[HN Gopher] What chords do you need? ___________________________________________________________________ What chords do you need? Author : janvdberg Score : 263 points Date : 2022-04-21 13:56 UTC (9 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.jefftk.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.jefftk.com) | evo_9 wrote: | Love this stuff, great read. | | Also if you have not seen Hook Theory yet, worth checking out: | https://www.hooktheory.com/about | h2odragon wrote: | Cheech & Chong: "and I only know 4 chords!" | | Its amazing how sparse a representation of a song can be | recognizable (and enjoyable!) The mapping of musical meaning is | due for a new look; the way we talk and write about sound needs | to be rationalized before we can progress further in | understanding why and how it works. | moron4hire wrote: | 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 job | of translating that language to a lay audience. But as with | anything, full mastery of the field takes significant, | prolonged effort, not in any small part due to competition | driving the bar ever higher and higher. | TaupeRanger wrote: | 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. | rizzaxc wrote: | citations needed | moron4hire wrote: | 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 | h2odragon wrote: | > it is you, sir, who are wrong or misleading | | Or your opinions just differ. | | The meaning of music is in the listener. what you hear | may not be what others do. | | even the Brown Note doesn't hit everyone. | irrational wrote: | >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 note of a scale and not of a scale?), but it implies to | me that music is as complex a subject as physics. | jefftk wrote: | 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 you go up twelve notes (which we | call "half steps", confusingly) your pitch doubles. Two notes | that differ by a factor of two are said to be an "octave" | apart, and sound almost like the same note. | | A scale is a series of notes, and a "major scale" is a specific | series where you go up by two notes, two notes, one note, two | notes, two notes, two notes, and then one note. This gives you | seven different notes in your octave. We can call these notes | the "first", "second", etc notes of the major scale. We | typically don't talk about "65th" notes because they would be | way too high. | | A chord is multiple notes played at the same time. The chords I | am talking about this post are "triads", which means they are | three simultaneous notes | | A major chord is notes one, three, and five of a major scale. A | minor chord is the same, but the middle chord (three) is moved | down one note ("flat" or "minor"). | psyc wrote: | 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. | irrational wrote: | 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)? | drivers99 wrote: | > 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 ) | jefftk wrote: | A 1212122 scale doesn't add to 12, and so would not work | very well. When you play through a scale, low to high, you | generally want to end up back where you started but up an | octave. | | The main other combinations you see are the same 2212221 | pattern, but starting on a different note. For example, if | you start on the sixth note, this permutes to 2122122 which | we call the (natural) minor scale. We call each of these | permutations a "mode". | felix318 wrote: | 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. | bazeblackwood wrote: | And that's just within 12 tone systems! Scales don't have | to repeat over the octave, see Wendy Carlos' work in this | area. | TremendousJudge wrote: | Music theory can get pretty wild, yeah. The main difference to | me when comparing it to (for example) physics theory is that | it's usually an aesthetic pursuit. As in, studying physics has | the end goal of understanding how the universe works, but | theorizing about music involves the aesthetic value of the | sound -- why and how something "works" (or doesn't), what | feelings or emotions are evoked by certain types of sound, and | how to apply this to composing new music, or understanding | existing music. | photochemsyn wrote: | I'd like to see this thinking applied to John Coltrane's Giant | Steps: | | https://perfectauthenticcadence.blogspot.com/2016/01/analyzi... | | > "By creating this system of cyclical patterns, Coltrane changed | the language of jazz and broke the mold of ordinary jazz harmonic | progressions in jazz history. (Wernick 23). The use of "Coltrane | changes" is still used by jazz composers today, and has become | one of the most influential jazz compositional techniques of the | last half-century." | tarentel wrote: | He ignores songs with key changes in this analysis but he also | does a lot of simplifications. If we simplify this song it's | mostly just a ii-V-I across 3 different keys. It is the most | common chord progression in jazz music. | acjohnson55 wrote: | You see this in the design of the typical diatonic harmonica. | That's why it's such a versatile instrument, despite its | limitations (e.g. missing accidentals within its key, only able | to play blow or draw notes within a given chord). | analog31 wrote: | There's also a huge pile of chord charts published online for the | jazz