E Major - Research on Harmony - Variations 11

The articulation changes. Every other E Major étude is legato — notes flowing into one another. Variation 11 is marked normal: no slur, no sustained connection between pitches. The notes stand a little more apart. The change is not abrupt, but the painting holds a different quality of surface — less continuous, more discrete.

Two non-chord accents sit at the bottom of the register: A#2 (violet) and D3 (orange), both in the lower bass alongside the E1 and E2 roots. The line then rises through chord tones — G#4, G#5, G#6 — three versions of the third stacked in the upper register, pale and luminous. A valley shape again, but the valley's floor is crowded with chromatic color.

Animé, mp, four beats. The étude closes the series with a different tactile quality: the same harmony, the same Animé character, but each note slightly more separated, the colors touching at their edges rather than blending.