5 songs with unusual chord progressions

this video is sponsored by use your ear it really isn't unusual for a song to use the same chord progression that's been used in not just one but potentially hundreds of other songs before it and there's nothing wrong with that you can't copyright a chord progression you can't own it it doesn't matter it's just an essential tool of songwriting but there are some songs that use chord progressions that effectively haven't been used before that are more or less unique of course you could probably find some sort of example somewhere but for all intents and purposes the songs i'm going to show you today have used chord progressions which as far as i'm aware haven't been used in any other well-known song so we're going to start with a band who are a treasure trove of interesting and often unique chord progressions which is radiohead this is one of my favorite radiohead songs subterranean home segaleon and it's ultimately the first three chords here which are the unique part the second part of the progression here is nice but i wouldn't say it's unique i've seen this in other songs before [Music] let's look at these first three chords we've got d minor a flat the major second inversion so a in the bass this is a really interesting change moving from a chord to another chord that's a tritone away for example d moving to a flat is a very unusual thing to do there's no key center there's no diatonic key we could be in where d minor or d major would be found alongside a flat notes that are tritone away are very unrelated they're basically as far away as you can get before you start coming back around yourself and it results in this sort of uncanny weird sound very curious sound which is perfect for setting the mood of a song that's about being abducted by aliens you couldn't have a video about interesting chord progressions without talking about the beatles so the beatles song that i'm going to talk about today is michelle [Music] oh michelle's first revolves around this six bar loop starting on f then we get a quite interesting chord b flat seven sharp nine quite a jarring sound this chord is often referred to as the hendrix chord because it's been used in jimi hendrix's music a lot it's combining both the major third of the chord so in this example d in our b flat chord but also the minor third which is the sharp nine so we've got d flat so we've got d flat and d natural at the same time creating that dissonance then the progression moves to e flat six and then we get a few different diminished chords we get d diminished seven b diminished seven c major go back to b diminished seven and c the interesting thing about the diminished seven chords is when they're inverted diminished seven chords become other diminished seven chords what do i mean by that well we get d diminished seven right and then we get b diminished seven the only difference between those two chords is which note you put at the bottom is the bass which is dictating the chord change d dim 7 and b dim 7 have the exact same four notes this is a really interesting chord progression potentially one of the jazziest chord progressions that the beatles ever wrote but what i find interesting is the second chord that that b flat seven sharp nine because many chord charts and tutorials and even myself have incorrectly labeled that chord before as b flat minor seven which as you can hear has a very similar sound it's actually a much a much smoother sound you lose that dissonance of the sharp nine because the sharp nine just becomes a nice mellow minor seven [Music] and this is almost the more obvious choice that a jazz musician would make [Music] it gets a much smoother sound but the beatles chose to go with the harsher sound of that sharp nine chord [Music] the next chord progression comes from one of my favorite songs of all time mrs robinson by simon and garfunkel [Music] [Music] [Music] now this cooperation opens on an f-sharp seven chord we actually get that for five bars then we move to b7 so at this point quite a typical blues sound the one chord with the dominant seven on the four chord with the dormant seven on but then we go on a bit of a harmonic adventure we go to e a d a first inversion b minor then we return to the chord we began with which is the f sharp seven and then we move down a tone to e7 which sets us up to go to the verse section because the verse is in the key of a unlike this intro that's been in the key of f sharp what's also really interesting and very satisfying about this chord progression is the circle of fifths movement we get between the chords as i said it begins almost like a blues f moving to b one moving to four but then we get this run through some other slightly less obvious chords e a d if you look at all of these chords here you'll see that they're all related by the same interval either a descending perfect fifth or an ascending perfect fourth ultimately they're moving around the circle of fifths f sharp moves a fifth down to b b moves a fifth down to e e moves the fifth down to a a moves the fifth down to d we're going around the circle and as i mentioned before in my circular fifth chord progression video if a chord moves if a chord progression moves in the interval of a fifth or a fourth it's just going to work it's going to sound satisfying and pleasing because chords or key centers or just notes that are related