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What chords do you need?

jefftk.com

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Re: What chords do you need?

#81

Post by asdffdsa »

tarentel wrote: post #18
LtWorf_ wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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

Re: What chords do you need?

#82

Post by shampto3 »

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

Re: What chords do you need?

#83

Post by dehrmann »

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…

> 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.

Re: What chords do you need?

#84

Post by em3rgent0rdr »

travisgriggs wrote: post #72

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.

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.

Re: What chords do you need?

#85

Post by psyc »

jefftk wrote: post #59
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…

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…

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.

Re: What chords do you need?

#86

Post by irrational »

jefftk wrote: post #59
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…

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…

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)?

Re: What chords do you need?

#87

Post by pdpi »

hejpadig wrote: post #26
drcongo wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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…

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.

Re: What chords do you need?

#88

Post by em3rgent0rdr »

progre wrote: post #66
jefftk wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 p…

> 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.

Outside of rock or guitar world, it is very unusual to hear them be called "power chords". That lingo is best avoided.

Re: What chords do you need?

#89

Post by spicymaki »

travisgriggs wrote: post #72

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.

Yes good point. It takes me back to when content really mattered.

Re: What chords do you need?

#90

Post by dehrmann »

duped wrote: post #33

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…

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.
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