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What chords do you need?

jefftk.com

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Re: What chords do you need?

#101

Post by felix318 »

irrational wrote: post #86
jefftk wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)?

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.

Re: What chords do you need?

#103

Post by pythko »

tallies wrote: post #97
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

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")

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.

Re: What chords do you need?

#104

Post by hackernewds »

tallies wrote: post #97
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

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")

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

Re: What chords do you need?

#105

Post by drivers99 »

irrational wrote: post #86
jefftk wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)?

> 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 )

Re: What chords do you need?

#106

Post by ARandumGuy »

TrueTom wrote: post #49

"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

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.

Re: What chords do you need?

#108

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: What chords do you need?

#109

Post by tmountain »

alar44 wrote: post #29
calflegal wrote: post #22

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 "a…

Bingo. Sting had a quote that was something like "All chords are ambiguous until I decide on a bass note to play."

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.

Re: What chords do you need?

#110

Post by not2b »

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…

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).
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