Japan's favourite chord progression and why it works

this video is sponsored by floki this is the royal road chord progression chords four five three and six of the key now although there are some examples of western pop songs using this chord progression as i'll show you in a minute it's not an abundantly popular chord progression in the west however despite this over in japan it's a very different story i'm sure you remember the famous actors of awesome video where they show that tons of western pop hits are based on the same chord progression one five six four well this chord progression is japan's version of that take any anime j-pop song or even video game soundtrack and you're bound to find this chord progression in there somewhere [Music] [Music] [Music] it [Music] you [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] [Laughter] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] now as i mentioned before although this progression is nowhere near as commonplace in the west as it is in japan we can find some western pop songs that use it [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] another western song that is often cited as an example of this chord progression is [Music] rick astley is never going to give you up actually uses a subtly different chord progression in the place of the iv chord we actually have a two chord with a minor seven on it [Music] [Applause] [Music] as you can hear this is a very similar sound it's actually only one note different if the bass line was playing a g flat note here the fourth note of the scale then we would actually have a four chord here but with the bass playing the second note of the scale instead e flat it turns this g flat major chord into an e flat minor seven chord but although never going to give you up doesn't actually use this exact same chord progression rick astley's other billboard number one hit song together forever does actually use it [Music] flow key is a really straightforward interactive way to learn songs at the piano for example i've got the show must go on here by queen and i really want to focus on just this section here that uses the royal road chord progression so i can use the loop function to just focus on that bit and because it's particularly fast at the moment i can also slow it down a little bit to make it easier [Music] if you're interested then why not try floki out with a seven day free trial just use the link down below in the description so what is it about this chord progression that has made it so popular in japanese music what makes this chord progression work in japan they refer to this chord progression by this name which translates directly into english as the royal road progression and what they mean here is not the road in the sense of a road you would walk down but more the more abstract idea of a route of a way this translates effectively as the easy way because it's the chord progression that just without much effort creates that sense of melodrama that they want for their anime and j-pop music [Music] [Applause] so what is it about this chord progression about four five three six that gives it that melodramatic sound it sounds dramatic there's a sense of movement and story but it's certainly not serious it doesn't sound um mournful or there's not really a sense of danger it's bright yet moody somehow one of the key aspects of what makes this chord progression sound the way it does is the fact that it starts on the fourth chord of the key the fourth part of the key is referred to as having subdominant function now subdominant function is a fancy way of saying that the chord introduces some tension to the tonality of the music it's not as tense as possible but it's certainly not a point of resolution my point of resolution would be there the one chord the four chord wants to go somewhere and in the royal road progression it goes to the fifth chord now the fifth chord has dominant function which is the most tension we can have in the key so we're going from some tension to more tension so now we definitely need to go somewhere and where we go is the three chord now the three chord is considered to have tonic function but it doesn't have the same weight of tonic function as the one chord would have the chord that we call the tonic the three chord is at rest but it's not necessarily satisfied it could still do with going somewhere and we actually then do go to another tonic function chord the sixth chord which is certainly at rest now but in a sort of wistful way not the fully satisfied way that we'd have if we went to the one chord as you may have noticed this progression never actually goes to the one chord so it's like it never resolves it's just a ongoing story so that gives them momentum it gives it a sense of drama [Music] emotion [Music] now i don't think there's any particular reason why this chord progression out of all of the potential chord progressions that are has caught on so much in japan you could ask the same question about why the axis of awesome progression the one five six four progression is so popular in the west i think it's just trend it's just habit once the idea has been established as a trope other songwriters can draw from it it's an easy thing to do the easy way the royal road right but it's certainly interesting how a chord progression that certainly works within the parameters of western music has become so much more popular in another country and it's odd that of all of the western songs that use this chord progression two of them are by rick astley [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] you

Channel: David Bennett Piano

Views: 2,329,380

Keywords: the royal road progression, Ōdō shinkō, 王道進行, iv v iii vi, japan, anime, j-pop, chord progression, chords, music theory, explained, examples, songs that use, western songs, pop, video game, rick astley, pokemon, zelda, naruto

Id: 6aezSL_GvZA

Length: 10min 52sec (652 seconds)

Published: Sat May 28 2022