It was on a tranquil Sunday afternoon that Mark Kramer's "third ear" awakened to a simple but compelling idea: a peaceful harmonic progression that descended measure by measure. This was not a preexisting theory; it was a feeling, a lesson coming through. His analysis of what he heard was simply a descending series of roots—F, D, B♭, G, and then E♭, C, A♭, F — each root feeling like a Major chord. Yet each group of 4 roots spelled out just the notes of Gminor7, Fminor7, Ebminor7 etc. The straightforward principle had little or no presence in most classical or jazz theory: "just use the individual descending notes of a chord as roots for new ones
spread out over time. His test of this at the piano was "really right, different, and sweet." The melody was quickly hummed and penned. This marked a period of
composition Kramer describes as "my hands, not my head, already knew the principles." The melodies that flowed from this creative process resulted in chords with major seventh alterations, something often downplayed or even doxed by traditional music theorists. This tune may serve as an example in which is the philosophy of music, which holds that music's purpose is to express an inner state, may conflict with theoretical frameworks. As others have discussed, this kind of conflict is a cornerstone of generative creativity in any field, a process in music you can see in the works of composers like Béla Bartok and Arnold Schoenberg. But no worries, "Sunday Afternoon" is not Arnold or Bela! It’s just an example of a tranquil sunny afternoon with a few runs around the block! A video of this played by a jazz trio can be seen at httPs://mark-kramer.com on the first page. Then if you can locate the album "The art of Music" you'll hear it's first recording by the Mark Kramer Eddie Gomez duo.