View Full Version : Key, Chords, Confused
grandmainger
Feb-10-2005, 4:22am
I've recently discovered the MandoSheets from MandoZine (pdf) (http://www.mandozine.com/resources/Practice-Sheets.pdf). Very great stuff for a musically challenged person like me I think.
I got confused as to why they provide only 6 chords per key. I looked at some tabs in different keys and it seems to fit. For example, one would not strum a C chord for a song in the key of D. Is this right? Why is that?
steve in tampa
Feb-10-2005, 4:28am
Look in to the circle of fifths. It will explain chord progression and the relationship between the changes. This will also help explain Nashville numbering
A good resource is Ron Greene's Mandolin Accompaniment Dial. h
http://www.musicdials.com
Fretbear
Feb-10-2005, 5:28am
A chord used (but that is not found) in the harmonized scale of the key that you are playing in employs a "borrowed" chord from another key and is called a "modulation". #
For example the harmonized scale of C major employs the following chords:
C, Dm, Em, F, G7, Am, B1/2 Dim, C
If you were to use a D7 chord in a progression using the chords above, it would involve a temporary modulation to the key of G where the D7 is functioning as the V chord, but you would still resolve the tune to a C chord.
Bruce Evans
Feb-10-2005, 5:54am
To expand a little bit on Fretbear's post:
You can use any chord in any key. It depends on where the melody and your imagination take you.
But in most of the kind of music most of us play most often (Are there enough weasel words in there?) only a few chords are necessary. Even those simple tunes can be spiced up with a few more chords. But when you are playing spontaneously with a pick-up group, it's best to keep things at the lowest common denominator, which usually results in three or four chords.
jmcgann
Feb-10-2005, 12:25pm
"You can use any chord in any key."- no, not if you want to obey the rules of harmony (not that much music behaves itself in this way, but for learning theory purposes, it helps to eliminate the variables!).
In a straight ahead, white bread, major key situation there are only 7 chords. 1, 4 and 5 and major, 2 3 6 minor and 7 diminished. If you get that straight, it helps you recognize when "other stuff" happens.
To think outside the box, you first have to recognize the box http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/laugh.gif
Thing is, not all music stays in one key for long, so it looks confusing. Theory is a language which, like any other language, takes one quite awhile to gain fluency. You can't speak and understand the lingo fluently without long immersion in the lingo. It's very possible to understand the theory ins and outs of chords and scales- it IS finite, but it is pretty confusing until you hit a few plateaus where it all starts to make sense (cue: "The Simpsons" theme)...
Neil Young's "After the Gold Rush" is a very nice tune in D (or maybe G; it doesn't really matter) and has has a passage where it goes from A to C to G.
"There is a right way and a wrong way." This is true of rules. "The rules of harmony". Music sometimes obeys various rules, and sometimes does not. Did the folks writing Little Maggie decide "Hey, I'm going to think outside the box here, and go to this F chord, even though we're in G"? Doubtful. Or better yet "Ooh, G mixolydian would be just the ticket for this here sound I'm looking for." Probably not either. My guess is that they wrote what they thought sounded good.
Is music not art, creative expression via sound? Sound is just vibrations in the air. There are physical and mathematical relationships that associate the various notes to one another (octaves being twice the frequency of the root note, e.g.), and define what we think of as intervals and chords. Fairly simple associations (major chords) are easier to grasp, less dissonant. The same goes for progressions - 1, 5, 1 probably being the simplest. With time and exposure, some people learn to appreciate more dissonance, to incredible levels sometimes (Charles Mingus, maybe?). The romantics broke many of the rules of the classical era, while the impressionists broke even more of the remaining rules. The modernists broke what few were remaining, leaving contemporary composers with no more rules to break! Appropriately, they can get away with whatever they want today, and nobody pays much attention if it's too dissonant. #
If you want to learn the rules, learn them. Various styles of music have different rules. Ultimately you will enjoy the sounds you enjoy, regardless of which rules they follow.
The C chord works just fine for tunes in the key of D; it's PG-level dissonance, hardly revolutionary. Ok, it's a little fancy for old-time, maybe even for bluegrass, but if you like it, play it.
"There is no jazz, only music" - Keith Jarrett.
-Dan
mandroid
Feb-10-2005, 3:57pm
elementary theory offers: the scale harmonized, that is stack a 3rd and a 5th note on top of each pitch in the scale, and the resultant chords, are ;7 steps:
Maj,min,min,Maj,Maj,min, diminished, for a major scale .
dom7th shows up a lot [#5] I,IV,V, will cover lots of BG and folk tunes. 6m &2m pretty common too.[inG thats em,am]
kudzugypsy
Feb-10-2005, 4:04pm
just think of those 6 chords that come from that key as just different "groupings" of scale tones CONFINED to that certain key. certainly, you will find thousands of even simple folk songs that go "outside" that key BRIEFLY, like the old G to A run (or G to F) you find in many BG songs. dont think that you are suddenly changing keys, you are just "grabbing" some tones outside the scale for a measure. this just adds spice to the song. everyone who sits through a night of 3 chord jams will surely appreciate a change of structure.
