An Analytical and Educational Survey of Roger Boutry's Mtachrome

The use of this bass line is unconventional in the sense that even though it incorporates thetritone, the first measure serves as a tonic chord while the second measure functions as thesubdominant.Boutry's use of the tritone interval also appears consistently in the vertical chords. Whenlistening to Metachrome the harmonic structure does not sound abstract, but when looking at thescore it is seen that most of the chords do not occur in root position, which can be deceiving tothe ear, when the chords do not sound unusual. However, after careful study it is seen that theseinverted chords occur for the purpose of incorporating the tri-tone interval, like in the followingexamples.Movt. IMvt. EIm. 50These are merely a few examples that show the frequency of the tri-tone used through Boutry'sMetachrome.Based on the evidence above it can be concluded that this composition is built,both melodically and harmonically, around the tritone.