2c: re-do-ti-mi: Canonical Passacaglia (after Clare Fischer)

The Passacaglia is based on a bass-ostinato pattern, which provides the ground for composed or improvised variations. Traditionally this bass pattern is repeated over and over in the same tonality. Clare Fisher's adaption, however, has a permanently floating tonality.

The tonic is shifted a fifth up or a forth down, each time the two-bar pattern is completed. This modulation by a fifth corresponds to an alteration with alteration amount 49.

Fischer's bass line re-do-ti-mi and the associated harmonization is melodically reminiscent of the Andalusian Cadence on the bass la-so-fa-mi. But harmonically it is also reminiscent of a i #vi ii V turn around in minor. In the modulating version the fifth between #vi and ii is truncated, and each #vi instantly becomes the ii of the new key. In the video the bass line is solmisated as re-do-ti-mi and the alteration is made between mi and re. Alternatively, one may play la-so-ti-mi with the alteration between so and ti.