The Chord Catalogue

Tom Johnson (Performer) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Performer: Tom Johnson
• Audio CD (November 1, 1999)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Xi Recordings/Stickfigure
• ASIN: B00003ZAKH
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #598,162 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. The 78 Two-Note Chords

2. The 286 Three-Note Chords

3. The 715 Four-Note Chords

4. The 1287 Five-Note Chords

5. The 1716 Six-Note Chords

6. The 1716 Seven-Note Chords

7. The 1287 Eight-Note Chords

8. The 715 Nine-Note Chords

9. The 286 Ten-Note Chords

10. The 78 Eleven-Note Chords

11. The 13 Twelve-Note Chords

12. The 1 Thirteen-Note Chord

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars hard core minimal, January 31, 2006

By 

Dionisis Boukouvalas (Zakynthos, Greece) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Chord Catalogue (Audio CD)

"I like to think of "The Chord Catalogue" as a sort of natural phenomenon-something which has always been present in the ordinary musical scale, and which I simply observed, rather than invented. It is not so much a composition as simply a list".
With this statement of Johnson of 1985 start, indeed most appropriately, the liner notes of the CD. This one CD work presents "all the 8178 chords possible in one octave" (no microtonal tricks here, just the pure equally tempered piano octave). Each chord is played only once (as we expected in a catalogue).

Having a pure mathematical mind, Johnson arranges his material in a rational way, starting from the 78 two-note chords, progressing with the 286 three-note chords, etc, ascending, until the peak of 6 and 7 note chords (both 1716). After that we start descending again, until we reach the thirteen 12 note chords and the one 13 note chord. These are played as a chord succession (no time to lose resting on individual chords), each sequence on a separate CD track.

The work is pretty minimal, all of the material reduced to the space of an octave, played on a regular rhythm, in a rational arrangement. But there is another important aspect of the minimal character of the piece: Taking the 1716 seven note chords, only one if consonant, the one structured with six successive tones. All others are clusters. The chords with more notes are also clusters. Many of the lesser note chords are clusters as well. So when we come to talk about "all the 8178 chords possible in one octave", there is not really so much variety as we initially suspect.

The rational arrangement of the chords though gives a sense of progress to the piece. The final powerful cluster is a fitting way to end such a tour de force. And most of all, it's a tour de force for Johnson who plays the piece of the CD.

This is minimal at its most hardcore. If you are new to Johnson's music this is not the place to start. I highly recommend his work "Music for 88", which is much more accessible and interesting, being at the same time equally original. There you can even find the piece "Pascal's triangle" which is the little brother of "The chord catalogue", exploring chords consisting only of tones and semitones.