standards and the Great American Songbook, that would be | interesting to analyze. | jefftk wrote: | Are any of these machine readable? As long as I don't have to | transcribe them by hand I would enjoy looking at them! | analog31 wrote: | I've kind of lost touch. My "fake books" were all hand | written and photocopied. | | Even the better players were becoming so dependent on them, | that it was detracting from the music, so I went cold turkey | and learned the tunes. | | An app called "iRealPro" has chord changes in a strange | format, and somebody once created a Python library to decode | it. | | There was once a book called "pocket changes" with just chord | changes, and I think it was converted to text format, but | can't find it anywhere online. The changes are an outgrowth | of a quirk in the copyright law, where the melody and words | can be copyrighted, but not the harmony. | | Wish I could be of more help. | zwegner wrote: | Quite a few jazz tunes have chords here: | http://songtrellis.com/changesPage | | Some of the chord charts are machine readable (available as | just plain text), while others are images, but looks like | all/almost all of them are available as MIDI as well. | tarentel wrote: | Probably instead of I-IV-V being the most common you would see | the ii-V-I chords being the most common. | edelans wrote: | Can't resist mentioning that old joke : "A pop guitarist plays | five chords for ten thousand people, a jazz guitarist plays ten | thousand chords for five people" | stevenalowe wrote: | I like fat chords, I cannot lie. | tjr wrote: | Looks about right, but I'll still be keeping my 13(#11) chords. | | [EDIT: Meant as a joke, but it was not a good joke, as the author | explicitly addressed upper extensions and their irrelevance to | the point of the article.] | np_tedious wrote: | He was only talking root and major vs minor. No mention of | upper extensions of any kind. So V7 is still V, V13b9 is still | V | tjr wrote: | You're correct; I withdraw my remark. | fallingfrog wrote: | Interesting how rare the minor iv chord is. Offhand I can think | of only 2: Creep by Radiohead and Space Oddity by David Bowie. | willismichael wrote: | It's also used in Hotel California. | | Maybe it doesn't show up much in pop/rock/country, but it's not | uncommon in jazz. | travisgriggs wrote: | 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. | spicymaki wrote: | Yes good point. It takes me back to when content really | mattered. | ryanmcbride wrote: | 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... | cactus2093 wrote: | 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 text of Times New Roman | is less readable than more modern sans serif fonts (this is | arguably a problem with Chrome's default value though, not just | this site). The graph titles are not text but rendered into the | images, and the images have no alt text to help with | accessibility. The double solid border on cell boundaries in | the tables looks crazy and does distract from the content. The | page content is much narrower than it should be on desktop, it | could use an adaptive width. There is no dark mode to make the | page easier on your eyes in low light. | | The design here on HN is a much better example to strive for, | it has a similar minimalist aesthetic but addresses most of | these issues. | | I wish more of the internet _behaved_ like this, but I do not | need it to look like this. | hackernewds wrote: | Agree I'd hate for the internet to look like a corporate | Google Doc. An interactive New York Times article is very | pleasing to read (minus all the ads) | rhn_mk1 wrote: | The dark mode is built into your browser if you set the | browser embedded style to dark. | | It integrates flawlessly for me. | cactus2093 wrote: | 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. | rhn_mk1 wrote: | 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! | wintermutestwin wrote: | 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. | em3rgent0rdr wrote: | 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. | sharkbot wrote: | By coincidence, Teenage Engineering is on the front page at the | same time as this article. I've enjoyed playing and creating | music on their pocket operator devices, specifically the PO-20 | chip tune one. The sound palette is a bit limited, but the chord | opens up a lot of opportunity for creativity, especially with a | little bit of music theory to help. | codazoda wrote: | This is super interesting, especially his work on those foot | pedals. I like to make music but only just know a tiny bit about | playing. Maybe having foot pedals would help. I also created a | random chord generator that you can run in your browser to get | ideas for chord progressions. | | https://chords.joeldare.com | Rodeoclash wrote: | That was pretty fun. I wonder if making it so you can play the | chords using the keyboard would work? Also, I changed it to Dm | and the chord selection was, odd. | | Still, I liked it. I compose a lot of songs in Dm but do get | stuck in the same old chords. | bambax wrote: | 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 | LordDragonfang wrote: | I'm a big fan of the Pachelbel Rant as a sibling to the Axis of | Awesome video | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxC1fPE1QEE | pohl