Some Chord Progression Stuff

[Km7]

About the terminology - no problem! I am always happy and ready to help with anything I am able. Time ago, I myself was confused when I first encountered these differences, so I pointed them out to help others eventually cope with them if they encounter such situations.

[No name]

Great stuff, Sascha!

http://home.arcor.de/s.franck/chordprog ... -V-V-I.mp3

Hm, could you expand a bit on how you were turning such a simple progression into such a beautiful piece of music? I think what us noobs are struggling with most, is not so much the basic structure of things but the balance of all these elements, nice additions and small variations that you pros are achieving in a kinda natural way. That is, us noobs could play just the same progressions and it might (in my case anyway ) sound like shit! When I had piano lessons, I experienced this about every time: my teacher would sit down and play exactly the same basic chords and it would sound beautiful - somehow frustrating

Now, it's perfectly clear that this doesn't come overnight. So practice! practice! practice! and practice some more... However, it'd be nice if you could tell us a little bit about the techniques you used in this example, i.e. all those small variations that you're injecting probably intuitively (because of huge experience and great chops) to make it interesting and pleasant. And how did you achieve that latin-caribbean vibe?

I guess I sound like a complete idiot

werner

Glad to see someone shares my struggle, because this is what I've wanted to know all this time. How does one take such a simple progression, and turn it into what you did? When people tell me to play a certain progression I just play block chords a whole note for each chord and then move on to the next. That would get old very quick as you might imagine. So I'm with the poster that i'm quoting!

[No name]

When dealing with major scales, we also have some "relative" chords to those "elemental" functional chords, they're usually just called "relative minor".
So there's a relative minor chord for the tonic (the VImin(7) chord, in the key of C that'd be Amin(7)), for the subdominant (the IImin(7) chord, in C that'd be Dmin(7)) and for the dominant chord (the IIImin(7), in C that'd be Emin(7)).
These chords are more or less closely related to their relative major chords, so quite sometimes they are exchangeable - without changing the "basic" function of whatever progression we're dealing with (this is especially true for the relative minor of the tonic and for the relative minor of the subdominant, for the dominant chord it often doesn't apply too well).

Sascha, I apologize for being so thick headed here, but i'm not quite sure what is going on in this paragraph, the part I cannot seem to understand is in bold.

[Toxikator]

No Name: what I think he's talking about is this -

consider the key of CMajor. C-C, white keys. Now consider A minor. A-A, white keys. One thing you'll notice is that Aminor and CMajor share exactly the same set of notes. In theory, we say that Aminor is 'relative' to CMajor (it's the relative minor).

So when analyzing a piece in CMajor, we tend to think of the I chord as being the Tonic (CMajor), the IV chord as being the Subdominant (FMajor), and the V chord as being dominant (GMajor). However, those very same notes, though we think of them as being in CMajor, could also be in AMinor (since C and Am share the same notes).

If you had, for example, the chord ACE, you could analyze it as being a vi (VIm) chord in CMajor, OR as a i (Im) chord in A minor. Likewise, DFA would be ii (IIm) in CMajor, or iv (IVm) in Aminor, and the same is also true for the iii.

The fact that these two relative scales share all the same notes/chords makes it easy to interchange among them; so if you notice a progression that goes vi - ii - iii - vi, it might help to think of it as being a i - iv - v - i in the relative minor.

In classical analysis, this is considered a technical modulation (to the relative minor) but the reality of it is that these sort of connections can be fleeting, so the piece never truly ESTABLISHES the vi chord as being a new (minor) tonic, but still exploits the circular relationship of the chords...

When we say that they're "exchangeable" with the major chords, a couple of things can be going on: one, it could be that the piece, rather than temporarily modulating to it's relative minor, is modulating to a major key in PLACE of the relative minor. Another likely scenario is that a secondary dominant motion is in effect; if the progression ii (IIm) - V, for example, is changed to II - V, it can help to think of the II chord as being a V/V chord.