the reason to learn the fundamentals of scale/key/harmony is that is makes your thinking easier when you can "see" when the change happens. plus, very "complex" tunes like hank williams "Love Sick Blues" or patsy clines "Crazy" will start to make sense to you because they follow the chords built from the key.
it is frustrating learning theory due to the fact that often things dont make any sense til further along in your study, but it eventually will. music is just like math, you have to start with 2+2 and work up from there, if you skip around and miss critical info, you are gonna get lost real quick.
music is just like math, you have to start with 2+2 and work up from there
Well, it depends what you're after. Sure, musical theory (both composition theory and the physics stuff) has mathematical properties, but I kind of think that the nice thing about music is that it's NOT like math. (But I do love math!) This is a fundamental difference, I suppose. Is painting like math? Is music more like painting or like math? Raise your hand if you think music is like math.
JMHO,
-Dan
I think music is like math.
Thanks for all the info in this thread. I printed out the mandozine link chords for different keys (I have been there before and find the site very helpful) and when you look at it on paper, it comes together more quickly. I play the piano and had lessons for years as a child, however, not much theory was taught. (Humble beginnings, but it was all the folks could afford.) But, when I play the mando (I am trying to learn tablature) my mind is still seeing piano and notation. Any helpful hints would be appreciated. Also, even though I am learning tab, I want to be able to play by ear and just use tab for a stepping off point.
Thanks to all.
CraigF
Feb-10-2005, 5:20pm
music is just like math, you have to start with 2+2 and work up from there
Well, it depends what you're after. Sure, musical theory (both composition theory and the physics stuff) has mathematical properties, but I kind of think that the nice thing about music is that it's NOT like math. (But I do love math!) This is a fundamental difference, I suppose. Is painting like math? Is music more like painting or like math? Raise your hand if you think music is like math.
JMHO,
-Dan
I think the point was, you have to start with the basics, not that music is mathematical. How can you understand 4 + 4 if you can’t understand 2 + 2?
Yes, but, the music itself - (as you can see by the written music) - is mathematical. It all has to 'fit'.
mandroid
Feb-10-2005, 7:53pm
the basics: A measure of 4/4 [for example]can be subdivided into any number of notes,Whole, half , quarter, sixteenth, 32nd,64th, (and rests) but the time value of all of them has to equal that as a sum.
Pythagoras realized that music was mathematical thousands of years ago. Why can't we all just accept that as a fact and get over it?
Is painting like math? Sure it is -- perspective, design etc.
Music is both like and unlike math. It is also both like and unlike painting.
Being an artform that exists in time rather than space, it is unlike any of the visual arts.
Regarding the "rules of harmony" debacle:
As a composer and music theory professor, I believe that the rules aren't really prescriptive but descriptive. They describe how music was written in a certain time, place and style or they describe the relationship of one type of musical material (such as chords) to another (such as scales). It has been a long time since there was a major prescriptive music theory...
Regarding our need for knowledge of theory:
To really be innovative you must know where you stand in relation to tradition.
Michael Gowell
Feb-11-2005, 9:14pm
I always liked that remark by Laurie Anderson - "Talking about music is like dancing about architecture."
I always liked that remark by Laurie Anderson - "Talking about music is like dancing about architecture."
Why is it that, whenever a music theory question of some kind is discussed in one of these threads, someone feels compelled to deflate the discourse by offering something like this?
My personal "favorite" is some form of "Bill Monroe/Robert Johnson/(another musician) didn't read notes/understand theory/play in Db minor"
Peter Hackman
Feb-12-2005, 7:09am
Music theory simply synthesizes the habits
or stylistic traits of some given era.
Whenever I compose
a song, for instance,
I may be guided by theoretical knowledege
in the search for a certain form or modd, e.g.,
a slow modulation from the initial key
and a brisk modulation back. Nice to know
some of the tricks that achieve that.
But only my ears and feeling can judge
the final result. Only my ears and feeling
can tell whether it's even final.
grant_eversoll
Feb-12-2005, 8:01am
I think music is like math.
Yes it is just like math...the english version not the metric system http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif
Yes it is just like math...the english version not the metric system
More true than you might think!
jbrwky
Feb-12-2005, 1:47pm
There's more than three??!!! DOH!
bsimmers
Feb-14-2005, 8:38am
This is great stuff. The theory stuff is especially helpful to people who don't have the gift of a natural ear to be able to know with absolute certainty when a chord/lick/note is right. However, I would be surprised if ol' Bill knew his mandolin break on Santa Claus started with a pentatonic scale. However, not everyone is ol' Bill. Then again, most of us probably fall somewhere between ol' Bill, and not having any natural ear at all. For us, I think we have to try to understand the theory stuff, but not to the point of thinking we don't have to listen to the music that's out there and just trying to play it. But if we try that, and get into stuff that is just to far beyond our natural ear, then we may need to go back and check out the theory. The fact is: Bluegrass music is easy to play ................ unless you play it like ol' Bill, Jethro, David, Sam, etc.
And none of this means a thing if it ain't fun.