This makes so much more sense. It's difficult to "see" this on guitar, This is why piano lessons are important; no matter what instrument you choose to play later on.Thank You.
Oh man, Ive just become fascinated with music theory recently... I just discovered in moving by fifths on the keyboard, that if you move to the right of the tonic you get the V, ii, vi, iii etc... whereas by moving by fifths to the LEFT you get the IV, as mentioned... THEN the bVII, then the bIII. Always being a beatles fan and a fan of borrowed chords, I always wondered how these relate harmonically when people do these interesting harmonic jumps. This really blew my mind.
I like it! I'm re-learning piano and have been using inversions to smooth out my playing as opposed to big leaps. I write electronic rock music and it makes it sound more sophisticated for lack of a better term. I think the voice leading comes more from classical music and was adopted by jazz.
fuck man I have been slowly developing this understanding for the last few years and I just found your videos and they bring all my observations together, thank you so fuckn much 🙏⚡💯⚡🙏
Brilliant. I've watched a lot of videos on music theory, and I'm still at the beginning, but the approach presented here is really helpful, and a deeper level of insight than I have seen at this level of theory.
There is an even more simplified version of this idea in Fretboard logic. It doesn't consider the mediant or sub-mediant. It actually considers them as tonics. So it goes I, iii, vi = Tonic(T) | IV, ii = Subdominant(S) | V, vii = Dominant(D). It also lists all of the permutations of T-S-D-T to mix and match. But I like the consideration of the mediant as a "softener" presented here. Not that the aforementioned is by any means "new" information.
This is the most ingenious clarification of chordal motion that I've ever encountered. Thank you for giving an in-depth and logical explanation. This will give me a solid foundation on which to build my chord progressions. What function would you say the (iv) chord plays in a I-iii-IV-iv-I progression? (I've noticed you can use a ii° with a similar effect as the iv as well, and it keeps with the ii-IV substitution pattern somewhat.) I suspect it is a subdominant function since it is still a version of the IV chord (just with an accidental minor third instead of the natural major third), but I'd like to know if I am understanding the concept correctly. Thank you kindly, sir!
now this is really good , What you said about harmonic function and voice leading was really nice , I have a question , does this apply to the other modes as well?
+Why These Notes - Adventures in Music Theory The fact that the ii is a fifth above the V and that makes it the cycle of fifths has never been adequately described to me until now (I'm not a keyboard guy). It is very simple when it's painted like that. Thanks so much.
I believe that's why the "greats" Mozart.Bach Beethoven etc. were considered RADICALS in their time! There music was considered "bawdy" and lured you into sin. After all, look at the way ROCK Music has made use of the "classical" sound and the way it ROCKS on metal guitar and drums for example! Classical music was the POPULAR music of it's day,and like Jazz and Blues was shunned by the church later on as "devil" music. It doesn't tickle the ears like a hymn : it tugs on them!
Relatively few people think of a fourth as an inverted fifth. Though ask some choral people if they think of a fourth as an inverted fifth. They might look at you funny and then go "Now that you mention it..." Think of "Here Comes the Bride (the Wedding March) - it's what almost everyone learning solfege thinks of when they want to sing a fourth. Yet for all of it seeming to be C to F and in the key of C, the melody eventually resolves on F hinting at the fact that maybe we do perceive the fourth as being an inverted fifth. A sixth can't truly be an inverted third because in the major key a third up from the tonic is major, and going from the octave to the sixth is minor. There's also the problem that there is already such a thing as "an inverted third" and you can't very well have two things with the same name. I forget what I said specifically, but I probably referred to the IV chord as an inverted I chord, not the 6th note as an inverted third. I mean this merely in that it serves somewhat of a tonic function. Or what others might call a Plagal Cadence, as it's not a true cadence (V - I), but rather is used to extend the I tonality after an authentic cadence (V - I - IV - I) - here the IV serves merely to extend the I tonality after the V - I cadence.
+Will Riddle I got this from a Joe Pass DVD, I think "Solo Jazz Guitar" - that's where I would start. I haven't come across any books that teach this way of thinking.
