..

https://churchofthought.org/blog/2020/01/20/a-simple-webexte...

oh_sigh• 6 years ago

Making any kind of change in wikipedia is near impossible. There are so many entrenched people with huge egos that, effectively, no change is possible by an outsider.

If you try to make the media player more friendly, you will be given 1000 reasons why it shouldn't be done, such as "It looks fine to me", "People are used to this media player and won't like it to change", "Just go to this page and follow instructions to customize it, anyone can do that", etc.

bourgoin• 6 years ago

Funnily enough, the Macbook Pro touch bar displays a slider and allows you to seek.

But anyway, I agree. It's a shame. Thousands (or millions) of people have probably had the thought "Why does this player work so badly? Oh, it's some weird open source thing. Why don't they just use a normal player like other sites?"

capableweb• 6 years ago

Why don't they just use a normal player like other sites?"

Makes me think that it's really really hard to come up with a example of a website that is not in general audio focused, and has embedded a audio player for some parts, and the whole thing is well executed and the audio player does not have any problem. There is always something.

jimmaswell• 6 years ago

You can get all of that going to the page for the file.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File%3ASchut...

gwbas1c• 6 years ago

It's also no longer needed: The audio, source tags provide a perfectly adequate player with a download link.

tobyjsullivan• 6 years ago

There's information about how to configure the audio players, including displaying sliders, on this page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Sound_file_markup

It appears the sliders display if the widget is wider than some minimum. It's not clear if the behaviour changes between browsers, etc.

Perhaps there's an opportunity to change the default display style system-wide. However, I suspect sliders are one of those things that are context-dependent. Luckily, the pages are editable by anyone and the slider can be displayed on pages where it makes sense.

jessriedel7• 6 years ago

Thanks for pointing this out!

kebman• 6 years ago

It's Wikipedia. You're free to improve it. <3

Enginerrrd• 6 years ago

That's funny, Wikipedias sound plug-in has always been in the "just works" category for me without the enormous amounts overhead of other options layered deep in JavaScript.

jachee• 6 years ago

Agreed. It's even fully functional on my 3-versions-out-of-date old iPad.

jmiskovic• 6 years ago

Social dynamics of open source were already discussed, maybe few more words on technical side.

Most (all?) examples on that article are in MIDI format, which is not a trivial sound clip. The MIDI file doesn't contain any actual sound, just 'meta' information on which insturment is used, which notes are being played, dynamics of each note and so on. The rendering of this data into actual sound is left to MIDI player.

Usually the player will have support for 'soundfont', which is the other ingredient needed. It is a bundle of few hundered of instrument samples. To produce music, those samples need to be pitch-shifted, amplified and reverbed using the information from MIDI, and mixed together. The collection of instrument samples requires much work to make it sound well in various contexts. There are precious few open ones and others are burdened with copyright.

The action of 'seeking' through MIDI file is non-trivial because music state/context is collected from events (just as OpenGL is sometimes called a state machine). So to play the last bar of music you always have to fast-forward from start.

MIDI as a standard is considered a bit obsolete, but doesn't yet have the replacement that covers all its different uses (synchronizing and controlling musical equipment, reprograming equipment's presets, capturing musical notation, reproducing music file or from input stream). In 90s the MIDI on web reached its peak because of small file sizes and hardware-accelerated support on sound cards. Since then it is in decline and its future is uncertain.

Being able to just click and hear these music samples on wikipedia, without installing browser plug-ins or hunting for players/soundfonts? Don't take it for granted.

stanferder2• 6 years ago

It's like the opposite of a "millennial whoop", major-izing a minor chord instead of emphasizing the minor interval in a major chord, only more drastic because of the key change.

logicallee2• 6 years ago

For anyone else wondering, this is the "millennial whoop":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MN23lFKfpck

(the first 3-5 seconds let you know right away)

stanferder2• 6 years ago

I just realized you can do a Picardy third with a millennial whoop over it!

loco5niner2• 6 years ago

Yikes. Not sure how much of that video is nearly-naked woman, but the split-second I had it up at work didn't make me a fan.

perhaps a NSFW tag?

turc16562• 6 years ago

[joker voice] I have given a name to my pain...and it is millennial whoop.

Seriously, though - this is interesting and I'm glad I know have an additional, identifiable reason why modern pop sucks so bad.

