Finding sweat out of scale chords

[Jafo]

Leading tones and melody lines, secondary dominants, and the Rule of Cool. What more do you need?

You can get theoretical if you like. vi can be seen as a free substitution of I. vi-III is a Dorian variation on V-I. (Carlos Santana wants royalties!)

Back in the 70's as a budding young guitarist wanting to set the world on fire
I cut my proverbial teeth analyzising Santana. Which, back then it was rather easy.

And Santana studied BB King, even to the point of making a funny face when he bent notes. Congrats on having good taste!

Heh, I tried to analyze Satriani... it helped that he wrote all those columns in the mags.

[Jafo]

Well, C is not a member of the G# major triad, but B# is. And that certainly fits within C# minor since it's the leading tone.

Apologies for adding a small clarification: b# and c are the same tone. G#-B#-D# can also be written as Ab-C-Eb. G# Major and Ab Major are the same chord. Ain't enharmonic tones fun?!

(This is an oversimplification -- in reality, b# is a bit flatter than c -- but it's valid in Western music, which only uses 12 tones per octave and has to kinda squish some of them together.]

[FarleyCZ]

Ad minor ascales. I found this guy:

He explains the reason amazingly. But I still like more pleasant when he goes up by the F chord. Dunno why. Hope it doest curve my preception of cool rule somheow.

Ad chords: And what about Cee-lo's F*ck you song? It's C, D7 F C, again ,D7 has F# in it.Aboslutely from nowhere, out of key, still cool though.
I just wish there was some hint that would tell me: Hey, here you can do some cool out of key stuff too.

I did one song where I accidently found that melody in C#minor key you can play D note and it doesn not clash too much. Also few chord fiddling around the end of the C scale, but that's all. It all seems terribly random, which is amazing and inspiring on the one hand, but kinda delivering little: "You should be able to find such a nonlinearites more regulary..."

[sjm]

You might find it helpful to think of some chords as substitutions. Chords can be closely or less closely related to one another.

For example, you can substitute a G with an Em and it'll generally sound OK. A G6 or Em7 in fact contain the same notes, just have different root notes.

In your example you are substituting a major for a minor, which isn't such a radical change, as the root and 5th remain unchanged. So instead of the I ii IV I progression, which turns up all over the place, you go I II IV I.

There is no lack of songs that use the II (or V of V), and especially II7, particularly to lead up to the V, but of course not exclusively. It's common in classical (e.g. Land of Hope and Glory, which gets played at graduation ceremonies in the US) uses the II before resolving to the V. Don McClean's American Pie uses both II and ii. Ziggy Stardust by Bowie uses it in the verse (A to C when in G major) but then switches to Am in the chorus (which is also in A minor rather than G major).

It's been touched on before, but you can include both the I - III change and the II7 in progressions like this:
I - III(7) - IV - II7 (or use an 11th as the last chord if you like)

e.g. C E F D7 (or D11)
play that and contrast it with C Em F Dm7 (all in key).

The "strange" notes are what makes something more interesting. If you make subtle changes to the notes, so that it's more or less what the listener expects, but with a twist, you tend to get harmonically pleasing tones that are also less hackneyed - making the whole piece more interesting.

Probably less common is the substution of minors instead of majors, but you get this as well. Quite a few songs use iv instead of IV - or switch from IV to iv - Radiohead's Creep for example. There's also I-v or deriviatives, such as at the end of "Sexed Up" by Robbie Williams (C-Gm7). The chorus of "Life on Mars" by Bowie also uses both F and Fm and G and Gm/Bb (in what is nominally C major), before using the D (V of V) to return to G major for the next verse.

You can obviously extend this further, e.g. substituing suspended chords.



Frank Black wrote a lot of stuff just/mainly using major chords, some of the more bizarre songs to take a look at would probably be "Calistan" and "The Vanishing Spies" off teenager of the year. The former is in key for ther verse, but not the chorus, the latter is very much in key in the chorus, but intentionally off in the verses.

