this harmony in Bach is INSANE 😲 | Evan Shinners
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 20 июн 2023
- Evan Shinners shares his discoveries around a particularly surprising chord in Bach's Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue, BWV 903.
Check out Evan's podcast WTF Bach: wtfbach.substack.com/ and on Instagram: @wtfbach
Watch Shinners teach Bach and more on Tonebase! app.tonebase.co/piano/library...
---
tonebase gives you instant access to knowledge from the world's greatest classical musicians, performers, and educators. Learn more by visiting tonebase.co/piano
Facebook - / tonebasepiano
Instagram - / tonebasepiano
Questions? Contact us: team@tonebase.co 
Видеоклипы
it's sounds like something from a modern composer. That's why Bach was an absolute genius.
By modern do you mean classical? Most modern composers don’t stray too much further out from the pentatonics
Well the same could be said of Debussy since his music is littered with chords found in modern jazz music
Bach and Debussy music is sepparated like 150 years so...
@@Quim141 what about folk songs that sound like they were influenced by greensleeves lol
Proto-impressionism!
Bach, during his time-travels, must have snuffed that chord from Bill Evans
I would love to like this comment, but I would feel bad to change the like-counter from 69
Or bill evans got it from Bach during that same trip
And Bill snuffed it from Debussy, I guess...
Brahms wasn't kidding when he said "Study Bach! There you'll find literally EVERYTHING!"
😂😂LOL😂😂 touchè
My boy Johan was laying some Proto-Jazz back in the 1700's 😎
lol definitely not
@@MaxIsBackInTownit kind of is. Its Almis like Bach improvised
@@elias7748 He did. People like Bach and Mozart where GREAT improvisors!
No
sounds like debussy tbh
The problem is solved when you consider Bach didn't call them "chords". They are intervals above a bass that are moving horizontally and resolving by step. So many Bach pieces can sound like they have "wrong" notes if you stop in the wrong place.
the lost art of counterpoint
Interesting. They didn't use the word 'chords'? The triads and added tones were obviously in use. Did they have a different name ?
@@guitarplayerfactorychannel You don’t need to describe „chords“ or using another word for it when every „voice“ has it’s own movement/tension/line. The example is clearly a point in a piece where a resolution is approached.
Anyway… of cause there also were „chords“ back then.
Hi ratboygenius ily❤
While I generally agree with this, the chord in question is really weird, even when you take the context into account - not something you typically find from Bach's music. I think the most plausible explanation is that the copyists made a typo. They probably missed some accidentals (E natural). The C in the middle is quite strange too, when you combine it with the Db on top.
Typically this kind of weird harmonies are simply the result of suspensions, but that's not what's going on here.
BTW, this is not just a random isolated harmony from a more polyphonic context - this is from a section that is very "chordal".
Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue in D minor
BWV 903
Thank you
Thanks so much
thank you kind sir
Exactly! I was able to recognize the excerpt, and that's my fav piano piece. Never saw a 'mistake' there; rather, as you say, it has some special weight for sure, but this piece is the trickiest one I've seen (I'm no pianist, I play the guitar, but I study on the piano). Cheers!
Thank you.
I always find funny how classical pianists say "this chord is a monstruosity" and them you hear and yeah it's a chord with dissonance but they say it like it's some sound an elder god could only produce and it's C9
Its because this music is deep and spiritual
well it’s about context! in the baroque era (as far as I know) the harmonies weren’t typically like that, so this chord would be strange. But if like.. Debussy wrote it, no one would bat an eye
C9 is dissonant? 😂
@@recel503oh please
@@FreeBrunoPowroznikyes,
“Oohh that sounds expensive” P. McCartney
"Oohhh spicy!" Adam Neely
Nuno's great.
didn't expect to find a fan here. lol
Hearing that chord in isolation, it sounds very mid-20th century postwar era, particularly the compositions of Fred Rogers (yes, Mr. Rogers from TV).
No way Mr. Rogers also had a composition carreer! I tought playing piano only.
@@Aleksandr_Skrjabin Nearly every song you hear from his 'Neighborhood' was written by him.
@@WBensburg I knew he was a pianist, which almost all pianist compose music, how stupid of me as musician and composer to not saw that.
@@Aleksandr_Skrjabin Not at all!! Very few know of Mr. Rogers's background in music. He was a music major at Rollins College in Central Florida.
