[HN Gopher] What chords do you need?
___________________________________________________________________
What chords do you need?
Author : janvdberg
Score : 263 points
Date : 2022-04-21 13:56 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.jefftk.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.jefftk.com)
| evo_9 wrote:
| Love this stuff, great read.
|
| Also if you have not seen Hook Theory yet, worth checking out:
| https://www.hooktheory.com/about
| h2odragon wrote:
| Cheech & Chong: "and I only know 4 chords!"
|
| Its amazing how sparse a representation of a song can be
| recognizable (and enjoyable!) The mapping of musical meaning is
| due for a new look; the way we talk and write about sound needs
| to be rationalized before we can progress further in
| understanding why and how it works.
| moron4hire wrote:
| I don't know. After watching a lot of Adam Neely videos on
| YouTube, I get the impression that music theory has an
| incredibly rich language to describe music and does have a good
| understanding of why certain songs sound good, why certain
| arrangements sound better than others, especially regarding
| specific emotional cues they are trying to convey. That's one
| of the things I love about his videos, he does an excellent job
| of translating that language to a lay audience. But as with
| anything, full mastery of the field takes significant,
| prolonged effort, not in any small part due to competition
| driving the bar ever higher and higher.
| TaupeRanger wrote:
| Most of Neely's stuff is just wrong or misleading. I once
| tried to watch his video about why minor chords sound "sad"
| and major chords sound "happy" and it was just laughable how
| unsupported his claims were.
| rizzaxc wrote:
| citations needed
| moron4hire wrote:
| I have never heard such a complaint about his videos. Most?
| There are enough musicians in the world, on YouTube, and in
| my family that they would have called it out. I call
| shenanigans and say it is you, sir, who are wrong or
| misleading
| h2odragon wrote:
| > it is you, sir, who are wrong or misleading
|
| Or your opinions just differ.
|
| The meaning of music is in the listener. what you hear
| may not be what others do.
|
| even the Brown Note doesn't hit everyone.
| irrational wrote:
| >they are each three major chords using the first, fourth, and
| fifth notes of the major scale
|
| I have no idea what any of this means (what is a chord? what is a
| major chord? what is a note? what is a first/fourth/fifth note?
| is there a 65th note? what is a scale? what is a major scale?
| what does it mean that a note is of a scale? what does it mean
| that a chord uses a note? is there a difference between a chord
| using a note of a scale and not of a scale?), but it implies to
| me that music is as complex a subject as physics.
| jefftk wrote:
| A note is something that gives the impression of being a single
| pitch (frequency). For example, what you get when you play a
| single key on the piano, or pluck a string on a stringed
| instrument. Many instruments can only play one note at a time:
| trumpet, flute, saxophone.
|
| The standard notes used in Western music and discussed in this
| piece differ in pitch by a factor of the 12th root of 2
| (~1.06x). This means that if you go up twelve notes (which we
| call "half steps", confusingly) your pitch doubles. Two notes
| that differ by a factor of two are said to be an "octave"
| apart, and sound almost like the same note.
|
| A scale is a series of notes, and a "major scale" is a specific
| series where you go up by two notes, two notes, one note, two
| notes, two notes, two notes, and then one note. This gives you
| seven different notes in your octave. We can call these notes
| the "first", "second", etc notes of the major scale. We
| typically don't talk about "65th" notes because they would be
| way too high.
|
| A chord is multiple notes played at the same time. The chords I
| am talking about this post are "triads", which means they are
| three simultaneous notes
|
| A major chord is notes one, three, and five of a major scale. A
| minor chord is the same, but the middle chord (three) is moved
| down one note ("flat" or "minor").
| psyc wrote:
| Wow. I thought about answering and decided it was too much to
| cover. Well done, teacher! They say your ability to explain
| to a beginner without misleading is a good measure of how
| well you understand a thing.
| irrational wrote:
| Thanks. That helps somewhat, though it is still crazy
| complex. But, why is the major scale 2212221? Is there a
| 1212122 scale (end every other possible combination)?
| drivers99 wrote:
| > Is there a 1212122 scale (end every other possible
| combination)?
|
| The steps have to add up to 12 to end up on the same
| octave. I'm not sure about every possible combination but
| there are other scales called "modes" which are rotations
| of that pattern (which can be derived from the white keys
| on the piano, just starting one of the 7 different notes;
| whether something is a 2 or a 1 depends on whether there is
| a black key between the white keys). The different scales
| derived from that are:
|
| 2 2 1 2 2 2 1
|
| 2 1 2 2 2 1 2
|
| 1 2 2 2 1 2 2
|
| 2 2 2 1 2 2 1
|
| 2 2 1 2 2 1 2
|
| 2 1 2 2 1 2 2
|
| 1 2 2 1 2 2 2
|
| The first pattern is a typical Major (associated with happy
| songs) scale. The sixth one is a standard Minor scale
| (associated with less happy songs). The third one is called
| Phrygian and has a dark/exotic feel that works well in
| metal ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DzGlzdbkDI )
|
| (My comment based on referring to
| https://learningmusic.ableton.com/advanced-
| topics/modes.html )
|
| You could have other scales such as:
|
| 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 (chromatic scale, i.e. every white
| and black key in order
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUpKPaKhsEc )
| jefftk wrote:
| A 1212122 scale doesn't add to 12, and so would not work
| very well. When you play through a scale, low to high, you
| generally want to end up back where you started but up an
| octave.
|
| The main other combinations you see are the same 2212221
| pattern, but starting on a different note. For example, if
| you start on the sixth note, this permutes to 2122122 which
| we call the (natural) minor scale. We call each of these
| permutations a "mode".
| felix318 wrote:
| Technically any sequence of notes within the octave is a
| scale, including the chromatic scale (111111111111). The
| French composer Olivier Messiaen did some investigation
| into how many scales can be built, I think the number is a
| bit over 800. Of course most scales sound weird to
| unaccostumed ears.
| bazeblackwood wrote:
| And that's just within 12 tone systems! Scales don't have
| to repeat over the octave, see Wendy Carlos' work in this
| area.
| TremendousJudge wrote:
| Music theory can get pretty wild, yeah. The main difference to
| me when comparing it to (for example) physics theory is that
| it's usually an aesthetic pursuit. As in, studying physics has
| the end goal of understanding how the universe works, but
| theorizing about music involves the aesthetic value of the
| sound -- why and how something "works" (or doesn't), what
| feelings or emotions are evoked by certain types of sound, and
| how to apply this to composing new music, or understanding
| existing music.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| I'd like to see this thinking applied to John Coltrane's Giant
| Steps:
|
| https://perfectauthenticcadence.blogspot.com/2016/01/analyzi...
