- Hi, I'm Gareth Green and in this video, we're going to be thinking about how to analyse music harmony. There are various different
ways in which we can do this, but one of the methods is the
Roman Numeral Analysis Method where we work out which key we're in and then we work out what
are the chords for that key. So this piece of music we're
looking at, which by the way, is a movement from a
collection by the composer, Schumann, "Number 13"
translates as "The Poet Speaks", and it comes from Schumann's Opus 15, Scenes From Childhood. But we've got one sharp in
the key signature there, so we're in the key of G major. We could be in the key of E minor, but actually, we're in the key of G major. So if that's the case, let's just think about what the chords are in the key of G major for a moment, because that will just
help us in this task. So there's the F-sharp for G major, and the thing to do is to work
out the scale for G major, G, A, B, C, D, E, F-sharp. Well, obviously G at the top,
I could complete the scale, but it's the same as the first note G. All we do then is put
the third and the fifth above each of these notes. And you notice when you do this, you end up with three successive spaces or three successive lines, so it's good by just double checking you've got the right notes. So, we've got G, B, D
based on the first note of G major scale, A, C, E, based on the
second note, B, D, F-sharp, remember from the key signature based on the third note, and so on. So, of course, I can call
this G and I can call this A minor, and I can call this B minor, and I can call this C,
and I can call this D, and I can call this E minor, and I can call this F-sharp diminished because that's how it works out. So G, A minor, B minor, C major, D major, E minor, F-sharp diminished, those are all the chords of G major. Or we can use Roman
Numeral Analysis and say, that's chord I based on the
first note of the scale, chord II, based on the
second note of the scale, chord III, based on the
third note, and so on, chord IV, chord V, chord
VI, and finally, chord VII. Now, it's always possible that those basic chords might be extended. In other words, we're building in thirds. We've got G, B, and D,
what we call a root, a third, and a fifth. So your root is G in this case, B is the third above it, three notes above the G,
D is the fifth above it, five notes above the G. Say, I wanted to extend
that chord by putting an extra note on the top, I would keep building the chord in thirds. So for example, if I
want to put an F-sharp on the top of that first chord, that would be chord I7. It would be a a tonic seventh chord or a G major seven chord,
you see how that works. So all you've got to
do is add another third above the top note to
make it a seventh chord and another third to make
it a ninth chord, and so on. And we'll discover in this piece of music, we've got some of those extended chords and we've also got some
other interesting chords that we'll have a look at along the way. So the great thing about this
piece is it's quite short and there are bits in the middle where we've just got a kind of bit of melodic decoration going on, so we don't have to worry too much about what's going on there. And we've got quite a bit of repetition because when you come to this second half of the piece you find actually
we're kind of reworking the first bit of it as well. So they're not too many chords to look at to get through the piece. So let's have a look and
see if we can do some kind of analysis of the chords of this piece. Why do we want to do that? Well, it's quite helpful sometimes to know what the chords are
in a particular piece of music and it helps you to think, that's where it's changing key, or that's where we've got
one of these extended chords, or we've got an unusual chord
that doesn't quite belong to this basic system that
we've just been through. And that might help us interpret the piece by drawing attention to those chords that are changing key or chords that are a little bit unusual, adding a bit of colour to things. Or it may be that we're a composer wanting to write a piece of music
and we're just thinking, "Well, I'm never quite sure
what to do about chords, "I always get stuck with the same chords. "How can I get kind of inspiration "from a great composer like Schumann?" So even if I don't want to write in the same style as Schumann, I can kind of work out
how to use these chords. Now, just before we get going
with analysing the chords, let me just play you a little
bit of "The Poet Speaks" and then you can hear
what this piece is about. And so on, that's just a flavour of what, this is quite a kind of
