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Why are chords a thing?
Metadata
- title
- Why are chords a thing?
- description
- Love music more! This episode shows some examples of 12-tone music (aka chromatic music), and introduces the concept of harmony (major and minor chords).
- status
- complete
- date
- 2021-05-10
- kind
- solo
- guestSlugs
- —
- listenUrl
- https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/lovemusicmore/episodes/Why-are-chords-a-thing-evtpn1
- appleUrl
- https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/why-are-chords-a-thing/id1567355195?i=1000521554355
- spotifyUrl
- https://open.spotify.com/episode/2EM1xgVWaKJ0FPtdz7hPFc
- topicsDiscussed
- Music theory
- Songwriting
- Harmony
- 12-Tone Music
- Chromatic Scale
- Intervals
- Major and Minor Chords
- Pythagorean Ratios
- Pop Music Structure
- Chord Progressions
- Contextual Sound of Chords
- Music and Emotion
- hostNote
- Last episode we stacked perfect fifths and ended up with **12 notes**. So what do we do with all of them, play the chromatic scale and sound like the circus song? This episode is the answer: **harmony**: how we pick subsets of those notes, stack them into chords, and why Western pop keeps circling the same **I–IV–V** gravity well. I walk from two singers blending on different pitches, through the circle of fifths (yes, fourths too: **confusing AF**), to why "major = happy / minor = sad" is a useful lie, and why you need **bad-sounding chords** to make the good ones land. If you've ever wondered why three chords carry most of pop, and why Taylor Swift, Dua Lipa, and the music of the spheres are basically cousins: start here.
- selectedMoments
- label
- Introduction to Harmony
- startSec
- 1
- note
- How harmony relates to both vocalists and instruments in Western music.
- label
- Understanding the 12 Notes
- startSec
- 48
- note
- The chromatic scale, its uniqueness, and examples of chromatic songs.
- label
- Perfect Intervals in Music
- startSec
- 137
- note
- Perfect fourth and fifth intervals as key concepts in understanding harmony.
- label
- The Circle of Fifths
- startSec
- 182
- note
- The circle of fourths and fifths, and why it's 'confusing AF.'
- label
- The One, Four, Five Progression
- startSec
- 228
- note
- Why pretty much all of pop is built around three chords.
- label
- Major vs. Minor Chords
- startSec
- 277
- note
- Major is happy, minor is sad, and what's more nuanced behind that.
- label
- Composition of Chords
- startSec
- 361
- note
- How scales define chord construction through selecting from available notes.
- label
- Tension in Harmony
- startSec
- 409
- note
- Without the bad, the good can't sound good, tension and release in chords.
- label
- Cultural Context of Chords
- startSec
- 496
- note
- The broader implications of harmony beyond traditional music structures.
- label
- The Flavor of Chords
- startSec
- 679
- note
- Recurring themes in popular music and their emotional resonance.
- excerptQuotes
- text
- Harmony, like a harmony when two singers are singing together and they're singing two different notes, and it sounds beautiful.
- startSec
- 86
- reviewed
- true
- text
- So like, what do we do with that? Now we have 12 notes. How do we reduce that?
- startSec
- 54
- reviewed
- true
- text
- You have the perfect fifth where we got all 12 notes. And that sounds like this. Then we also have the perfect fourth, which is another Pythagorean thing derived from a ratio.
- startSec
- 109
- reviewed
- true
- text
- So when we talk about the circle of fifths, we can also call it the circle of fourths. If that's confusing to you, don't feel bad. It's confusing AF.
- startSec
- 180
- reviewed
- true
- text
- That's why it's important is that pretty much all of pop is based around those three chords.
- startSec
- 236
- reviewed
- true
- text
- Major is happy, minor is sad. That's how it's at least usually explained.
- startSec
- 279
- reviewed
- true
- text
- So from there, you pick an assortment from that scale and you emit other notes and you just play two or three or four sometimes more from that scale at the same time. And you call that a chord, you call that harmony.
- startSec
- 405
- reviewed
- true
- text
- Without that bad, without that contrast, without that tension, then the good stuff can't sound good.
- startSec
- 452
- reviewed
- true
- faq
- question
- What is harmony in music?
- answer
- Harmony in music refers to the simultaneous combination of different musical notes or chords to create a pleasing sound.
- question
- Why are chords important in music?
- answer
- Chords are crucial as they provide the harmonic foundation for melodies, guiding the emotional tone and direction of a composition.
- question
- What are major and minor chords?
- answer
- Major chords evoke a happy or bright sound, while minor chords tend to sound sad or mysterious, shaped by the specific intervals used.
- transcriptPublished
- false
- draft
- false
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