You Can't Hear This Chord Without Crying.

what is it about that one chord that seems to just grab a hold of all of our emotions and create an incredibly beautiful resolution let's dive into it [Music] yikes john williams loves to use this minor four chord in so many of his works and it is always absolutely stunning and this is a perfect application of that so this is leia's theme from star wars so we're in d major that's our home base now if we look at all of the chords that exist in d major just using the notes of the scale right they would be d major e minor f sharp minor g major a major b minor and then c sharp diminished and that leads us back to d so those what you might call the diatonic like the naturally existing chords within the d major sound we're starting in this that's our first chord something about the middle lower brass playing that particular melody oh man [Music] wow it's just an absolutely incredible change that you're kind of not expecting and there's a very specific reason for that notice what we just talked about in relation to d major all of our chords notice what the naturally occurring four chord is in a major context it's major there's a b natural in there in this g chord which of course makes it a major chord so when we establish that we're existing in this space of d major as as sort of our home base all of a sudden we're setting expectations that's what we expect to hear in the context of d major the most naturally occurring chords that four is major so when we make that change [Music] that minor third within that g chord that obviously makes it minor that's subverting our expectations from what we've established by saying hey this song is in d major we immediately just jump to this whoa we can do that in so many different ways we don't necessarily have to go to g minor in order to create an unexpected change i mean why then does it not have the same impact if i go from d major to i don't know a flat minor just going from d to a flat minor very unexpected but yet it doesn't have the same impact as the minor iv chord does something about that is uniquely beautiful how is it specifically keying in on that oh let's take a look at it let's take a look at our naturally occurring iv chord in the key of d major and that is g major one thing we're going to start to talk about here are resolutions a resolution is when a cord draws itself back to a home base there's a couple ways to do that the strongest resolution as we've talked about many many times on this channel is a five one that's perhaps the most common sounded music oftentimes it's preceded by a two the two five one is perhaps the most commonly used sound in jazz especially and one of the most common sounds in music in general and it works so well because it's drawing us to that final place of our home base in this case it's d major our ears are like yes yes and yes now we're home it feels complete we're done here's why those work so well what we're going to look at are the chord tones of each of these chords in particular one of the most common ways that you're going to hear that v chord used is as a dominant chord with a flat seven that dominant sound is perhaps the strongest resolution that's why you can always go ah it drives people nuts just finish it right why is that happening well let's look at the notes in that chord so in that chord we have a c sharp e and g that is an a dominant chord now i want you to look at that chord and now i want you to look at the d major chord that we're going to we have a d and f sharp okay now here's the secret to resolutions this is why a 5 1 works so well we are looking for what we might call leading tones tones of the chord that need to move as little as possible usually a half step to get to their next place well let's talk about a first the root of the of the dominant chord a is a shared note it's a common tone between a and d right so a is going to stay exactly where it is that's not going to move because it exists here and it exists here so we know that that's good well what about c sharp well c sharp does not exist in the chord that we're going to where did it move we have c sharp here the root of the next chord is only a half step away it's d that's all we're doing is going from c sharp to d let's take a look at the next note in a dominant that's e well e you could say could kind of go either way but it's not a half step away from any chord tone in d major where we're trying to land rather it's a whole step away from two different chord tones in d it's a whole step from that root or it's a whole step from f sharp which is the third of d so that e is not as much what you consider a leading tone because it's a little further away than a half step rather it could kind of go either way but that c sharp to d is a little more compelling because it's so much closer right well let's take a look at our final note in a dominant g what is g in comparison to where we're landing the closest note to it is f sharp the third of our root chord d major and that's only a half step away from f sharp so we could consider that a leading tone as well so what we have in a dominant seven are two leading tones they're just dying to be resolved to our home base of d major that's why a 5 7 chord in this case a dominant is so compelling and is such a great tension builder to release into our root our home base in this case it's d major so we have two notes that are just dying to be resolved you can hear that entire chord progression with just those two notes don't need to play anything else you know exactly what that is if i filled the rest of it in you know what it would sound like just by these two notes they're that strong that is what we might call a traditional cadence of a five to a one what happens when we approach it from the other side of the circle of fifths this is basically a fancy way of saying rather than going five one we're gonna go four one [Music] now notice that's also a very nice cadence that's what