reflective piece, isn't it? So, let's now see if we
can work out the chords. One thing that's good about
this piece from the point of view of this exercise is that it uses what we call block
chords much of the time. It's literally just chord, chord, chord. Sometimes it starts to embellish, so when we get, later on you think, there's lots of extra
little notes going on, quavers or eighth notes going on there. And sometimes, that's
makes it slightly difficult to see the chords. In this case it's not too bad, but we can see block chords and we can see these kind
of broken chords later. So it's a chance to sort
of engage with both things. Okay, well often, a piece
of music starts on chord I because we need to make
sure that the audience knows we're in G major, and that's
an obvious place to start. Sometimes it starts on something else and in this case, it does. So the first thing is try and work out what the notes are in the chord. Even though you've got
three notes in a triad, well, you could double one of those notes and make it a four-note chord. You could have two notes doubled to make it a five-note chord. You get the idea. Well, when we look at this chord, we see there are actually
four notes in it, but there are four different notes in it. So could it be that we've
got one of these triads, but we've done one of these extensions that we were talking about a moment ago? Well, let's say we can work
out what's going on here. Well, we've got a D, then
we've got an F-sharp, then we've got an A, then we've got C. So if I kind of organise
that into a basic chord, we've got D, F-sharp, A, C. Well, does that look like
anything we've got written here? Well, it does look a bit
like this, doesn't it? Because this is D, F-sharp, A, but we've got C stuck on the top of it. So it's looking like we've
added a seventh to chord V. So, then we can say that this is chord V because it's got D, F-sharp and A in it, but it's also got that seven. So we'll call it V7. And then, there's one
other thing we need to say. Is it in what we call a root position or is it in an inversion? Hmm, what do I mean by that? Well, if I was to take this chord V, if D is the lowest sounding note, so it's the bottom note of the chord, then I can say it's chord V or chord V7, in root position. If it's the same chord, but
F-sharp is at the bottom, then I say it's in first inversion. So if the third of the
chord is at the bottom, it's using those D, F-sharp, A notes or D, F-sharp, A, C notes in this case. But F-sharp is at the bottom, the third of the chord is at the bottom, so it's in first inversion. If it's the same chord, but A's at the bottom, we
say it's in second inversion. And with this added C that
we're talking about here, if C was at the bottom, it
will be in its third inversion. Now, when we look at this, we do find in fact,
that C is at the bottom. So it's chord V7 because it's using the notes of chord V. It's V7 because we've got
that C on the top of it. But then, because that C
is the bottom of the chord, well it's in its last
inversion, it's third inversion. If it's in root position,
you call that "a". If it's in first
inversion, you call it "b", second inversion, you call it "c", third inversion, you call it "d". Now, if you've learnt this
on a kind of US system, you might have come across root position as a "5-3" chord. First inversion as a "6" chord, second inversion as a "6-4" chord, and the third inversion
as a "7-5-3" chord. It's just another way of doing things. But V7d is telling us it's chord V with a seventh added, that C, and the C is in fact the bottom note. So it's in its third
inversion, it's a V7d. Okay, let's continue our
musical-chord detective work. So that's the first chord. So that's the chord we
were talking about there. When we move on to the second chord, well, okay, what are these notes? Well, we've got B in the bass, we've got G, we've got D,
then we've got G again. So there are four notes, but in fact, there are
only three different notes because we've got G twice. So can we organise that
into a basic triad? We've got B and G and D. Can
we get that into a basic triad? Well, we soon realise we
are looking at chord I, the G, B, D chord. So, when we label this, we're going to say the notes are G, B, D, so that's chord I, so
the first thing we do, label it chord I. Then we can say which of
those notes is in the bass? Because if the G's in the bass,
then it's in root position, it's an "a" chord. And if it's an "a" chord,
you don't write anything, you just assume it's
"a" if you see nothing. If the B's in the bass, then
