chord showcasing swiss-knife songs?

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fretski
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Re: chord showcasing swiss-knife songs?

Post by fretski »

fretski wrote: Mon Nov 23, 2020 7:08 pm I thought I had just posted about this but cannot find it, maybe I hit the cancel button. My apologies if it's duplication, gonna keep this edition short.

I'm looking for a few 'pleasant enough' songs that use all but only the standard chords in their key. Slow rock would be good as it can be played at different speeds but I'm open to any suggestions.

TIA

Killed all the previous video links, here's the final

https://tinyurl.com/y2syoada

I'm very happy with the result, this will serve as a basis for doing all the keys just sticking to basics before doing songs and such. By not rushing the tempo I can strum slowly with a bit of sustain over the synth chords and it sounds GREAT! Outside of jamming THIS is the way to learn/practice, no effort required, if you make a mistake you immediately hear it, etc. etc. I might put the series up on youtube when all done. Thank you all for the input, especially merlyn for the "descending-ascent" bit :)

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Re: chord showcasing swiss-knife songs?

Post by D-Tuned »

merlyn wrote: Wed Nov 25, 2020 4:09 pm It's an interesting idea -- one song for all seven chords.

Bob Dylan's Like A Rolling Stone has five out of seven, and they're in the right order. Verse :

| C / Dm / | Em / F / | G / / / | G / / /|

....

I can think of a song with seven chords although it is in a minor key -- Autumn Leaves. If it was in Am (the relative minor of C) the first part is:

| Dm7 / / / | G7 / / / | Cmaj7 / / / | Fmaj7 / / / |
| Bm7b5 / / / | E7 / / / | Am7 / / / | Am7 / / / |

Now we have have four note chords which puts this towards the jazz end of the spectrum. Bm7b5 is also called B half diminished and is B D F A. E7 might look out of place but it's diatonic in a minor key -- it comes from A harmonic minor.

This 'going round in fourths' progression is common from Bach to Gloria Gaynor -- I Will Survive is :

||: Am / / / | Dm / / / | G / / / | C / / / |
| F / / / | Bm7b5 / / / | E7 / / / | E7 / / / : ||
The above with a Bdim & Em would be 7/7 and what I'm looking for. I've seen a few others sporting 5 out of 7. Autumn Leaves is one I first heard in my childhood and have always been attracted to, but I never thought of it as jazz-ish. Another thing I've discovered since, is that I can transpose only major-2-major or minor-2-minor or it will sound like something completely unrelated.

Any body with other suggestions, in major and/or minor then? The progression, so called, can also include few if necessary repetitions i.e. be a series of somehow fitting smaller progressions so long as all the chords get 'cycled' as it were.

TIA



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Re: chord showcasing swiss-knife songs?

Post by Fmajor7add9 »

D-Tuned wrote: Fri Apr 16, 2021 4:41 pm Any body with other suggestions, in major and/or minor then? The progression, so called, can also include few if necessary repetitions i.e. be a series of somehow fitting smaller progressions so long as all the chords get 'cycled' as it were.
Still got the blues is pretty much Autumn leaves with distortion and nailed to the floor rhythm for white men.

I think Fly me to the moon is 7/7

You've got a friend also got all of them.
How deep is your love, perhaps, plus a IV minor say cheese moment.

and All of me, why not take all of me, just with dominant 7 on III and IV sometimes
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Re: chord showcasing swiss-knife songs?

Post by D-Tuned »

merlyn wrote: Wed Nov 25, 2020 4:09 pm It's an interesting idea -- one song for all seven chords.
....
I can think of a song with seven chords although it is in a minor key -- Autumn Leaves. If it was in Am (the relative minor of C) the first part is:

| Dm7 / / / | G7 / / / | Cmaj7 / / / | Fmaj7 / / / |
| Bm7b5 / / / | E7 / / / | Am7 / / / | Am7 / / / |

....

This 'going round in fourths' progression is common from Bach to Gloria Gaynor -- I Will Survive is :

||: Am / / / | Dm / / / | G / / / | C / / / |
| F / / / | Bm7b5 / / / | E7 / / / | E7 / / / : ||
I will kick "Autumn Leaves" and "I Will Survive" around a little, they seem to be promising because I think I can cheat them back to the desired majors/minors/one-dim set.
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YESSSS! Re: chord showcasing swiss-knife songs?

Post by D-Tuned »

fretski wrote: Mon Nov 23, 2020 7:08 pm I thought...

I've learned a lot, thanks to many of the comments and samples. Finally I abandoned the idea of using any existing material, wanting something compact enough to be repeated in all keys in turn while also being less of a bore than a scale-like run of chords. This is my first attempt at a so called chord progression, it still sounds like just a series of notes but at least it has promise, trying to also bring out the soul of a minor key. Spiffing it up would just make it longer, it will do the job as is I think, the correct speed and video footwork remain to be worked out. I'd love to come up with 12 of them each a little different but maybe I should not push my luck. I intend to transpose this to all minor keys and then make another one in a major key to be transposed into all major keys. The series in a single track should make for a basic chord exercising video which was my original objective to help me immerse myself into the 'keys ether' once and for all.
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Re: chord showcasing swiss-knife songs?

Post by VirginiaGorman »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RUxZv3 ... italDJTips
check this video, maybe it can help u)
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Re: chord showcasing swiss-knife songs?