I'm sure there's fancier terminology for this kind of thing, but I hope you can get something out of the above


Edit: minor fixing

[FarleyCZ]

Thanks! I'll listen to the examples when I get home. Still tough, from what all of you say here, for example switching between minor and major chords is pretty comon. That means I must do something wrong. There must be some rule I forget or something, becouse almost everytime I try to do that, I get wierd bluesy "non modern" sound. And not this nice fragile nonlinear but still really pleasant sound like in Where Is My mind or such.

I must do either something wrong, or I'm missing something which devides nice substitutions from "too bluesy" ones.

Again, I'm deeply sorry if this is too dumb for you guys, but bunch of chromatic (unnamed graphicaly remembered) scales was all I needed till now. Everything else is just new for me.

[sjm]

While on the subject of "weird" chords, possibly the most dissonant chords to group together are two majors 6 semitones apart, e.g. F and B. Play the two chords and it generally sounds very "wrong".

But Beck wrote a whole song (motherf**ker) using just that change; it also crops up in "I am the Walrus" by the Beatles:
F
Corporation T-shirt stupid bloody Tuesday,
B7
Man, you been a naughty boy, you let your face grow long.

"I am the Walrus" is another interesting use of primarily major chords; the roots are all taken from C major, but the other notes in the chords are not necessarily in the scale of C major, due to them being major chords. The entire end of the song is just a continuous loop that starts on A and drops through all the notes in C major (A G F E D C B), but playing each chord as a major.


So don't forget that in music context is important. There are changes that work well in some styles, but sound awful in others. The Blues scale introduces all sorts of weird notes that sound right in the context of blues, but might sound out of place elsewhere.

[FarleyCZ]

Damn, whole week ahead with no piano in reach... Would be tough to discuss this, but anyway.... I think context might be the thing. I can hear some of that "wrong" feel in the "I am the Walrus" and Beck song and it's kinda "calmed down" by context. Actually if I take just chords of Where's my mind at and play them without this sweet topline (which is emphasizing in-scale in-chord notes btw) and with no inversions, it sounds a bit wierder too. Amazing.

Gonna mess around with this context idea asap. It's a bit disapointing that it will demand more complex thinking then simple in-scale jamming which I based morless my whole production on so far. Once you got these tonal "paterns" of minor and major scales, this jamming is really simple and fun. I wish I could find something like this for these exchanges.

[Jafo]

it also crops up in "I am the Walrus" by the Beatles:
F
Corporation T-shirt stupid bloody Tuesday,
B7
Man, you been a naughty boy, you let your face grow long.

(continued)

I am the [C]egg-man
They are the [D]egg-men
I am the [E]walrus

You can also see this as a prolonged tonicization of E, an extension of B7-E. That is preceded by F is irrelevant (by this analysis). Alternately, since the E itself leads back to A, it's an extended/delayed II-V7-I instead of ii-V7-I.

Or just as a way of finding cool chords that work with the melody. It's all good.

ISTR a pdf floating around about the harmonic language of the Beatles; in it, the author concluded that they basically took common guitar chords and used them in interesting and unique ways. A very common trick is to take a chord, then move to a major chord formed on the third of the first chord -- F to A.

"I am the Walrus" is another interesting use of primarily major chords; the roots are all taken from C major, but the other notes in the chords are not necessarily in the scale of C major, due to them being major chords. The entire end of the song is just a continuous loop that starts on A and drops through all the notes in C major (A G F E D C B), but playing each chord as a major.

Yep. A very cool set of tricks indeed!

[jancivil]

vi-III is a Dorian variation on V-I. (Carlos Santana wants royalties!)

Well, "vi" as it denotes a triad per se doesn't exist in Dorian. A triad built on the sixth degree is going to be of diminished quality, and not so useful as it's going to beg for resolution to a tonic that isn't the tonic of the mode, obviating the mode. Dorian ON D: B D F. B D F to F A C? Santana? Really?

