Learn EVERY chord in Bach's Prelude in C - Chord names, theory, and progressions!

by the end of this video you are going to understand every single chord in box Prelude and C major you'll not only be able to name each chord but also understand how each chord fits into the bigger progression and on top of that if you can understand all these chords here in box Prelude and C major I mean you're going to be well on your way to understanding the Harmony in any piece now there are three easy things that you have to know for the rest of this video to make sense so pay attention because all the analysis we're going to do for the rest of this video is kind of built on these three concepts the first one is that chords are built using every other letter name so almost all the chords in box Prelude in C and really all the chords in all classical music follow this principle so a c chord has to go c e g every other letter name there's a c you skip the letter d e skip the letter f g a g chord goes g b d now we'll come back to this concept throughout the video but right now just remember cords every other letter name the next thing is that we are going to assign a number to each chord in this piece us musicians use these numbers to refer to chords all the time and they are extremely helpful and the good news is the basic concept is pretty simple so let's say we're in the kefc the key of C has no sharps or flats it's just CDE e f g a b c the C chord is the one chord so the first chord of the key of C is the c chord in the key of C D would be a two chord because D is the second note of the key of C C D if I told you to play a five chord in the key of C you would have to play a G chord because CDE E F G oh and by the way we use Roman numerals to refer to the harmony because honestly as musicians we use normal numbers enough we might say hey put your two finger on the fifth measure on the fourth note and hold it for three beats we have numbers everywhere so we use Roman numeral so when you see a Roman numeral you know that musician is talking about what position is that that chord relative to the key and the final thing you need to know before we analyze box Prelude and C major is the easiest thing and that's simply that two chords in this context second chords they really like to go to Five chords and five chords really like to go to one chord two chords have this Drive In classical music to get to a five chord and five chord just have this drive to get back to the one chord to get back home to our original chord all right let's jump into measure one like basically every other measure in his piece measure one has two notes in the left hand and then three notes in the right hand there played twice we have to start out by figuring out what letter name to give this chord so in the left hand we have c and e then the right hand we have g c e now whenever you are analyzing chords anytime you're analyzing chords if you see duplicate letter names you can you can get rid of the duplicate you don't need the duplicate so there's two C's we don't need to say this chord has two C's in it it's just it has a c in it there also two e so we don't need both e so really we're just end up with we end up with a c an E and A G and before we call this a c chord we have to ask ourselves does this go every other letterer name we have a c we have an e and we have a g yes this is some type of a c chord now what could happen is you do the exact same thing I just did but you take out the duplicate c and e in the left hand and you end up with g c and e you might be asking does that change the chord is this a different cord now and the answer is definitely not the reason is GCE is not every other letter name that that can't be a chord every other letter name there's a g g a b it can't be a G chord that would be g a b c that's not every other so what that means is if you ended up with this g c e you have an inverted chord inverted basically a flipped around chord you're going to take those letterer names and scramble them until you end up with every other letterer name so for example if you have GC e you know that can't be right so you could take the G and put it on top and go oh c EEG that's every other layer name so this is some kind of a c chord now what kind of c chord is it well this is a C major chord which you could figure out by saying well it's happy major chords are happy but we kind of want a more concrete way to go about determining whether the chord is major or minor so once you get your chord in the correct order ceg every other letter name you can actually count the distance between the notes to figure out whether it is a major or minor chord if you go from the C and you going to say how many half steps does it take to get to the next letter c c Shar d d Shar e that's a total of four half steps then e to G you have to go f f g so C go up four and then go up three more if you have that pattern you start on Note you go up four half steps then you go up three more half steps that is what makes a c major court and you can test this from anywhere you can start from a flat play a flat go up four half steps a B flat B C and then go up three more d flat d e flat and you would get an A flat major [Music] chord now that we know it's a C major chord we have to ask ourselves what Roman numeral is it now you would think Bach in Prelude and C his very first Prelude would just start out with a one chord that would be the most safe thing to do you would expect to say hey let's start out our Prelude and C with our home chord of one and if you thought that you're actually exactly right that's what he does this is our one chord because Prelude and C we're in the key of C major there are no Sharps and flats yet and so in the key of C our one chord our very first chord is C so by saying it's a one chord we're kind of saying this is our home base that's what the whole point of this Roman numeral analysis is to kind of learn that different numbers mean different things so one that is home that is our that's our safe spot so see we're in the key ofc we're playing a C chord we just feel nice and cozy right now but don't worry that won't last for long let's jump into measure two in measure two we have a c d a d and f so first just like measure one we have to figure out what to call this chord so we have c d a d and f take out all duplicates we don't need both D's so we're left with c d a and F and we're going to take these notes and kind of Smosh them into one octave all together we don't need have all these random jumps with that F on top we can kind of move down we can put in the order here c d f a now ask yourself the question is this every other letter name c skip a letter e no C cannot go on the bottom so even though C is on the bottom of this chord this can't be a c chord because we already know C is C EEG so we're going to have to flip this and try to figure out what is the actual letter name of this chord so let's just flip it once let say just C off the bottom we're going to put the C on top we end up with d f a c and is that every other letter name d e f g a b c perfect this is some