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What chords do you need?

jefftk.com

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Re: What chords do you need?

#41

Post by drchopchop »

taylodl wrote: post #39

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 "peopl…

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)

Re: What chords do you need?

#42

Post by irrational »

>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.

Re: What chords do you need?

#43

Post by jefftk »

taylodl wrote: post #39

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 "peopl…

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

Re: What chords do you need?

#44

Post by pohl »

bambax wrote: post #15

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

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

Re: What chords do you need?

#45

Post by tarentel »

circlefavshape wrote: post #19
laGrenouille wrote: post #8

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…

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

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.

Re: What chords do you need?

#47

Post by TremendousJudge »

irrational wrote: post #42

>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…

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.

Re: What chords do you need?

#48

Post by uhoh-itsmaciek »

pohl wrote: post #44
bambax wrote: post #15

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

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…

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...

Re: What chords do you need?

#49

Post by TrueTom »

"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

Re: What chords do you need?

#50

Post by jefftk »

klodolph wrote: post #34

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 func…

> 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 "Gopen" 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.

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