Workshop 75 mini-test

1. Why can familiar scale notes sound modern without chromatic alteration?

2. What is the leap-and-recovery principle?

3. What is octave displacement?

4. Why are guide tones especially useful as landing points after wide leaps?

5. What is the difference between melodic skeleton and surface contour?

6. Why does a recognizable intervallic motif make side-slipping sound more intentional?

7. How can triad pairs and pentatonics become intervallic vocabulary rather than arpeggio vocabulary?

8. Why should wide intervals usually be used selectively rather than constantly?

9. What is the difference between harmonic tension and contour tension?

10. What is the deepest lesson of Workshop 75?

Answers

1. Because the intervals and register relationships between successive notes can be unexpected even when every pitch belongs completely to the harmony or scale.
2. Make a larger leap, then recover by a smaller step—often in the opposite direction—so the phrase combines openness with singable continuity.
3. Keeping the same pitch class but moving a selected note into another octave, turning an ordinary second/third relationship into a ninth/tenth or otherwise widening the melodic contour.
4. A 3rd, 7th, or characteristic extension clearly identifies the chord, so landing there gives a large leap harmonic purpose rather than making it feel random.
5. The skeleton contains structural harmonic targets and phrase destinations; the surface is the actual collection of leaps, approaches, octave displacements, and decorative motion connecting those targets.
6. The listener recognizes the same contour/rhythm displaced chromatically, so the outside passage sounds like a transformed object rather than unrelated wrong notes.
7. Reorder and interleave their notes to extract fourths, fifths, sixths, and other contours instead of simply playing each source shape in root-position arpeggio order.
8. Constant extreme motion removes contrast and can fragment the line; a wide leap becomes expressive when surrounded by more ordinary motion and clear destinations.
9. Harmonic tension comes from a pitch's relationship to the chord/key; contour tension comes from the size, direction, and register of melodic movement. An entirely diatonic line can have high contour tension.
10. A modern line is often created less by adding stranger notes than by discovering more interesting distances between familiar ones.

The central lesson of Workshop 75 is:

Before reaching for a more exotic scale, take the notes you already trust and ask whether you have explored the space between them.