kind of a d chord this is every other layer name so we figured it out a ray so this is some kind of a d chord because it's d f a our first goal is to take every chord put them in an order of every other layer name that's we did and now we know it's a d chord but you might have notice this is a four no chord so for right now let's ignore that c we'll come back to that in a second the first three notes Here DF a now you might notice if you have a good ear this has a different sound than the first chord this s this sounds more sad this is a minor chord but again if you don't have the ear to hear that let me tell you how to figure that out without just using your ear you start on D remember to make a major chord we went a note up four then up three half steps this is just the opposite to make a minor chord you start on any note you go up three half steps D Shar e f then go up four half steps F Shar g g Shar a so to make a minor chord you start start on Note you go up three half steps then you go up four more half steps so this starts with D Minor but then there is the C on top and that c is called a seven remember doing every other layer name if D was 1 2 3 4 five 6 seven we call this a seventh chord because we're adding an extra node a fourth node on top but again it's called seventh we're doing every other layer we have D skip aay F skip a lay so it's 1 3 5 7 in fact you can refer to all the notes of your chord in that way you can have the first note of the chord the third of the chord the fifth of the chord and the seventh of the chord again I told you we us these Roman numerals because we have a lot of numbers and music but those details aren't super important right now you're going to get a lot of practice throughout this video in seventh course but for right now we're talking about a D Minor 7 so now what is D minor in the key ofc well that is our two chord first two measures together we start out with the one chord nice cozy home chord and then we immediately go to 27 a more distant in chord it has this note at the bottom that's a little more distant this is our two chord we want to go to a five chord so let's jump to measure three and see if it goes to a five chord the notes to measure three are b d g d and f now we're going to go through the system every time but we're going to get quicker to go along here so first of all cut out any duplicates we don't need the duplicates so we have two D's we're going to get rid of one of the D's now we're going to take the rest of these notes and kind of smoos them into one octave this F is way up here by itself we're going to move the F down so everything's in the normal order so right now we have b d f and g now ask yourself is this a B chord can I count every other letter from B you have b c d e f g a no cannot be a b form because F to G is is only one letter it has to be every other letter so we're going to take this B off the bottom and put it on top and then ask our again can this be a d chord we have d f g no the F to G still doesn't work it cannot be a kind of a d chord because F to G is not every other layer so we're going to flip it again take the d off the bottom put it on top is this an F chord we have f g no can't be an F chord either because F to G is not every other letter so we're going to try again take the F off the bottom put it on top and see if this is some kind of a G chord we have g b d f and that is it it took all the iterations of inverting this chord to figure it out but this is some kind of a G chord because from G we can do every other letter name now what kind of a G chord is this well first of all let's focus on the first three notes GB D this chord is a major chord but again if you don't want to rely on to hearing major or minor is start from that g you can go up four half steps four half steps takes us to B and then three more takes us to D so this is a G major chord if it would have been three then four that would been our minor chord but this is four than three so it's our major chord and then once again we have a fourth note on top this F up here so this is going to be called a G7 chord so now that you know the letter name let's figure out what Roman numeral to give it so this is a G chord in the key of C we have CDE e f g which is the five chord we're going to call this a 5 seven chord which if you remember right that's perfect we had a two chord two chords want to go to Five chord So Bach did it he did it right what a brilliant man right he got her two chord it's supposed to go to a five chord and it did and now if you remember from the beginning five chords want to go to one chord we're going to look at measure four and hopefully we get a one chord the notes of measure four are c e g c e we take out all the duplicates so we have two e's we don't need both of them we have two C's we don't need both of them so going to be left with c e and G and if you remember right that's actually the exact same notes we had in measure one so this is our C major core we have a c an E and A G that's every other letter it's C major because C four half steps up C Shar d d Shar e and then three more half steps up F FP G we have a C major chord and our C major chord is our one chord in the KFC so we made it we played a one chord which can do anything it wants to that's our home key we did a two chord which really wanted to go to five especially the 27 it went to five went to a 57 which was a little harsher that five really wants to go to one and it did it and that is your first musical progression it's not the whole piece but here is a little tiny cell this is what we actually call a cord progression chord progressions are things that happen that once they're sort of set in motion they roll off one to the next so you just heard if You' never heard this before that's this is a chord progression we have a one chord we went to our two chord now the two chord cord we can't we can't stop there what if you just ended the piece you can right it needs to keep going it needs to go to that five [Music] chord now that really needs to go to a one chord right and that is our progression that's what we call a progression things go from one to the next we get one two 51 actually in lots of styles of music 1 2 5 one is one of the most common core progressions we'll see we actually we'll see more of that later in this piece now quick interpretation note you notice how I crescendoed I got louder driving to that five core because a five cord is kind of the peak then after the 57 chord I resolved I I came down I went back to the one cord back to the C chord and kind of let it the volume die away because that's our home we had a progression we got really far away we got to our five chord and then we resolved back to the one chord all right measure five something brand new happens we have c e again but then a ea so once again cut out the duplicates we don't need two A's we only have one a cut out the extra e we have c e a now we already know by this point this can't be a c chord because C chords are ceg so we're going to have to flip this to find a BAS basically a flipping of the chord that's every other