Ab Major 9 - Research on Harmony - Variation 7

Eight notes from Ab1 to C7 — six octaves, the full span, the closing variation. Played Animé, mp, legato, in three — a waltz climbing from near-black to silver. The chord steps in pairs: Ab1 and Ab2 (root), Bb2 and Bb3 (ninth), G4 and G5 (seventh), C6 and C7 (third). Each chord tone appears in two consecutive octaves, the phrase building in doubled intervals.

Blue-black anchors the bottom. Violet layers at Bb2 and Bb3, the ninth insisting across two registers. Red-orange warms the center at G4 and brightens at G5, the seventh recurring. Red at C6 shifts toward silver at C7, the third fading as it reaches the keyboard's edge. The palette reads as a slow rotation from cool to warm to pale — blue, violet, red-orange, red, silver.

The closing étude mirrors the opening's completeness but with a different architecture — doubled pairs rather than scattered tones, the chord built in symmetrical steps, the waltz carrying the phrase through every color in the major ninth's palette.