wrote: | 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 | video on the subject, which is a very worthwhile analysis of | that idea. It might be my favorite youtube video in the music | theory genre. | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-XSTSnqXxo | not2b wrote: | 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). | coliveira wrote: | Yes, and this is the crucial difference that make new songs | sound "modern". The Beatles were one of the first to use | the 1,5,6,4 sequence (Let it be). Since then the 1,6,4,5 | sequence has consistently lost ground, while 1,5,6,4 sounds | modern. The chords are still the same. | uhoh-itsmaciek wrote: | _Three_ chords and the truth. Usually attributed to Harlan | Howard [1], an early country music songwriter. A lot of early | country music sticks to just I, IV, and V. | | [1]: (PDF) https://countrymusichalloffame.org/content/uploads | /2019/05/W... | pohl wrote: | Thank you, fixed. That phrase flew right out of my fingers | carelessly. | uhoh-itsmaciek wrote: | No problem. In country and bluegrass jamming circles, | there's definitely a faction that prefers simpler songs | with fewer chords (true to Howard's quote), so I was | amused to see his words distorted. Thanks for fixing it. | bambax wrote: | > _Axis of Awesome video (which is about specifically using | 4-chord-long progressions that repeat in a cycle)_ | | Well yes the Axis of Awesome thesis is a bit disingenuous and | the critique at the beginning of Patricia Taxxon's video is | justified; just because the chords are the same doesn't mean | the songs are the same! And the analogy is quite true that in | visual arts all colors can be formed from the three primary | colors. | | Actually, I'm currently trying to make songs based on this | simple 1465 progression, in that order; here are my first two | attempts (the titles are a hint ;-) | | Alp 1465 https://open.spotify.com/track/5TxVfIf9JUAhCEL3O5cWX | T?si=86c... | | Bet 1465 https://open.spotify.com/track/2ghJN1EtQwXAZZj91B5yq | s?si=f16... | tallies wrote: | 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") | pythko wrote: | 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. | tallies wrote: | 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"). | pythko wrote: | 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. | tallies wrote: | There's no one 'music theory perspective'. Why not | analyze it on more axes? | | - Rhythmic patterns and variation | | - Interplay between instruments | | - Instrumentation and arrangement | | - Structure | | - Vocal style | | - Lyrics | | - Recording and mixing | | By these metrics (and the ears of 99% of its listeners) | it's a more or less generic 80s adult contemporary song. | Yes it has a weird chord progression. Would it be more | complex if it couldn't be boiled down to a series of | chords? | hackernewds wrote: | 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 | coliveira wrote: | Rick Beat is trying to deceive you. If you really believe that | this Sergio Mendes song is complicated, you need to listen to | some older pop songs. For example, Stevie Wonder is a good | composer to start. | dehrmann wrote: | > The obligatory video is of course "Four Chords" by Axis of | Awesome | | The original: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8s13sASS5F4 | drcongo wrote: | 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. | hejpadig wrote: | 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 | them myself. Here's an example of strange chord movements | that I personally like a lot more than the Sergio Mendes | song: | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXnUa6SNJFQ (Video showing | the chords more clearly) | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPIaw-MgNzM (Original song) | coliveira wrote: | Jazz sounds too complicated, but it is not. More than 90% | of it is just a set of 2,5,1 sequences disguised in clever | ways. | hamburglar wrote: | 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 listeners so it took work for me to appreciate | it as an adult, and now I can't help but wonder if the | better path for my kids is to get them used to it early or | to let them have that same "whoa" experience later. (Only | partially serious; of course they should be exposed to it. | :D) | crawfordcomeaux wrote: | 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. | crawfordcomeaux wrote: | 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. | bambax wrote: | This is so true -- to a point. One can still have likes | and dislikes, provided it's their own. | pdpi wrote: | 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. | visarga wrote: | > 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. | pdpi wrote: | 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. | drcongo wrote: | I'm now watching the Rick Beato video about it and I'm so | glad it's not just me whose brain recoils at the chord | progressions. Thank you. | default-kramer wrote: | 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. | taylodl wrote: | 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 "people's | key" and so it makes sense to learn since so many songs use it. | The key of A minor is pretty popular, and so is it's relative C | major. Throw in E minor (which is G major's relative minor!) and | with those 4 keys you can play the bulk of all rock and popular | music written over the past 50 years! | jefftk wrote: | The reason I approached this by chords instead of keys, is that | I'm building an electronic instrument. [1] I can set it to play | in any key before starting a song, but I'm trying to figure out | how I should trigger chords (and what chords I will want to | trigger) in the moment. | | [1] demo: https://youtu.be/JWj3QP9wsCU | dehrmann wrote: | > 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. | tmountain wrote: | Hopefully the keyboardist can manage a single sharp. | tarentel wrote: | I've never heard it called "people's key" but a lot of rock and | popular music written in the past 50 years was written on | guitar where these keys are the easiest to play. I imagine Am/C | are easiest on a piano but I am not a very good piano player to | begin with. | drchopchop wrote: | Side note, from a usability perspective: G major is arguably | the easiest key to play on a guitar, which is used heavily by | both popular music and songwriters. The I/IV/V maps to G, C, D, | which are all easy open chords to finger, plus Em is also | simple (two fingers). | | (Many of the other options include either B major or F major in | the I/IV/V, and those are considerably more difficult to play) | tshaddox wrote: | D major and A major are the other ubiquitous beginner- | friendly keys for guitar. I distinctly remember a few months | into getting my first guitar concluding that G major was so | much better because Em is so much easier to play than Bm or | F#m. :) | mjr00 wrote: | Yeah agreed, G and E make the most sense for guitar for those | reasons. Although equal temperament makes all scales sound | the same _in theory_ , there are often practical concerns. | For example, EDM is very often in D#, E, F, F#, or G minor. | There's a good reason for this: sub bass frequencies hit | hardest around F. G#, A, A#, B and C sound too high, and | anything lower than D# you risk playing on club speakers that | can't produce the frequency well. | taylodl wrote: | The key of G (G,C,D) is really easy to play on guitar and so | is the key of C (C,F,G). A lot of beginning guitarists | struggle with an F if you play it as a barre chord on the | first fret of the low E string. My favorite option for | playing an F is to play an FMaj7 using just the D (3), G (2), | B (1) and e (open) strings which is an open chord. If you ask | me to play an F chord that's what I'm going to play. I've | also heard it referred to as the "rock 'n roll" F. | mellosouls wrote: | As somebody without musical knowledge beyond the first chords you | might learn for pop guitar, after reading this article I still | have no idea which chords I need. | analog31 wrote: | If you're learning the instrument, you'll generally learn them | as you progress, starting with beginner material that may have | only one or two chords. At some point you will know "many" | chords and be possessed to learn more, and may eventually | pursue "every" chord. | | Any physically realizable fingering on the guitar is a chord. | Whether it's useful is another matter. Different permutations | of the same notes, in different ranges, is a way to add things | like motion and emphasis in the music. | | Another way of looking at it is how many chords are you likely | to encounter if you get into something like a band or jam | session situation, where you're expected to hear a chord and | play it. That depends on the musical style, and where the music | came from. For instance, tunes that were composed for other | instruments might have their own chordal language that results | in the same chords cropping up unexpectedly in guitar music. | | A lot of folk music has its own "logic" for lack of a better | term, based on the mechanics of the instrument. | mellosouls wrote: | Thanks for taking the time to help elaborate. When I opened | the article I was (naively?) kind of hoping to find a list of | chords that would have me covered for most situations, but | was unable to determine from the Roman numeric jargon being | used if that was so. | jancsika wrote: | Another way to put this is that for most _pop music_ , you | _could_ often degrade gracefully to three triads of major or | minor quality. | | But even for something discussed previously on HN-- the Beach | Boys "God Only Knows"-- this doesn't work. Wilson really wants a | half-diminished seventh chord at the high point of the melody. | One could perhaps degrade to a diminished triad in the | accompaniment, but he's literally singing the seventh of the | chord so it's there regardless. Substituting a major or minor | triad there is a qualitative change and sounds suspicious. | | If you're making your own instrument you might want to be aware | that there's a "suspicious" sound that some types of consistent | chord substitutions can have on certain classes of instruments. | | For example, a bagpiper can make severe simplifications to the | harmony or even change melodic intervals to fit what they have | available. Audiences generally accept this because the strictures | of the instrument have made that a common practice. (Even if | you're unaware of the strictures, you've probably gotten used to | hearing the result of the common practice.) | | However, if one