The Carlos Santana Secret Chord Progression is i-IV. Dorian ON D: D minor, G major. And, characterizing a chord change in a dorian mode context 'a variation on V-I' has no meaning really. i-IV and V-I are both rising fourth/falling fifth movements, but they don't equate to the same function.


as per the OP, it might turn out that the person that came up with G#-A or A to Bb (not a different move, NB) doesn't have a theoretical foundation but found it working for them. As per enough theory to validate it: G# B# D# is the "V chord" of C# minor, which precedes it; that shows you the relationship to the other chords is not distant.

b# and c are the same tone. G#-B#-D# can also be written as Ab-C-Eb. G# Major and Ab Major are the same chord.

So, C is a useful spelling in the key of Ab. It's a mispelling in G#. For anyone new to theory, this is confusing enough. BY THIRDS, a [major] triad on G# = G# B# D#. In explaining why the G# chord is not aberrant [eg., 'in E'], it is more useful to spell it right.

[jancivil]

I am the [C]egg-man
They are the [D]egg-men
I am the [E]walrus

You can also see this as a prolonged tonicization of E, an extension of B7-E. That is preceded by F is irrelevant (by this analysis). Alternately, since the E itself leads back to A, it's an extended/delayed II-V7-I instead of ii-V7-I.

No, it really is not. It is simply enough III, IV, V.

ii-V function-wise is Subdominant, Dominant. So, 'on paper', apparently you have the idea "III to IV" subs for "ii" or "V of V". It doesn't to the ear. What it sounds like is more meaningful than 'on paper'; I don't think John Lennon was emulating classical music functional harmony with that idea. "Walrus" is more modal than tonal.

Believe it or not, not everything has to be related to harmonic function in the common practice period of classical music. Even if you saw that in say Schubert, it will have its own feel and 'meaning'.

[tapper mike]

Jan, Carlos Santana was/is modal in the contemporary sense. He would change Scale tones to accomodate the turnaround.

Classic Carlos after the intro the progression is

Dmin - Amin - Dmin - Gmin - Dmin - *Amin* - Dmin

For each chord he changes the scale.
Dm7 D minor Dorian
Am 7 A minor Dorian
Gm G minor dorian.

The scale changes to accomodate the chord.

[jancivil]

well, if those are new tonics, it's still modal per se, in the *meaningful* sense of the word. I copped a lot of Santana when I was a kid and I know he is pretty much a modal player.

in a D minor to G major vamp as I have described, those chords fit the Dorian mode and it's why they are there. I am just trying to extrapolate a useful principle for anyone that's interested in what you can do with modes.

Some people understand other things and take the opportunity to reveal that and try to shoehorn modes questions into it. I feel it's muddy waters and will clarify it, not to gainsay but for the rest of the people that want to understand it clearly.

There is a belief I see revealed often, that D dorian is dependent on C major for its existence, IE: the second mode of C major. While that is true if you take 'C major' to mean 'C Ionian', it is equally true that C Ionian is the seventh mode of D Dorian. If the tonic is C, 'D Dorian' has no real meaning. If the tonic is D, as in D Dorian, 'C major' isn't relevant. They are co-incident at the level of a set, but have different meanings.

It's going to be more effective to think of how the chords enhance the modes, than to construe things by rote as though it's strictly from the 'major key basis', which isn't the basis. Not all triads built on the seven tones are gonna do that. It's not major key thinking. It's not any "variation on V-I" (even in major/minor paradigm, ii V isn't a variant of V-I per se, the moves function differently). That's beside the point entirely.

And it appears Jafo's 'vi-iii' move 'in D dorian' must be vi and iii of C major. That is NOT useful. Per Dorian, ie., TONIC D, that's ii and v. Doesn't do that much to bring out the cool stuff in Dorian. The first thing you want for D Dorian to happen is the tonic D. SO I said, "Dm-G" which I know really does the trick.