layer name so let's flip it once is it an E chord E A no e to a is not every other layer so we're going to flip it again e sorry a c e and that is our normal order a b c d e every other letter so this is some kind of an a chord now what kind of a chord is it you can use your ear and here it's an A Minor but also if you want to figure it out start from the a how many half steps to take to get the c three and then how many tell the E so three then four this is going to be our minor chord so a minor now what is a minor in the key of C well we have c d e f g a so this is our six chord now the sixth chord is a really cool chord because it's not like the one chord it's not like we're totally home and safe it's not like the two and the five chord that really have a clear Direction the six chord is kind of a waiting chord when you hear it you don't know exactly what's going to happen next because it doesn't have this clear Direction Where well now we heard this chord it has to go to this chord it's just like okay here's like a minor chord that kind of feels somewhat homey kind of like the the home key but not quite all the way there so six chords are just sort of in the middle kind of lying and waiting Gord we're not quite sure what's going to happen next So speaking of what does happen next measure six we have our first kind of shocker because our first accidental it's the first note that's sharper or flat that goes outside of the Kia C so our notes are c d f a d just like before we want to figure out what they call this chord first so CD f a d we're going to take out the extra D we don't need it because we're just going to be left with CD F A then we're going to flip this chord until we find an every other letter name with the c on top with a c on top we have d f sharp a c don't let the sharp throw you you can actually just leave the sharp out right now and just say is that every other letter name yes it is d f a c it could be DF SHP a it could be DF a flat C it could be DF a flat C flat if is it every other layer name then yes this is some kind of a d chord now what kind of D chord is it will it's D go up four half steps to get to F sharp and then three more half steps to get to a so this is actually a D major chord with our extra note on top our seventh chord so we're going to call this a D7 in fact it sounds a lot like our G7 from earlier just a different one that's is D7 now we haven't talked about it much yet but these seven chords are really really special not so much the minor seven but just the straight up seven the G7 or the D7 are really special because they are basically always five chords I just called this D7 a five chord but you've been paying attention and you know that D is a two chord in the KFC so how can this how can this be a five chord so if I completely threw you for a whirl let me explain myself you see in classical music pieces hardly ever stay in one key they're going to start in a key they're going to get back to that original key in the end but in the middle they're going to travel to new keys and these five chords are like the best way to do that so you hear a seven chord like D7 our ears automatically hear that's the five chord that wants to go to a one chord I I could play any five chord I can do this five chord here and you want that to go to this one chord chord you don't even know a five chord that is but you want to go there CU our ear those five chords want to go there when you play a s D7 G7 a flat 7 E7 whatever it is our ears hear that as a five chord so this D7 we're going to hear as a five chord what we have to ask ourselves now is D7 is the five of which key so we're going to have to do some backwards counting to get there so we're saying D is the five chord if you don't believe me just take my word for it for right now D is the five chord of what key well D is five C is 4 B is 3 a is 2 G is one so D is the fifth chord of the key of G and that will always be true the key of G the fifth chord will be D so what that means for us is that when we hear this D7 chord we're not going to call this some kind of a two chord but we're going to recognize the fact that we are moving to a new key so we're going to call this a five chord but in order to do that we have to make sure everyone's aware that was not a five of the key of C this is five in our new key this is five in the key of G so now after all that we really hope we go to a G chord let's check out the next measure here we have a b a d g d g take out the duplicates we don't need two G's we don't need two D's we're left with b d g let's flip it to a normal order the normal order would be GB D every letter name gbd and yes that is a G chord so this G chord used to be the five chord PFC this is where the r numeral analysis can throw some people the G chord we called a five chord earlier in this piece but now that we've set it up and kind of introduced it as the main chord this G chord is now our one chord because now we're actually in the key of G now if I haven't completely blown your mind yet I want to show you something really really cool let's pack up a couple chords to that a minor when we had the a minor I told you it was a six chord and I knew I knew this was coming but for you I just said it's a six chord it's an interesting chord it doesn't really have a clear direction we don't know exactly what it is yet but let's pretend for a second that we knew we were going to the key of G we knew we were eventually going to do a five chord and a one chord let's ask ourselves what is a minor in the key of G well in the key of G in that context if our scale was g a b CDE e f Shar G A is actually our two chord so that a could be a six chord n key of C but it could also be a two chord in the key of G and if it is a two chord in the key of G where do two chords want to go well they want to go to Five chords so this a will want to go to the five the key of G which is our D7 which then wants to go to our one chord in the key of G which is our G chord so this A minor chord is actually called a pivot chord if you pivot on something it means you can kind of hinge on one area this is called a pivot chord this chord makes sense in the old key in the key of C this was our sixth chord makes perfect sense it's just a sixth chord in the key of G is a two chord that does exactly what a two chord should do it goes 2 51 so this a minor fits in both context and that's what a pivot cord is a pivot cord is a chord that helps you change keys by making sense by by working out in both the old key and the new key so if you want to know the proper way to analyze this chord you would call this a six chord then you put this interesting little in the middle then say it's a two chord as well it's a six chord but it's also a two chord in the new key then from that point forward we're going to analyze this as it's the keia of G so we're like yes it's a six chord and the key of C but a minor is also two in the Kia G and then now we're going to analyze everything as this a Kia G we go to a five chord in the Kia G 57 then we go to our one chord in the key of G on the measure eight we have the