Q: any thoughts on why certain collections of evenly-spaced notes sound so unstable? like how can whole tone scales, and augmented triads, and fully diminished 7th chords, and tritones all be used to make you wonder where the hell you are?
A: it's kind of like rotating. going up a whole step rotates you a little bit to the right. going up a minor third rotates you back to the left. if you keep spinning in the same direction you get dizzy