@@WBensburg Understandble, i have a bad memory so i couldve forgotten, i always focus on the background music wherever i am. I havent heard of Mr. Rogers in a long time.
I did my thesis in Musicology around Bach Harmony and more you go deep in the rabbit hole more you are amazed by the Bach Genius.
That sounds incredible! would you be willing to pass on some sources you read that you found interesting?
Bach's dissonant chords are like jewels, especially in the toccatas and partitas. I play some of them over and over.
That's actually "La Quinte Superflue", an augmented 5th over the "III grade" in the minor scale. You can find it in Dandrieu's Teatrise, or in Couperin preludes and a bunch of music from the same time 👍
That chord is gorgeous
it's why Bach is truly my favourite composer
It's because of voice leading , you can't say it's weird when you don't see the motions of the 4-5 voices that are before that chord. Oftentime (always) , his "added notes" come from the last chord and are resolved in the next . It could be because of a chromatic upscent or descent also.
He's not saying it's a "bad" chord he's saying it's a bizarre chord to find in a baroque piece.
@@thebenevolentsun6575 the comment is not saying it's an issue of chords, it's saying it's an issue of chromaticism or passing notes.
@@stefanmirica6485 yes but the harmony itself is still bizarre to find in a baroque piece.
@@thebenevolentsun6575 Bach does "choral", it's Counterpoint not Harmony (classical era). You are supposed to hear each voice not to think them as chords. As a result, if you play it as chords, you'll be amazed by the complexity of the "Harmony", still despite the inspiration each voice follows a precise and coded path, rules are numerous in Counterpoint.
@@slatebook2384 It's still strange to find in a baroque piece though.
Sounds wonderful.
Bach was so ahead of his time🎉
Bach was jazzy af
I was expecting a really dissonant chord when he said that but then he played it and I was like
I listen to too much jazz
@@LeoDurman11, it is only dissonant for him because he has made certain associations.
It is an E flat minor with added six - Ebm6 - with the third in the bass, so - Ebm6/Gb - and the top voice has a D flat, the seventh of Eb minor which advances stepwise to the seventh of the following F dominant seven chord; in normal notation Ebm6/gb - F7 which is a Phrygian cadence.
The sharpness comes from the C clashing with the top voice D flat; that is the Ebm 6th clashing with the Ebm 7th above.
However, an Ebm6 - F7 is a common Phrygian cadence.
Why Eb? He doesn’t give the key signature, so I guess you know the piece?
I assumed the E was natural, making it just a C7 flat 9.
I think the chord is a C half-diminished b9 in second inversion. The notes from bottom to top are Gb, Bb, C, Eb, Db (I excluded the doubled Bb). If you stack those in root position from C you get C, Eb, Gb, Bb, Db. This is a half diminished chord with an added b9th. Of course the Gb is in the bass which makes it a second inversion.
I don't think the root is Eb because that would make C a non chord tone. I think all the written notes are chord tones since it's written as a blocked chord.
But honestly I don't think Bach really cared about how the chord would be labeled, as much as he did about counterpoint and the intervals in between each note.
@@johnslater8998 It's Eb because the Eb from the previous chord carries over because they're in the same measure. Same with the Gb.
@@willmorris8198 :: Yes, your label and what Bach cared about, yes, agree! :)
There is a recording (Trevor Pinnock, harpsichord) where the player makes the arpeggios very expressive. That, I think, is the way to go.
ruclips.net/video/sFn_zVOlDAo/видео.html
I was wrong, though, about the added notes, Pinnock plays pretty much note for note.
@@donaldaxel Yeah, Evan in this video even added a passing tone C at the top of the chord. Or maybe, since we have deduced that it is not only a chord tone but the root, it is not a passing tone. It sure sounds like one though lol.
@@willmorris8198 - Ah yes of course. Thanks
Genuinely beautiful
You know he's sophisticated because he says "baCHXHC"
It might look crazy on paper and when you're trying to play it, but when you hear it, it makes perfect sense.
John Mulaney is a great musician
doesn't look too much like mulaney to me, but his vocal mannerisms sound so much like him
Doctor Who (David Tenant)
Sounds EXACTLY like him! Brilliant 😂
Whoa...I went to high school with Evan. He was and is so talented! He even sold me a burned CD of his recordings back then. Mind blown. So happy to see him thriving! 🤯🙌
Bach was very dense in his harmonies, and many people interpret it differently. That's nearly what makes his music so great
Bach rules
It's beautiful
Ayyyy priorizing melodic lines over harmonic stability leads sometimes to spicy chords that aren't meant to be considered as structural chords in the sense of the term used here but standard voice leading in the late-Baroque period. Who would've thought.