notes b c e g c once again we're going to cut out all the duplicates we're left with b c e g then we're going to flip this chord until we find every other layer name which is going to be c e g b so c e g we should recognize as our c chord so we start with a C major chord 1 2 3 4 One 2 3 but then we're putting an extra note on top that seventh note and it's a b now in the scope of this video I don't want to get to into this but this seventh chord is different than our other seventh chord earlier just know for right now it's not the same kind of seventh chord listen to the sound first of all this one sounds like this the one earlier sounded like this now if you want to know the reason they're different is because we have a C major chord that's true in both of these seventh chords but in this one the seventh note is as close as we can get to an octave without actually being an octave so this is a B on top it's it's almost a c it's one half step below C so we call this a major 7 this is a C major Big M 7 chord C major 7 if it was just a C7 like the D7 the G7 had earlier we would have a B flat okay I said we weren't going to get into it but let's get into it a little bit cuz I promise to analyze every chord for you so back up to our G7 chord G7 GB DF we had that one earlier if this would have been an F sharp it's a major seventh chord our D7 earlier was d f sh a c this C can actually get closer to the D without being D it could be C Shar that would be a D major 7th chord they have totally totally different functions in classical music when you're when you're analyzing Harmony these are not five chords when you hear our other seven Chords it's our D7 G7 those those are our five chords you hear them and your ear says boom five chords I want to resolve to one that's not true with this chord this chord does not automatically want to resolve down to one it's just it could be actually a couple different chord it it depending on the context so it doesn't have this strong connotation like our 5 S chord that that just normal G7 chord it's like oh that has to go to one because it only fits in one spot this chord can be a couple different things so it's a beautiful chord it's actually my personal favorite chord of Music My Favorite sound but it doesn't have that same this has to be a five chord so we have to figure out what this chord is so we already said that notes make a C Major seven chord now if you're not paying attention you might say cool that's a one seven chord but it's actually not because remember we're in the key of G now so the key of G what is c g a b c this is our four chord this is our four seven chord it's a four chord with a major seven foot on top and that's the B there now after this four chord we're kind of wondering where Bo is going to go next four is not like the one chord it's also not the two or the five they kind of have Direction it's again one of these Chords it's like H it's kind of up in the air we can go a few different places so let's look at measure 9 and see what he does here we have a c e g c we're going to cut out the duplicates we don't need two C's we're left with a c e g then we say is that every other letterer name yes every other letter name a c e g so this is some kind of an a chord as always we're going look at the first three notes first here's an a we go three half steps to get to C four half steps to get the E so this is an A minor chord and then we have that seventh note on top and this is a minor chord we're going to call this an A Minor 7 now remember we're in the key of G we're we're not in the key of C anymore so in the key of G what is our a minor two this is our 27 chord and 27 wants to go to five and in fact we've we've had a 27 before the second chord of this entire piece was a 27 chord so let's see if we go to the right place next measure we have d a d f c we don't need two D's we just have one D in there we're going to take all these notes and kind of Squish them into one octave together let's say we have a c d f sharp now you might not be getting there but eventually get pretty pretty quick at putting this in the normal order so I can see that the D and the C are next to each other that that's not every other letter name it can't be so we're going to flip this to an order where we can have every letter name which is going to be d f sharp A and C that's every other letter d e f sh g a b c and so we have a some kind of a d chord as always what kind of decord do we have look at the first three notes D four up and then three more up is a so this is going to be a D major quir cuz it was four half steps and then three more half steps then we have our seven on top now if you want to distinguish which seventh do we have you could use your ear but that's it's going to take you probably a while to hear the difference between those two seventh chords so you can ask yourself is this seventh as close as I can get to D without being D no I'm on a c here I could do C sharp and that would be our D major 7 this is just D7 good good old D7 we have our C here on top it's not C sharp so we have a D major chord with a seven on top we call this chord D7 now D7 as you already know in the key of G G A B C D this is our five chord this is our 57 chord which is perfect because we were just on a two chord two chords want to go to Five chord we just said a minor 7 it's going to go to D7 and now we really hope we go to a one chord that's what should follow after a five chord our very next chord is g b d g b we cut out all the duplicates we don't need two G's we don't need two B's we are left with GB D that's already a normal order and it is a G major chord said the G major chord we had earlier and that in the key of G is a one chord okay I want you to take a few deep breath for a second and we're going to synthesize all the information we just now learned we're going to talk about what are some of the progressions you're going to find out that there really has only been one progression so far we started out with 1 2 51 in the key of C 1 2 5 1 and then we went to this pivot chord this is our kind of question mark chord where we're like o what what is this this is a six chord we think but as we learn this six chord was actually a pivot chord it was actually a two chord so really we just went 251 now in the key ofg this is another progression just a 251 our most normal progression two chord five chord one chord and then the very next thing we do is we play a little four chord here for a second now this four chord again we don't know exactly what's going to happen next it could go it could go to a one chord though in this context it can't really go to a one chord it could go to a five chord it you go to a two chord well boach takes it to a two chord 27 which then goes to our five chord to 5 1 so really this entire piece so far has been 1 2 5 1 change Keys 251 stay in the new key for 251 so 1251 251 4 251 you notice a pattern here Bach is able to use the same basic progression to 5 one two chords one to go to Five chords and which one to go to one chord it make an entire like first third of the piece out of just that one cord