hey, welcome to 12tone! today I'd like to look at one of the most maligned aspects of
modern popular music: the four-chord loop.
some of the most common include the doo-wop changes (bang) and the four-chord progression
(bang) but I'm not really here to defend these two.
I mean, I could, I don't think there's anything wrong with them.
they're just a bit overused.
but if that's all you think of when you think four-chord loops, you're missing out on a
lot of cool songs like Radiohead's Creep (bang), The Pixies' Where Is My Mind (bang), Blues
Traveler's Run Around (bang), and Linkin Park's What I've Done (bang) which we actually analyzed
a while back.
but first, let's define our terms a bit. for the sake of this video, a four-chord loop
is a series of four chords that you play through, over and over, for the entire length of the
song.
while researching this I came across a bunch of songs, like Help by the Beatles, that had
four-chord sections, where the verse was one set of four chords and the chorus was another.
that's definitely similar, but right now, I want to focus on just songs that keep the
same harmony throughout.
how do they stay interesting?
well, the first thing to do is keep things slow.
not the actual tempo, necessarily, but the rate at which you change chords. if the examples
I played at the beginning didn't remind you of the songs I said they were from, this is
one reason why: they were moving too fast.
the rate at which chords change in a song is called the harmonic rhythm, and songs with
four-chord loops are often on the slower end of this spectrum.
Creep is a particularly extreme example of this: that song plays each chord for around
5 seconds, which in the context of a piece of music is basically forever.
the other songs I listed move faster, but all of them give you at least a second or
two to absorb each chord before moving on.
except Run Around, but we'll get to that in a bit.
the first benefit of this is obvious: if it takes you longer to play through the loop
then you have to play it fewer times over the course of the song, which helps prevent
it from getting too repetitive too quickly.
Creep is about four minutes long, and they only play the loop 11 times, so it doesn't
bother you as much that it's not changing.
but there's a second benefit to playing slowly: it breaks down the harmonic structure.
that sounds like a bad thing, but all it actually means is that it gives each chord a chance
to breathe on its own.
you lose a bit of cohesion, making it feel less like one big chord progression and more
like a series of transitions.
that allows you to focus more on making each individual movement sound good instead of
worrying so much about how it all fits together into a key or some other larger structure.
in effect, you don't have to write a progression, you just have to find four cool ways to change
chords.
let's take another look at our examples from earlier and see how they use this.
Run Around (bang) is, again, the fastest of them, with a loop that's roughly 3 seconds
long, and it's also got the most straightforward structure.
this is a prime example of functional harmony, which is the idea that different chords in
a key have different functions, or jobs to do.
we start on the I chord, which has tonic function, meaning it's at rest, then we go the IV chord,
then the II minor, both with subdominant function, which adds some instability to take you away,
then the V chord has dominant function, pointing us back home.
everything about this makes perfect sense to our ears, so there's no need to move slowly.
it just works.
at a glance, Where Is My Mind (bang) seems similar: it's got the I chord, the VI mi,
and the III chord, all of which have tonic function, then it goes to the IV chord, which
sets up what's called a plagal cadence, where the IV chord resolves to the I. it's a lot
of rest, followed by a brief bit of dissonance.
but some of you my have already noticed the problem: the III chord is supposed to be minor,
right?
how'd they sneak this G# major in there, and why doesn't it sound weird?
well, that's where the slower harmonic rhythm comes in: this loop takes about 6 seconds
to play through, so by the time we go to the G# major we've been sitting on C# minor for
long enough that it can pass a move to that key's V chord, and then when we move out of
it to A major, we get an effect called planing, where the whole chord just sort of slides
up.
basically, even though it's hard to explain this chord in the key of E, it still works
well enough with the things directly before and after it, so it doesn't really bother
us.
it's worth noting that we could analyze this whole thing in C# minor instead, which makes
this problem go away, but that's not how I hear it and according to a poll I ran on twitter,
it's not how most of you hear it either.
interestingly, the second-most popular key in that poll was A, where the G# major makes
even less sense, but that's not really what this video's about so let's move on.
What I've Done (bang) instead decides to just focus on one kind of movement: the IV-I resolution.
this (bang), this (bang), and this (bang) are all effectively the same thing, which
kinda creates its own sort of cohesion, outside of the context of key centers.
it's not entirely consistent, though: this bit here breaks the cycle, serving to reset
the progression as well as add a bit of punctuation to it.
you actually can analyze this whole thing in one key, but that doesn't really tell you
much about its behavior: you're much better off looking at the transitions.
and finally, we come to Creep.
