Chord progressions and song structure

[TribeOfHǫfuð]

Cool thing is that when you apply it to modal music you have two functions only, which translates into having a tonic and then any other chord within the mode is a dominant (mediator). Choose and pick as it fits.

[jancivil]

them is thoughts
I try not to have thoughts in music, thinking is a distraction.

[TribeOfHǫfuð]

I have never had the thought 'mediant harmony' or the term 'mediant' in music speak occur to me personally.

Well, at the end of tonification, it was only the chord on the third step, which is called mediant, so we have tonic (I) , subdominant (IV), dominant (V) and mediant (III) as standards today. And I say good riddance going that road, for I need two functions only when dealing with modal music: a root ("tonic" if chord) and a mediant to the root ("dominant" if chord)

them is thoughts
I try not to have thoughts in music, thinking is a distraction.

Oh I agree. I may seem filled up with theory, but the art is to let the body use it, while I concentrate on listening. Theory is at best used for understanding what I just did, communication and internet talk-talk.

And since the scale-revolution thread with the music theory conspiracy rightfully was flushed down the drain in HPC, I think one of my absolutely favorite modal oriented groups, Niyaz, deserves a revisit to spice up this thread. This is music the way your ancient grandmas made it. One root, everything else wants to go back there and does so. Stuff your chord progressions where the sun don't shine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fl2Pgbt ... d&index=11

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZHP6a7ULr8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFyrYwm ... Gd&index=5

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zl4Xq-CSbFk

I mean, can you imagine: We are in Avignon at around 1400. A center for cultural synthesis and not at least music. Here come minstrels from all over the world to exchange ideas. In a market filled with music and theater, a minstrel recognizes a mode from a playing group. He enters with his own improvisations, while you and your family cherfully clap and sing Leh-Leh-Leh-Leh-Leehlee whenever they reach the chorus. Other minstrels may enter with other scales to the same root and it will be multimodal impro, just like modal jazz can be. Inside the walls of the church, they are either abandoning polyphony or purifiying it to make it sacred depending on which popes are pissed on each other when reforming the church. Outside, the people's music rules. Actually it reminds me of a modern discussion from the 90s in charismatic churches of Denmark and world wide, namely to which extend there is something like Christian Heavy Rock. How typical the church. In the renaissance, it was polyphony and today any kind of modern halleluja whose sacredness is at stake

[] Peter:H []

This is music the way your ancient grandmas made it. One root, everything else wants to go back there and does so. Stuff your chord progressions where the sun don't shine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fl2Pgbt ... d&index=11

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZHP6a7ULr8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFyrYwm ... Gd&index=5

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zl4Xq-CSbFk

Thanks for the "stuff your chord progression" and the videos...

This thing about "one root"? Can you please watch these two ladies (Bands Voca Me, Qntal, Estampie) sing a little tune, one the melodie one the bordun (Drone, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drone_(music)). Sorry it's german, but still these two make me goose bumps with this little phrase. Is this what you meant with "one root"? Please go to 7:40 (the timestamp in the link does not work in kvr embeded video it seems)
https://youtu.be/egUDcxWMQdo&t=460s

[jancivil]

In English (which you speak infinitely better than I'll ever speak Danish or whatever it's called), mediator and mediant are not the same word.
A dominant harmony one guesses does something, and this is an active verb but mediant is passive, and only refers to something being 'in the middle' in this case. Halfway between I and V. Big fugging deal, right?
So the term has not a lot of meaning, for me anyway. Submediant, now we're getting into dumbassery. I don't mind 'subdominant', because it is a function. iii or vi is at most an incomplete tonic resolution, functionally, albeit the slight element of surprise and drama of VI in minor maybe could be named something. Gina, or something.

[jancivil]

useless opinions probably

[jancivil]

them is thoughts
I try not to have thoughts in music, thinking is a distraction.

Oh I agree. I may seem filled up with theory, but the art is to let the body use it, while I concentrate on listening. Theory is at best used for understanding what I just did, communication and internet talk-talk.

And since the scale-revolution thread with the music theory conspiracy rightfully was flushed down the drain in HPC

izzat what happened. One day it was just gone, to my experience. Oh well, if I'd have cared really I'll have made copies of what I wrote (there are books with less info), but in my recollection whatever was affirmed can be done without all the noise.