|
| > "By creating this system of cyclical patterns, Coltrane changed
| the language of jazz and broke the mold of ordinary jazz harmonic
| progressions in jazz history. (Wernick 23). The use of "Coltrane
| changes" is still used by jazz composers today, and has become
| one of the most influential jazz compositional techniques of the
| last half-century."
| tarentel wrote:
| He ignores songs with key changes in this analysis but he also
| does a lot of simplifications. If we simplify this song it's
| mostly just a ii-V-I across 3 different keys. It is the most
| common chord progression in jazz music.
| acjohnson55 wrote:
| You see this in the design of the typical diatonic harmonica.
| That's why it's such a versatile instrument, despite its
| limitations (e.g. missing accidentals within its key, only able
| to play blow or draw notes within a given chord).
| analog31 wrote:
| There's also a huge pile of chord charts published online for the
| jazz standards and the Great American Songbook, that would be
| interesting to analyze.
| jefftk wrote:
| Are any of these machine readable? As long as I don't have to
| transcribe them by hand I would enjoy looking at them!
| analog31 wrote:
| I've kind of lost touch. My "fake books" were all hand
| written and photocopied.
|
| Even the better players were becoming so dependent on them,
| that it was detracting from the music, so I went cold turkey
| and learned the tunes.
|
| An app called "iRealPro" has chord changes in a strange
| format, and somebody once created a Python library to decode
| it.
|
| There was once a book called "pocket changes" with just chord
| changes, and I think it was converted to text format, but
| can't find it anywhere online. The changes are an outgrowth
| of a quirk in the copyright law, where the melody and words
| can be copyrighted, but not the harmony.
|
| Wish I could be of more help.
| zwegner wrote:
| Quite a few jazz tunes have chords here:
| http://songtrellis.com/changesPage
|
| Some of the chord charts are machine readable (available as
| just plain text), while others are images, but looks like
| all/almost all of them are available as MIDI as well.
| tarentel wrote:
| Probably instead of I-IV-V being the most common you would see
| the ii-V-I chords being the most common.
| edelans wrote:
| Can't resist mentioning that old joke : "A pop guitarist plays
| five chords for ten thousand people, a jazz guitarist plays ten
| thousand chords for five people"
| stevenalowe wrote:
| I like fat chords, I cannot lie.
| tjr wrote:
| Looks about right, but I'll still be keeping my 13(#11) chords.
|
| [EDIT: Meant as a joke, but it was not a good joke, as the author
| explicitly addressed upper extensions and their irrelevance to
| the point of the article.]
| np_tedious wrote:
| He was only talking root and major vs minor. No mention of
| upper extensions of any kind. So V7 is still V, V13b9 is still
| V
| tjr wrote:
| You're correct; I withdraw my remark.
| fallingfrog wrote:
| Interesting how rare the minor iv chord is. Offhand I can think
| of only 2: Creep by Radiohead and Space Oddity by David Bowie.
| willismichael wrote:
| It's also used in Hotel California.
|
| Maybe it doesn't show up much in pop/rock/country, but it's not
| uncommon in jazz.
| travisgriggs wrote:
| Completely tangential to the actual content of this blog, I
| really (really really really) appreciate the look. Simple dark
| text on light background. Obvious hyperlinks. Charts and tables
| that tell the story without distracting. Effective minimalism.
|
| I wish more of the internet looked like this.
| spicymaki wrote:
| Yes good point. It takes me back to when content really
| mattered.
| ryanmcbride wrote:
| I make a concerted effort for every personal project I have
| to be laid out like this, fast loading, searchable, nothing
| in the way.
|
| And that's why I do it that way. No other reason. Definitely
| not because I can't do modern design to save my life...
| cactus2093 wrote:
| Interesting, I really disagree. I do agree the page is
| refreshing compared to a lot of the internet these days, just
| because it has no ads and no glitchy, laggy SPA animations or
| slow loading times.
|
| But it's pretty extreme to pretend that none of basic design
| practices adopted over the past 30 years have any merit
| whatsoever. This design is not good. The black text on white is
| too much contrast. The default browser text of Times New Roman
| is less readable than more modern sans serif fonts (this is
| arguably a problem with Chrome's default value though, not just
| this site). The graph titles are not text but rendered into the
| images, and the images have no alt text to help with
| accessibility. The double solid border on cell boundaries in
| the tables looks crazy and does distract from the content. The
| page content is much narrower than it should be on desktop, it
| could use an adaptive width. There is no dark mode to make the
| page easier on your eyes in low light.
|
| The design here on HN is a much better example to strive for,
| it has a similar minimalist aesthetic but addresses most of
| these issues.
|
| I wish more of the internet _behaved_ like this, but I do not
| need it to look like this.
| hackernewds wrote:
| Agree I'd hate for the internet to look like a corporate
| Google Doc. An interactive New York Times article is very
| pleasing to read (minus all the ads)
| rhn_mk1 wrote:
| The dark mode is built into your browser if you set the
| browser embedded style to dark.
|
| It integrates flawlessly for me.
| cactus2093 wrote:
| Huh, it doesn't work for me with MacOS system settings set
| to Dark Mode, even though that does usually work in the
| browser for sites like google that support dark mode.
| rhn_mk1 wrote:
| I think browsers started dropping the ability to use
| system colors a few years ago. Presumably because some
| web sites make assumptions about colors and become
| unusable (like white text on white background). But not
| this site!
| wintermutestwin wrote:
| But that tiny column width is horrible and totally unfriendly
| to those of us with oldster eyes who magnify every web page
| with their tiny fonts.
| em3rgent0rdr wrote:
| I prefer it too, and is like the very early internet, which was
| only missing CSS to set the main text in column with a maximum
| width.
| sharkbot wrote:
| By coincidence, Teenage Engineering is on the front page at the
| same time as this article. I've enjoyed playing and creating
| music on their pocket operator devices, specifically the PO-20
| chip tune one. The sound palette is a bit limited, but the chord
| opens up a lot of opportunity for creativity, especially with a
| little bit of music theory to help.
| codazoda wrote:
| This is super interesting, especially his work on those foot
| pedals. I like to make music but only just know a tiny bit about
| playing. Maybe having foot pedals would help. I also created a
| random chord generator that you can run in your browser to get
| ideas for chord progressions.
|
| https://chords.joeldare.com
| Rodeoclash wrote:
| That was pretty fun. I wonder if making it so you can play the
| chords using the keyboard would work? Also, I changed it to Dm
| and the chord selection was, odd.
