What chords do you need? • Hacker News Board

Re: What chords do you need?

#121

Post by alar44 » Thu, Apr 21, 2022, 6:05 PM UTC

mgkimsal wrote: post #38

alar44 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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 b…

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.

Re: What chords do you need?

#122

Post by dharma1 » Thu, Apr 21, 2022, 6:08 PM UTC

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

Re: What chords do you need?

#123

Post by default-kramer » Thu, Apr 21, 2022, 6:13 PM UTC

drcongo wrote: post #20

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

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.

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.

Re: What chords do you need?

#124

Post by bazeblackwood » Thu, Apr 21, 2022, 6:17 PM UTC

felix318 wrote: post #101

irrational wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And that’s just within 12 tone systems! Scales don’t have to repeat over the octave, see Wendy Carlos’ work in this area.

Re: What chords do you need?

#125

Post by CobrastanJorji » Thu, Apr 21, 2022, 6:20 PM UTC

dharma1 wrote: post #122

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

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."

Re: What chords do you need?

#126

Post by tmountain » Thu, Apr 21, 2022, 6:22 PM UTC

alar44 wrote: post #119

tmountain wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yep, the hardest thing about learning to comp is that you can't do it alone.

Unless your name is Joe Pass.

Re: What chords do you need?

#127

Post by Taywee » Thu, Apr 21, 2022, 6:25 PM UTC

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/

Re: What chords do you need?

#128

Post by pythko » Thu, Apr 21, 2022, 6:27 PM UTC

tallies wrote: post #118

pythko wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 bori…

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").

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.

Re: What chords do you need?

#129

Post by rhn_mk1 » Thu, Apr 21, 2022, 6:28 PM UTC

cactus2093 wrote: post #113

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.

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 t…

The dark mode is built into your browser if you set the browser embedded style to dark.

It integrates flawlessly for me.

Re: What chords do you need?

#130

Post by cactus2093 » Thu, Apr 21, 2022, 6:34 PM UTC

rhn_mk1 wrote: post #129

cactus2093 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

The dark mode is built into your browser if you set the browser embedded style to dark. It integrates flawlessly for me.

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.