I create music in such a zone, unless there was a specific plan (such as the things which used one scale) I don't know what I did, by note names or much of anything. I'll play it back and do an overdub, I'm perfectly able but I may as well be idiot savant. As funny as the statement looks, I firmly believe Sonny Rollins' remark 'You can't think and play at the same time' may as well be Holy Writ. I kind of wish it was something one could teach but I couldn't say how I got there.
This is why a lot of the jazz theory {nb., chord/scale theory} bugs me, because it's a lot of words you'd have in your head that are a waste of your mental CPU cycles while you're trying to do the thing in real time. But this could just mean I'm not as clever.

[jancivil]

BTW, the Youtube timestamp works, but it does nothing for the embed. Click on the URL.

[jancivil]

Don't know at all what's been said at that vid, but musically it's a semblance of Holy Roman Church modality but there is a chief feature there (which may be the point it is so prevalent) that so isn't, they sing a major second pretty frequently in that. So it has a kinda sorta ancient vibe. I don't know about all that history, personally, for me it's virtually prehistoric (for one thing I had a class at one point that remained in antiquity for two trimesters and it was *torture*, for more reasons than just the material (poor presentation, the textbook was Grout which wasn't apt even for that and otherwise some bullshit), but the material gets old).

I'm American, we're trivial and shallow with no roots

[TribeOfHǫfuð]

This thing about "one root"? Can you please watch these two ladies (Bands Voca Me, Qntal, Estampie) sing a little tune, one the melodie one the bordun (Drone, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drone_(music)).

Yes, this could be a typical modal melody sung over one bass note only; a drone if you like, though it does not have to be a sustained note, it could be rhythmical as long as it keeps the tonal center on one note only. However you would not know from the example until you know what the bass note is doing. If for example you have a bass that moves down the first time the melody takes the note under and back, you have made a temporary modulation to another root. These do not matter much in modal music because they are sparse, but case is you just took a short trip to another root and back.

Lets take another example. Let's say you have these notes downward and up:

A, C, E , which is an A-minor

Now you change C,E to D and F.

What you now have is a tension that some may want to call an inversed Dm; a dm with its fifth in the bass. Well, it ain't in any sense within modal music if you ask me, because the root is still A. It is a mediating chord that wants to go back to Am for sure (or A if that is where it started), it has a tension seeking back to root and does not rest in itself, which a dm would if it was tonic. You can make loads of melodies and harmonizations which can be based on such tensions and would not need any root (bass) movement at all. In all my examples, the bass goes absolutely nowhere. All the action is in the voice leading, harmonies and their particular relation to the root.

[TribeOfHǫfuð]

In English (which you speak infinitely better than I'll ever speak Danish or whatever it's called), mediator and mediant are not the same word.

No, that is true. But the modern mediant is actually seen as a passing chord, residing somewhere in the middle of the big three. An underestimated stepstone. Mediator is my own word for Fux's "passing harmonies", which sound somewhat too passive to me, but means the same.

[TribeOfHǫfuð]

I don't know about all that history, personally, for me it's virtually prehistoric (for one thing I had a class at one point that remained in antiquity for two trimesters and it was *torture*, for more reasons than just the material (poor presentation, the textbook was Grout which wasn't apt even for that and otherwise some bullshit), but the material gets old).

I'm American, we're trivial and shallow with no roots

He, he. That is why I love my ancient musical interests so much. Everybody else hate it, have forgotten it or never learned. It is easy to feel unique then even if your music sucks in any style.

[jancivil]

you gotta hear this one
https://youtu.be/88zvm7-fhKo

"[Europe have] their folk dances, folk songs, folklore that means something to them, and they're proud of their ethnic heritage.
We have Levi's, we have designer jeans, we have hamburgers, we have Coca Cola®... we have REO Speedwagon, we have Journey, we have this one we have that one...
and then we go out there and we say Yeah! But we also have neutron bombs, and poison gas so maybe that makes up for it."

[vurt]

don't stop believin!

[TribeOfHǫfuð]

you gotta here this one
https://youtu.be/88zvm7-fhKo

I am not sure why, but I laughed from start to end. Either he is saying something funny or saying something sad in a funny way. However, who am I to contradict him? History is identity even if it does not sell as good as Coca Cola. Short history is lesser identity. Stupidity is when history does not matter anymore if we just can get our Jeans and McD.