|
| Still, I liked it. I compose a lot of songs in Dm but do get
| stuck in the same old chords.
| bambax wrote:
| The obligatory video is of course "Four Chords" by Axis of
| Awesome:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pidokakU4I
|
| Rick Beato has kind of the opposite video about "the most complex
| song ever":
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnRxTW8GxT8
|
| The song in question is Never Gonna Let You Go by Sergio Mendes;
| plenty of videos exist of it; here's one live:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOPh3bTglak
| LordDragonfang wrote:
| I'm a big fan of the Pachelbel Rant as a sibling to the Axis of
| Awesome video
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxC1fPE1QEE
| pohl wrote:
| It's worth noting that the "4 chords of pop" observation
| reference in TFA (which is about how few chords you need to
| learn to be able to make songs) is a bit different than the
| 4-chord cycle progressions discussed in that Axis of Awesome
| video (which is about specifically using 4-chord-long
| progressions that repeat in a cycle) -- but it is still a fun
| thing.
|
| If you do enjoy that, be sure to check out Patricia Taxxon's
| video on the subject, which is a very worthwhile analysis of
| that idea. It might be my favorite youtube video in the music
| theory genre.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-XSTSnqXxo
| not2b wrote:
| The interesting thing about the Axis of Awesome four chords
| is that they are the same four chords that were in the
| stereotypical 1950s/early 60s pop song (Heart and Soul,
| Teenager in Love, Up on the Roof) but the order has changed.
| In the key of C the 50s version was C, A minor, F, G (or
| sometimes G7 instead), and in the Axis of Awesome / Adele
| version it's C, G, A minor, F. Of course Axis of Awesome
| cheats a little bit because they play the 4-chord parts of
| those 30-odd songs (though in fairness those tend to be the
| best known parts).
| coliveira wrote:
| Yes, and this is the crucial difference that make new songs
| sound "modern". The Beatles were one of the first to use
| the 1,5,6,4 sequence (Let it be). Since then the 1,6,4,5
| sequence has consistently lost ground, while 1,5,6,4 sounds
| modern. The chords are still the same.
| uhoh-itsmaciek wrote:
| _Three_ chords and the truth. Usually attributed to Harlan
| Howard [1], an early country music songwriter. A lot of early
| country music sticks to just I, IV, and V.
|
| [1]: (PDF) https://countrymusichalloffame.org/content/uploads
| /2019/05/W...
| pohl wrote:
| Thank you, fixed. That phrase flew right out of my fingers
| carelessly.
| uhoh-itsmaciek wrote:
| No problem. In country and bluegrass jamming circles,
| there's definitely a faction that prefers simpler songs
| with fewer chords (true to Howard's quote), so I was
| amused to see his words distorted. Thanks for fixing it.
| bambax wrote:
| > _Axis of Awesome video (which is about specifically using
| 4-chord-long progressions that repeat in a cycle)_
|
| Well yes the Axis of Awesome thesis is a bit disingenuous and
| the critique at the beginning of Patricia Taxxon's video is
| justified; just because the chords are the same doesn't mean
| the songs are the same! And the analogy is quite true that in
| visual arts all colors can be formed from the three primary
| colors.
|
| Actually, I'm currently trying to make songs based on this
| simple 1465 progression, in that order; here are my first two
| attempts (the titles are a hint ;-)
|
| Alp 1465 https://open.spotify.com/track/5TxVfIf9JUAhCEL3O5cWX
| T?si=86c...
|
| Bet 1465 https://open.spotify.com/track/2ghJN1EtQwXAZZj91B5yq
| s?si=f16...
| tallies wrote:
| I find it hilarious that he concludes the Sergio Mendes
| recording is "the most complex pop song ever" rather than the
| obvious takeaway that when a song is simple enough, most of the
| specific notes being played aren't important. You could easily
| rearrange the song to be easier to play on guitar without
| losing "the song" (unless you're a music theorist and the
| ornamentation is "the song")
| pythko wrote:
| I don't think that's the obvious takeaway. The specific chord
| voicings are complicated, sure, but the complexity he's
| talking about are the key changes and unexpected tonal
| choices. You can't remove those without fundamentally
| changing the feeling of the song.
|
| When I was learning the guitar, I frequently would skip
| passing chords and simplify voicings I didn't know how to
| play. As a result, my covers were pretty boring and lacking
| the impact of the originals. That's fine for beginners, but a
| pro musician is going to take pride in either faithfully
| recreating a cover or intentionally putting their own
| stylistic spin on it, not just skipping over stuff that's
| hard.
| tallies wrote:
| How complex is a song that can be played on entirely
| different instruments without re-interpretation?
|
| When I think of complexity I think of unreconcilable
| elements that force the transposer to make tough decisions
| ("intentionally putting their own stylistic spin on it").
| pythko wrote:
| I don't really understand that idea of complexity, but
| Rick Beato is addressing this song from a music theory
| perspective, and I think this song would meet anyone's
| definition of complex when it comes to theory.
| tallies wrote:
| There's no one 'music theory perspective'. Why not
| analyze it on more axes?
|
| - Rhythmic patterns and variation
|
| - Interplay between instruments
|
| - Instrumentation and arrangement
|
| - Structure
|
| - Vocal style
|
| - Lyrics
|
| - Recording and mixing
|
| By these metrics (and the ears of 99% of its listeners)
| it's a more or less generic 80s adult contemporary song.
| Yes it has a weird chord progression. Would it be more
| complex if it couldn't be boiled down to a series of
| chords?
| hackernewds wrote:
| Most of the notes do give it that vitality though. Here's a
| John Mayer example where the simple version "works" but the
| full version is pure magic
|
| https://youtube.com/shorts/navD83-aLYs
| coliveira wrote:
| Rick Beat is trying to deceive you. If you really believe that
| this Sergio Mendes song is complicated, you need to listen to
| some older pop songs. For example, Stevie Wonder is a good
| composer to start.
| dehrmann wrote:
| > The obligatory video is of course "Four Chords" by Axis of
| Awesome
|
| The original: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8s13sASS5F4
| drcongo wrote:
| That Mendes song makes all sorts of twists and turns that your
| brain doesn't expect (want?) it to. Personally I find it deeply
| uncomfortable to listen to, it might as well be four songs
| playing at once.