progression now the next thing Baka is going to do is he's going to get us back to our home key which is what we kind of expect pieces to do we kind of have a key we might move away from it and then eventually we're kind of like Hey we're going to make it back home right we're going to get back to our original not one chord which is our G we want to get back to our original one chord but the way Bach does this is pretty interesting it introduces is one of the more shocking chords we've heard so far which I I I play Loud on purpose it is a pretty jarring chord here we're going to learn a little Theory to get what's going on in this chord but before I tell you what that is the way he's going to get back to our one chord is by means of a sequence a sequence is just a repeating pattern of music and you could keep doing it potentially Forever Until you ran out of notes all he's going to do is introduce this kind of weird chord which actually isn't that weird at all In classical context but he's going to in doce this kind of shocking chord resolve it just move everything down shocking cord resolve it and then he's going to do that until we end up back in the QFC so before we look at the next chord I'm going to introduce you to a good old friend or maybe a brand new friend for you called a fully diminished seven chord fully diminished seventh chords are so common in classical music because they're kind of like they're kind of like composer cheat codes and I'll tell you why in just a second but how to make a fully diminish seventh chord is really simple you can play any note I'm going to play a C you go up three half steps three notes this is an E flat we're going to go up three more notes we're going to call this one a g flat we're going to go up three more notes which we we'll call an a for right now we we'll get into more details here in a second but we went up every third note and in fact if you went up three more notes you would make it back to C so actually the fully diminished seventh chord is one of our few symmetrical chords in music it's symmetrical because you keep going up three forever C up three up three up three up three back to C up three back to our E flat up three back to our g flat now we've talked about how two chords want to go five chords and five chords want to go one chords but a fully diminished seventh chord really wants to go somewhere it wants to resolve the the root of the chord whatever letter name that chord is called it wants to resolve up by half step it wants to go to the very next layer name higher from that root of the chord so if you were playing a C fully diminish seventh chord that c wants to go up to d flat if you were playing an e fully dimin seventh chord that e wants to go up to F now I told you they were like cheat codes the reason is that because they're symmetrical you can't necessarily know when you hear them which one you're hearing you don't actually know which of these notes is the bottom note just by hearing it and not even by seeing on the piano I could say this was a c i could also say this was a D sharp I could say it was an F I could say it was an a you don't actually know which one I'm playing again just by looking at the only way you can know is to see how the composer actually spelled it in the music itself and this is actually an interesting topic which is spelling matters we had a D major chord earlier d f a you notice bachon called a d g flat a that would be wrong now some people would say well g flat and F SHP is the same note but Bach would never spell it that way because every other letter name d f a DF SHP a you wouldn't say G flat and there's lots of reasons which I make this video like 20 minutes longer if I explain them all to you right now so we're not going to get into it but just know that composers care how they spell this stuff for the most part they're going to spell them accurately okay are you ready for the cool sequence so measure 12 we have a GB flat E G FP we're going to cut out the duplicates we don't need two G's we're going to take all these notes and put them into one octave together so we have g b flat C sharp and E now again looking at the piano here I can't necessarily see which chord this is but if you look at the letter names you can see that B and C are next to each other that's not okay so we're going to flip it B flat C Shar e g that's still not okay because of B flat and C sharp it looks far apart on the piano but but those two layers are by each other every other layer Nam we're going to flip it again csharp E G B flat that is every other layer name now I know some of you are thinking it doesn't matter it's symmetrical and and all I have to say again without getting into a huge discussion is composers care they they spell this stuff the right way composers are very very careful to make sure these letters are all spelled the correct way so they will flip these Minish 7th chord really accurately all except a weird exception here we'll talk about in a little bit so if this is a c Floyd Min 7th chord I told you that that root of the chord the C Shar wants to resolve up by half step so this C Shar wants to go to D so let's look at the next measure and see if actually goes to D so the next measure we have f a d a d we take out the duplicates we only need one D we only need one a we're going to flip this f a d until we get to a normal order which is DFA which is a dord it's in fact a D minor chord so our C Shar fluid diminish 7 actually went to D Minor C fluid diminish 7 once you go to D and there it is now the very next chord we get is this we have f a flat dfb so we put all that into one octave and then again flip it until we get to a normal order we're going to find this as a b fully dimin 7th chord again we know it's not a d it's a b because b d f a flat that's how the every other layer name Works in a b fully a seventh chord the B wants to resolve up to a c so the next measure here we have e g c g c which we should be really comfortable with this chord by now we put everything into one octave we get ceg and that in fact is a c chord so what we just now did for measures 12 to 15 is Bach introduced 4 seventh G they need to resolve up then he marched down to the next one resolved up and then at that point he can stop because he made it back to the key of C so literally all he's doing is saying let's start this pattern this sequence we're just going to keep doing this sequence until we make it back to our home key for that reason it's not actually super helpful to put these Roman numerals on these intermittent chords seven the fully diminished seven chords we just say this of the next chord so it's going to this next chord now goes to D Minor which in the key of G D Minor is five but kind of a weird five C get minor five doesn't really happen that often in the key of C it's a two chord but it doesn't really go to a five chord well that's because when you're in the middle of a sequence the chords don't matter as much as weird as that sounds the Roman numerals don't matter when you do stuff like this the the composers aren't as concerned about what the letter or