Greetings and salutations Hivers. Today let's go into another Evening Groove / Three Tune Tuesday post.

As always, thanks to @ablaze for making this series. Lots of people participate in it! Follow the tags to find a ton of good music recommendation.

Today, I was going to return to Japanese jazz. I think bouncing back and forth between Japanese jazz and something else is an attractive posting strategy going forward.

But then as I loading Youtube to pull up some songs, I was greeted with a cover of a famous song in negative harmony. I usually ignore whatever the Youtube algorithm gives me, but this immediately made me wonder.

What the devil is reverse harmony? Is it like a version from a parallel universe that has a beard and is evil? I clicked on it and listened, and was blown away. New plan, I immediately thought; I have to see if there are more of these negative harmony versions of songs and do the post on this.

And here that post is!

But first... what the heck is negative harmony? I am not a music major, but I did play clarinet for eight years in school band and another three years in a swing jazz band; I have learned a bit about music theory in my time, yet I had never heard of this one.

An hour of googling later, I have a little bit of an idea.

First off, I don't feel bad about not knowing about it, as it seems like until very recently it was a concept that was rarely taught. Only recently has awareness of it spread among musicians and started to become popular. It wasn't even conceived of until a fellow named Ernst Levy, a Swiss musicologist, wrote about it in his 1985 book A Theory of Harmony.

It would actually be somewhat difficult to explain if you don't have some familiarity in music theory, so I won't try to briefly do so here. It wouldn't be wrong to think it is simply the completely reverse, the anti-matter to matter. Here is a 5 minute video that covers it fairly well.

Anyway, with that brief introduction, let's jump in to some music!

The YouTube channel author, Steve Cruickshank, seems to be entirely behind the harmony reversal as well as adding the cover vocals. He does an amazing job on every song I've listened to on his channel. I'm going to pick my three favorites here, but I encourage you to dive into his channel and listen to all of them! He's been evidently doing this for many years, so he's built up a good collection of songs!

Here Comes to Sun

This is incredibly well done! What was a happy song, becomes an uncertain one. Not sad or morbid, but the joy at the sun is replaced by, well, less joy. The singer is no longer celebrating the sun's arrival, but simply noting it with a more somber feeling.

The first few notes immediately remind me of A Hazy Shade of Winter, if that says anything about the new tone.

Stairway to Heaven

This is... I have no words. It is so different I don't even know how to begin. One of the video comments says "If Simon and Garfunkel wrote Stairway to Heaven" and I can't put it any better. Just listen and see.

Bohemian Rhapsody

Another one that's just mind-blowing. We all know the original so well we can hear it in our heads instantly if we try, which makes this so bizarre to hear. Amazing, weird, creepy, wonderful. You decide!

Bonus: Help

I wasn't going to do anymore, but then I clicked on this. I love this!

So what's your favorite?

David LaSpina is an American photographer and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku. He blogs here and at laspina.org.