| hejpadig wrote:
| This kind of stuff is fascinating to me, that we can react so
| differently to music and specifically to various chord
| progressions. Of course personal taste is inscrutable in some
| sense, but could it also be about conditioning? E.g. if you
| listen a lot to certain types of jazz you might get used to
| some stranger chord movements. I have a lot of friends who
| cant stand Steely Dan progressions for example, though I love
| them myself. Here's an example of strange chord movements
| that I personally like a lot more than the Sergio Mendes
| song:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXnUa6SNJFQ (Video showing
| the chords more clearly)
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPIaw-MgNzM (Original song)
| coliveira wrote:
| Jazz sounds too complicated, but it is not. More than 90%
| of it is just a set of 2,5,1 sequences disguised in clever
| ways.
| hamburglar wrote:
| I do think conditioning must be a big part of it. I hadn't
| ever listened to this song since getting a little familiar
| with music theory but it was certainly on the types of
| playlists my parents listened to when I was a kid.
| Listening to it now, I can see what's unusual about it but
| it never would have occurred to me to consider it hard to
| listen to. Repetition legitimizing and all that. My parents
| weren't jazz listeners so it took work for me to appreciate
| it as an adult, and now I can't help but wonder if the
| better path for my kids is to get them used to it early or
| to let them have that same "whoa" experience later. (Only
| partially serious; of course they should be exposed to it.
| :D)
| crawfordcomeaux wrote:
| You could give them access to instruments and let them
| make their own "whoa" moments. Also, Sun Ra's music
| exists well beyond most jazz, especially mainstream jazz,
| as he tried to create jazz that's not catering to white
| tastes.
| crawfordcomeaux wrote:
| After accidentally abandoning my likes/dislikes and
| disengaging disgust, my experience of music viscerally
| changed. I can enjoy all music now.
|
| So much of it is conditioning, maybe all of it. There's
| conditioning around chords, progressions, dissonance,
| harmony, repetition, subjective ideas of what constitutes
| music, and so much more.
|
| The only way to prove it isn't mere conditioning is to
| remove the conditioning and then evaluate.
| bambax wrote:
| This is so true -- to a point. One can still have likes
| and dislikes, provided it's their own.
| pdpi wrote:
| For me, the difference between that Steely Dan song and the
| Mendes song is like the difference between a seemingly-
| inscrutable really thick scottish accent and an ESL speaker
| trying to affect a native accent and kind of flowing
| between several different accents.
|
| However uncomfortable the Steely Dan song might be, it has
| a nice consistent construction to it, and, once you get
| into the groove, it becomes straightforward. Almost all
| music I listen to that I'd call complex, from classical to
| prog metal to jazz, can be described like that too.
|
| The Mendes song, however, sounds disjointed to me. It
| sounds built out of all sorts of fairly standard bits and
| pieces, but thrown around completely haphazardly.
| visarga wrote:
| > It sounds built out of all sorts of fairly standard
| bits and pieces, but thrown around completely
| haphazardly.
|
| I found a similar feeling in Shostakovich:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDeJeBvln6E But I enjoy
| this challenge. It's a beautiful yet strange and twisted
| music.
| pdpi wrote:
| Hmm, I disagree. That Shostakovitch piece (nice one,
| thanks for the link, btw!) feels to me more like trickery
| and misdirection. It builds up your comfort then throws
| you off, and it gets more and more off-kilter the longer
| you go. It's very deliberate and purposeful about where
| it's going.
| drcongo wrote:
| I'm now watching the Rick Beato video about it and I'm so
| glad it's not just me whose brain recoils at the chord
| progressions. Thank you.
| default-kramer wrote:
| Ha, I don't think I've ever heard that song before and I love
| it. Usually increasing the complexity of music makes it less
| comprehensible. I really respect those rare songs that are
| technically impressive to musicians while also being
| comprehensible (and sometimes downright catchy) to "normal"
| people. And I think Never Gonna Let You Go nails it. But of
| course, it is totally subjective.
| taylodl wrote:
| What this data shows is G Major truly is the "people's key." For
| those not familiar with music a 12 bar blues uses 3 chords: the
| so-called I, IV, and V chords (the first, fourth, and fifth
| chords in the key). In the key of G that would be G (I), C (IV),
| and D (V). Look at the most popular chords.
|
| Instead of analyzing by chords I would have analyzed by key -
| what keys do you need? Convention says G Major is the "people's
| key" and so it makes sense to learn since so many songs use it.
| The key of A minor is pretty popular, and so is it's relative C
| major. Throw in E minor (which is G major's relative minor!) and
| with those 4 keys you can play the bulk of all rock and popular
| music written over the past 50 years!
| jefftk wrote:
| The reason I approached this by chords instead of keys, is that
| I'm building an electronic instrument. [1] I can set it to play
| in any key before starting a song, but I'm trying to figure out
| how I should trigger chords (and what chords I will want to
| trigger) in the moment.
|
| [1] demo: https://youtu.be/JWj3QP9wsCU
| dehrmann wrote:
| > What this data shows is G Major truly is the "people's key."
|
| Unless you have a keyboard in your band. Then it's C.
| tmountain wrote:
| Hopefully the keyboardist can manage a single sharp.
| tarentel wrote:
| I've never heard it called "people's key" but a lot of rock and
| popular music written in the past 50 years was written on
| guitar where these keys are the easiest to play. I imagine Am/C
| are easiest on a piano but I am not a very good piano player to
| begin with.
| drchopchop wrote:
| Side note, from a usability perspective: G major is arguably
| the easiest key to play on a guitar, which is used heavily by
| both popular music and songwriters. The I/IV/V maps to G, C, D,
| which are all easy open chords to finger, plus Em is also
| simple (two fingers).
|
| (Many of the other options include either B major or F major in
| the I/IV/V, and those are considerably more difficult to play)
| tshaddox wrote:
| D major and A major are the other ubiquitous beginner-
| friendly keys for guitar. I distinctly remember a few months
| into getting my first guitar concluding that G major was so
| much better because Em is so much easier to play than Bm or
| F#m. :)
| mjr00 wrote:
| Yeah agreed, G and E make the most sense for guitar for those
| reasons. Although equal temperament makes all scales sound
| the same _in theory_ , there are often practical concerns.
| For example, EDM is very often in D#, E, F, F#, or G minor.
| There's a good reason for this: sub bass frequencies hit
| hardest around F. G#, A, A#, B and C sound too high, and
| anything lower than D# you risk playing on club speakers that
| can't produce the frequency well.
| taylodl wrote:
| The key of G (G,C,D) is really easy to play on guitar and so
| is the key of C (C,F,G). A lot of beginning guitarists
| struggle with an F if you play it as a barre chord on the
| first fret of the low E string. My favorite option for
| playing an F is to play an FMaj7 using just the D (3), G (2),
| B (1) and e (open) strings which is an open chord. If you ask
| me to play an F chord that's what I'm going to play. I've
| also heard it referred to as the "rock 'n roll" F.