A fine example of the genius of Bach. So interesting as, in isolation, it has the quality of a modern modern jazz voicing...Very cool !
beautiful chord from I believe the Chromatic fantasy ? I do like to add the thought that Bach loved the "space" in between the notes , the counterpoint allowed him the utmost expression possible. It is why I personally love Baroque and Classical music so much, even moreso than the romantic greats.
I heard the fantasy and it sounds nothing like it. I need to know what is this piece.
@@leomilani_gtr it is the Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue from J.S. Bach. Remarkable piece!
Bach was probably trolling music theorists in the future
These are key strokes that emulate human emotion. It’s funny how it trips them up when they can’t reconcile technique with the notes lol. Humans created this. For other humans. Don’t forget hahahaha
Absolutely love this chord. Early inceptions of rebirth of the coolness.
Bach is an extremely special composer. Playing his music still gives me joy. I’m almost 70 and played him first at age 17. His music is so satisfying to play. I love his tierce de picardis! ( piece in a minor key which ends in its major key - gives an uplifting to the heavens feeling)
What's the piece?
It is indeed "strange" for this era, but it is less strange and more understandable if we read the music horizontally/contrapuntally. These chords must been seen as multiple part harmony, where each note comes from a previous one and goes to the next one. The concept of a chord is here just a "frozen" moment in the contrapuntal texture. Like one filmshot. It can create strange dissonances if we analyze them just vertically. Bach thinks horizontally in different layers. The "chords" are snapshots.
Check my channel if you're interested in voice leading and counterpoint!
You don’t usually think of the classical composers having the harmonic sophistication of the modern jazz guys, but bach was laying down a spicy jazz chord there!
All those jazz composers got h
Their harmonic ideas from the impressionists and modernists
They'd never do this in Jazz, though, they pretty much always do the exact same extensions, never this one though.
@@althealligator1467You are not serious right?
@@vadim4252 _You_ are not serious, right? Name me one occasion in Jazz where you have a m7 chord over its major 6th. It's like a cardinal sin in Jazz to put the perfect 4th (usually they call it an 11th though) over a major chord, so if it's a major chord like a dominant or maj7, you'd put the #4 or #11 to avoid the minor 2nd / minor 9th between the major 3rd and the perfect 4th. You'd get that same dissonance with a major 6th in the bass of a m7 chord, so you'll never see that. You have plenty of counter examples in Pop music, but in Jazz it's pretty much always ii-V-I galore and b9, #11, b13, and no 5th over a dominant chord. Same extensions. Always.
@@althealligator1467 Tell me you took one jazz theory course in college without actually telling me.
It kind of sounds like a C7b9, the passage kind of sets up this C diminished thing but then you hear this C7b9 chord which maybe indicates that Bach may have been utilising the two modes of the diminished scale. Truly far of his time.
Love the d Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue BWV903
Bach , der Genie.
Gender is weird in German.
“Genie” is neuter, so even though Bach is masculine, we’d still use the neuter article and say “Bach das Genie” rather than “Bach der Genie”.
Bach, der Geniale
How different would this sound on a keyboard NOT tuned to equal temperament?
There are dozens and dozens of different tuning schemes, so each one would sound different. Also, noone knows how Bach tuned his keyboards to his own version of equal temperament.
@@Shamanatoractually bach wrote his temperaments down and would take about 8 mins to tune the instrument to those temperaments. This marking was decyphered by Lehman very recently.
Not that different.
I love this guy and the words he chooses. And most of all his beautiful playing
Genius
Reminds of that passage in a Chopin Nocturne where I heard and saw three different versions of a particular chromaticism
BACH was 1000 years ❤❤❤ahead of his time❤❤❤
Bach died 274 years ago so that means another 776 years before we catch up with him!
Use more emojis
love Back!!!!... he was so so brilliant, and genius..
Remember that Bach improvised much of what is written down. He didn’t overthink this, it probably came to him during a session. Amazing.
What’s it called? Beautiful playing☺️
Name of the piece, please?
Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue
BWV 903
@@MarshallArtz007thanks!
