twitter dot com, in one exchange pic.twitter.com/TkHm3yDjq3

— Max Fisher (@Max_Fisher) October 13, 2017

Groovy

Way back when, in my days of college and keg beer, I had a band. And we had a song called "Both Sides." It was a gnarly and dissonant thing, played for maximum ouch. For my part, I played a snarling F#♭5 'power chord' in the verses:

--x--
--x--
--x--
--4-- F#
--3-- C
--2-- F#

It's not actually a chord, since a chord requires three notes (with certain constraints about the distance between them). It's a 'power chord' (root, fifth, octave).

And in the choruses I came up with a cluster of notes that I thought was beautifully screechy and whiny. I played it high up on the neck and moved it around, but the shape is:

--4-- G#
--3-- D
--1-- G#
--2-- E
--x--
--x--

Here's the song. The chorus starts about 28 seconds in.

Mmmm. A-tonal.

The top three strings there are doing the same ♭5 thing as the verse chord (G#, D, G#). And then there's that E which sounds awkward against all the rest, as intended.

So, I was bored today and decided to find out once and for all, if that little mess has an official chord name. It does!

This site gives it two names: the daunting "D/E Suspended 2nd Flat 5th" (yessss) or .... it's a boring old stupid lame E7.

What?

The notes in that thing are E, G#, D, G#. But a standard E7 is E, B, D, G#:

--0--  E
--0--  B
--1--  G#
--0--  D
--2--  B
--0--  E

So how can it be an E7 if there's no B? Isn't the fifth an import note? A standard major/minor triad is root + third + fifth. In this case, E + G# + B = E major. An E7 happens when you add a D to an E major (E + G# + B + D = E7). So I wouldn't have thought that leaving out the fifth was possible. But, according to this site, it's perfectly legal:

Usually one of the most unessential notes of any chord is the fifth. In these chords the fifth is essentially “inert”. It does not contribute to the sense of major or minor, nor does it add any interest (tension, dissonance or sense of forward movement) to the sound. Therefore it can typically be omitted quite safely without affecting the stability or tonality of the chord.

As an example, while a Cmaj7 would normally have the notes C, E, G and B, it is common to leave the G out, keeping only the C, E, and B. This is also true for dominant and minor type chords.

And not only is it legal, it's quite common for choirs and piano.

Always learning.

This is real:

Fripp: That D major chord which changed you from a pianist to a guitarist, what color would that be for you?

McLaughlin: What color...? (pause) I think it could be green.

Fripp: Exactly what I would've said...

McLaughlin: It's got to be yellow and some blue.

Fripp: A major for me is yellow and A minor inclines toward white, which is my C major. Graham Bond said it was red.

McLaughlin: C major, red? No, E major, I would say, is red.

Fripp: E major for me is very blue, a kind of royal blue, and when you get to E minor it becomes more of a night blue, with kind of stars...

McLaughlin: That's very interesting...

Fripp: G is very greenish, but not quite.

They're all wrong.

D major is a strong and heavy arrow. E minor is a sad rectangle. C major is holding on. A minor is giving in. G major is an open door. A major is the closed door. Diminished chords are covered in spines.

11:30 a.m. Trump enters the room

President Trump enters the room, to applause, surrounded by top administration officials and members of Congress.

...

11:45 a.m. Trump begins to walk out of the room without signing the order

After making his remarks, Mr. Trump began walking out of the room, until Vice President Mike Pence tapped him and reminded him to sign the order. Mr. Trump then turned to the table to sign the executive order.

The NHL champion Pittsburgh Penguins visited the White House on Tuesday, a move that seemed to many like a deliberate slap in the face of the black athletes whom the president had been attacking on Twitter and in public appearances for the past several weeks.

The assembled Penguins players were all white; the lone nonwhite player on the championship squad, a black Canadian named Trevor Daley, could not attend due to scheduling conflicts. And then at the very end of the event, Trump said something that sounds like boilerplate — but, in context, was kind of absurd.

“You are true, true champions — and incredible patriots,” Trump said.

The line was a not-so-subtle swipe at NFL players like former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who kneel during the national anthem to protest police violence, as well as the 2017 NBA champion Golden State Warriors, who had refused to attend their White House visit in protest. But describing the Penguins as “incredible patriots” really gives away the game here: Most of the Pittsburgh Penguins squad aren’t American patriots, because they aren’t American at all.

Ten of the 23 players on the Pittsburgh Penguins roster during the 2017 Stanley Cup Finals were American. The majority hailed from elsewhere, specifically Canada and a grab bag of cold European countries (Russia, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, and Finland). The fact that they play for an American NHL team does not magically turn them into American patriots; typically, they play for their home country during the Olympics.

Calling an all-white assembly of mostly foreign hockey players patriots, in clear contrast to the group of African-American athletes that the president has blasted, suggests the real issue here isn’t love for America. It’s how well the athletes fit in to Trump’s vision of America — one in which black athletes shut up about racism and perform the sort of patriotic spectacle that Trump likes.

Perhaps you've heard about the various Democratic plans to make college free for everyone. But have you heard about the Republican plan to make college more expensive for people who can't afford it?

The Federal Pell Grant Program provides billions of dollars in financial aid to college students in need of assistance, but these grants — and other aid — could disappear or be made worthless if proposals by Congress and the Trump administration are enacted.

The Federal Pell Grant Program provides need-based grants to low-income students to help pay for college.

Last week, the House of Representatives voted 219 to 206 to pass a 126-page congressional budget resolution [PDF] for fiscal year 2018 that would reduce education and workforce spending by $20 billion over the next nine years.

But her speeches.

White House officials believe that chief of staff John Kelly’s personal cellphone was compromised, potentially as long ago as December, according to three U.S. government officials.

The discovery raises concerns that hackers or foreign governments may have had access to data on Kelly’s phone while he was secretary of Homeland Security and after he joined the West Wing.

Tech support staff discovered the suspected breach after Kelly turned his phone in to White House tech support this summer complaining that it wasn’t working or updating software properly.

Kelly told the staffers the phone hadn’t been working properly for months, according to the officials.

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