consistently employs major/minor triad | substitutions on the guitar people are eventually going to hear | that as a lack of quality. As in the Beach Boys example, this | will often happen during key points. The guitarist may get lucky | if the singer happens to fill out the missing note of the chord-- | e.g., guitarist plays a minor triad and the singer fills out the | seventh at the beginning of the chorus of "Last Dance with Mary | Jane"-- but eventually the audience will figure out that the | guitarist is missing a vital skill. | | Anyway, unless your instrument is so novel it doesn't have any | associations with extant instruments, make sure you have some | kind of "escape hatch" so that skilled performers can play the | chords they need. :) | lb1lf wrote: | Francis Rossi, of Status Quo fame/notoriety, depending on who | you ask, quipped when presented with some award or other - | "Wow! Twenty-five years. Three chords. Thank you!" | | I love it when people do not take themselves too seriously. | jancsika wrote: | Look, I'm just a caveman. I fell in some ice and later got | thawed out by some of your scientists. My primitive mind | can't grasp these concepts. | | But there is one thing I do know: | | When composers want to emphasize the chord they're about to | play, they will often choose a new chord consisting of notes | within a step or half-step of the original. And they will | quickly play that new chord as a way to smoothly introduce | the chord they wanted to emphasize. | | Whether it's Mozart in the retransition of the G minor | symphony, Wagner in a transitional phrase of the interminable | Gotterdammerung, or a folksy award winning singer-songwriter, | that new chord counts as a chord. And that new chord _must be | added to the sum total number of chords used in the song_. | | Thank you. | | Edit: the Mozart chord is G-G#-B-Eb, as a kind of "neighbor | garbage chord" of a dominant seventh in G minor. For Wagner, | I can't remember what key it was in, but it's a half- | diminished seventh chord with a pedal-tone a minor third | below the root. It's function is as a neighbor chord to a | dominant seventh built on that same pedal-tone. Not sure | about OP's reference but I bet I could find an interesting | transient chord in there, too. | | Edit2: Oh yeah, the Wagner reference is indeed Wagner, so you | can be sure it gets sequenced with at least three iterations | in case you missed it the first time. | phpisatrash wrote: | Basically, if you know a scale, for example the D major scale you | can play anything. | TaupeRanger wrote: | Not if the song contains any modulations, secondary dominants, | borrowed chords, etc. It's not uncommon. | asdffdsa wrote: | That and the natural minor scale | rubyist5eva wrote: | I like progressive rock/metal and technical death, so....all of | them. | Sharlin wrote: | Heh, I _just_ this afternoon listened to a radio show about the | famously popular vi-IV-I-V /I-V-vi-IV chord progression [1]. If | you haven't heard it before, the "4 Chords" medley by Axis of | Awesome is a great demonstration of its ubiquity [2]. | | [1] | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%E2%80%93V%E2%80%93vi%E2%80%9... | | [2] https://youtu.be/oOlDewpCfZQ | MikeTaylor wrote: | I wonder what he would make of _I Am The Walrus_, which uses | every note-named major chord (A, B, C, D, E, F and G major). | webscalist wrote: | and welcome to atonality | Taywee wrote: | 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/ | nawgz wrote: | Just Cmaj7#11, best chord. Just scream while you play it and | you're halfway to being a metal band | willismichael wrote: | The other half is hiring this percussionist: | https://youtu.be/TfML1WEWfwk | beardyw wrote: | > And a few, like "Gee, Officer Krupke", just use a ton of chords | in a way I don't really understand. | | Leonard Bernstein seems to have a knack of writing simple | sounding songs but with every chord in the book. I noticed the | same in Tonight. | dharma1 wrote: | 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 | CobrastanJorji wrote: | 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." | viburnum wrote: | How can more songs have V than I? | omarhaneef wrote: | I wonder how much the chord-space would shrink farther if you | took out the bridge/intro where people tend to mix it up. And if | you could adjust when the song shifts keys in the chorus and | verse. (Although I didn't keep up with all the simplifications so | maybe that is already in here). | jefftk wrote: | _> Although I didn 't keep up with all the simplifications so | maybe that is already in here_ | | That one isn't there, because the original motivation of the | post was trying to design a chord input system for an | instrument. In which case I'm happy telling the instrument in | advance "this next song is in Dm" but not changing that on the | fly (hands are full) | np_tedious wrote: | Or last verse/chorus up-modulation | beardyw wrote: | A loathsome practice which irritates me unreasonably. | laGrenouille wrote: | Interesting quantitative take studying chord distribution. The | basic takeaway seems to be that if you re-phrase a song into a | different key you can play a lot with just a few chords (I IV V), | and even more with a few others. | | While I would agree that you'll be okay playing