I saw one of the YT commenters said they call it the millennial yodel instead. I think I like that better.

eT8AZithxooKei6• 6 years ago

I'd like to know more, what's a millenial whoop?

ethbro• 6 years ago

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=H4P0c9xBu1A

Ericson2314• 6 years ago

You are confusing the interval from the previous note and the interval from the root. The millennial whoop might be a minor third, but that in no way makes the chord more minor. And I think plenty of non-musical people would characterize the "millennial whoop" as annoyingly upbeat, most the time, so claiming it is unlike the Picardy third for that reason isn't putting theory ahead of empiricism.

"Mode mixture" where the minor 4 chord is "borrowed" in a major context however is basically stealing the picardy third sound for an otherwise major piece. "American Boy" would be a pop song that uses this very well.

phlakaton• 6 years ago

I don't see the whoop that way. More generally, the whoop is just noodling around a major triad. Its sound never leaves major tonality.

C.f. on the other hand blues music, which often digs into the flattened third degree of a major scale to make it a bit more, well, bluesy.

organsnyder• 6 years ago

My wife and I are both musicians. Playing a Picardy third is a quick way for me to get asked to sleep on the couch (only exaggerating slightly).

I love using a Picardy third when accompanying sung music and the text demands/suggests it. An open fifth is also a good tool for emphasizing certain texts. Just like other strong effects (deceptive cadences, modulations...) it's best effective when used sparingly.

rectang• 6 years ago

Next time you're feeling mischievous, try an "anti-Picardy third": end a major key piece (e.g. Pachelbel's Canon, US National Anthem, Silent Night, Happy Birthday...) with a minor chord.

senderista2• 6 years ago

When I was a kid I enjoyed annoying my parents by transposing random major-key songs into minor. I used to love doing this to "Joy to the World," among others, only to find later that the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society had the same idea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptP0OR-e7rI.

dnautics• 6 years ago

Scientifically proven: Once every three gigs, and no more than once per every five performances of any given song across gigs. (For small jazz combos; St James infirmary is a pretty common one to get the treatment).

analog31• 6 years ago

Don't forget the Jingle Bells Ending.

raleighm• 6 years ago

In my youth I was "volunteered" to play piano accompaniment at church. There was probably more respectful way to get out of it, but closing minor-key hymns w/ a Picardy third, and major-key hymns w/ major or minor seventh (depending on mood), got me removed.

unlinked_dll• 6 years ago

I hope you joined the school jazz band

microtherion• 6 years ago

In contemporary music, I'm very fond of a somewhat similar device that Krzysztof Penderecki used at the ending of "Stabat Mater":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f403XsOAFXE&feature=youtu.be...

jlarcombe2• 6 years ago

I sometimes help my children with their piano practice when they're learning hands separately by doing the other hand, and I find it almost impossible to resist adding a Picardy third at the poignant ending of any piece in a minor key... much to their amusement/annoyance.

bonzini• 6 years ago

I remember my teacher doing the opposite when we were singing too slow or soft; he would randomly start accompanying in minor or just switch to minor in the last bar.

hunter2_• 6 years ago

I always did react to the Picardy third with a bit of an eye roll, as one does to dad jokes, so you're onto something there.

jlarcombe2• 6 years ago

The other favourite, of which I never seem to tire, is a quick "shave and a haircut, two bits" over the dying notes...

senderista2• 6 years ago

I always enjoy the rare moments when Bach doesn't use a Picardy third. Only a few of the minor-key pieces in the Well-Tempered Clavier, for instance, end with a minor chord. Personally, I wish Bach had mostly avoided it except in a religious context (I think it sounds best with a choir or an organ).

toomuchlove2• 6 years ago

The Wikipedia article claims that in Book II a decent number of the minor-key pieces end with a minor triad, a departure from only a small minority of them ending that way in Book I.

jancsika• 6 years ago

Don't raise that third. Hold it there in the final chord and let it ring.

As you do, say this:

"He's a silent guardian. A watchful protector."

Now shift the chord down by thirds (tonally) to play a lushly spaced, unexpected major triad.

Then say this:

"A Dark Knight."

And finally, play the chord again loudly.

federalemployee• 6 years ago

TIL no one knows why it is called a Picardy Third.

Jeff_Brown3• 6 years ago

It reminds me of the deus ex machina from theater[1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deus_ex_machina

minism• 6 years ago

Two of my closest friends (who are much better musicians than me) and I get together occasionally to jam. It's become a running inside joke at this point that invariably someone will end the jam with a Picardy third. It's so saccharine and absurd sounding. I love it.

Picardy Third

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