D Major - Research on Harmony - Variation 9

A valley instead of an arch. The melody begins in the middle register, descends to D1 — near-black, the deepest bass — and then rises back, the phrase tracing an inward shape rather than the usual outward arc. Played softly, p, Modéré in four.

Six notes: D1, F#2, D4, F#4, A5, F#6. The dip to D1 is brief and purposeful before the line returns upward to F#6, the pale yellow-green of the third in the high register. Orange-gray and seagreen through the middle, the canvas neither dark-dominated nor bright-dominated but balanced across the range.

Among the variations in this series, this is the one that explicitly descends to the bass and returns — the melody visiting the darkness rather than beginning or ending there.