| mellosouls wrote:
| As somebody without musical knowledge beyond the first chords you
| might learn for pop guitar, after reading this article I still
| have no idea which chords I need.
| analog31 wrote:
| If you're learning the instrument, you'll generally learn them
| as you progress, starting with beginner material that may have
| only one or two chords. At some point you will know "many"
| chords and be possessed to learn more, and may eventually
| pursue "every" chord.
|
| Any physically realizable fingering on the guitar is a chord.
| Whether it's useful is another matter. Different permutations
| of the same notes, in different ranges, is a way to add things
| like motion and emphasis in the music.
|
| Another way of looking at it is how many chords are you likely
| to encounter if you get into something like a band or jam
| session situation, where you're expected to hear a chord and
| play it. That depends on the musical style, and where the music
| came from. For instance, tunes that were composed for other
| instruments might have their own chordal language that results
| in the same chords cropping up unexpectedly in guitar music.
|
| A lot of folk music has its own "logic" for lack of a better
| term, based on the mechanics of the instrument.
| mellosouls wrote:
| Thanks for taking the time to help elaborate. When I opened
| the article I was (naively?) kind of hoping to find a list of
| chords that would have me covered for most situations, but
| was unable to determine from the Roman numeric jargon being
| used if that was so.
| jancsika wrote:
| Another way to put this is that for most _pop music_ , you
| _could_ often degrade gracefully to three triads of major or
| minor quality.
|
| But even for something discussed previously on HN-- the Beach
| Boys "God Only Knows"-- this doesn't work. Wilson really wants a
| half-diminished seventh chord at the high point of the melody.
| One could perhaps degrade to a diminished triad in the
| accompaniment, but he's literally singing the seventh of the
| chord so it's there regardless. Substituting a major or minor
| triad there is a qualitative change and sounds suspicious.
|
| If you're making your own instrument you might want to be aware
| that there's a "suspicious" sound that some types of consistent
| chord substitutions can have on certain classes of instruments.
|
| For example, a bagpiper can make severe simplifications to the
| harmony or even change melodic intervals to fit what they have
| available. Audiences generally accept this because the strictures
| of the instrument have made that a common practice. (Even if
| you're unaware of the strictures, you've probably gotten used to
| hearing the result of the common practice.)
|
| However, if one consistently employs major/minor triad
| substitutions on the guitar people are eventually going to hear
| that as a lack of quality. As in the Beach Boys example, this
| will often happen during key points. The guitarist may get lucky
| if the singer happens to fill out the missing note of the chord--
| e.g., guitarist plays a minor triad and the singer fills out the
| seventh at the beginning of the chorus of "Last Dance with Mary
| Jane"-- but eventually the audience will figure out that the
| guitarist is missing a vital skill.
|
| Anyway, unless your instrument is so novel it doesn't have any
| associations with extant instruments, make sure you have some
| kind of "escape hatch" so that skilled performers can play the
| chords they need. :)
| lb1lf wrote:
| Francis Rossi, of Status Quo fame/notoriety, depending on who
| you ask, quipped when presented with some award or other -
| "Wow! Twenty-five years. Three chords. Thank you!"
|
| I love it when people do not take themselves too seriously.
| jancsika wrote:
| Look, I'm just a caveman. I fell in some ice and later got
| thawed out by some of your scientists. My primitive mind
| can't grasp these concepts.
|
| But there is one thing I do know:
|
| When composers want to emphasize the chord they're about to
| play, they will often choose a new chord consisting of notes
| within a step or half-step of the original. And they will
| quickly play that new chord as a way to smoothly introduce
| the chord they wanted to emphasize.
|
| Whether it's Mozart in the retransition of the G minor
| symphony, Wagner in a transitional phrase of the interminable
| Gotterdammerung, or a folksy award winning singer-songwriter,
| that new chord counts as a chord. And that new chord _must be
| added to the sum total number of chords used in the song_.
|
| Thank you.
|
| Edit: the Mozart chord is G-G#-B-Eb, as a kind of "neighbor
| garbage chord" of a dominant seventh in G minor. For Wagner,
| I can't remember what key it was in, but it's a half-
| diminished seventh chord with a pedal-tone a minor third
| below the root. It's function is as a neighbor chord to a
| dominant seventh built on that same pedal-tone. Not sure
| about OP's reference but I bet I could find an interesting
| transient chord in there, too.
|
| Edit2: Oh yeah, the Wagner reference is indeed Wagner, so you
| can be sure it gets sequenced with at least three iterations
| in case you missed it the first time.
| phpisatrash wrote:
| Basically, if you know a scale, for example the D major scale you
| can play anything.
| TaupeRanger wrote:
| Not if the song contains any modulations, secondary dominants,
| borrowed chords, etc. It's not uncommon.
| asdffdsa wrote:
| That and the natural minor scale
| rubyist5eva wrote:
| I like progressive rock/metal and technical death, so....all of
| them.
| Sharlin wrote:
| Heh, I _just_ this afternoon listened to a radio show about the
| famously popular vi-IV-I-V /I-V-vi-IV chord progression [1]. If
| you haven't heard it before, the "4 Chords" medley by Axis of
| Awesome is a great demonstration of its ubiquity [2].
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%E2%80%93V%E2%80%93vi%E2%80%9...
|
| [2] https://youtu.be/oOlDewpCfZQ
| MikeTaylor wrote:
| I wonder what he would make of _I Am The Walrus_, which uses
| every note-named major chord (A, B, C, D, E, F and G major).
| webscalist wrote:
| and welcome to atonality
| Taywee wrote:
| Tangentially related, but the video game The Legend of Zelda:
| Ocarina of Time has twelve pieces of different styles and
| progressions on a melody of only five notes. Dan Bruno did a very
| nice analysis of the music theory behind the composition of the
| tunes in the game: https://danbruno.net/writing/ocarina/
| nawgz wrote:
| Just Cmaj7#11, best chord. Just scream while you play it and
| you're halfway to being a metal band
| willismichael wrote:
| The other half is hiring this percussionist:
| https://youtu.be/TfML1WEWfwk
| beardyw wrote:
| > And a few, like "Gee, Officer Krupke", just use a ton of chords
| in a way I don't really understand.
|
| Leonard Bernstein seems to have a knack of writing simple
| sounding songs but with every chord in the book. I noticed the
| same in Tonight.
