A minor - Research on Harmony - Variation 2

The arch peaks at the root. Variation 2 is a bell étude — A2 rising to A5 at the crest, then folding back. But A5 is the root, not the third. Where most bell études in this series climb toward C (the red minor third), this one stays in the root's warm yellow-orange, the arch turning on A rather than C.

Five notes, Lent, p — soft and clean. A2, C4, A4, C5, A5: two roots and two thirds alternating through the registers, with the final A5 as crest. The palette is compact: yellow-orange of A, red of C, nothing outside the chord. Midtones anchor the painting heavily, the quiet dynamic keeping the phrase restrained.

The root-to-root arch has a settled, circular quality. The étude begins and ends in the same harmonic color, the ascent and descent both anchored in the warmth of A rather than the darkness of C. Among the A Minor études, Variation 2 is the most contained and the softest.