What Is the Third Estate? What Is the Third Estate? What Is the Third Estate? () is a political pamphlet written in January 1789, shortly before the outbreak of the French Revolution, by the French thinker and clergyman Abbé Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès (1748–1836). The pamphlet was Sieyès' response to finance minister Jacques Necker's invitation for writers to state how they thought the Estates-General should be organized. In the pamphlet, Sieyès argues that the third estate – the common people of France – constituted a complete nation within itself and had no need of the "dead weight" of the two other orders, the first and second
Ladder of thirds Ladder of thirds A ladder of thirds (coined by van der Merwe 1989, adapted from Curt Sachs) is similar to the circle of fifths, though a ladder of thirds differs in being composed of thirds, major or minor, and may or may not circle back to its starting note and thus may or may not be an interval cycle. Triadic chords may be considered as part of a ladder of thirds. It is a modal frame found in Blues and British folk music. Though a pentatonic type, the melodies come "into being through piling up thirds below and/or above a