When is a minor second tone cluster allowed/legit/nicely used ?

[maihasegawa]

As a basic rule of music composition, I know minor seconds and minor ninth should be avoided and I pay attention to this while making music. I also know sometimes tension can break the boredom of a song, so minor 2nd and 9th is not "forbidden" - I'm just confused about when do you know is a good timing to use this.

Found an example in "Dark world theme" from "Zelda A link to the past", at around 30', the melody plays D# F G, while the bass line plays G#. I think the key changed from A# to D# at this point, and the chord here should be G#maj7, so the G# doesn't sound bad (actually it sounds nice). But if I'm mixing a song, I probably dare not use G# directly as the bassline note, but hide it within a chord. My question is, is this bassline note intentionally arranged like this to bring the tension, or it's due to the hardware limitation, there's no other way around but using a single note so that it could be recognized as G#maj7 chord ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sslj06K-Nlw&t=30s

[laffik]

If a bass plays G# in register of bass could be...

[laffik]

At this distance, bass can play literally anyth...

[maihasegawa]

laffik wrote: ↑Tue Jan 30, 2024 9:56 pm At this...