Paramonde from Spiral Garden by Spiral Garden

Paramonde

Does the dream continue once we are awake? Where do the characters go once we leave them? Can we lend them our names for an hour to live in our world? Children playing in the churchyard, or as they remember themselves in the postcards and polaroids. When we reawaken our personalities each day, and try to live out who we said we were, we are at the same time in the dreams of others acting wholly unlike those selves. Or as we dream and scheme who we want to be, we try to enact the plan from the coffeeshop napkin. We try to hold on to the name of the island we read on the sign in the dream. If we can only do that, we'll have the bridge between self and dream-self.
Or can we at least be the stream that forks and combines again?

Meter: [14:11/4]

This song features a 14:11 polyrhythm, 14-tuplets equally-spaced in a measure of 11/4. This interval of 14/11 is the tuning of the major 3rd heard in the main made of the scale described below.

60Hz = 12/11 (but also at times 1st Harmonic & 144/77)

Scale: 1/1, 12/11, 9/8, 7/6, 14/11, 21/16, 16/11, 3/2, 18/11, 56/33, 7/4, 21/11

The beautiful 14/11 major third is higher than an equal-tempered major third. Compare this to the 5:4 major third heard in Heirophony, A View from the Trees and Shovel which is lower than an equal-tempered major third.

The 12 pitches of this tuning contain three pitches of each of the following (3-reduced) types: "1's", "7's", "11's", and "77's." The song uses the sixth note scales/chords that combine two of these types.

For example, the song begins and ends in the scale that combines the 7's and 11's...

"7's and 11's Scale" with 11 as tonic (A): 1/1, 9/8, 14/11, 3/2, 56/33, 21/11

This creates a major mode that is missing the 4th scale degree. Sometimes 16/11 is added as a very sharp 4th scale degree.

Each of these hexatonic scales contains three pitches in common with the others, but the relationships between them are different. The effect is that each mode/chord feels stable and logical, but through common-tone modulation, the song traverses microtonal key relationships smoothly, whose obscurity may go unnoticed, by design.

Tracklist

6.	Paramonde	5:18

Lyrics

Are you asleep? Are you still?
Or are you in between…
Somewhere in the half-light of morning
Keeping one foot in the dream?

They say when you awake to reboot to try to continue the life you knew
The one you dreamt on paper
Like it’s the only one you knew

But what if the dream you just left
Kept on playing out even now?
All of the characters you left behind
Paying the bill at the restaurant

While you’re driving their writer to work
Where was it they said they were off to?

They say you have to let go of the old
To become the new
Like, They say no one’s an island
But can we at least be the stream
That forks and combines again?
Really, why can’t we?

Let’s meet at the churchyard at sundown
You already know where I mean
Just make sure you’re back by the fifth chime
And don’t let ‘em hear you

Hey, is this you by the cabin
Where we planted your tree?
Is that the back of your hand?
You never showed it to me
I’m starting to wonder myself,
The way you keep dreaming me

Hey, hand me your frames for minute
Give me a reason to blur
I know my way around this park
It’s exactly the same when it’s dark
Can you lend me your name for an hour
They don’t let us out for long

Hey, is that you in the foreground,
Pointing at the sign you found absurd?
On the flip-side,
Behind what the finger obscured
Remember the name of the island
Before the picture gets blurred.

I knew a name who kept changing
But somehow was always the one I knew
Well even the One they dubbed “Chosen”
Eventually will still have to choose

Will you wait for a postcard
From the other side?
Before you let go of that world
That belonged to you
Remember the name of the island
Growing into the stream that branches and combines again
In between

Hey, are you awake, are you still?
No need to respond anyway
Remind me to tell you, someday
What you just said to me…
…

Credits

from Spiral Garden, released April 7, 2025
Ben Hjertmann: Vocals, Doorian 2.3.(5).7.11-Limit Guitar, Piano (2.3.7.11-Limit Tuning), Electronics

Jonathan Snead: 12-string Acoustic 2.3.7.11-Limit Guitar

Graham Thomason: Piano (2.3.7.11-Limit Tuning)

Emmalee Hunnicutt: Fretless Bass, Cello

Will Beasley: Drums

Jonathon Sale: Tabla

Music and Lyrics composed by Ben Hjertmann, 2021-2025
Copyright Ben Hjertmann (KLWHNAA Publishing, ASCAP), all rights reserved.

Additional piano improvised by Graham Thomason

Recording, Production, Electronics, Mixing, and Mastering by Ben Hjertmann, Earhead Studios, Mars Hill, NC, except Paramonde Tabla recorded by Jonathon Sale near Ronda, NC.

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