1 a promise is made. (intro)
2 the anxiety but hopefullness of a promise made.
3 the moment before the receiving of the promise.
4 the recieving of the promise OR betrayel
5 post promise bliss OR collapse
6 the memory of a promise. (epilogue)
my personal favorie kind of song, or one i at least want to highlight, is the scissor type where you have discordant noises then brief good part. the song structure of breaking out of extended monotonous dissonances into brief moments of beautiful melody and color. here's a prototypical example i made:
how is promise created?
stage 2: repetition, habit, mild dissonances, feeling of something that is coming created through addition of new elements creating the prediction that at some point no new elements can be added
and something must happen as a result, odd ryhtms, low frequencies.
stage 3: extreme dissonance, a sudden confusing change, a sudden removal of almost everything
stage 4: dramatic change, consonant harmonies, destruction of previous habits and repitions, even ryhtms, high frequencies.
not all works operate on bdsm principles. the following is more fundamental.
change and stasis:
1 something is happening.
2 nothing changes OR something slightly different happens OR something dramatically different happens.
this two step process repeats indefinitely. this is not useful for analysis art really, but this is the bottom of how time art works i think. upon this fundamental you may build
your system of art for good or ill.
So I read a person say something like "It's so interesting how the major6 is an inversion of the minor7, I don't think there's any other chord where just by being inverted it acts as a different chord" And everyone stood up and clapped, but that made me curious and so I found that you can play a major7 with the third in the bass and it acts as a dominant chord. Obviously not exactly what he was talking about, but whatever. Here's an audio example of it in some contexts: https://voca.ro/1tToNS3eLyVi
The final track on 001: a galaxy oddysey, is the only true send off there could have been. The only song that could somehow shine brightest even after every song that came before. There's a lot that makes this song special, but I'll only speak on one aspect.
The progression goes CMaj-Bdom-Emin-Adom, a 4-3-6-2 in G. I've talked about this progression on this site but where this song is unique is in the upper extensions. The first chord is a Cmaj9 and that D stays when it moves to the Bdom making it a #9, the sweet natural nine becoming splitting and yearning, is just amazingly pretty, and it resolves to the Emin9, which is sorrowful in it's own way, since the 9 is brushing up against the third of the chord.
The same re-contextualising of the top note happens again, this time the 9 from Eminor becomes the 13th of Adominant, and leads back to the beginning. This song has this profound feeling and I think it's in part because of the top note being reharmonized with a dominant chord that's outside the scale, making that note that was once sweet become slightly dissonant. It's so good that it's the only chord progression in the whole song, not changing at any point, and it doesn't get old at all for the 5 minute runtime. It hasn't gotten old for all the hundreds of times I've listened to it.
Sora no Sakana was published September 14th 2010. Powapowa-P died on July 23rd 2015 at age 20
As you can see, Charles Mingus and Thelonius monk are big favorites of mine. Scatman Jones too.
summer
Hisasihi is known for his rich harmonies, but in summer they're pretty much absent. the main melody for summer is harmonized only with a bass note octave and a perfect fifth, the simplest and least communicative harmony possible. It's this "basicness" that gives Summer it's captiveness, I think.
If you try and play triads where the bass notes are, you destroy the songs character completely. When people talk about Summer, they talk about it's nostalgic feeling, for childhood particularly. The opening for summer is the westminster chimes, the end of school day chime in japan
and other east asian countries, it states this nostalgia for simpler days overtly, even westerners who know that melody only from anime will get a tug at the heart, that association for the end of school is so strong.
Children's songs, lulabies, all use very basic melodies and harmonies, avoiding difficult intervals and sticking to notes that are easy to sing. This has the effect of making them palatable for children, who haven't become aclimated to more dissonant sounds yet
but also to be more catchy and memorable. A song that's easier to sing, and remember, is going to naturally imprint itself in your memory better.
Summer manages to capture the spirit of children's music by utalizing basic harmonies, while still having a sophisticated side to it.