any major scale | in C major (or whatever other major key choose to learn), playing | a song in a minor scale on a major scale just doesn't sound quite | right. So, I'd double all of the numbers on their final table to | account for learning a full set of major and minor chords. | LtWorf_ wrote: | 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. | tarentel wrote: | 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. | asdffdsa wrote: | 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 | circlefavshape wrote: | If you know I, ii, iii, IV, V, vi in C then you'll be able to | play tunes in A natural minor. Add III to cover A harmonic | minor, and II to cover A melodic minor | | In real life though the key usually depends on the singer's | vocal range, so you won't really get away with learning just | one key | laGrenouille wrote: | Yes, that's a good point in the case of six keys (I think my | point holds for just learning three), but it is not the one | made that the article seemed to make. | tarentel wrote: | In A harmonic minor the III is already a C, you can make it | augmented but that is not very common. You generally change | the v to a V and keep the VII diminished in both cases where | as it is major in the natural minor. | PhaseLockk wrote: | He was saying that the III of C major is the V of A minor, | and so if you are planning to play in A minor using a set | of chords pulled from C major, you may want to add a III | alongside the iii. | tarentel wrote: | Ah, when phrased that way it makes sense. I | misunderstood. We're just saying the same thing in two | different ways. | calflegal wrote: | 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 "adjustments"...I suspect | adjusting to relative minor covers a huge amount of these issues, | and the author throws in mixolydian for good measure! There will | always be edge cases, secondary dominants, modulations, blah blah | blah, but I suspect adjusting to include relative minors handles | the vast majority of popular music. | [deleted] | sampo wrote: | > CMaj7 has C / E / G / B? Who says this isn't Emin6 with the | 6th in the bass? | | The person who wrote it down as CMaj7 and not Emin6/C says. | alar44 wrote: | Bingo. Sting had a quote that was something like "All chords | are ambiguous until I decide on a bass note to play." | tmountain wrote: | 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. | alar44 wrote: | Yep, the hardest thing about learning to comp is that you | can't do it alone. | tmountain wrote: | Unless your name is Joe Pass. | mgkimsal wrote: | 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 be pulling on that G, or just staying on the C when it | went into F. And then I took it beyond that..... Once you | realized the control you had over the band, as we talked | about earlier, you were in control. They can't go anywhere, | man. Ha! Power!" | | (source: https://reverb.com/news/interview-paul-mccartney-on- | his-life...) | alar44 wrote: | 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. | javajosh wrote: | Whenever I hear that song, I wish the intro would just go | on and on and on. | dehrmann wrote: | Regarding the opening chord of "A Hard Day's Night," George | said | | > It is F with a G on top (on the 12-string), but you'll | have to ask Paul about the bass note to get the proper | story | grafs50 wrote: | I think the difference here is how it functions in the music. | Does the chord function as a CMaj7 in relation to the rest of | the song, or does it function as an Emin6? | tejohnso wrote: | Great video here talking about the name of one chord in the | intro to Stairway To Heaven. Three different youtubers chime in | to discuss it. Really shows how much nuance there can be and | how ambiguous the naming can be. There was no real consensus. | One of the suggestions was "a minor major nine" and another was | "e seven flat thirteen over g sharp". | | "The name is there to express a feeling. If you don't know any | context it can be hard to put a definitive label on a chord." - | Paul Davids | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXqNyWehVEQ | titzer wrote: | That and sometimes chords/notes could be labeled either flat or | sharp. I thought that was really an annoying ambiguity until it | suddenly made a whole lot more sense--there are 7 letters for a | reason; in a given key, we generally want to use all 7 letters | to describe the scale tones, instead of repeating one. I think | the same goes here, knowing what key the song is in tends to | suggest certain chord spellings over others. | TrueTom wrote: | "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 | eatonphil wrote: | I started playing guitar in middle school and I hated learning | complex chords so I'd do what this video suggested and just | play the stripped down/simplified version of the chord. | | But it's not just about open chords. If you strip down a Bm7b5 | to a Bm and play the Bm on the second fret it still has half of | the character of the Bm7b5 chord. | | Only recently did I start gaining the patience to learn every | suggested chord and it makes a tremendous difference. | | That said, I prefer piano for accompanying because the piano's | tone is somehow more forgiving with basic chords than guitar | is. | usrn wrote: | IMO: It's much better to