it's in first inversion, so it's Ib. If D's in the bass, it's in second inversion and it's Ic. Well, B is in the bass, isn't it? This one here, so it's in
first inversion, so it's Ib. Great. When we look at the third chord, well, interesting when you
think about these notes, they're the same notes that
we had in the first chord. So it's looking like another one of these V7's again, isn't it? It's D, F-sharp, A,
and it's got C as well. We've got D, F-sharp A, C, so it must be another one of these V7's, so let's mark that in. But this time, it's not a V7d because C is not in the
bass, A is in the bass. So A is this note, isn't it? Which means it's the fifth in the bass, so it's in second inversion. So this is a V7c chord. Aha! Okay, moving on. When we come to this chord, we think, "Hello, we've seen this one before." We saw it here. So even though the notes are
slightly differently organised, aren't they? Because the top note there was G, the top note here is B, it's still G, B at the
top and the bottom, D. So it's still chord I, isn't it? It hasn't got any extra notes in it. There's no sevenths or anything, so it's still a chord I and it's still a chord Ib because whatever has been
reorganised higher up the chord, we've still got the third
of the chord in the bass. So it's chord I, first inversion. Hope you're getting the idea of this. Okay, brilliant, let's move on. Here's the next chord and
let's see if we can work out what these notes are. We've got a C, we've
got a G, we've got an E. So it's tempting to think, "Oh yeah, I think I can see
that this is a C, E, G chord, but then, there's an A in it as well. So is it really a C, E, G chord? Because if you put A above it, well, that's not going
up in thirds, is it? Because that's only a second above that G. However, if you think the
basic chord might be this, A, C, E, which explains three
of the notes in that chord, but we've extended it by
putting a G on the top. So you see, it's another third, isn't it? That makes more sense, doesn't it? So it's not really a chord
IV with a sort of note that doesn't sit a third
above the highest note. It's a chord II because that G does sit a third above the highest note. Aha! So in other words, it's a II7. So let's commit to that, it's chord II, get the notes first, then say, "Mm, is there anything extra going on?" Yes, there's a seventh. And then, come back and ask
yourself about the inversion. Well, what's in the bass? C is in the bass, that's
the third of the chord. So it must be in first
inversion, so call it II7b. Hopefully, you're getting
the hang of this now, which is cool. Okay, now bear with me if I miss out the next chord for a moment. We're going to come
back to it, don't worry. Let's look at this chord next. Well, what can we see here? We've got D, we've got G,
we've got D again, we've got B. So we've got three different notes. Which three notes are they?
Which triad do they relate to? Well, you can see it's our old friend chord I again, isn't it? So this is definitely a chord I, but what's in the bass? It's D. So the fifth of the chord is in the bass, so it's in second inversion. So what does that mean? It's chord I, second inversion, Ic. Brilliant. Now, sometimes, notes hang around. Do you see this note is hanging around for the rest of the bar. This note is hanging around
for the rest of the bar. So when we look at these notes,
we've got to think about, well, there's that note, there's that one, there's this one, and there's this one. So now we've got to say,
"What are all these notes?" Well, we've got D, F-sharp, D, A, so D, F-sharp, A. That's looking like our old
friend, chord V, isn't it? So, this is moving from Ic to chord V. And because D is in the
bass, it's in root position, so it's a Va chord because it's "a", you don't need to write
anything, just leave it as a V. So that's what's going on there. Now, when we just go
back in the light of that to this previous chord, you might think, "Well, what's all this about "because we've got C-sharp in it?" Now, C-sharp hasn't got anything to do with the key of G major
and we said that we're in the key of G major. So why is there a C-sharp
involved in this thing? That's a bit weird, isn't it? It must be sort of hinting at another key. So can we work out what's
going on in this chord? Well, we've got C-sharp in the bass, a third above that is E
and we've got one of those, a third above that is G,
and we've got one of those. And then, a third above that is B and we've got one of those. So it's looking like one of
these seventh chords, isn't it? But when we look at the lower three notes, C-sharp, E, G, is that a chord? Well, it's not a chord in G major, but could it be a chord in another key? And if so, which key? Well, we've got F-sharp in