| dharma1 wrote:
| Blah.. it's a bit like "What words you need to write a book"
|
| It's about how you combine them in a sequence, how you arrange
| the instruments, how you voice the chords and do voice leading,
| and how you combine them with the melody and rhythm
| CobrastanJorji wrote:
| Sure, except most people aren't writing books, they're doing
| readings of existing books. So the question is "how many words
| can they pronounce?" You can be a great poet, but if you want
| to do a reading of Annabelle Lee, you need to know how to
| pronounce "sepulcher."
| viburnum wrote:
| How can more songs have V than I?
| omarhaneef wrote:
| I wonder how much the chord-space would shrink farther if you
| took out the bridge/intro where people tend to mix it up. And if
| you could adjust when the song shifts keys in the chorus and
| verse. (Although I didn't keep up with all the simplifications so
| maybe that is already in here).
| jefftk wrote:
| _> Although I didn 't keep up with all the simplifications so
| maybe that is already in here_
|
| That one isn't there, because the original motivation of the
| post was trying to design a chord input system for an
| instrument. In which case I'm happy telling the instrument in
| advance "this next song is in Dm" but not changing that on the
| fly (hands are full)
| np_tedious wrote:
| Or last verse/chorus up-modulation
| beardyw wrote:
| A loathsome practice which irritates me unreasonably.
| laGrenouille wrote:
| Interesting quantitative take studying chord distribution. The
| basic takeaway seems to be that if you re-phrase a song into a
| different key you can play a lot with just a few chords (I IV V),
| and even more with a few others.
|
| While I would agree that you'll be okay playing any major scale
| in C major (or whatever other major key choose to learn), playing
| a song in a minor scale on a major scale just doesn't sound quite
| right. So, I'd double all of the numbers on their final table to
| account for learning a full set of major and minor chords.
| LtWorf_ wrote:
| But A minor is the same notes as C major.
|
| The chords in the key of C major will be the same chords in the
| key of A minor, although their patterns might be different.
| tarentel wrote:
| This is only partially true. The chords in A natural minor
| will be the same but it's much more common to hear a dominant
| fifth using the harmonic minor so you would change the Em to
| E especially in classical and jazz music.
| asdffdsa wrote:
| nit: jazz is the melodic minor (raised 6th as well). Such a
| beautiful sound; and the modes allow you to get the altered
| scale (7th mode of melodic minor) which sounds good(?) over
| the dominant
| circlefavshape wrote:
| If you know I, ii, iii, IV, V, vi in C then you'll be able to
| play tunes in A natural minor. Add III to cover A harmonic
| minor, and II to cover A melodic minor
|
| In real life though the key usually depends on the singer's
| vocal range, so you won't really get away with learning just
| one key
| laGrenouille wrote:
| Yes, that's a good point in the case of six keys (I think my
| point holds for just learning three), but it is not the one
| made that the article seemed to make.
| tarentel wrote:
| In A harmonic minor the III is already a C, you can make it
| augmented but that is not very common. You generally change
| the v to a V and keep the VII diminished in both cases where
| as it is major in the natural minor.
| PhaseLockk wrote:
| He was saying that the III of C major is the V of A minor,
| and so if you are planning to play in A minor using a set
| of chords pulled from C major, you may want to add a III
| alongside the iii.
| tarentel wrote:
| Ah, when phrased that way it makes sense. I
| misunderstood. We're just saying the same thing in two
| different ways.
| calflegal wrote:
| Trouble with this sort of thing is the subjectivity of 'what
| chord is this?', taking into account inversions and the like.
| CMaj7 has C / E / G / B? Who says this isn't Emin6 with the 6th
| in the bass? It'll depend on the way it's heard and its context
| within the song, but many approaches can impact this sort of
| thing.
|
| EDIT: I wrote this without carefully reading the article (oops!).
| Author does a great job with the "adjustments"...I suspect
| adjusting to relative minor covers a huge amount of these issues,
| and the author throws in mixolydian for good measure! There will
| always be edge cases, secondary dominants, modulations, blah blah
| blah, but I suspect adjusting to include relative minors handles
| the vast majority of popular music.
| [deleted]
| sampo wrote:
| > CMaj7 has C / E / G / B? Who says this isn't Emin6 with the
| 6th in the bass?
|
| The person who wrote it down as CMaj7 and not Emin6/C says.
| alar44 wrote:
| Bingo. Sting had a quote that was something like "All chords
| are ambiguous until I decide on a bass note to play."
| tmountain wrote:
| Playing rootless triads really brings this home. It allows
| jazz guitar players to have greater better mobility by
| offloading the bass to the bassist, but if you play a
| rootless ii-V-I exclusively on the guitar, the chords loose
| all their color/character.
| alar44 wrote:
| Yep, the hardest thing about learning to comp is that you
| can't do it alone.
| tmountain wrote:
| Unless your name is Joe Pass.
| mgkimsal wrote:
| Similarly, I remember McCartney saying he started to realize
| there was some musical control you could have in a song, not
| just having to play "root of the chord" bass notes.
|
| "Yeah, as time went on, definitely bass, I started to think,
| Wow, you know? Once I realized that you didn't have to just
| play the root notes. If it was C, F, G, then it was normally
| C, F, G that I played. But I started to realize that you
| could be pulling on that G, or just staying on the C when it
| went into F. And then I took it beyond that..... Once you
| realized the control you had over the band, as we talked
| about earlier, you were in control. They can't go anywhere,
| man. Ha! Power!"
|
| (source: https://reverb.com/news/interview-paul-mccartney-on-
| his-life...)
| alar44 wrote:
| 100%. Every Little Thing She Does by the Police has only
| two chords in the verses but Stings choice of bass notes
| make it sound like 8+, root notes be damned.
| javajosh wrote:
| Whenever I hear that song, I wish the intro would just go
| on and on and on.
| dehrmann wrote:
| Regarding the opening chord of "A Hard Day's Night," George
| said
|
| > It is F with a G on top (on the 12-string), but you'll
| have to ask Paul about the bass note to get the proper
| story
| grafs50 wrote:
| I think the difference here is how it functions in the music.
| Does the chord function as a CMaj7 in relation to the rest of
| the song, or does it function as an Emin6?
| tejohnso wrote:
| Great video here talking about the name of one chord in the
| intro to Stairway To Heaven. Three different youtubers chime in
| to discuss it. Really shows how much nuance there can be and
| how ambiguous the naming can be. There was no real consensus.
| One of the suggestions was "a minor major nine" and another was
| "e seven flat thirteen over g sharp".
|
| "The name is there to express a feeling. If you don't know any
| context it can be hard to put a definitive label on a chord." -
| Paul Davids
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXqNyWehVEQ
| titzer wrote:
| That and sometimes chords/notes could be labeled either flat or
| sharp. I thought that was really an annoying ambiguity until it
| suddenly made a whole lot more sense--there are 7 letters for a
| reason; in a given key, we generally want to use all 7 letters
| to describe the scale tones, instead of repeating one. I think
| the same goes here, knowing what key the song is in tends to
| suggest certain chord spellings over others.
| TrueTom wrote:
| "In this video, I describe a common problem with the way
| guitarists cover popular songs by using open chords far too
| regularly. The trouble with open chords is that they often ignore
| important melodic and harmonic features. Hence, zombie chords. So
| dull they sound dead. It's spooooooooky!"