by that interval a fifth or a fourth are very closely related so there's not really any way that they couldn't work together regardless of the context in which you hear them thank you to use your ear for sponsoring this video if you want to receive free exercises tips tricks and practical direction to improve your ability to write and transcribe music by ear then you should check out the usual ear workshop this is a free 3-hour training program that will develop your inner sense of pitch and musicality also by watching the free workshop you'll get a special offer for use your ears premium training program the usual ear method is not self etch and it's also not based on intervals it's instead a new alternative way of training your inner sense of pitch and musicality click on the link below to get free access to the usual ear workshop thanks again to use your ear for supporting the channel and now on to our next unusual chord progression this next chord progression is made unique ultimately just by one of the chords a quite infamous chord in there this is sir duke by stevie [Music] [Applause] give wonder [Applause] so the chorus of sarduk starts on a b chord which makes sense we're in the key of b we've been in the key of b the entire song but then we get a chord that's kind of quite unusual f minor b moving to f minor do you remember earlier when i mentioned during the radiohead example that moving by the interval of a tritone is perhaps the the weirdest the most unrelated chord movement we could have well that's what's happening here b moving to f natural is a tritone so how does this work how does it not sound sort of awkward janky well it's sort of all to do with the voice leading of it the reason they don't sound completely unrelated is that they now actually do share one note and that's all down to the fact that this f minor is actually an f minor seven chord it features an e flat on the top which is also in our b chord although we might refer to it as d sharp it's the same note so between these different chords we have this one consistent note of d sharp [Music] and then when we go to the e major seven chord it's still there now at this point we lose it for a couple chords but that doesn't matter because it's done its job it's glued together b f minor seven and e major seven in such an unlikely pairing the last song we're going to talk about today is light my fire by the doors now this song has three main sections the organ intro the verse and the chorus and although all three have their own interesting chord progression we're largely going to talk about the verse which only has two chords a minor seven and f sharp minor seventh [Music] these two chords aren't found in any diatonic key together there's no key you can be in where a minor seven and f sharp minor seven will both be diatonic so they kind of have this unrelated sentence don't they don't really fit but that's what creates the curious sound the interesting sound [Music] they're an example of what you might call a chromatic mediant two chords that are related by a third but aren't in the same diatonic key so a minor seven if we go down a major third we get f sharp minor seven and the reason that they work is because although they aren't found in any diatonic heat together they both actually share 50 of their notes across both of these chords a and e are present on both and those are actually two great notes to have present in both because we've got the root note and the fifth probably the two most important notes in the key so even though f sharp minor seven doesn't belong in our key of a minor it has two of the most important notes of a minor inside of it so it can hang in there it can it can belong [Music] you could also see this as modal interchange it's actually an example i used in my motor winter change video you could see it as a combination of a minor and a major because f sharp minor seven is the sixth chord of a major so although it isn't present in a minor it's present in the parallel major scale so you can almost see this as a mix of between the minor key or in the major key [Music] but however you see it you wind up with two chords that are simultaneously unrelated yet still work together and that's that's sort of the hallmark of an interesting chord progression i think you get that that chord that makes you think oh what was that now what's extra interesting about this is the way then segues into the chorus section the chorus is in the key of d major whereas the verse was in the key of a minor two keys are once again not particularly related but what's great is this f sharp minor so yeah if sharp man seven chord works as a pivot between the two keys because we're using it here in our sort of chromatic median setting but f sharp minor seven is also present diatonically in the chorus key of d major so it can act as a sort of harmonic bridge into the chorus and smooth out that chord change [Music] and a big thank you as always goes to everybody who supports me on patreon including a extra special thanks going to these wonderful people [Music] [Applause] [Music] do [Music] [Music] you

Channel: David Bennett Piano

Views: 357,995

Keywords: music theory, chord progressions, analysis, roman numeral, weird, examples, unique, chormatic, mediant, modal interchange

Id: URO0EfmxYw0

Length: 15min 29sec (929 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 04 2022