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What chords do you need?

jefftk.com

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Re: What chords do you need?

#131

Post by moron4hire »

TaupeRanger wrote: post #120
moron4hire wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 j…

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.

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

Re: What chords do you need?

#132

Post by wintermutestwin »

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.

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.

Re: What chords do you need?

#133

Post by crawfordcomeaux »

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…

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.

Re: What chords do you need?

#134

Post by crawfordcomeaux »

hamburglar wrote: post #32
hejpadig wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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 listen…

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.

Re: What chords do you need?

#135

Post by pdpi »

visarga wrote: post #115
pdpi wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 straightforwar…

> 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.

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.

Re: What chords do you need?

#136

Post by taylodl »

PrimeDirective wrote: post #63
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 Even jazz musicians call them powerchords

Jazz, rock, and pop guitarists and keyboardists all call 5 chords power chords.

Re: What chords do you need?

#137

Post by bambax »

crawfordcomeaux wrote: post #133
hejpadig wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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 t…

This is so true -- to a point. One can still have likes and dislikes, provided it's their own.

Re: What chords do you need?

#138

Post by rhn_mk1 »

cactus2093 wrote: post #130
rhn_mk1 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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!

Re: What chords do you need?

#139

Post by ryanmcbride »

spicymaki wrote: post #89
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.

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...

Re: What chords do you need?

#140

Post by cjohnson318 »

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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