If you mean C major vs D major - that's easy, just move two notes to the right. If you mean C major vs D minor, that's a whole conversation. The short version is this: The Major scale has a beautiful symmetry to it. - The Major Chord is based on the overtone series. - The Major Scale is just a Major Chord on I, IV and V. - The V7 chord is the master dissonant chord that drives things towards the I chord, defining the key. The Minor scale.... is a kludge. I should make a video on this & have been meaning to because it's such a deep topic. But here's the cliff's notes version. The Minor Scale is built on a minor chord on I, IV and V. The Minor Scale does not have the V7 chord. It lacks the leading tone to the tonic, and therefore fails to "drive" (lead) the music towards the tonic. There have been several attempts to address this - for example the Melodic Ascending, which is entirely minor, except when the melody ascends from the V chord to the I chord, in which case it's a major tetrachord (see my video on tetrachords and modes). Or various other minor chords that somehow try to shoe-horn in a major 7th or V7 chord. Harmony wise, you treat a Minor Scale much as you would a Major Scale, except you accept it when they occasionally fudge in a V7 chord. The same melody wise. Songwriting wise, the way you define a minor scale is a little bit different from how you define a major scale. Instead of relying on the V7, you have all sorts of fun things like chords based on the flat 7 and flat 6... All Along the Watchtower springs to mind. Major keys sound a little cheesy if you just play chord after chord ascending, but Minor keys - chord after chord descending - that's songwriting gold. (and again, see my video on "ancient modes"/tetrachords for how a mode drives music in one direction or another.) tl;dr on the short version. Same rules apply (ish). But forgive the occasional "parallel" major chord, especially a V7. Descending riff's are where it's at.
Thanks for this. Thats what I'm after. I'm the tetrachords video now. That said, I take it that the melodic minors, harmonic and then jazz scales are a completely different conversations as well?
Знаю Васьвась The tritone is an interval of six half steps, so you would only get two chords out of that, which sound really nasty alongside each other.
I almost feel like you are a disgruntled member of the music industry giving away their secrets because they annoyed you. Always knew pop music was made by formula, good to know what it actually is. Thank you very much for these!
You should read "Writing Music for Hit Songs" by Jai Josephs. And of course check out the Rob Pavaroni bit "Pachelbel's Rant" and the Axis of Awesome "4 Chord Song" vids oh and Sir Mashalot country music song compilations.
The Jai Josephs book is really great - one of the few that I've read that's actually - simple enough to be understood by a layman & comprehensive enough to actually be useful. My favorite vid though is this one ruclips.net/video/6RmO6fc-FdE/видео.html
melancholiac don’t give up! It will come to you. There are 7 notes in a scale, the eighth note starts you an octave away where you started. So c2-c3 Those 7 notes in between are the tools you have to create melody and chord progressions. There are 3 ways to find your way around them to best serve your purpose. Creating popular music.
A triad is not stacked thirds. This notion distracts from the true aim of harmony which is alternating tension and relaxation. Too technical to discuss here but beware of simplistic easy answers. To be fair, this is the approach taught in virtually all schools and colleges. This approach will allow you to get acceptable harmony but not great harmony. (Learn counterpoint, and strive for greatness.)
Statements like "A triad is stacked thirds" or "Just memorize whole whole half whole whole whole half" are literally the reason I did the research that led to the invention of this youtube channel. Nearly every music theory book I read written before 1900 (with the exception of Tchaikovsky's excellent primer) starts with the overtone series. Why? Because they were teaching violinists etc. and when you have a cello and a book, the first thing you need to teach is how to know where to put your fingers. They also needed to justify their statements as theories of harmony were still relatively new. Galileo, whose father was a luthier, wrote a theoretical paper on harmony - harmony was a real science. It wasn't until the 1800s, electricity and Helmholtz's seminal work that we began to understand the physics behind harmony. Nearly every music theory book I read written after 1950 starts with "a triad is stacked thirds." Why? Equal temperament dumbed things down and people decided education was memorization and not understanding, and the easiest way to get people to make music was to tell them where to put their fingers on the piano.
You make my point in a way. Today, very few people strive for understanding (the road to great accomplishment) and instead desire a quick and easy approach that gets the job done and avoids any extra (and, as they think, unnecessary effort). I did not mean to criticize your effort but merely to stimulate those few who are motivated to seek real understanding. Your approach is practical and a response to real world needs. Of course, because nearly everybody agrees to something doesn't-make it right as you acknowledge. Perhaps I was too righteous. Sorry.
