@zoelor7923

My favorite thing my theory II teacher used to say was "it's music theory, not music law."

@MisterAppleEsq

Doing this is also a great way to improve your composition skills.

@12tone

Sorry about my voice: I had a pretty rough cold when I recorded this so it sounds a bit beat up. Anyway here's some additional thoughts:


1) When I say a harmonic model is the set of rules the music was written with, that's not meant to imply any sort of conscious effort on the part of the composer. We learn these models subconsciously from a very young age, and unless you take active steps to avoid incorporating them into your work they're likely to just creep in there. This is why it's often useful to blend models in analysis: A lot of songs are written mostly in one system but with some other influences creeping in.

2) For fun, here's some possible explanations for G major chords in the key of E major, in roughly decreasing order of likeliness: Modal interchange, chromatic mediant off the root, passing chord between IImi and IIImi, new root in a direct modulation, chromatic mediant off the V chord, tritone substitution resolving to IImi, secondary-axis substitute for V chord, secondary dominant of tritone substitution of V chord, or maybe the whole thing is actually just atonal anyway. Can you think of any others?


3) I so strongly associate that 4-chord loop with Don't Stop Believin' that I didn't realize until some people started commenting on it that they actually play a slight variation on the loop (Every other time through, they play a G#mi instead of the C#mi.) so just substitute in literally any of the hundreds of other pop songs that use that exact progression. Whoops!

@sandrojovanovic3694

Every video you post is pure joy to watch, I am so thankful that there is a channel like yours on YT that helps me grow as an artist

@Laurentbrn

"But just because one of us is right, doesn't mean the other one's wrong."
Peace and love and music <3

@glennpagemusic

I focus a lot on chords. I've probably picked apart the chords to 1000s of pop songs. This has helped me learn a lot about basic harmonic function, modulations, tonal ambiguity and things like that. I enjoy it, and I love a great chord progression. In recent years I've tried to focus more on melody to try and strengthen that muscle - that is, not to rely on harmony to move the song along. To that end, I'll try to write melodies without even thinking about the chords.

@AlRoderick

Fun fact: it's impossible to be born and raised in South Detroit. The southernmost point of Detroit is the downtown business district, followed by the river, followed by Windsor Ontario Canada.

@MrDuncanBelfast

The next time you explain what functional harmony is, as a joke, you should take the multiple times you've explained it and splice them together.

@lukostello

"Analysis isn't just trying to score all the points by putting the right labels on the things, its about exploring and explaining the fundamentally subjective experience of listening to a piece of music." dang, I'm here to make a point scoring system so I can teach robots how to appreciate music.

@mixuaquela123

If u guys want real challenge try to analyze etudes by Chopin. Ive done a few and it rly makes u think how diversely you can use chords.

@iamiupa

This is pretty much the best sum-up you could have done. Congratulations, it's on point in everything, especially the definition of "analysis" is superb.

@MisterManDuck

You know, before I actually start watching:

Thanks. Granted, I've never had a breakdown like this before, but it's people like you that actually make me think harder about my critique of music and how to maybe be a a composer who can make something worth a damn.

@mariazamora4595

Love that you mentioned going in a deeper level. I love sounds, I like to immerse myself in sounds, to go in a deep… Deep level in feelings, understanding the story, a lot of elements.
I love harmony and timing. Sometimes the sound of the instruments do not match with the sounds of the voice singer. Timing I think is very difficult, some musician have a deep understanding of music, music is within themselves, they know how to express a feeling , a story, a beautiful poem, Through music in the right time. Is magical

@trextify

I have been listening to Spunky by Anika Nilles since it’s release probably, and last month in the car I was listening to it and out of no where I realized that there’s these two melodies, rather than thinking of it as one whole melody, and they’re having this intense conversation. That moment was so magical bringing tears to my eyes.

@glennpagemusic

I think it's not that there's more than one right answer; it's that sometimes the ambiguity IS the answer. In other words, it's usually not "Oh, this song can be interpreted as being in G major OR being in D Mixolydian." It's not even that "both answers are correct." It's usually that the truth lies between, and it's more than semantics: it's actually a fundamental part of the appeal of the music. That said, there are times when one answer or the other is demonstrably incorrect, of course.

@Xenro66

I actually tried this before a few weeks ago on a Hardstyle track "Children of Drums" by Wildstylez. Upon initial listening, I noticed it had a very unique melody and chord structure, and after analysing and labelling it, I discovered it switched from minor to half diminished every 2 bars, which made it very interesting as there's no perfect 5th in half diminished. This video will definitely help me determine why this is so powerful to me and hopefully allows me to write more interesting music.

@rhymesandvibes

I'm new to all this and it's completely blowing my mind. You can actually pick apart musical notes and get more meaning behind them and that's exactly what I wanna get at. Musical subtext. Like a secret code behind the music or something.

@michaelsands442

The word for left-handed in Latin is sinister... Great content. One of my favorites for music with Lie Likes Music and Polyphonic Rick Beato and Adam Neely

@chipparkerson2701

The I V vi IV has become the most common chord progression on all of pop over the last 40 plus years. It does have a bit of a dramatic build up . It is the the "Let it Be" progression. which in itself is a slight alteration of the old Doo-wop progression. That is only a slight alteration of a Vi ii V I that was in a million jazz and great american songbook tunes going back to world war I.  So why do we keep using the same old stuff? well its easy, recognizable, functional, and everybody already knows how to play it. So you have a melody, you want catchy easy chords for harmony. How do you make it different  for either a B section or create tension? Change a chord, just one of them. Obvious choice is the second one or third one because  the other two are to hard to keep things making sense.  So in comes a iii chord for the Vi chord.  Just as the Vi chord serves as a tonic function so does  the iii chord, It  does the exact same thing just as you talked about in your other videos. I dont hear a G major, only a G # minor.

@ZacharySandstrom

I would kill for an episode of Welcome to the Jungle. The breakdown has so many different tracks and all of them work together so well to build all the sinister tension. I know you would kill it and do it justice.