what what the Roman numeral anounces will be or what their function is they're like no we've entered a sequence we're just going to play out this sequence till we get to the end and we get to the end and we get back to a c chord and the good news is we are back to a one chord now so we made it back to our original key so measure 15 C major chord one chord one chord in the key of C from there our next chord is e f a c f we take out our dup kids we don't need two FS we're left with e f a c we're going to put this in normal order so this is some kind of an F chord look at the first three notes f a c what kind of an F chord is it well 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 it's an F major chord but then we have that extra note on top which is our seventh but which which seven is it is it our F7 chord or is it our F major 7 chord well this e is the very next note before we get to an octave it's right below F so this is actually our F major 7 E flat would be our F7 chord but this is F major 7 the Roman numeral B CDE e f that's our four chord remember earlier we actually had a 47 chord like this and and we I said we don't know exactly where it's going to go right it's not a two chord it's not a five chord that has to go somewhere so let's kind of see what Bo does next so up next we get this DF a CF we cut out our duplicates we're left with DF a C that is a normal order so we say what are the first three notes d f a that's going to be our D minor chord which we've seen several times now we actually have a c on top so this is going to be a D Minor 7 so we say Okay D Minor 7 in the key of C that is our two chord this is a 27 chord again this is starting to look a little familiar so onto measure 18 we're really hoping we get a five chord right now which in the HEC would be a G chord so our notes are g d and then G b f so we cut out our duplicates we don't need two G's we take all these notes and put them into one octave and we get GB d f which there you go there's our G7 cor we saw this one earlier we just to review real quick that's every little letter name the first three nodes gbd is G major because 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 and the seven on top is just our G7 it's not the major 7 that would be F sharp that's right before G this is just our G7 chord which is our 57 chord in the key of see so now hopefully Bach has established we're going home so our next chord should be a one chord and it is it's c e g c e so it's actually our original cord of the piece just an octave lower but now Bak is like we made it back home we started out the KC we did 1251 and then we did 251 4251 in a weird key in the key of five we did our kind of sequence SC with the f m sth cores and now Bak is like established we are back home we're in the C we just did another four 2 51 in the QFC but it is at this point that Bach is really going to start messing with us in a way the piece could be over like he could end the piece right now we we set out what we tried to do we were like we want to have a piece that at least goes to a new key and comes back and he did a progression one 1251 in the original key he did it twice in the new key he did a sequence to get us back home and then when we got to the the home key we did the the 251 again and the original key so we've kind of done our progression actually the same progression didn't have to be the same progression but in this piece the same 251 home key keyf five back to home key so he could really kind of end it right now he could just and and we could all go home right we we we've arrived but like I said the super boach is going to really start messing with us because our very next measure introduces a shocking note we get c g b flat a e sorry c e c g B flat c e so just in context here we've heard this this this and this and then this and and that one really doesn't belong so let's put these Cordes in order here we have C G B flat c e leave out the C's CU a duplicate put this all into one octave we get C E G B flat that is a normal order that's every other letter letter C E G B flat the first three notes we should know by this point is a C major chord but then we get a B flat on top now earlier we had a C major 7 chord C major 7 remember in the key of G it was our four7 chord so C major 7 this is actually C7 because it's B flat it's not B natural it's B flat so this just our C7 chord remember when you have a seven chord like C7 we assume with our ears that's a five chord well we finally made to the key of C then he turns the C chord into a five chord so we finally made a home and Baka is like no the home key is now the five chord so this is a C7 chord which we assume is the five chord so they count backwards and say Okay C is the five of what key C B flat a g f so we finally made it to the key of C and now Bach is like we're going to play the five Court of the key of f so this chord be written 57 of f now where do we go next to measure 21 we have FF which is what we expected a c e the e is a little unexpected we should have really done this instead we go it's almost like Bak is like H we're not really going to go to the key of f okay that was just like a temporary little shocker gotcha just that one little B flat and we'll we'll go back to the key see real soon here so this F chord we could interpret as the one chord in the key of f It's actually an F major 7 chord we could say this is the this is the one chord in the key of f or you could say it's the four chord in the key of C this is actually where analysis can be flexible there will be some people who will say we had a key change and this is one the key at F you could also interpret this as no no no we just had that one little five chord of F that C7 chord took us to F but it's still for chord we haven't actually changed keys and I would say for this level what we're talking about it doesn't matter either way the C7 took us to F the F in the larger context is the four chord so it doesn't matter too much what you analyze it as is right now we're just going to call this F chord a four major 7eventh chord what to put something on the screen but it doesn't matter that much you you call it what you want we're just kind of saying oh five of f but that doesn't really last that long box is like just just kidding we we'll go back to the KSC so here's our here's our four seven chord and now we're kind of thinking okay we're going to a two chord again so we went to a few two chord from 47 earlier we could go to a five chord well the next chord here is a real shocker so remember your new friend you met earlier the the fully seventh chord we have another one right here we have F Shar c a c e flat we're going to put all that together there into one octave and the way Bak has spelled this this is an fshp fully diminished seventh who know notes fully diminish seven because symmetrical we going F sharp up three is a up three more is C up three more is E flat then we went up three more we get back to our F Shar we know it's F sharp because that's the only way to spell it where it's every other letter name so what is FSH doing well I told you these