I wasn't expecting something so floaty and a lovely sounding. Sounds curious, looking around... "searching" is right on.
That face when you played the chord after saying "it sounds like Bach didn't know what he was hearing here"
Could someone tell me what bach this piece is please?
Every now again, Bach threw in harmonic concepts hundreds of years ahead of their time. His understanding of harmony was absurd.
His speaking voice and articulation is very reminiscent of the late, great, genius Glenn Gould. I love it!
He uses that chord in quite a few of his pieces! It's really beautiful. Gives me the feeling of a day at the beach ending because it's getting cold now the sun is below the horizon.
What a wonderful description. 😁
It sounds a C7 flat 9 over G, a great sound overall
G flat! and there's no E natural, it's also flat!
Whats the name of this piece?
When played in sequence rather than as a chord, it’s like a score from a film about space exploration. Bach was literally centuries ahead of his time.
Beautiful transcendent music
According to Rick Beato (YT channel), Bach employed a chord, in the Well Tempered Clavier I think, that wasn't used by any other composer until the 20th C. The guy was channeling the future or something equally bizarre. And he could improvise this kind of stuff on the spot! Multiple 3-voice (or more) fugues based on a subject his host had just showed him. The host was Frederick the Great. Bach went home and wrote out the pieces plus some more and sent the result to the Emperor. Another eerie Bach phenomenon is that some listeners, myself included, often sense that the old master is present when they listen to his stuff. He speaks to me in ways no other composer can, odd chords included.
I too have felt his ghost hovering by my right shoulder, listening to his own music with me. Gotta admit that hearing of the same phenomenon from other Bach addicts is a tad creepy. You do realize there are more than the 2 of us, don't you? Doesn't happen with any other composer, just J.S. Too bad I can't play an instrument. Do you?
Is your piano tuned to the era's standard?
fair point
Bach pushed the boundaries of harmony. 300 years ago.
Goosebump producing genius
What composition is this?
BWV 903 it's the fantasy part of chromatic fantasy and fugue
Don't judge a chord in isolation.
By Fall Out Boy
It’s so beautiful because there’s so much to resolve
One suspension, enormous chaos
When Bach fucks with jazz but it’s before jazz.
sing us a song you're the piano man.
The Fantasies are approaching the mystical in their searching and ruminating. Leaning toward the surrealistic...
Bach knew very well what he was doing.
Bach was a Jazz musician ahead of his time.
Name of the piece?
It's one of the arpeggi from the Chromatic Fantasy :)
I play that piece and like it a lot! Besides the scale-runs it's a pretty easy piece to learn, and has a really clever descending chromatic line in the end sequence, all the way to the last D Major chord!
Thanks!
Tell us the piece!!!!!
Bwv 903 chromatic fantaisie
Great video thanks. It’s heartening to know that there are still interesting and intelligent videos on RUclips nowadays
Sounds perfect to me
What is this piece?
Which piece is this?
Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue
@@timothyhoft thank you!
Every one of those chords sounded crazy.
This is beautiful
Robert Hill’s recording of that B Minor prelude is super good.
isn't this a re-upload?
They had uploaded a version where the score didn’t match his playing at that precise chord lol
Yes and despite that glaring and amusing lack of effort it’s still more or less viral. RUclips music is a depressing place.
Jazz started with Bach, then Chopin, and then it was born in the 19th/20th century.
Your playing piano is lovely 😍
Lovely little chord there
Name of the chord?
Id call it a C7b9/G
@@michaelklein9276 don't forget about the Eb and Gb carried over from the previous chord which is in the same measure. It's Cm7b5b9/Gb (or in classical terms C half diminished b9 in second inversion)
Jazzy sounding
I can't stop watching this!
It's beautiful.
So now we know who really invented jazz.
It's a cool cluster chord. If you want to hear jazzy things in popular music listen to Steely Dan.
It is gorgeous, it reminds me of certain contemporary flamenco pieces, the most daring, outside ones like the compositions of Chicuelo. Also I hear the great Scarlatti.
Gorgeous, love it
and just like that, impressionism was created!
Bach was a monster
❤❤❤❤❤Fantastic ❤❤❤❤❤Very much love those chords ❤❤❤❤
a magical chord only bach could create ❤
amazing!!!!!
This is two centuries ahead of its time!
Jordan Schlansky out here playing Bach.
It's awesome
Every jazz pianist "Gee I play that chord every gig"