understand how to construct chords | and then play music and memorize them by trying to play both | the melody and some kind of accompaniment. You end up getting | stuck in situations where you need to rearrange the chord or | learn a new one and you can build them up that way without | drilling. | eatonphil wrote: | I do know the basics of chord construction but it's still | way easier to think through it on a piano because keys are | all linear whereas with guitar strings you have to | translate across strings with varying relationships. Not | saying it's impossible it just takes more work to | internalize that on guitar than piano. And I'm not there on | guitar. | BizarroLand wrote: | Yeah, for instance, it's much easier to melodically space out | or articulate the notes in a chord on a piano so they don't | clunk all together like the strum of a guitar without ever | crossing into arpeggio. That can make for beautiful open | melodic chord playing when you're jamming out or noodling | around without ever breaking the rhythm. | re wrote: | > While it's almost always I, IV, V, and vi, we have both II or | ii, and III or iii, differing on whether the third is major or | minor. One way to handle this is just to drop the third from | all the chords and play them open | | Note that what jefftk calls "open chords" are more commonly | called "power chords" (or "indeterminate" or "no3" or "5" | chords). This is a distinct concept from the open/"zombie" | chords that that youtube video is about. (But if you did use | only power chords when covering songs, they would also usually | sound quite dull!) | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_chord | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_chord | jefftk wrote: | I've now edited the post to say "chords without thirds" | instead of "open chords", which should reduce this confusion | ARandumGuy wrote: | 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. | tchock23 wrote: | It explains the problem, but doesn't really offer any | solutions for those of us stuck on 'campfire chords.' Any | suggestions for videos that do offer solutions? | shampto3 wrote: | 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 | squidsoup wrote: | My mate in the music industry always said you only need "three | chords and the right haircut". | [deleted] | adamnemecek wrote: | I'm working on an IDE for music composition. Chords and music | theory will be very much front and and center. Launching next | month. | | https://ngrid.io | | Join the discord https://discord.gg/a5ttYuG | and0 wrote: | Subscribed (not on Discord). Glad to see! I've bounced off | music theory but part of me knows that I would learn the hell | out it if I tried to implement an engine (and corresponding | interface) around it. I know many exist and I'd probably find | through even shallow research that it'd be 100x harder than I'm | imagining, but I wouldn't know half of what I know if I thought | ahead like that :P | | But as with reading this article, as an avid music lover I'm | afraid to ruin how I feel about some of my favorite | compositions. | adamnemecek wrote: | That's the problem, not that many actually exist. | duped wrote: | 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 resolutions). | It's setting up the zingers like "naturally we're punks" (V-I), | "deep down inside of us there is good" (V-I) coming from | chromatic turnarounds. | | (1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenkerian_analysis | dehrmann wrote: | 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. | [deleted] | robbyking wrote: | It would be interesting to break this down by genre. Jazz likes | to "borrow" notes to construct chords that aren't diatonic, and | metal likes to add the flat II and V almost as a rule. | klodolph wrote: | A couple notes | | > While it's almost always I, IV, V, and vi, we have both II/ii | and III/iii, differing on whether the third is major or minor. | | This might be a bit confusing as written, because the slash "/" | is normally used in roman numerals to indicate secondary chords. | For example, the II chord may be written as V/V. (V/V is always | II, but not the other way around... the "/" notation indicates | that the chord is functioning as a secondary chord, which is | something you figure out from context.) | | 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). Chords without a third are often | called "power chords". You can do your entire song with power | chords if you're playing rock music. | | I'd also add that what chords you get as the three/four chords | you need depends so heavily on genre. If you were playing blues, | you might pick I7, IV7, and V7 for your first three, and then | maybe bVII7 as the fourth. If you were playing jazz, you might | pick something like I69, ii9, IVmaj7, V7. | jefftk wrote: | _> 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 picked | up the idea that these were called "open"? I think I've seen | them written like "G<sub>open</sub>" to indicate that you don't | play a 3rd? Calling them "power chords" in a non-rock context | sounds off to me, though. Edited the post to call them chords | without thirds. | the_fury wrote: | Most people would also understand that there's no 3rd if you | call it a G5. | javajosh wrote: | _power chords ... call them