we call a plagal cadence it's a cadence that's coming from the other side of the key circle and it's not quite as strong as the traditional cadence of 5 1. so there's a very specific reason why this plagal cadence is generally thought to be not quite as powerful as a traditional cadence let's look at that when we looked at the a dominant chord we were looking for those leading tones the tones that were one half step away from where we are trying to land in our home base of d major well let's take a look at g major this plagal cadence let's look at the notes that are in there and where they have to move to create our home base of d major now we're looking for half steps mind you so one thing we can immediately point out is that both chords share this d they both share a d so that's gonna stay exactly where it is now let's look at our b in the g major chord where does that need to move to resolve well it's gonna move down to an a that is a very nice resolution but it is not a leading tone in the same concept as we were thinking of with our five chord to our one this instead is a whole step from b to a okay so so far we have a common tone and we have a whole step resolution very nice sounding but not quite as strong as our half step resolutions let's look at our final note g so g now that is a leading tone that is going to be that half step away from where it needs to resolve in the key of d and that's from g to f sharp half step away very nice resolution that's why it's a little darker sounding than but beautiful in its own way what happens when we flip that chord minor this is why this chord works so incredibly well we established that it's subverting our expectations but why does it resolve so strongly check this out notice how we said that one of the resolutions in our plagal cadence from g to d was this b to a movement the major third of g moving to the fifth of d and that was a whole step resolution what do we change about g major to make it minor well we take that third and we make it minor there we go here is our minor iv chord look at what we just did we just created the exact same powerful resolution that our five chord to our one has only we did it on the fourth step of the scale on this g chord the iv chord in the key of d because this b flat only has to move a half step to become a that makes it a leading tone that makes it a more s a more powerful resolution to our one chord which gives it the same weight that our five chord has we said that this is the most powerful resolution all of a sudden we've taken the number of leading tones that our five chord has and we've now added that same number of leading tones to our four chord we have a b flat that resolves to an a and we have a g that resolves to an f sharp those are both leading tones they're both half step resolutions how cool is that here's where it gets even more interesting let's take another example let's take a look at the beatles [Music] what did we do there we had our minor four to one resolution but we also had our major four we started here and changed it minor so not only do we have this super strong resolution of four minor four to one but we also included the major four first and then we changed it minor watch what's happening there okay so when we have our major four chord we're using b b natural right that's the third in the chord of g major and then when we make that minor we drop that third to a minor third and then when we go to our one chord from our minor four which is d major we now resolve that down a half step again so we've now created a resolution of this one single note this inner voice movement that's a beautiful resolution of the single note moving chromatically to finally resolve to our one chord so when we include the major four then the minor four then our one chord not only are we subverting expectations by including a chord that doesn't naturally exist in the key of d major by including that minor four we're also creating a nice inner voice movement to resolve and we're creating that plagal cadence with this strong compelling resolution with two leading tones b flat and g everything about this is harmonically and melodically perfect and it's just the right amount of surprise when we hear it that it invokes that emotional response it almost feels like the music that uses this has a sad feeling but there's something weirdly sentimental and happy about it there's so much music that you can look to as an example of this using that minor iv chord it's enough of a curveball while being still such a compelling resolution it's a chord that you almost can't hear without crying it's one of my favorite chords that's used in film scores and it's there's tons of great examples in some of the most famous songs ever i geek out over the minor four chord every time i hear it so like i want to know like what are some things that i haven't heard that you guys know of that makes such a great usage of this that happy sad feeling of like just it's so powerful that minor plagal cadence with the same exact pull the two leading tones that our v chord usually has what a cool device i will look forward to reading your recommendations down in the comments below let me know in the comments below all the examples you have of that minor four in use what's the music that makes you sob uncontrollably and look like a complete mess thank you so much for watching this video and we will see you in the next one [Music]

Channel: Charles Cornell

Views: 805,315

Keywords: Charles, Charles Cornell, Charles Cornell Studios, Studios, Cornell, Piano, Piano Covers, Piano guy, music theory, jazz, jazz theory, music lesson, beatles, in my life beatles, in my life, star wars, john williams, star wars john williams, leia's theme, han and leia, a new hope soundtrack, star wars soundtrack, beatles music theory

Id: VGVsa0Fp8aM

Length: 14min 43sec (883 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 01 2022

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