Emaj7 1625 progression
Emaj7 Jpop progression
Jpop progression again except this time on the b7 the b7 resolves to Bmaj(11.13 on further listening, im unsure if this is a dominant or a major, sorry, my ears aren't the best... neither the major 7 or minor 7 sound good when playing over the recording, could be a sus?), and this begins the next section.
Bmaj - Emaj7(1-4(11.13 or 5-1)-Bmaj7-Bmin7-Edom-Amaj and it goes 36251
Now, the Akiko Yano cover of this song is very interesting I'll go over that now.
Begins on Bbmaj7 and goes between Aflatmaj7 and Bbmaj7 while using Bb as a pedal tone for the intro. This is changing the quality from Major to suspended Dominant, it's very pretty.
Then the main progression goes Bbmaj7 - Aflatmaj - Gdominant - cminor. And then continues as if it's a Jpop progression, at the end resolving Bbdominant to Bbmajor7. So it's a way of beginning the Jpop progression by starting on the 5 of your key.
Roman Numerals: 5maj7 - 4 - 3dom - 6
Also, I lied when I said it continues on the Jpop progression, when it reaches the 6 chord(the cminor) the bass walks down to the 2 while keeping the upper structure of the 6 chord, and then it goes from the 2 to a 3-6-2 and then 5 and back to 1. This is in both Taeko's and Akiko's. So, a very cute twist on the tried and true. Jazz girlbosses.
Now a little afterword. For the longest time I thought this song just used the Jpop progression. Then in a Zen huxtable video he says it's very similar to the jpop progression, and this got under my skin so I looked at the song a bit more closely. Then I found it began completely differently, and used a little walk down, and ended completely differently, and I'm like "Oh I'm an idiot wow." But then after a few days a new thought got under my skin. "Why did Zenny say it was very similar? They're nothing alike!" So I looked at the song again, and then that's when I saw it was just a modified version. So I was made to look the fool time after time when it came to this song. So now I publish this, with the small thought at the back of my mind. "I'm probably wrong again about something...."
About the song, it's so beautiful. I don't usually look up lyrics to japanese songs, but the lyrics to this song are so romantic, it's really raised my opinion of the song greatly. And it's really just so pleasant to listen to, I love all the arrangements Akiko Yano and Taeko Ohnuki have made of it, from barebones piano and voice to french-style light jazz, mwuah, top tier song totally.
Jesus christ transcribing chords is so hard 11.7
Figuring out a chord's quality is fairly simple, thank you bass players who play the root, but figuring out voicings? Impossible. I think the chord in Happy Birthday 1975, the "weird minor chord" is an FdimMaj7? But I really can't say with confidence. And when it comes to figuring out voicings, it's just a pain, having to rewind and play back a recording over and over. Over time I got better at figuring out what the chords even were in their most simple form, so hopefully I get better going forward. But god what a pain.
tenney
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUrfKBnQ9a4 - something to listen to at least once.
Ernst Krenek
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3uj_28-t4M - I adore these pieces.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f81e7OdopXE
cecil
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EstPgi4eMe4 - kookoo jazz!
scho en
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zr4dt98oBQs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkKLkaqQoyE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeTFxbsVGrI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txrjyXw1Msc - short and sweet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGLcUfbVF3k - very fun and short.
sagisu
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoKCwVcVPNY - crazy string writing here.
yosuke
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpKT_eeCVNI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJhywjV25KM
ravel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KR2ECgtxYVw - best waltz ever.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGybwV3U9W8
gyorgy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHhZ2TzHlow
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ra7QdAWaBfE
cowell
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNQFOpYC0BY
kapustin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0W5cWDvSg1g
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7lWwXk6TV8
scriabin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpORJ9kwpTw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdphqEhdcB8 - wonderfully sad and strange.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dP8FMZr2sA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JE-riazUvJE
brossard
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWEyTWKP5cA
someone
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLs7kiISpaM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__hEZOX5leo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aStVb_OoaKo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3OwvTHEzBQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVb1ahMDgRM
