Thoughts about future research.

I received a message today from someone who read this blog, and they pointed out some things that they would like to see in this blog.

First of all, I want to point out that I have to do this blog piece-by-piece... it's a very deep topic which spans across 3 different subject areas, 6 continents, and 5000 years of history. So far I've been focusing on the simple things, such as intervals and triads and basic harmonies and basic chord qualities, and on Western music, especially that which originated in Greece.

I will most likely never investigate extended chords, at least not past 4-note harmony, or entire songs any deeper than I have now as a casual observation. This would just get far too in-depth, and I don't plan on devoting decades of my life to investigating this, despite how interesting I might find it.

I do, however plan on delving deeper into the following areas of study:

Cluster chords--Dissonance is heavily present, and yet distinct chord qualities can be heard.
Eastern/Middle Eastern musics--Hebrew music is supposedly the basis for Western/Mid-East music, but what about Japanese or Chinese music? Are there common scales or chords or theory principles between East/West despite originating completely independently?
"Chord Ladders"--Some chords, based on their placement in the scale and their distance from the root note naturally become somewhat dissonant to the chord progression as a whole--even though in and of themselves the chords are entirely consonant. They want to be "resolved"... if a song ended on these chords, we would be left with a very unsettling feeling. Why?

Additionally, I want to delve deeper into many of the topics that I've already discussed in my blogs posts to date. Some key points that I want to find out as a whole are:

Why do we perceive some intervals/harmonies as being dissonant or consonant?
What about qualities of chords besides just "happy" and "sad"?
Why do certain scales come easy to us or sound pleasant, while other scales are harder to learn or just sound bad?

I'm sure that along the way countless other questions will arise, some which might be answered in part, many which will never be answered, and none which will be answered fully.