[Sascha Franck]

How does one take such a simple progression, and turn it into what you did?

1) Practice.
2) Experience.
3) Practice.
4) Experience.

Do I need to go on?
Really, it's just that.
Of course, a tad of talent seriously doesn't harm, a bit of "musical taste" (whatever that might be for you) doesn't either.

But well, of course there's something else. It's experimenting with whatever you can get ahold of.
You know, I already said so in my previous post, for a while I had to play over such "harmless" progressions, and at first I was like "WTF?!?". So, as I almost had no choice (others than leaving the project, which, at that time, would've been less than ideal), I simply had to find some things that would at least sort of satisfy me, even if I didn't like the music too much.
So I just fooled around with various things, be it funny rhythms, arpeggios, 6ths (that very often tend to sound like country) and whatever. You need to see things as a challenge for yourself.

Instead of playing block chords, why not play arpeggios? Why not play some syncopated rhythms? Why not use a strange sound? Especially in these days, there's tons of options to improve.
An approach such as "oh, this is boring shit" probably won't lead you too far. Something like "hah, let's see what I can make out of it" is way better.
And after a while it should all come together, so you probably won't even have to start with the boring shit anymore.

[Sascha Franck]

As far as your second question goes, no name, Toxikator already explained it all well.
Basically, it's just that very often major chords and their relative minors are exchangeable. So instead of I, you could probably as well use VImin, instead of IV you could probably as well use IImin. Just with the V chord it's getting a bit different.
I will try to take care about the issue quite a bit more later on (during the next days).
For now I have a last thing to come in 5 minutes or so (need to cut and convert to MP3).

[Sascha Franck]

Alright, here's another one.

After some thoughts about "what's next?" I decided to stick with the simple I-V chord movement but sort of "enhance" it.

IMO the example of the previous post is sounding sort of "obvious" - and most likely almost everything just containing those very two chords will sound obvious as well.
This can be a welcomed thing in some cases (especially in case it's part of larger progressions), in other cases it might not.

What we can do to "mask" the obvious character is to establish further chord notes.
As you may remember from my first post (or from whatever theory lessons), we can for example add a 7th to our chords.
For the F, being the tonic (I) chord, that'd be an E, the major 7th.
For the C, being the dominant (V) chord, that'd be a Bb, the 7th.

With just the E being present in the F chord, *the* key note movement when going from C to F, the E resolving into the F, will already be sort of "mellowed".

Then, in the following example, I will use something else, which you may find to be a rather common thing. I will "suspend" the 3rd of the dominant chord and replace it with the 4th. The resulting chord will be named C7sus4.
A really common thing, but very often you may find the sus4 being resolved to the 3rd while still being on the chord.
So, a movement like C7sus4 - C7 - F is a rather often heard one.
However, in the example, I *won't* let the sus4 resolve to the 3rd but stick to it all throughout the C.
Oh - do we notice something?
In my last statement I said that one of the most plausible movements would be the 3rd of the dominant chord resolving to the root of the tonic chord.
Now, with those new chord treatments, we are actually sort of reversing that movement. The sus4 of the C (which would be the F) will now resolve to the major 7th of the F (note E).
The rest of the chord movements will still be as "obvious", but this little trick is really losening the most obvious part of it.
Just give it a listen:
http://home.arcor.de/s.franck/chordprog ... V7sus4.mp3
Sorry, sounds a bit like "muzak" (or "musical wallpaper", as we say over here), but you may get the idea.

[Toxikator]

As far as your second question goes, no name, Toxikator already explained it all well.
Basically, it's just that very often major chords and their relative minors are exchangeable. So instead of I, you could probably as well use VImin, instead of IV you could probably as well use IImin. Just with the V chord it's getting a bit different.
I will try to take care about the issue quite a bit more later on (during the next days).
For now I have a last thing to come in 5 minutes or so (need to cut and convert to MP3).

