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so 4 chords is all we need
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Comments
They aren't wrong.
This fucking I-V-vi-IV chord progression is everywhere. Another overused chord progression is VI-III-VII-i , and it seems the lead melody of most of these songs hits strongly on the pentatonic scale (if not outright strictly uses the pentatonic scale). 
Sigh. Still waiting for those guys to come up with something original...
I'm with Lou Reed: "One chord is fine. Two chords is pushing it. Three chords and you're into jazz."
4 is not nearly enough for Prog!
...we need chords?
Fuck cords... go wireless.
Chords? We don’t need no stinking chords! I only need 3 notes...
Yours truly,
Fugue Machine
Schenkerian analysis tries to prove, in a spitefully reductive manner, that all music that has ever been created is just a dumb ditty with a few chords. In a way, 4 chords is all you need, or even 2 chords, but the key is how you dress them up, with bells and whistles, sparklers, crotchless panties etc... Harmonic texture, tonal color, sonic environment, combustion of frequencies, this is what we’re all chasing, and one chord is enough for that.
It just sounds quite „round“ but yeah, overused and provocative the journey for other cool progressions
😂
You mean “Harmonic textures of 18th century European musicians” (aka music theory)?
Quick, @McD where's that video?
Edit, never mind Shag, I found it!
Cue Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries"
That video was so enlightening. No wonder “music theory” never gelled with me. I really like his video(s) on odd time signatures and Euclidean rhythms .
No no, I mean harmonic textures created by all music. As a listener or music maker I’m looking for the texture of a sound or tonal color, this is one of the big reasons why we all chase different apps and recording techniques. I don’t care how many chords something has or which Viennese school it propagates, I care how the texture makes me feel. Schenker’s reductive method doesn’t take texture and timbre into consideration, so I’d argue against him for more reasons than whiteness.
Wagner was a published anti-Semite and nobody’s got time for that noise. I can still acknowledge his contribution to sound texture as well as his expansion of the timbral possibilities of brass and wind instruments. I can also acknowledge the orchestral fabric of a Turandot or Fanciulla score, even if the plots are ridiculously racist. Schönberg, Shostakovich, or someone like Strauss who could spin out one unresolved chord with a long paintbrush. I could never say that Western music was not built on racist principles and institutions. My original point was it’s not how many chords you use but what you do with them. Right now my go-to textures that I emulate and that inspire me are Gamelan.
Great video btw
@JoyceRoadStudios
I think you're being a little unfair on Schenker. The purpose of his analysis (which is more useful on longer pieces of music) was to analysise the structural qualities of pieces of music. It's like trying to analyze what the main acts of a movie are. You're going to ignore all the mise en scene when you perform that analsysis - but that doesn't mean you think camera work is unimportant. It's just not relevant to the particular task you're doing. Now if your argument is that Schenker analysis is boring... Well yeah.
I kind of think that Adam was trolling a bit with that video. Claiming that there's only one kind of music theory is possibly racist, though you'd have to search long and hard these days to find people who think that. And yes it's a theoretical apparatus that was based upon elite european music of the C18th and C19th. But it's also the basis of Jazz. And if you want to make make music that uses harmony in a sophisticated fashion that's the only toolbox available to you.
Schenker is like that one guy at the party or that one bandmate who, upon hearing anything that you may have come up with, will just say “oh but that’s just that other song” or “you’re just playing a cover in disguise”. His reductive douchiness is where music goes to die. And yes he’s boring. And he’s also a self-hating Jew and an open racist. Some of the greatest music was built on timbral texture, virtuosity, and the cocktail of sound regardless of its musically theoretical implications. Schenker is also promoting the finite mathematics of Western music, whereas musical texture is sonically infinite. I would argue that it’s more beneficial to study acoustic and electric orchestration and orchestral technique, rather than reductive music theory.
Everything's racist these days
Everyone is racist in some way, whether or not they like to admit it. The difference is holding prejudice vs acting with or enacting discrimination.
I think simple prejudices have gotten confused with wanting the feeling of superiority or wanting others to feel lesser. You'd think we're all Nazis. At least, that's the way it is in the US as far as the media portrays it. Day to day life, I personally have no problems. For once, the real world, and not the internet, provides respite from the other and not vice versa.
It seems there's nothing original left under the sun regarding notes, chords, textures, sound sources used in Experimental, etc. @JoyceRoadStudios is correct in that it's all about how you dress it up.
What about classical Indian music? You don’t even need one chord.
“ I don’t care how many chords something has or which Viennese school it propagates, I care how the texture makes me feel.“
I used to think like that. Then later in my life I played live music with real instruments and then realized that texture most of the times are just covering for lack of interesting things in music. I’m 46 years old now and I can clearly say this: you have to strip down a song and lose all the rhythmic elements and textures just play the chords with a piano and play vocals on top only or the melody instrument. If it doesn’t sound interesting then it is not a really good song.
For me chord changes are a must. The verse has to have a different chord progression then the chorus most of the time. Two different progressions.
There are some exceptions where there’s only one or 2 chords in the entire song and I still love it but most of the time I need the chord changes otherwise I can’t listen to a song. This is why the 80s and 90s were good. Good chord progressions lots of chords and chord changes. Young people call it ‘cheesy’ but I call it a higher standard.
In the 60s and 70s only musicians could make music these days anyone can. Even if you don’t know any music theory. You got two chords and lots of texture to mask the lack of music theory. You are right that texture is important. It is important to me too but cord progressions are way more important in my opinion. I can see this when a friend of mine who’s a very good piano player starts to play live. I got a boring textured instrument but he plays something beautiful with it that I can’t. The ‘play’ is more important than texture.
A "song" as @Jimmy has defined it is hardly the only valid form of musical composition, though. And there are entire cultures that don’t use "harmony" as we define it (@michael_m mentioned Indian classical, as an example).
Yes that was just my opinion and my opinion on interesting songs. In the last decade there are a lot of ‘songs’ on the radio That are just really boring for me because mostly just a rhythm and people are talking on top of it. No melody and no chord progressions and most importantly no harmony between the melody and the cord progression. You can call it a song but in my opinion it’s measurably less. Just has less value. But of course whatever turns you on.
🙂
I agree with you about the ‘90s, it’s some of my favorite music, but it’s not just about the chord progressions and musicality of that era. The ‘90s were a pinnacle of sound engineering, it was the best of the analog world heading into the digital world. Arguably the best engineered recordings in every genre were from the early to mid ‘90s. And of course we all idolize rock and jazz of the ‘70s and ‘60s and before. But you can have a song with an amazing chord progression and structure and it can still sound like a wedding band in Brighton Beach. What matters is how it sounds, not how many chords it has, because at the end of the day any song can be mathematically reduced to Three Blind Mice. Yes it what you do in between and around that matters, and it has been achieved before with just one chord. There’s a reason I love Prince, The Boss, Billy Joel, Nina Simone, Soundgarden etc... it’s not just that they wrote great songs, it’s how they sound, the texture of it.
One of my favorite artists of the last decade is Kevin Parker. He’s a brilliant songwriter, and the texture of his music transcends pop or electronic in so many ways. And yes he uses great chord progressions, but a lot of the time it’s just 2-3 chords. It’s what you do with it...
Great post. Agree with all of this.