moshkito wrote:
Dean wrote:
... The ( I - V - vi - IV) progression does appear in Let It Be, but that isn't what gives the song it's hymn/psalm like quality, it's the I-V-IV-I progression that does that and it is also used by Argent in God Gave Rock And Roll To You (features Psalm 57 in the lyrics) and by 10cc in I'm Not In Love and by Oasis in Don't Look Back In Anger... three songs that also have psalm-like qualities. |
Sometimes I wish I knew music more intimately ... that's really far out Dean!
And, no doubt, someone like Jeff Lynne would probably know something like that! |
I would hope every musician knows something like that, even if they don't know the technicalities of music theory in the academic sense. Fortunately the theory and terminology is a lot more confusing than the practice, so even musicians can do it in practice even if they cannot explain it in theory.
In basic terms each chord made of three or more notes from a scale based upon the root note of the chord, (so if the first chord "I" is an E[major] the scale is E-major); a chord progression is formed by taking subsequent chords that have a harmonic relationship to the preceding chord. With the basic three-chord trick (I-IV-V) the progression uses every note in the ("I" chord) scale so will fit with any melody written in that key, for example
the scale of E-major = E,F#,G#,A,B,C#,D#
A major chord is created by taking the first, third and fifth note of that scale and playing them together.
E is the 1st note in the E-major scale so the I chord is E = [ E,F#,G#,A,B,C#,D#] <- 1,3,5 in the scale of E-major
A is the 4th note in the E-major scale so the IV chord is A = [A,B,C#,D,E,F#,G#] <- 1,3,5 in the scale of A-major
B is the 5th note in the E-major scale so the V chord is B = [B,C#,D#,E,F#,G#,A#] <- 1,3,5 in the scale of B-major
putting those chords on the E-major scale looks like this:
I (E) = [E,F#,G#,A,B,C#,D#,E,F#]
IV (A) = [E,F#,G#,A,B,C#,D#,F#] <- I've shown the E coming from the next octave up here
V (B) = [E,F#,G#,A,B,C#,D#,F#] <- I've shown the F# coming from the next octave up here.
Note that chords A[maj] and B[maj] both share a note with the E[maj] chord (E and B respectively)
What this means is the song's melody can be written using any of the notes of the E-major scale and still be harmonious with the three chosen chords - essentially if you stick to those three chords you cannot mess it up no matter what you do.
The basic four-chord progression [ I - V - vi - IV] introduces a minor chord "vi" (lowercase denotes a minor chord)
C# is the 6th note in the scale so the vi chord is C#[minor] = [C#,D#,E,F#,G#,A,B,C#] <- 1,3,5 in the scale of C#-minor
Which in E-major scale = [E,F#,G#,A,B,C#,D#,E,F#,G#]
...so you can see that still uses notes from the E-major scale (and shares two notes with the E[maj] chord), if the progression had used a VI major chord then the three notes would have been C#, F, G#, and here the "F" note is not in the E-major scale so would be "wrong" if we are playing a melody in E-major.
/edit: note that the C#-minor scale uses all the same notes as the E-major scale, because of this C#-minor is called a relative key of E-major
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Contrary to popular belief, Prog (and Jazz) doesn't throw all that out the window and ignore this basic format. In the above example you can use an VI major chord in the progression, you just need to find a trick to deal with the "F" note to resolve the dissonance.
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