Mark, you've done a great service to all students out there looking for truth. THANK YOU
Thanks! That's why I named the series "WHY" these notes - I was tired of being told to memorize without understanding.
This makes so much more sense. It's difficult to "see" this on guitar, This is why piano lessons are important; no matter what instrument you choose to play later on.Thank You.
Oh man, Ive just become fascinated with music theory recently... I just discovered in moving by fifths on the keyboard, that if you move to the right of the tonic you get the V, ii, vi, iii etc... whereas by moving by fifths to the LEFT you get the IV, as mentioned... THEN the bVII, then the bIII. Always being a beatles fan and a fan of borrowed chords, I always wondered how these relate harmonically when people do these interesting harmonic jumps. This really blew my mind.
TY. You cleared up forgotten Knowledge for me and rather quickly too i must add.
I like it! I'm re-learning piano and have been using inversions to smooth out my playing as opposed to big leaps. I write electronic rock music and it makes it sound more sophisticated for lack of a better term. I think the voice leading comes more from classical music and was adopted by jazz.
fuck man I have been slowly developing this understanding for the last few years and I just found your videos and they bring all my observations together, thank you so fuckn much 🙏⚡💯⚡🙏
Clear! no more, no less. No time wasting. No confusion.Thank you Mark
Brilliant. I've watched a lot of videos on music theory, and I'm still at the beginning, but the approach presented here is really helpful, and a deeper level of insight than I have seen at this level of theory.
Mark,Thanks alot you make it less complicated to learn I'm getting it slowly.
I would have to watch this video again. However, I'm just learning how to write music. Asking sounds a lot better and cooler than the technical
There is an even more simplified version of this idea in Fretboard logic. It doesn't consider the mediant or sub-mediant. It actually considers them as tonics. So it goes I, iii, vi = Tonic(T) | IV, ii = Subdominant(S) | V, vii = Dominant(D). It also lists all of the permutations of T-S-D-T to mix and match. But I like the consideration of the mediant as a "softener" presented here. Not that the aforementioned is by any means "new" information.
This also helps to prevent S-T-Ds. :D
Ian, can you provide the link to this episode of Fretboard logic ? TY
sry Ian I just forgot to "mention" your account +Ian Parker ;-) Pls check my question above ...
You mean I, iii, vi (not iv)
right ^^ ty
Thanks, Mark. You rock!!! Hopefully I'll rock when I get my head and hands around your tutorials.
Excellent concept and explanation def one of the best music lessons on youtube. thank you
Thank you. I appreciate the positive feedback.
Why These Notes - Adventures in Music Theory Are you considering making more videos?
Oh hi mark! What a story mark, thx for teaching me this, it opened up my way of thinking when writing songs
It's not true. I didn't hit her.
*I did nahht*
Thanks so much ! Loved the clarity of the message and the insight...
This is the most ingenious clarification of chordal motion that I've ever encountered. Thank you for giving an in-depth and logical explanation. This will give me a solid foundation on which to build my chord progressions. What function would you say the (iv) chord plays in a I-iii-IV-iv-I progression? (I've noticed you can use a ii° with a similar effect as the iv as well, and it keeps with the ii-IV substitution pattern somewhat.) I suspect it is a subdominant function since it is still a version of the IV chord (just with an accidental minor third instead of the natural major third), but I'd like to know if I am understanding the concept correctly. Thank you kindly, sir!
Tks Mark, I just wonder why I didn’t cross this lesson 7 years ago. That’s right. I could have saved 7 years of wondering.🤔
I knew most of this, but not organized like this. Thank you very much!
Great video man, thank you for the knowledge and excellent explanation.
Thanks for the very well explanation mate 🧉
Great vid & explanation of the concepts behind chord movement, thank you!
Glad I stumbled upon this. To bad you gave it up. Hope you’re doing well.
now this is really good ,
What you said about harmonic function and voice leading was really nice ,
I have a question
, does this apply to the other modes as well?
Thank you so much. I'm trying to write songs but music theory is very hard for the uninitiated!
+Ruby Walker
Music theory doesn't have to be hard - it's all simple concepts that are combined with other simple concepts.
