The Secret To Beautiful Chord Progressions

so when writing a song there aren't many rules or any rules but there are things that occur so often that it sort of establishes itself as a rule and of course rules are made to be broken and that's exactly what's happening in so many coldplay songs [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so i'm sure you've heard about it the key a song is written in like nothing else matters it's in the key of e minor because right from the get go we hear that lovely e minor pattern that everyone knows and everyone loves right blackbird that's clearly nikki of g major it starts on the g it lingers on that g for forever so it is very obvious g major so you wouldn't be surprised that we hear the rule that says you have to look at the first chord and on some rare occasions the last chord to find out the key a piece is written in but it isn't that easy and when i listened to coldplay i found that again and again they broke that very rule and interestingly all the times they did it it happened in exactly the same way so i'm sure we all heard coldplay's magic right so the p starts at d major briefly drops to a major goes back to e major [Music] and finally there's c sharp minor [Music] and it does so indefinitely and according to the internet the key the key is a but it starts on d that is strange wait here's another one so the song viva la vida with the lazy cable version is in the key of g major it says so on the internet but it starts on c major [Music] wait a second please help me okay so when looking at both of these coldplay songs and believing many many more as we'll find out the chord coldplay chooses to start on isn't the one chord but it is the iv chord so wait a second one four we're doing music right not math what on earth are you talking about okay so a great way to look at chords and the relationship between those chords is to use the roman numeral system some call it the nashville number system anyway for me it's the best way to look at course structures and how they all relate to each other it's pretty easy you just lay down the major scale and build a chord on each of the scale degrees as we call it so for g major that gives us the following chords g a minor b minor c major d major e minor f sharp diminished there's g again but of course we do not have to stick to these chords but bear with me for just one second these are the diatonic chords chords made from just the notes within the scale and they just sound very pleasant to our spoiled western ears that's all so now looking at the viva la vida we see that we start on the four chord then we go up to the v chord which results to the one the tonic and then to the sixth chord the e minor chord so it's clearly all perfectly in that g major framework since all the chords follow that diatonic chord pattern in key of g so now to the song magic we saw it's in the key of a major so that gives us the following chords a b minor c sharp minor d major e major f sharp minor g sharp diminished and a again [Music] okay so in this piece again it starts on the four chord goes down to the one and up to the five to the minor three and four again it never really resolves since at the end there's a fade out so we never really [Music] get that resolution we all the time wait for and in the song viva la vida there's a fade out too so looking at the last chord doesn't work either so these songs they start on the iv chord and we call that the sub dominant and not on the tonic or the one and of course we see chord patterns that start on the four all the time but usually it's happened like in a b segment or in the chorus of a song and not that often in the actual beginning and that subdominance so the iv chord there is something special about it so in traditional harmony all the chords have a function like the tonic and let's just take c major for example so the tonic it functions as a home chord the stable chord everything is chill fine and resolved the dominant chord or the v chord often played as seventh chord makes us feel like we're going back home it wants to go to the so there's a strong pull from that g to the c chord that is mostly because of the leading tone by the way [Music] that is the b note in this case and it goes back to that c major chord but with that four chord there is no such thing it falls a bit in between so often the f chord functions a little bit as a bridge between the stable tonic and the unstable dominant but it doesn't have to be it can go anywhere really it's like a journey like destination unknown but it's nice and we see the different implications very obviously in the song magic it goes to the one from the four to the one and to the five and in the song viva la vida it goes from the four to the five so to the dominant instead of to the one so the four can go anywhere so one thing we can add to that four chord is the sharp eleven it's the same coldplay does all the time and it works so well because in relation to the key the sharp 11 is actually the leading tone so that is the seventh note from the scale from the key and this sound tends to favor the resolution towards the tonic so from the four chord back to the one chord and we hear exactly that in the song every teardrop is a waterfall that of course starts on the four on the d and we add that sharp 11. so now we're sure we can't stay here no we definitely need some resolution and we do it back home to the tonic so it sounds like this [Music] sounds pretty cool right and then there's the song inc which it does the same thing it starts on the iv chord the b major so the b major is the four chord from f sharp so the key is f sharp but we start on and then we go to f sharp with a major third in the bass which is a thing called play often does then to the five c sharp major and then to d sharp minor again the same thing and then f sharp and then to the five so it sorts of end on the five and then you expect that resolution but no it never happens we're never given that resolution because after the five we go again [Music] and that's it so this makes sure we never really feel resolved it's a song that never feels totally at rest and there's always some pool going on which gives us that driving force and the feeling that it doesn't get boring even if if it's the same chord progressions over and over so in the song don't panic we do sort of the same this starts off playing two whole bars of a four chord so really exaggerating that thing f major and again we add that sharp four to the chord [Music] but now we don't go to the 1 the tonic we go to a different kind of tonic because we can also see the minor 6 chord as the tonic the a minor in this case that also feels very stable and resolved in a minor context basically so from the f the four chord [Music] to the bones [Music] then there's a song with the chainsmokers something just like this and you guessed it the same thing happens [Music] wait a second this is actually the song him for the weekend but they transposed it a half step up and swapped out the chain smokers for beyonce but it also starts on the iv chord [Music] so do they purposely write music that starts on the iv chord well no surely not when chris writes these songs his ear favors these changes he hears the chords spell out a certain path when you start writing and i'm 100 sure he never thinks about it it just it just happens it provides a certain vibe or atmosphere when you start on that four chords something chris apparently is naturally drawn to and when you play it often enough or record songs often enough you start to see a pattern apparently he's very fond of it the optimistic bright connected nature of the music especially the later work it's something you can really see it shine through of their artwork the clips and of course it's not a coincidence that the brightest most happy sounding skill out there skill we call lydian is built on the fourth skill degree the fourth we've been talking about so we start playing from the fourth note up in any major scale let's say we take c major if we play from f up [Music] we get f lydian and that's the brightest the most happy sounding skill out there and that rhymes perfectly with their video clips their artwork the entire image really and it really ties perfectly into why all these songs tend to favor a fade out as well instead of the usual ending on the one chord no it just feels too final too resolved anyway if you enjoyed any of this i would really appreciate it if you left a comment and a gentle and bright thumbs up beneath this video it really means a lot to me thank you so much and have a great day thank you for watching and write some music starting on the foreport why not there are no rules cheers guys [Music] you

Channel: Paul Davids

Views: 324,413

Rating: 4.9683418 out of 5

Keywords: coldplay, chords, how coldplay writes music, chord progression, curious chords, paul davids, guitar lesson, video, guitar tab, break the rules, IV chord, nashville number system, roman numeral, fender telecaster, songwriting, composition, tricks, tips, coldplay music, coldplay songs, guitar songs coldplay, viva la vida, magic, don't panic, every teardrop is a waterfall, chainsmokers, Something Just Like This, hymne for the weekend

Id: CoDryPngDLk

Length: 11min 44sec (704 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 03 2021