the key signature for G major. If we've got C-sharp, maybe
we've moved to D major because D major's got F-sharp and C-sharp, in which case, C-sharp,
E, G will be chord VII. And because we've got
that B on the top of it, it's chord VII7 in the key of D major. So it's a slightly more
complicated one, isn't it? So this one is VII7 in the key of D, okay? See how we got to that one? C-sharp, E, G is chord VII, B is that extra third on the top, making it a VII7 and it's
in the key of D major, one key away from G Major. Now, what on earth is that doing there? Well, Schumann's just trying to
make it a bit more colourful. Doesn't want it to be too boring, so it gives a hint of another key. And if you see what's going on, we've got this chord VII7 in the key of D, and we end up with a D chord over here because this is chord V in G, but it's also chord I in the key of D, D, F-sharp, A. So he's kind of hinting
at D major back here and kind of following
it with a D major chord with this other chord stuck in between, just to give us a little bit of colour. So that's what he's doing there. So this is the first phrase now done, we've got V7d, Ib, V7c, then Ib, then II7b, these little notes are just a
little ornament called a turn, then we've got this colour chord, you can hear this C-sharp in
the bass is a bit unusual, and that's our VII7 in D. Then we're coming back to G, but we're going Ic and to V, and you hear that D major chord. So okay, we're back in G major. And then, Schumann says, "Oh, I think we'll go to another key." So let me tell you for
nothing that he's spending his time in these next few bars
going to the key of A minor. Now, how do I know it's A minor? Well, in A minor, the
key signature is nothing. It's related to C major. So, you notice he's got F-naturals, you know, there's an F-natural there, there's an F-natural there, there's an F-natural there. So what's that doing? It's cancelling the F-sharp
in the key signature. When you're in a minor key, you quite often raise the seventh note. So if I'm in A minor,
the seventh note is G. If we raise it, it becomes G-sharp. So what do we notice? We've got all these F-naturals,
but we've got G-sharp, G-sharp, G-sharp, G-sharp, and that's how we know
that everything from here to the end of that line is
actually in the key of A minor. So it's moved to another
key, it's modulated. So if we want to get our
chords straight for A minor, well, then we've got to start thinking, "Well, what are the chords for A minor?" So you see, this exercise that
we've done here in G major, well, can we do that again for A minor? And then, we can see what
some of these chords are. Just bear with me while I
do this little bit of magic and get rid of all the chords for G major. Boom, how about that? Amazing, right. Let's now start our exercise
again in the key of A minor. So we'll get a stave up and
then, we'll have a treble clef and we'll have a scale of A minor, okay? So, A, B, C, D, E, F, G-sharp remember, A. Why G-sharp? Because in a harmonic minor scale, we raise the seventh note of the scale. A minor's got nothing
in the key signature. The seventh note is G,
raise it by a semitone, so it's G-sharp. Why the harmonic minor? Because we're looking at harmony. So harmony, harmonic, minor. Do the triads again. So A, C, E, B, D, F, C, E, G-sharp, remember? Because we've got G-sharp
on that seventh note, it's G-sharp everywhere else, D, F, A, E, G-sharp, B, F, A, C, G-sharp, B, D. And then, of course, we're
back to chord I again. Label it I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, and of
course, this is not VIII, we're back to chord I again, aren't we? Now, you could say that
this one is A minor, B diminished, C augmented, D minor, E major, F major, G-sharp diminished. That's a perfectly reasonable way of talking about it as well. The advantage of the Roman
numerals is they show you which chords are being used
inside a particular key. Now then, now we know
we're going to A minor, can we work out what's going on here? We've got a D, a, B, an
F-natural, and a G-sharp, so in fact, we've got
four different notes. Could it be that we've got one of these seventh chords again? There are only three notes
in a triad, in a chord, but if we've got four,
it might be a seventh, let's see if we can work out these notes. Well, it's looking a bit
like chord VII, isn't it? Because we've got G-sharp, B, D, and then, we've got F as well. So it's looking like a VII7, which is also known as a
diminished seventh chord. If you've got minor thirds
between each intervals, a minor third from G-sharp to B, a minor third from B to D, a minor third from D to F,