OH, I thought you were talking about relative analysis, not a chord being exchangeable with it's relative counterpart. Hm. I've never seen it put that way before.

The ii and the IV I've always considered interchangeable, but for no real reason other than they WERE (they're both second-class chords, they share two tones, etc.) It never occured to me that they're relative subdominants and that that might affect their relationship.

BTW when you say the vi and the I are interchangeable, this is true to a degree. The vi chord can resolve a progression in place of a I, but it's a very 'incomplete'-sounding progression, known in classical theory as a "deceptive" cadence (or resolution).

it's one of my favorites; V7-vi. but again, if you choose to resolve a major piece to its relative minor, it's tough (at least in triadic harmony) to get it to sound "complete".

Of course, in tetrachordal harmony, the vi7 would be ACEG, which is just an inversion of CEGA, which is a I6, which is a very common cadential chord in tetrachordal harmony... so there's that.

Also, that's a neat trick with the suspensions, that's definitely one for the playbook.

[Sascha Franck]

BTW when you say the vi and the I are interchangeable, this is true to a degree. The vi chord can resolve a progression in place of a I, but it's a very 'incomplete'-sounding progression, known in classical theory as a "deceptive" cadence (or resolution).

I'm not saying they're exactly exchangeable - at least most likely they're not when it comes to the final chord of whatever progression, but inmidst quite some progressions, it might be a neat trick to exchange them occasionally.
I totally agree that it often sounds "incomplete", but as said, it's a good thing to be aware of nonetheless.

[Toxikator]

Oh absolutely.

The ii and the IV chord, on the other hand, are far MORE exchangeable, at least as I'm aware of them. so much so, in fact, that they're often simply sounded as a ii7 (or in tetrachordal harmony, I'd assume ii9) so that both chords are encompassed...

[Sascha Franck]

The ii and the IV chord, on the other hand, are far MORE exchangeable, at least as I'm aware of them. so much so, in fact, that they're often simply sounded as a ii7 (or in tetrachordal harmony, I'd assume ii9) so that both chords are encompassed...

Sure.
Thing is, IVj7/II is always a great voicing for IImin7/9, so it's just the root changing.
In fact, it all depends on the bass movement you'd like to hear.
In a I-IV-V progression you get the "most plausible" bass movement (fourth up) between I and IV.
In a I-IImin(7)-V progression you have it between II and V.
From a functional point of view, it's making close to no difference, even the "avoid" notes are identical (6th on the IImin, #11 on the IV - of course that doesn't apply to modal stuff).

[Toxikator]

Cool! But what's a "IVj7/II"?

BTW the inversion does indeed matter (as you said); in classical harmony, the ii7 almost always shows up as ii65 (or IV6 if you prefer). So it's the same principle, I suppose; you voice it as a IV chord with extensions rather than a ii chord with extensions.

[No name]

What we can do to "mask" the obvious character is to establish further chord notes.
As you may remember from my first post (or from whatever theory lessons), we can for example add a 7th to our chords.
For the F, being the tonic (I) chord, that'd be an E, the major 7th.
For the C, being the dominant (V) chord, that'd be an F, the 7th.

I understand that E is the 7th of the tonic (F,A,C,E), but for C (C,E,G,B), the 7th lands on B, doesn't it? I'm probably taking it the wrong way, but I've looked it over almost a dozen times and it's not quite clear to me. Not tryna annoy anyone here! :Lol: Perhaps I need to get the basics down solidly before I try to move onto any concepts like this.

[Toxikator]

No you're right, the 7th of C is indeed a B (or if we're in FMaj, it's actually a Bb)..?

[dreamkeeper]

Sascha - thanks for the explanations. And stop apologising for putting up nice examples!

Sure, those snippets might be considered cheesy and may not be up to your own standards. But imho they are showing perfectly well that the "secret" does not lie in some theory-alchemy but in the heart and soul of the musician. Sounds cheesy as well, I know, but that's what I believe.