# Sky Updraft v3b — The Dancing Thermal (A mixolydian waltz)

`sky-updraft-v3b` — levels: `calm.mp3` · `activity1.mp3` · `activity2.mp3` · `danger1.mp3` · `danger2.mp3`

Take B is the BOLDER second reading of sky-updraft — same concept (the long updraft, A mixolydian 3/4 gliding waltz, 126 BPM aloft) under the locked corrections, but committed to the WALTZ AS A DANCE: a fuller, near-orchestral spin rather than the bare swellPad-and-pluck glide of a faithful take. The dance-lead is a BRIGHT struckPiano (correction 1 — the v2 take had no piano at all; bright fits the kinetic, articulate waltz over warm), doubled by a soft-pluck octave echo. The bed keeps the thermal swellPad cresting once per two-bar cell and the sub only on phrase downbeats (groundlessness as register), and ADDS a windChime altitude- sparkle touched once per cell — PITCHED bell glints, the thermal catching light, NOT a wind/air noise bed (correction 3; the retired cloud-wash bed is gone). HORIZON is spun into the waltz (crest on a downbeat, the open 2 swinging into the next bar) and, bolder than a faithful take, SEQUENCED UP across A2 (transposeDegrees +2, +4) — rising thermals, each crest one updraft higher. Activity L1 (ch4-5) is the piano spinning melody plus its soft-pluck echo — the tune alone, dancing. Activity L2 (ch6-7) ADDS NEW material, not volume: the persistent eighth-note ARPEGGIO SPINE (ch6, the structural undercurrent the brief names, present the moment activity opens) AND a warm counter-line a third/sixth below (ch7) — the dance harmonized and set whirling. Danger is the storm cell as METER DESTABILIZATION (correction 2, the §3.8 'ramp tilts stability' direction): danger1 (ch8-9) is unease/losing lift — a soft kick holding beat 1 while a boom creeps onto beat 3 of the even bars (the 3/4 starting to limp) over a dulled-pedal swell-and-release; real material, the player feels the meter tilting, not near-silence. Danger2 (ch10-11) is a GENUINE intensity jump at a sharper 144 BPM danger-section tempo: the full KIT crashes in — a driving snare backbeat on the tilted accent, the boom now on beat 3 of EVERY bar (the meter fully lurching to a two-feel), a ride and spindrift ticks running the subdivision. New rhythmic instruments and higher density, NOT danger1 with the fader up. Dread is abstract — register, density, the meter's stability tilting — never a chromatic darkening and never a literal storm/shear foley. Fully diatonic A mixolydian throughout (the bVII G is the mode's own color, not borrowed).