fully diminished seventh chords the root of the chord the F wants to resolve up by half step so this F sharp really wants to go to G now maybe you already know it's coming up next here but if you don't this is actually good this is good news we really want to get to our G chord because what does g Do G's are five we really want to get to five because we we kind of got to C finally then Bach took us for a whirl we went to like an F chord which is weird but if we can make it back to five we could have a strong five chord we can like make that five chord resolve to a one chord and everything can be okay so we're okay cool it's F sharp yeah this is going to go to a G chord and then and then does B to something something that isn't just like a little shocking but he does something that is really rare even for him to do up next year we have a flat F B C D and this is a measure that a lot of people have have been confused by and have struggled with for hundreds of years so much so there are versions of this piece that add in a measure before this chord to try to make this make more sense because it's such a shocking kind of out of no record some people are like well boach Bach must have messed up and so they they add an extra measure there so we're not going to go with the Assumption box messed up but it is a shocking chord just so you know that c isn't actually one of the cord tones I know it sounds weird we haven't had this happen once this is actually really common but in this piece here we haven't had to do this yet not every single note is always part of the chord you could play a C chord and do this and those D's were not part of the C chord even though I played them so in this context we have a chord the C isn't really part of the chord we take the rest of these notes and put them together we have a flat B D and F if we were to put that in a normal order we would have B DF a flat that would be every other layer name so this is a b fully diminished seven chord which which is good we we're getting really use these fully diminished seven chords but that's kind of wrong right we already had an FP fully diminished seventh chord and that FP should have resolved to G but it didn't now we have a b fully dimin seventh chord which should solve to see so like I said these two chords have been a matter debate for a long time there's actually some additions you might own one that inserts a measure right here to try to make sense of this but let me try to make sense of the way Bach actually wrote it so there's this F sharp it really wants to go to G well if you just listen to the base F sharp the next chord is a flat that wants to take us to G actually that harsh interval down there drags it back down to G so actually the way Bach wrote it if you look at the piece horiz onally if you're looking at this way not necessarily the chords up and down but this way the bass actually does what we expect the bass to do it just instead of going right to G it goes here first now the chord itself is kind of weird CU it also plays that b fluid diminish 7th chord but b f diminish 7th wants to go to C and eventually we will get back to C so this is kind of like an anticipation it's not going to happen right away but we are going get to see so it's kind of a dual purpose he kind of has his F fuled admin 7th chord needs to go to G it will go to G in just a second then we have a b fully admin 7th chord which needs to go to C and it will eventually get to C we're starting to build up the tension of returning to C so you can make sense to this cord not saying it's easy but you can make sense of this chord without throwing an extra measure in there and besides that the extra measure sounds atrocious so please don't play the extra measure if you're Edition has one there now after these two crazy chords Bach is going to kick off the final push to the end he's going to kind of start the beginning of the end this is going to be one last huge buildup that take us to the end of the piece so at measure 24 Baka is going to go to a g now that doesn't seem that significant because I told you g was going to come up next because the F fully seventh chord should be followed by G so the G in itself isn't shocking the thing that's shocking is the G is the lowest note and before we look at the details just look at measure 25 the next measure 25 also has G as the low note so does 26 so does 27 and 28 so for the next eight measures actually Bach is going to keep G as the lowest Noe now G is the 1 2 3 4 five in the key ofc this is our fifth Noe often the bottom of the fifth chord right in the kefc this is a technique called standing on the dominant standing on the five chord now this is not new if you know classical music a lot of pieces do this the idea is that you're going to get to that fifth node the five that takes you back to to see and you're going to get stuck on there and you're going to do different chords on top the right hand's going to change to different chords but in the midst of all these chord changes keep in mind this is all really five it's all really a five chord building up to a one so you can do this this all that is like in the larger context it's really a g that g is the driving factor of the next date measure so from the analysis point of view I'm going to tell you what the chords are and what the Roman numerals are but really the best Roman numeral for the next St measure is just five that is the function that's the harmonic progression that's going on here it's just a whole lot of five chord different things will happen on top but the next eight measures is just all about five one huge buildup of five trying to get back to one okay so let's get into the details here measure 24 GF GB D well take out the duplicates this is just our G7 chord is not shocking because the next eight measur is going to be all about a G chord so we start out with a G7 chord should resolve that's a five chord should resolve to a one chord A C chord right it goes to C EEG which is a is a one chord but I did I did I lie I told you it's all a G chord well this G is still stuck on the bottom even though it's a c chord we still have this G on the bottom so yeah we went to a c chord but really it's all about this this G chord then we're going to go here this is this is the only chord in the whole piece that breaks the rule I told you earlier of every other letter name if you were to take this next cord and try to put it in order you're going to have GC DF there's no way to get gcdf in a normal every other note order I told you almost all the time right that's why I said almost because there are some exceptions if you are a pop musician this is not a weird cord at all this is just G suspended with a seven on top G suspended happens all the time in the pop music realm basically the idea of a suspended chord is you take the the second note GB and you push that b up one note to a c and that note really wants to go to a b eventually but right now it's just been kind of suspended it's been stuck um it it's it happens in classical music it happens in pop music it's just again normally every letter name