it's a diminished seventh. So we're in the key of A minor, and this is a diminished seventh. Now, you could call it a VII7 chord, that's absolutely fine. It's just that it is also
a diminished seventh, so just something to bear in
mind in the description of it. In terms of which inversion,
well, we've got D in the bass. So look, that's that note there, isn't it? So a second inversion, so it's a diminished
seventh in second inversion. So it's a "c", isn't it? When we look at the next chord, we've got C, A, E, A. So A comes twice, A, C, E, aha, that's looking like
a chord I, isn't it? So this is chord I in A minor, C is in the bass, so
that's the middle note. So it's in first inversion, so it's chord Ib, so that's what's going on there. When you come to the next chord, you might notice that this
is a bit of a familiar friend because it's the same notes as this, even though they've all been sort of differently reorganised. You've got this G-sharp, B, D with the F again. So it's this chord VII, isn't it? With the seventh on it. So, it's another one of these
diminished seventh chords and this time, what's the inversion? Well, we've got a B, haven't we? So it's the third of the chord this time. So this one is in first inversion, it's a diminished seventh "b", all right? And then, the next chord, well, this is an interesting one because we've only got
three notes this time. We've got a C, we've got an E, and we've got a C. So in fact, we've only
got two different notes, a C and an E. So, it could be something
to do with chord III because that's got a C and an E in it. Or it could be something
to do with chord I because that's got a C and an E. How do we know? A bit difficult to tell sometimes, but really, it's sore to make sense, it's the last note of this phrase that maybe we're coming back to chord I, rather than going to chord III. So let's call it chord I and then say, "Well, which note's in the bass?" The root, the third, or the fifth? The third's in the bass,
so it's in first inversion. It's Ib. Okay, now, just to sort of
slightly speed up the process, I'll tell you that the
next chord is chord II. It's the B, D, F chord and
it's in first inversion. So this is a IIb. Then the next chord, E, G-sharp B, looking
like a chord V, isn't it? And it's in root position
because E's in the bass. That chord then repeats, so that's nice because it's V again. And then, at the end of this, we come to an A, C, E
chord, so it's chord I. So you see what's going
on in that second phrase? So, now looking at this second phrase, we've got this diminished seventh, to Ib, diminished seventh, Ib, and after the rest, we've
got IIb and then V, V, I. And so, it goes on, we could
do the rest of the piece, but I think you've got
the idea, haven't you? As to how this works? So this is how to look at a piece of music and do some chord analysis
to really sort of think what was the composer thinking,
what was the composer doing? What's happening with these keys? Getting the idea of starting in G major and then modulating to A minor, and then working out
where he goes from there. There's a means of
understanding the piece, thinking, "Oh, those
diminished seventh chords, "if I'm playing this piece,
I might want to paint those "because they're a bit
colourful, aren't they?" So we might want to make something of these diminished sevenths. We might want to make something
of chords like this as well, where we had that little
bit of colour into D major. So apart from maybe emphasising
the melody at the top, you're going to draw out these chords. If you're writing music, well, here's a few ideas from Schumann as to how you use the basic chords, how you vary the inversions,
how you add seventh, how you add a bit of colour using things like diminished seventh chords. And we've seen all of
that in the opening bars of this one movement of Schumann's
"Scenes From Childhood". So I hope that's helpful in terms of doing this chord analysis. Now, if you've enjoyed this video, you might want to go to our website, www.mmcourses.co.uk. There, you can find dots
of details of our courses, simply by clicking on Courses. And there, you'll find courses in Harmony. Lots more on Harmonic Analysis,
but other things as well, Aural, Orchestration, lots of things that are going
to empower you as a musician. So have a look at the courses, then when you go back to the homepage, click on Maestros and you'll find out all about our international
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like emojis and so on. Level two comes with more perks, including a monthly live
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