(bang) I'll be brief here, but the main takeaway is that, by slowing things down so much, they
give themselves the freedom to do basically whatever they want.
they start with a chromatic mediant, which is when two chords are a third apart but they
don't share as many notes as you'd expect.
in this case, G major has a D, while B major has a D#. this gives them a sort of distantly-connected
feel, and immediately starts things off weird.
then we go from B major to C major, which is that same planing effect we saw before.
again, connected but not really cohesive.
then C major moves to C minor.
here we keep the same root and just change chord qualities, which is again not something
you see in any one key, but it still feels close.
and finally, that C minor goes back to G major in yet another IV-I resolution.
each of these transitions is interesting in its own way, and the cycle creates lots of
different backgrounds on top of which the melody can tell its story.
anyway, I've got one last tip, but it doesn't have to do with the chords themselves.
instead, it has to do with arranging.
if composition is deciding what to play, then arranging is deciding how to play it, and
if the composition is repetitive, that puts a lot of responsibility on the arrangement,
and most of these four-chord loops turn to the same two arranging techniques: dynamics
and instrumentation.
dynamics are, effectively, how loud you're playing, and these songs are often peppered
with sudden dynamic changes: listen, for instance, to the end of the first chorus in Creep, or
the intro to What I've Done. they're full of unprepared, drastic changes in volume,
which help ratchet the energy up or down to keep the song interesting.
you also see a lot of changes in instruments, with whole parts appearing and disappearing
depending on how busy they want each section to be.
Where Is My Mind is the most interesting one of these to me: it has this electric guitar
line going through the verses that suddenly drops out in the chorus, which is just the
bass and drums with a quiet acoustic guitar strumming along.
it feels so different from the verse that it's not even immediately obvious that it's
the exact same progression, and really, that's what you're trying to accomplish here.
anyway, thanks for watching, and thanks to our Patreon patrons for supporting us and
making these videos possible.
if you want to help out, and get some sweet perks like sneak peeks of upcoming episodes,
there's a link to our Patreon on screen now.
you can also join our mailing list to find out about new episodes, like, share, comment,
subscribe, and above all, keep on rockin'.
For more infomation >> Interview with Fearghus Ó Conchúir, NDCWales' new Artistic Director Fearghus Ó Conchúir yw Cyfarwy - Duration: 6:07. 
For more infomation >> Ducati Panigale V4s vs Suzuki GSX-R1000R | Comparativa superbike - Duration: 10:47. 
For more infomation >> Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingd...
For more infomation >> Funghi delle unghie: eliminarli con bicarbonato e aceto di mele - Duration: 1:31. 
For more infomation >> Kaysar está surpreendendo a todos e dando todo o incentivo possível para que Gleici continue - Duration: 2:29. 
For more infomation >> Caterina Balivo contro Barbara d'Urso… e alcuni personaggi Rai? | M.C.G.S - Duration: 3:52. 
For more infomation >> BBB18 terá últimos dias de forma eletrizante e eliminação relâmpago sequencial | VENTO GRANDE - Duration: 3:38. 
For more infomation >> Mesmo concorrente, Kaysar incentiva Gleici e continuar na prova do BBB18 - Duration: 3:37. 
For more infomation >> Neymar publica foto e Bruna Marquezine se derrete: Que gatinho, meu Deus | Noticias Nuevas - Duration: 1:55. 
For more infomation >> BBB18: Breno dá palpite sobre próxima prova do líder e dispara: "Sem paciência - Duration: 2:59. 
For more infomation >> E-Fest Winners Park & Diamond: Where are they now? - Duration: 42:29. 
For more infomation >> BBB18: Ana Clara lidera o Queridômetro e desbanca Paula no ranking | VENTO GRANDE - Duration: 2:57. 
For more infomation >> Gossip Uomini e donne, Gemma sconvolta: la malattia segreta del suo ex fidanzato | Wind Zuiden - Duration: 3:30. 
For more infomation >> Breno e Paula ignoram presença de Ana Clara e fazem revelações íntimas no BBB18 - Duration: 5:16. 
For more infomation >> BBB18: Breno relembra participações de Lucas e Jaqueline e detona ex-participantes | VENTO GRANDE - Duration: 2:43. 
For more infomation >> BBB18: Ana Clara tem queda de pressão e pede descanso em prova de resistência | VENTO GRANDE - Duration: 2:49. 
For more infomation >> Não Seremos Abalados (We Will Not Be Shaken) - Doxologia feat. Diego e Tati | Projeto Vida Nova - Duration: 5:25. 
For more infomation >> BBB18: Ana Clara tem queda de pressão e pede descanso em prova de resistência - Duration: 3:55. 
For more infomation >> Uomini e Donne anticipazioni over: la lite fra Giorgio e Gianni | Wind Zuiden - Duration: 3:21. 
For more infomation >> Lucas declara torcida por Breno e é chamado de desnecessário pelo brother no BBB18 - Duration: 3:10. 
For more infomation >> Mesmo concorrente, Kaysar incentiva Gleici e continuar na prova do BBB18 | VENTO GRANDE - Duration: 2:47. 
For more infomation >> Após fazer ameaças ao vivo contra Wagner, Caruso se manifesta e manda novo recado - Duration: 3:01. 
For more infomation >> Rep. Duffy on question of removing Rep. Ryan as a lame-duck Speaker - Duration: 3:29. 
For more infomation >> BØRNS - We Don't Care - Duration: 3:33. 
For more infomation >> Que se passe-t-il lorsque vous buvez du vinaigre de cidre et du miel dans un estomac vide le matin - Duration: 2:24. 
For more infomation >> Survey shows Missoula tax support for streets, but Engen says don't "presume" tax hike - Duration: 0:48. 
For more infomation >> CHALLENGE TRANSFORMATION EN 10 JOURS ES POSSIBLE À TOI DE JUGER - Duration: 13:26. 
No comments:
Post a Comment