is not to work years so the name for this cord is G sus G suspended with a seven on top but again in the larger context we're just still hanging out on this G down here measure 27 we get another Straight up G chord so that suspension that suspended note the C got resolved down to a b but again it's a G7 chord so we're still on a five chord measure 28 might be the most shocking ugly chord of the whole piece because we have a technically the E flat AC F sharp you put all that together that's an fshp fully diminished seventh Gord FSH fully diminished seven FP a c e flat wants to go to G but P just leaves the G in the base so this chord here wants to go here and he just puts them all together into one big chord so again even though the right hand and the upper notes are changing stuff it's really all about this G so this here wants to go to G and and it does go to G on the bottom the top chord here this chord here is g e g c g so if you take out the duplicates we're back to a c chord here normal c chord but once again the the G is on the bottom so this is really all about that G chord I'm going to have to say this two more times measure 30 even though it's a weird chord that goes g c DF this is our G suspended again it's still just our five chord and then that c will resolve once again down to a b which is just going to be our G7 chord which is just our five chord I burn through those eight measures really quickly because that's the best way to think about this from an analysis point of view yes there's some chromaticism with that FP yes there's some different sounds going on but this is all a massive five chord and you think about the context of this piece for the most part our harmonic Rhythm or the speed of the harmony has been once a measure we do one chord two chord five chord one chord four chord two chord five chord kind of once per measure then we get here and we get five chord different type of five chord different type of five chord five chord different type of five chord for eight straight measures that's what makes standing on the dominance standing on the five like standing like you're plant it you're not going to move you're stuck on this cord that's what makes it so effective so again instead get into all the details I'm just going to play for you and listen to how this build keeps that five in the base the whole time and as the notes change you still feel that just growing five chord the whole [Music] time now after all of that we have eight measures of five we really are ready for our one chord and at this point Bach is like okay I've done my trick you know I have my weird F Shar fully 7 going to B fly 7 which is delayed the resolution of the G when you got to that g you got stuck on for eight measures so now I'm really really really ready to end the piece we are ready for our c chord and here once again four measures from the end Bach has one last trick up his sleeve where he says you know what remember that B flat we threw in there earlier where we played a C7 chord where our c chord became like the five of F I like that I actually liked it a lot I liked it so much that after we did that I took you through eight measures of G of five going to one just to do it again so measure 32 has CC GB flat E you put that in a normal order you get C E G B flat which is our C7 chord not C major 7 that would be the be natural C7 whenever we see C7 we have to assume it's the five chord it's the five chord of what it's the five chord of f so like I said he went through this whole journey he he did the 5 S of f earlier he got to F he got away from F did five me eight measures of five just to do it again and resolve it to the wrong chord resolved it to the C chord but it was the wrong c chord now we have to go to F again only three chords left to analyze measure 33 the upper notes look like an F chord but the bottom Basse notes are just a c this is kind of that idea earlier standing on the dominant we stood on the five chord the left hand refused to get off G well now the left hand's like nah no now we resolve to C we're going to be stuck on c c is the last note it's over now this This is the End even though the right hand's like we're going to play a four chord we're going to play an F major chord which is four kind of imply maybe D Minor with a two chord there at the end but no the the the left hand's like I really want a c chord in then second to last measure of the piece we get a G7 chord now it's more broken up but the notes here are still G7 B GB d f we get a G7 chord straight up G7 [Music] chord it goes to a c chord which G7 should go to C 57 should go to C but the but the bottom notes still like nah this is all C so B really at the end here the last 10 measures takes us for kind of a spin he says we're going to do eight measures of five at the end of those eight measures of five we're going to resolve it to a one but it's going to be the wrong one chord and that wrong one chord is going to take us to four and then back to five and back to one but the base is just going to be on one the whole time so the base is kind of not cooperating with the rest of the piece I'm going to play the end here of this resolution I'm going to play the final five chord um five mes from the end resolve to that one chord that's wrong and then has to go to the next three chords and try to listen to the base how the Bas is on five it goes to one and even though a few things happen at the end the lowest note never really leaves one it's like no no we we we made it we made it home and I'm going to stay on C [Music] any case it wasn't clear that final chord c c EG C put that into a normal order stack of thirds is a c chord c EEG so we end it on our one which is what we're supposed to do we're supposed to get back to a one court at the end I'm going to play through whole thing and why do I'm going to put the Roman numeral analysis up here I want you to think while you're hearing okay this is a two chord the two chord should go to five five should go to one try to remember some of this stuff okay this is our sequence is just going to walk down till we get back to our cord this is our standing on the dominant and see how in a way it shortens the piece for you it's no longer this big piece of 35 measures but it's just five or six simple progressions [Music] if you found this video helpful I just want to ask that to share it with someone else it's been an absolute Marathon the film to sing tonight I'm sure it's going to be a monster to edit so I just love it to reach as many ears as possible if you're want to play Prelude and C or another piece but you're a little worried about the difficulty or complexity I actually filmed an entire video where I just give you a whole bunch of practice tips so you can get more done in less time how to practice more efficiently and that video is right there for you to go check out thanks so much for watching I'll see you in the next video

Channel: Ryan Abshier

Views: 5,289

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Id: jlpJ2emRPD4

Length: 61min 10sec (3670 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 10 2023