Post by D-Tuned »

merlyn wrote: Sat Nov 28, 2020 3:47 pm You've got the right idea -- start simple and build it up. Keep going!
I'm very close to completion, had tripple-A surgery in between and that slowed me down some. When I started I didn't even know that one just cannot use the same chord sequence in major/minor keys :lol:

I gave up on a swiss-knife 'song' (although Autumn-Leaves really temted me for a minor sample) and cooked up a 7 chord progression for major and one for minor and am working out the bugs for a jam-video that will cycle all major/minor keys. Maybe another few weeks should do it...
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Re: chord showcasing swiss-knife songs?

Post by merlyn »

I'm glad to hear that you've recovered from the surgery you had.

If I remember correctly you were puzzled by the viidim chord. You've noticed that there are few (no) songs that use it.

This might help, but if it confuses things further, ignore it and come back to it later :

It's called functional harmony. In a major key there are only three chord functions : tonic, subdominant and dominant or I IV and V.

I = iii = vi
IV = ii
V = viidim

So if we take a well known progression that is the basis of loads of songs from the 50s :

| C / / / | Am / / / | F / / / | G / / / |

Functionally that is | I / / / | I / / / | IV / / / | V / / / |
We can use IV = ii and substitute Dm for F getting | C / / / | Am / / / | Dm / / / | G / / / | which is like Blue Moon and loads of other songs but functionally is still
| I / / / | I / / / | IV / / / | V / / / |

The same is true for V = viidim. Functionally a viidim chord is a V chord.
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Re: chord showcasing swiss-knife songs?

Post by D-Tuned »

fretski wrote: Mon Nov 23, 2020 7:08 pm I thought I had just posted about this but cannot find it, maybe I hit the cancel button. My apologies if it's duplication, gonna keep this edition short.

I'm looking for a few 'pleasant enough' songs that use all but only the standard chords in their key. Slow rock would be good as it can be played at different speeds but I'm open to any suggestions.

TIA
The idea was born last November, here is the end result, it's not a song but 2 (major & minor) progressions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKmBd54nRMQ

Thanks to all who chimed in!
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Re: chord showcasing swiss-knife songs?

Post by D-Tuned »

merlyn wrote: Tue Jul 06, 2021 3:41 pm I'm glad to hear that you've recovered from the surgery you had.

If I remember correctly you were puzzled by the viidim chord. You've noticed that there are few (no) songs that use it.

This might help, but if it confuses things further, ignore it and come back to it later :

It's called functional harmony. In a major key there are only three chord functions : tonic, subdominant and dominant or I IV and V.

I = iii = vi
IV = ii
V = viidim

So if we take a well known progression that is the basis of loads of songs from the 50s :

| C / / / | Am / / / | F / / / | G / / / |

Functionally that is | I / / / | I / / / | IV / / / | V / / / |
We can use IV = ii and substitute Dm for F getting | C / / / | Am / / / | Dm / / / | G / / / | which is like Blue Moon and loads of other songs but functionally is still
| I / / / | I / / / | IV / / / | V / / / |

The same is true for V = viidim. Functionally a viidim chord is a V chord.
Your guidance seems very useful but it's too fast for me at this point. The 'artofcomposing' diagram in my video also speaks of 'functions', the next item on my checklist in order to understand the diagram :lol:
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Re: chord showcasing swiss-knife songs?

Post by D-Tuned »

merlyn wrote: Tue Jul 06, 2021 3:41 pm I'm glad to hear that you've recovered from the surgery you had.

If I remember correctly you were puzzled by the viidim chord. You've noticed that there are few (no) songs that use it.

This might help, but if it confuses things further, ignore it and come back to it later :

It's called functional harmony. In a major key there are only three chord functions : tonic, subdominant and dominant or I IV and V.

I = iii = vi
IV = ii
V = viidim

Confused or not I want to (eventually) nail this. The above 3 lines are a mystery, what do they say and how do you arrive at them? The lower-case romans are equivalents of the formula which to preclude duplication was originall expressed only in capital romans?
So if we take a well known progression that is the basis of loads of songs from the 50s :

| C / / / | Am / / / | F / / / | G / / / |

Functionally that is | I / / / | I / / / | IV / / / | V / / / |
We can use IV = ii and substitute Dm for F getting | C / / / | Am / / / | Dm / / / | G / / / | which is like Blue Moon and loads of other songs but functionally is still
| I / / / | I / / / | IV / / / | V / / / |

The same is true for V = viidim. Functionally a viidim chord is a V chord.
I arrived at my swiss-knife progression not by some formula but by trying a different chord at every step, as if I were trying to compose a song. At first I didn't even know that it would be impossible to use just a single progression in both major and minor keys :lol:

That's how I cooked up the 2 progressions and to my surprise there were places for the dim vii & ii in both respectively

major
I - ii - iii - IV - V - vi - vii

minor
i - ii - III - iv - v - VI - VII
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Re: chord showcasing swiss-knife songs?

Post by D-Tuned »

D-Tuned wrote: Wed Sep 29, 2021 12:32 pm
I arrived at my swiss-knife progression not by some formula but by trying a different chord at every step, as if I were trying to compose a song. At first I didn't even know that it would be impossible to use just a single progression in both major and minor keys :lol:

That's how I cooked up the 2 progressions and to my surprise there were places for the dim vii & ii in both respectively

major
I - ii - iii - IV - V - vi - vii

minor
i - ii - III - iv - v - VI - VII
my apologies, i pasted a clip bank list instead of the progs:

I - iii - IV - ii - V - vii - vi

i - VI - VII - v - iv - ii - III
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