+Why These Notes - Adventures in Music Theory The fact that the ii is a fifth above the V and that makes it the cycle of fifths has never been adequately described to me until now (I'm not a keyboard guy). It is very simple when it's painted like that. Thanks so much.
Great video! It really helped me with my up coming exam. Thank you!
Good luck on your exam!
Many thanks for this very clear explanation..
Amazing video dude! Really helped me out.
Great, thank you, but beware about misconceptions -- e.g. tritone was never banned etc.
I believe that's why the "greats" Mozart.Bach Beethoven etc. were considered RADICALS in their time! There music was considered "bawdy" and lured you into sin. After all, look at the way ROCK Music has made use of the "classical" sound and the way it ROCKS on metal guitar and drums for example! Classical music was the POPULAR music of it's day,and like Jazz and Blues was shunned by the church later on as "devil" music. It doesn't tickle the ears like a hymn : it tugs on them!
@@rogerweafer2179 Yea, that's probably right, but I think you replied here by mistake, probably different topic/thread? :-)
Great video! Its music school without the loans.
Thumbs up for "Fift." So much info here. Thanks for these!
What about diads?
So cool
Thank you!
Is in the key of A minor; For example Am-G-F-Em... movement by seconds?
Correct, that would be descending from the tonic to the fifth by seconds.
If you can, you should make more videos!
If a sixth chord movement is really an inverted third, then why is a sixth interval not called "an inverted third"?
Relatively few people think of a fourth as an inverted fifth. Though ask some choral people if they think of a fourth as an inverted fifth. They might look at you funny and then go "Now that you mention it..." Think of "Here Comes the Bride (the Wedding March) - it's what almost everyone learning solfege thinks of when they want to sing a fourth. Yet for all of it seeming to be C to F and in the key of C, the melody eventually resolves on F hinting at the fact that maybe we do perceive the fourth as being an inverted fifth.
A sixth can't truly be an inverted third because in the major key a third up from the tonic is major, and going from the octave to the sixth is minor. There's also the problem that there is already such a thing as "an inverted third" and you can't very well have two things with the same name.
I forget what I said specifically, but I probably referred to the IV chord as an inverted I chord, not the 6th note as an inverted third. I mean this merely in that it serves somewhat of a tonic function. Or what others might call a Plagal Cadence, as it's not a true cadence (V - I), but rather is used to extend the I tonality after an authentic cadence (V - I - IV - I) - here the IV serves merely to extend the I tonality after the V - I cadence.
sorry the fift ?
Do you use one kind of movement when writing a melody or you can use one kind of movement for verses and other for choruses?
This is totally genius. Is there a book that teaches some of this stuff?
+Will Riddle totally agree! And I would love to find a book for that too...
+rémi kerhoas me 3 ;)
I got an ebook a few years back that covered this kinda stuff, it was really good. Something like howmusicreallyworks and a .com
+Will Riddle I got this from a Joe Pass DVD, I think "Solo Jazz Guitar" - that's where I would start. I haven't come across any books that teach this way of thinking.
Helped a lot.Thanks.
thanks for this! Awesome video. How does this translate to other scales?
If you mean C major vs D major - that's easy, just move two notes to the right.
If you mean C major vs D minor, that's a whole conversation.
The short version is this:
The Major scale has a beautiful symmetry to it.
- The Major Chord is based on the overtone series.
- The Major Scale is just a Major Chord on I, IV and V.
- The V7 chord is the master dissonant chord that drives things towards the I chord, defining the key.
The Minor scale.... is a kludge. I should make a video on this & have been meaning to because it's such a deep topic. But here's the cliff's notes version.
The Minor Scale is built on a minor chord on I, IV and V.
The Minor Scale does not have the V7 chord. It lacks the leading tone to the tonic, and therefore fails to "drive" (lead) the music towards the tonic.
There have been several attempts to address this - for example the Melodic Ascending, which is entirely minor, except when the melody ascends from the V chord to the I chord, in which case it's a major tetrachord (see my video on tetrachords and modes). Or various other minor chords that somehow try to shoe-horn in a major 7th or V7 chord.
Harmony wise, you treat a Minor Scale much as you would a Major Scale, except you accept it when they occasionally fudge in a V7 chord. The same melody wise.