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEWQNKbXHQk
| eatonphil wrote:
| I started playing guitar in middle school and I hated learning
| complex chords so I'd do what this video suggested and just
| play the stripped down/simplified version of the chord.
|
| But it's not just about open chords. If you strip down a Bm7b5
| to a Bm and play the Bm on the second fret it still has half of
| the character of the Bm7b5 chord.
|
| Only recently did I start gaining the patience to learn every
| suggested chord and it makes a tremendous difference.
|
| That said, I prefer piano for accompanying because the piano's
| tone is somehow more forgiving with basic chords than guitar
| is.
| usrn wrote:
| IMO: It's much better to understand how to construct chords
| and then play music and memorize them by trying to play both
| the melody and some kind of accompaniment. You end up getting
| stuck in situations where you need to rearrange the chord or
| learn a new one and you can build them up that way without
| drilling.
| eatonphil wrote:
| I do know the basics of chord construction but it's still
| way easier to think through it on a piano because keys are
| all linear whereas with guitar strings you have to
| translate across strings with varying relationships. Not
| saying it's impossible it just takes more work to
| internalize that on guitar than piano. And I'm not there on
| guitar.
| BizarroLand wrote:
| Yeah, for instance, it's much easier to melodically space out
| or articulate the notes in a chord on a piano so they don't
| clunk all together like the strum of a guitar without ever
| crossing into arpeggio. That can make for beautiful open
| melodic chord playing when you're jamming out or noodling
| around without ever breaking the rhythm.
| re wrote:
| > While it's almost always I, IV, V, and vi, we have both II or
| ii, and III or iii, differing on whether the third is major or
| minor. One way to handle this is just to drop the third from
| all the chords and play them open
|
| Note that what jefftk calls "open chords" are more commonly
| called "power chords" (or "indeterminate" or "no3" or "5"
| chords). This is a distinct concept from the open/"zombie"
| chords that that youtube video is about. (But if you did use
| only power chords when covering songs, they would also usually
| sound quite dull!)
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_chord
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_chord
| jefftk wrote:
| I've now edited the post to say "chords without thirds"
| instead of "open chords", which should reduce this confusion
| ARandumGuy wrote:
| I was going to link that exact video. That video does a good
| job of explaining the problem with simplifying more complicated
| chords. Yes, you can get rid of the "extra" bits and the song
| is still recognizable. But those extra elements are what give a
| song character, and simplifying it down to just a handful of
| chords causes a song to sound bland and generic.
| tchock23 wrote:
| It explains the problem, but doesn't really offer any
| solutions for those of us stuck on 'campfire chords.' Any
| suggestions for videos that do offer solutions?
| shampto3 wrote:
| One site I use occasionally for helping come up with chord
| progressions is hook theory's chord trends [1]. It has an
| interactive graph that shows you how common it is for a specific
| chord to come next when you choose a starting chord. It's very
| helpful in looking at a few options out there, instead of trying
| to reinvent the wheel every time.
|
| 1. https://www.hooktheory.com/trends
| squidsoup wrote:
| My mate in the music industry always said you only need "three
| chords and the right haircut".
| [deleted]
| adamnemecek wrote:
| I'm working on an IDE for music composition. Chords and music
| theory will be very much front and and center. Launching next
| month.
|
| https://ngrid.io
|
| Join the discord https://discord.gg/a5ttYuG
| and0 wrote:
| Subscribed (not on Discord). Glad to see! I've bounced off
| music theory but part of me knows that I would learn the hell
| out it if I tried to implement an engine (and corresponding
| interface) around it. I know many exist and I'd probably find
| through even shallow research that it'd be 100x harder than I'm
| imagining, but I wouldn't know half of what I know if I thought
| ahead like that :P
|
| But as with reading this article, as an avid music lover I'm
| afraid to ruin how I feel about some of my favorite
| compositions.
| adamnemecek wrote:
| That's the problem, not that many actually exist.
| duped wrote:
| This feels like a stone's throw from Schenkerian analysis (1)
| where in practice, lots of harmonies devolve to a simple
| foundational structure. Even the tough stuff to reason about like
| the example at the bottom of the page, _Gee, Officer Krupke_
| which is tricky because of the jazz /ragtime influence on the
| chromaticism of the harmony and melody basically reduces down to
| leading tone resolution and local key changes (V-I resolutions).
| It's setting up the zingers like "naturally we're punks" (V-I),
| "deep down inside of us there is good" (V-I) coming from
| chromatic turnarounds.
|
| (1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenkerian_analysis
| dehrmann wrote:
| I recently figured out the chords to "Sk8er Boi" by Avril
| Lavigne. It would be all over the place in the analysis in this
| article, but it's because the chorus is in a different key, and
| the out of key chord in the verse is actually borrowed from the
| chorus. It's surprising clever for what I assumed was an easy
| pop punk song. There was even some word painting with the line
| "She needed to come back down to earth" coming right before the
| key drop going into the verse.
| [deleted]
| robbyking wrote:
| It would be interesting to break this down by genre. Jazz likes
| to "borrow" notes to construct chords that aren't diatonic, and
| metal likes to add the flat II and V almost as a rule.
| klodolph wrote:
| A couple notes
|
| > While it's almost always I, IV, V, and vi, we have both II/ii
| and III/iii, differing on whether the third is major or minor.
|
| This might be a bit confusing as written, because the slash "/"
| is normally used in roman numerals to indicate secondary chords.
| For example, the II chord may be written as V/V. (V/V is always
| II, but not the other way around... the "/" notation indicates
| that the chord is functioning as a secondary chord, which is
| something you figure out from context.)
|
| The terminology "open chords" is also a bit unusual. The term
| "open chords" usually refers to chords that use open strings
| (strings that are not fingered). Chords without a third are often
| called "power chords". You can do your entire song with power
| chords if you're playing rock music.
|
| I'd also add that what chords you get as the three/four chords
| you need depends so heavily on genre. If you were playing blues,
| you might pick I7, IV7, and V7 for your first three, and then
| maybe bVII7 as the fourth. If you were playing jazz, you might
| pick something like I69, ii9, IVmaj7, V7.