chords without thirds._ | | Not a guitarist, but I always assumed "power chord" referred | to lots of doubling up over octaves, not the absence of a | third. | duped wrote: | It almost always refers to a perfect fifth, optionally with | the octave on top. It's a very easy thing to play with two | or three fingers, either on guitar or keyboard. | PrimeDirective wrote: | > Calling them "power chords" in a non-rock context sounds | off to me, though | | Even jazz musicians call them powerchords | H1Supreme wrote: | Every guitar player calls them powerchords. I've never | heard of another term. Unless OP is referring to double | stops. But, those are more of an embellishment, and usually | never played on the low E or A string. | taylodl wrote: | Jazz, rock, and pop guitarists and keyboardists all call 5 | chords power chords. | progre wrote: | > 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. | em3rgent0rdr wrote: | Outside of rock or guitar world, it is very unusual to hear | them be called "power chords". That lingo is best avoided. | jefftk wrote: | When playing mandolin I rarely play thirds | (https://www.jefftk.com/p/mandolin-teaching-videos), but | I'm also playing traditional music, acoustic, where "power | chords" sounds strange? | karmakaze wrote: | Co-incidentally the first graph looks like a pair of 'hand- | horns'. | beepbooptheory wrote: | In general, the conflation of "chords" and "harmony" can be | just _little_ sticky, because one implies something the | instrument is doing, and the other what the composer | /band/piece does. An instrument might be making lots of chord | changes, but that doesn't necessarily mean there is any overall | harmonic motion happening. | | Sure in rock'n'roll the guitar player isn't hitting the third a | lot, but the singer almost certainly is! | | Also, if you are playing modern jazz, you are not really doing | functional harmony like this analysis assumes except at a very | macro level. Chord changes there are about color more often, | only punctuating with a true harmonic change. This can be true | even if they are moving from, say, an I9 to IV9. That _seems_ | like a "change", but its really just elaborating on the I. | | I seem to remember "open chords" in my brief counterpoint | studies, but can't find anything to back that up now. But in | counterpoint you could talk about the openness of certain | "harmonies" in terms of their compatibility to any number of | changes. Something with a lot of doubled roots and fifths are | less open to changing, if you are following the "rules". | tejohnso wrote: | > In general, the conflation of "chords" and "harmony" can be | just little sticky, because one implies something the | instrument is doing, and the other what the composer/band | does. | | Maybe not directly related or as confusing, but also worth | noting here I think is that you can play three notes | sequentially and still call it a chord. It would be a "broken | chord". And you can play just two notes simultaneously as a | "harmonic interval". | klodolph wrote: | I'm not going deep into Jazz, but if I'm playing a song with | something like I vi ii V, then I'm going to likely color | those chords with the 7th (at the minimum) and likely | additional extensions. | | I picked something like I69 not because it has _function_ | different from I, but because a 6 /9 chord is a common choice | for a Jazz musician to play as a I chord. Or, at least, it's | one of my first picks. And if you're playing I9 -> IV9, my | question is whether the I IV is just comping on I or whether | it's harmonic movement. | | And I will say that while there is no requirement to use | functional harmony in Jazz, there is a massive repertoire of | Jazz that uses functional harmony, or at least uses harmony | where you can get insight by analyzing it functionally. For | example, I might analyze something as "bV7/V I" in a jazz | song and that _is_ both very functional and very jazzy, and | in a classical piece I might see "N6 V7 I" and while N6 and | bV7/V are similar chords, using the chord with dominant | function is, stylistically, a jazz idiom. | welfare wrote: | > For example, "Kitchen Girl" needs "A G" for the first half of | the tune (confusingly called the "A part") | | This is standard notation, especially in American folk music, | that sections are labeled A, B and sometimes C. This makes it | very convenient when playing with others who're not familiar with | the tune (e.g. This is Kitchen Girl, key of A, two A parts, two B | parts) | sineroth wrote: | if u wanna get laid 3 is lots | Aidevah wrote: | Slightly related is the question "How many different notes do you | need in the bass to harmonise any melody?", and the answer was | provided by Obrecht in the final section of his Missa Malheur me | bat[1] dating from around 1497. The original tune is here[2]. | While the section was probably written partly as a joke, it's | interesting how you really only need the 1st and 5th scale | degrees to cover the majority of the song tune. | | [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLyfr_dQTBc&t=293s | | [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrZKnEXKwn0 | cjohnson318 wrote: | 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. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-04-21 23:00 UTC)