Songwriting wise, the way you define a minor scale is a little bit different from how you define a major scale. Instead of relying on the V7, you have all sorts of fun things like chords based on the flat 7 and flat 6... All Along the Watchtower springs to mind.
Major keys sound a little cheesy if you just play chord after chord ascending, but Minor keys - chord after chord descending - that's songwriting gold. (and again, see my video on "ancient modes"/tetrachords for how a mode drives music in one direction or another.)
tl;dr on the short version.
Same rules apply (ish). But forgive the occasional "parallel" major chord, especially a V7. Descending riff's are where it's at.
Thanks for this. Thats what I'm after. I'm the tetrachords video now. That said, I take it that the melodic minors, harmonic and then jazz scales are a completely different conversations as well?
great thanks
11:06 important piano sauce moving from 2nds and 4ths
How about triton motion? =Ъ
Знаю Васьвась The tritone is an interval of six half steps, so you would only get two chords out of that, which sound really nasty alongside each other.
Thx
I almost feel like you are a disgruntled member of the music industry giving away their secrets because they annoyed you.
Always knew pop music was made by formula, good to know what it actually is. Thank you very much for these!
You should read "Writing Music for Hit Songs" by Jai Josephs.
And of course check out the Rob Pavaroni bit "Pachelbel's Rant" and the Axis of Awesome "4 Chord Song" vids oh and Sir Mashalot country music song compilations.
Yeah, I've seen those vids, they are hilarious. Actually helped my song writing though hah!
Cheers for book tip, will check it out.
The Jai Josephs book is really great - one of the few that I've read that's actually - simple enough to be understood by a layman & comprehensive enough to actually be useful.
My favorite vid though is this one
ruclips.net/video/6RmO6fc-FdE/видео.html
Hahaha! That vid is hilarious. I actually remember seeing it on TV but seeing it now after learning this theory makes it.
Thanks Mate
Thanks, I really needed that!
16:14 summary
I can’t get passed the fift! 🤪
Hero
Am not connecting with this at all :(
melancholiac don’t give up! It will come to you. There are 7 notes in a scale, the eighth note starts you an octave away where you started. So c2-c3 Those 7 notes in between are the tools you have to create melody and chord progressions. There are 3 ways to find your way around them to best serve your purpose. Creating popular music.
Can you do another video as if you're explaining it to a six year old lol :-)
Good god, the way you pronounce the interval names drives me nuts! It’s fifTH not fifT!
A triad is not stacked thirds. This notion distracts from the true aim of harmony which is alternating tension and relaxation. Too technical to discuss here but beware of simplistic easy answers. To be fair, this is the approach taught in virtually all schools and colleges. This approach will allow you to get acceptable harmony but not great harmony. (Learn counterpoint, and strive for greatness.)
Statements like "A triad is stacked thirds" or "Just memorize whole whole half whole whole whole half" are literally the reason I did the research that led to the invention of this youtube channel.
Nearly every music theory book I read written before 1900 (with the exception of Tchaikovsky's excellent primer) starts with the overtone series. Why? Because they were teaching violinists etc. and when you have a cello and a book, the first thing you need to teach is how to know where to put your fingers. They also needed to justify their statements as theories of harmony were still relatively new. Galileo, whose father was a luthier, wrote a theoretical paper on harmony - harmony was a real science. It wasn't until the 1800s, electricity and Helmholtz's seminal work that we began to understand the physics behind harmony.
Nearly every music theory book I read written after 1950 starts with "a triad is stacked thirds." Why? Equal temperament dumbed things down and people decided education was memorization and not understanding, and the easiest way to get people to make music was to tell them where to put their fingers on the piano.
You make my point in a way. Today, very few people strive for understanding (the road to great accomplishment) and instead desire a quick and easy approach that gets the job done and avoids any extra (and, as they think, unnecessary effort). I did not mean to criticize your effort but merely to stimulate those few who are motivated to seek real understanding. Your approach is practical and a response to real world needs. Of course, because nearly everybody agrees to something doesn't-make it right as you acknowledge. Perhaps I was too righteous. Sorry.
@@whythesenotes-adventuresin5576 same here I can't stop questioning why when some one tells me these are the chords
THANK YOU !
Good god, the way you pronounce the interval names drives me nuts! It’s fifTH not fifT!