Ab Major 9 - Research on Harmony - Variation 3

Seven notes ascending from Ab1 to C7 — six full octaves, the widest span in the series. Played Animé, mp, legato, in three — a waltz climbing from near-black to near-white. The third C appears three times — C5, C6, C7 — each higher and paler, the red of C fading to pink, then light gray, then silver. Between the deep bass of Ab1 and these three C notes: only Ab2, Bb3, and G4, the chord stepping in wide leaps.

The canvas stretches from the darkest blue-black at Ab1 through violet at Bb3, into the warm red-orange of G4, and then rises through three registers of the third — red brightening, lightening, dissolving. Violet shifts toward red-violet at the seam where the ninth and third overlap in the upper registers.

The most vertical variation — long leaps between notes, the chord spread thin across six octaves, the third repeated and fading as it climbs. The waltz carries the phrase from the deepest bass to the highest treble, the colors bleaching to near-white at the keyboard's edge.