Not sure Im following.
What is the point of the thread. Github page HTML or music theory.
Nevermind, an album on major chords
91–100 of 114 posts
Re: Nevermind, an album on major chords
#92Pretty much every chord he played was a power chord. Thats just a root and a 5th. It’s neither major or minor, because you need the 3rd to establish that And nearly every punk and metal band uses predominantly power chords, without any real care in the world as to what the progressions are. It just sounds good to them. There aren’t any rules because punk is a DIY genre. If you told him he was doing a thing, he’d do t…
> punk and metal band uses predominantly power chords, without any real care in the world as to what the progressions are Somewhat true for punk, mostly incorrect for metal. A lot of metal is very analytical, deeper in musical theory than most popular genres (rock, pop, rnb…), they care _a lot_ about it. Metal is often very technical, it bred some of the top musicians in the world, it’s no surprise they give a shit a…
Dream Theater would be the prime Example. The three founding members studied at Berklee.
Re: Nevermind, an album on major chords
#93Pretty much every chord he played was a power chord. Thats just a root and a 5th. It’s neither major or minor, because you need the 3rd to establish that And nearly every punk and metal band uses predominantly power chords, without any real care in the world as to what the progressions are. It just sounds good to them. There aren’t any rules because punk is a DIY genre. If you told him he was doing a thing, he’d do t…
He was not a great guitar player, but he had an ear for tonality and combining melodies on top of those ambiguous chords. I read somewhere he was a Beatles fan, and I can see how their pop vocal layering and more complex instrumentation via George Martin and Co might have had an influence above and beyond the basic blues pentatonic scale and chord progression that inspired a lot of rock and hard rock. Dude did not accidentally "make it", which is the other, often-heard opposite opinion than that of him being a genius.
Re: Nevermind, an album on major chords
#94Pretty much every chord he played was a power chord. Thats just a root and a 5th. It’s neither major or minor, because you need the 3rd to establish that And nearly every punk and metal band uses predominantly power chords, without any real care in the world as to what the progressions are. It just sounds good to them. There aren’t any rules because punk is a DIY genre. If you told him he was doing a thing, he’d do t…
Power chords are also common when guitars are played with distortion, like most of this Nirvana album.
R 5 R - the intervals are far enough apart that in this powerchord that they don’t clash harmonically.
R 3 5 R - the third is too close to the root and fifth, so the sound would be indistinct.
If you play the usual cowboy chords with a high gain tone, it turns to mush.
Of course, you can get around this with inversions to produce different voicings. I like R 5 3 with distortion to push the third up an octave, and keep it clear of it’s neighbours.
Re: Nevermind, an album on major chords
#95Pretty much every chord he played was a power chord. Thats just a root and a 5th. It’s neither major or minor, because you need the 3rd to establish that And nearly every punk and metal band uses predominantly power chords, without any real care in the world as to what the progressions are. It just sounds good to them. There aren’t any rules because punk is a DIY genre. If you told him he was doing a thing, he’d do t…
Here in 2025 a "chord" is the new name for "pitch", and "chord progression" is the new name for "melody".
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Re: Nevermind, an album on major chords
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
Did he pretend, or did he really not know? The blues was founded by people who rediscovered Western music theory on their own, in part because guitars lend themselves to it. Punks learned that they could play power chords because they work with the messy overdriven sound. Theory can explain it after the fact, and can extend your options (or at least save you time knowing what you want). I know a lot of "untrained" mu…
The blues isn’t really compatible with conventional tonality: it’s basically major chords with added minor seventh (I won’t call them dominant sevenths because they don’t function as dominant chords), with minor pentatonic (plus added flat fifth) melody. There’s no way that combination can possibly work—but it does!
IMHO that’s a narrow definition of the Blues, and the genre is much wider. From the top of my head, I’m thinking of BB King playing “The Thrill is Gone”. Still blues, but in a minor key. Definitely not major chords with an added minor seventh.
For the minor blues scale working over a major blues progression - I think the dissonance is okay because the flat third and fifth are often passing tones. If you loiter on them, they are more jarring.
Re: Nevermind, an album on major chords
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
That’s just not true. Off the top of my head Lithium, Dumb, About A Girl have critical minor and major chords. Also part of what made him so good was how he played vocal melody and rhythm off of chords. So in some songs you might have plain power chords but the melody hits important major or minor notes. I don’t know what your definition for genius is but the guy wrote some of the best songs in human history and did…
Yeah, that's definitely 'the' Kurt thing, vocal melody completing power chords. I do hate how he (and the whole generation, and some of the punks before him + no wave crowd as well) pretended that they didn't know any music theory or practice at all. That was quite destructive for so many of us who aspired to play music in our teens, especially if you weren't exposed to music theory and practice in childhood through…
hey now!
there is a wall, on one side is everything that has been done.....and can be learned/replicated. If someone is compeled to see the other side the best way through, ha!, is with very little baggage/knowledge or theory
some few talk about the experience of crossing that divide, but in no way are they responsible for anyone else considering there museing, instructional
if you want a gentler discorse on the process, then there is no one better than keef, and his various atempts to explain why 5 strings are all he can handle, does alright with them as well
Re: Nevermind, an album on major chords
#98Pretty much every chord he played was a power chord. Thats just a root and a 5th. It’s neither major or minor, because you need the 3rd to establish that And nearly every punk and metal band uses predominantly power chords, without any real care in the world as to what the progressions are. It just sounds good to them. There aren’t any rules because punk is a DIY genre. If you told him he was doing a thing, he’d do t…
That's actually not true. Cobain used a rather "weird" technique where he would "accidentally" hit 4th in addition to 5th. That actually has characteristic Nirvana sound and is sometimes called "Cobain chords". Assuming Cobain doesn't hit any other strings these are sus4 chords.
Here's a video with some analysis of "Smells like teen spirit": https://youtu.be/Xambk1JkWrE?si=aV-kCj1JsbMdM_AV&t=137
I find it really weird that people claim these are power chord even though they sound really different. In my view they are important to the vibe of "Smells like teens spirit" as they bring some dreamy characteristic as they make it a lot brighter compared to what it would be if it was played with only two lowest notes.
Re: Nevermind, an album on major chords
#99I don't think there has been a rock album ever since, that would have been so big, popular, revolutionary and generation defining. I guess some genius must have been there.
Re: Nevermind, an album on major chords
#100Pretty much every chord he played was a power chord. Thats just a root and a 5th. It’s neither major or minor, because you need the 3rd to establish that And nearly every punk and metal band uses predominantly power chords, without any real care in the world as to what the progressions are. It just sounds good to them. There aren’t any rules because punk is a DIY genre. If you told him he was doing a thing, he’d do t…
There's a whole thing here where people are trying to axiomatically reconstruct Cobain's guitar playing, but he famously shoplifted riffs from other acts. I don't mean that as a dunk, any more than I would talk down J Dilla. But I feel like the process he used to construct memorable hooks might not be too hard to reverse engineer. The band's most famous hook comes from Boston , for crying out loud.
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