| jefftk wrote:
| _> This might be a bit confusing as written, because the slash
| "/" is normally used in roman numerals to indicate secondary
| chords._
|
| Sorry, that's not something I'd seen. Edited the post to switch
| to "or".
|
| _> The terminology "open chords" is also a bit unusual. The
| term "open chords" usually refers to chords that use open
| strings (strings that are not fingered)._
|
| Looking some, you're totally right. I'm confused where I picked
| up the idea that these were called "open"? I think I've seen
| them written like "G<sub>open</sub>" to indicate that you don't
| play a 3rd? Calling them "power chords" in a non-rock context
| sounds off to me, though. Edited the post to call them chords
| without thirds.
| the_fury wrote:
| Most people would also understand that there's no 3rd if you
| call it a G5.
| javajosh wrote:
| _power chords ... call them chords without thirds._
|
| Not a guitarist, but I always assumed "power chord" referred
| to lots of doubling up over octaves, not the absence of a
| third.
| duped wrote:
| It almost always refers to a perfect fifth, optionally with
| the octave on top. It's a very easy thing to play with two
| or three fingers, either on guitar or keyboard.
| PrimeDirective wrote:
| > Calling them "power chords" in a non-rock context sounds
| off to me, though
|
| Even jazz musicians call them powerchords
| H1Supreme wrote:
| Every guitar player calls them powerchords. I've never
| heard of another term. Unless OP is referring to double
| stops. But, those are more of an embellishment, and usually
| never played on the low E or A string.
| taylodl wrote:
| Jazz, rock, and pop guitarists and keyboardists all call 5
| chords power chords.
| progre wrote:
| > Calling them "power chords" in a non-rock context sounds
| off to me, though.
|
| Lots of powerchords in pop too. "powerchord", to me at least,
| implies that there is a distortion effect somewhere in the
| signal chain. Powerchords on their own sounds really weak.
| em3rgent0rdr wrote:
| Outside of rock or guitar world, it is very unusual to hear
| them be called "power chords". That lingo is best avoided.
| jefftk wrote:
| When playing mandolin I rarely play thirds
| (https://www.jefftk.com/p/mandolin-teaching-videos), but
| I'm also playing traditional music, acoustic, where "power
| chords" sounds strange?
| karmakaze wrote:
| Co-incidentally the first graph looks like a pair of 'hand-
| horns'.
| beepbooptheory wrote:
| In general, the conflation of "chords" and "harmony" can be
| just _little_ sticky, because one implies something the
| instrument is doing, and the other what the composer
| /band/piece does. An instrument might be making lots of chord
| changes, but that doesn't necessarily mean there is any overall
| harmonic motion happening.
|
| Sure in rock'n'roll the guitar player isn't hitting the third a
| lot, but the singer almost certainly is!
|
| Also, if you are playing modern jazz, you are not really doing
| functional harmony like this analysis assumes except at a very
| macro level. Chord changes there are about color more often,
| only punctuating with a true harmonic change. This can be true
| even if they are moving from, say, an I9 to IV9. That _seems_
| like a "change", but its really just elaborating on the I.
|
| I seem to remember "open chords" in my brief counterpoint
| studies, but can't find anything to back that up now. But in
| counterpoint you could talk about the openness of certain
| "harmonies" in terms of their compatibility to any number of
| changes. Something with a lot of doubled roots and fifths are
| less open to changing, if you are following the "rules".
| tejohnso wrote:
| > In general, the conflation of "chords" and "harmony" can be
| just little sticky, because one implies something the
| instrument is doing, and the other what the composer/band
| does.
|
| Maybe not directly related or as confusing, but also worth
| noting here I think is that you can play three notes
| sequentially and still call it a chord. It would be a "broken
| chord". And you can play just two notes simultaneously as a
| "harmonic interval".
| klodolph wrote:
| I'm not going deep into Jazz, but if I'm playing a song with
| something like I vi ii V, then I'm going to likely color
| those chords with the 7th (at the minimum) and likely
| additional extensions.
|
| I picked something like I69 not because it has _function_
| different from I, but because a 6 /9 chord is a common choice
| for a Jazz musician to play as a I chord. Or, at least, it's
| one of my first picks. And if you're playing I9 -> IV9, my
| question is whether the I IV is just comping on I or whether
| it's harmonic movement.
|
| And I will say that while there is no requirement to use
| functional harmony in Jazz, there is a massive repertoire of
| Jazz that uses functional harmony, or at least uses harmony
| where you can get insight by analyzing it functionally. For
| example, I might analyze something as "bV7/V I" in a jazz
| song and that _is_ both very functional and very jazzy, and
| in a classical piece I might see "N6 V7 I" and while N6 and
| bV7/V are similar chords, using the chord with dominant
| function is, stylistically, a jazz idiom.
| welfare wrote:
| > For example, "Kitchen Girl" needs "A G" for the first half of
| the tune (confusingly called the "A part")
|
| This is standard notation, especially in American folk music,
| that sections are labeled A, B and sometimes C. This makes it
| very convenient when playing with others who're not familiar with
| the tune (e.g. This is Kitchen Girl, key of A, two A parts, two B
| parts)
| sineroth wrote:
| if u wanna get laid 3 is lots
| Aidevah wrote:
| Slightly related is the question "How many different notes do you
| need in the bass to harmonise any melody?", and the answer was
| provided by Obrecht in the final section of his Missa Malheur me
| bat[1] dating from around 1497. The original tune is here[2].
| While the section was probably written partly as a joke, it's
| interesting how you really only need the 1st and 5th scale
| degrees to cover the majority of the song tune.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLyfr_dQTBc&t=293s
|
| [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrZKnEXKwn0
| cjohnson318 wrote:
| Thinking about this in terms of the circle of fifths, there's a
| lot of representation of the keys that are from 12 o'clock to 3
| o'clock, keys C, G, D, A, respectively. I think if you looked at
| jazz standards from the Real Books, you'd see a different
| histogram, stressing the keys Eb, Bb, F, C.
|
| A lot of Western music centers around a tonal center, and then
| rocks back and fourth on the circle of fifths between IV and V. A
| lot of pop tunes these days add the vi, further to the right on
| circle of fifths.
|
| In contrast, jazz music tends the move down in fourths a lot, so
| you see ii-V7-I all over the place, a lot of vi-ii-V7-I, and a
| sometimes a iii-vi-ii-V7-I. All of these progressions just start
| some place on the circle of fifths, and then go counter-clockwise
| until they reach the intended tonal center.
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