@@tiyenin you certainly could do that. I stuck with the major scale reading as that is what most other sources do. With aeolian stuff it can work just as well analysing it as the relative minor. 😊
When that chord progression was played for the first time, I almost had a heart attack. It's like getting Rickrolled without actually getting Rickrolled.
I'm Japanese and while I enjoy the video I wouldn't entire say that Odo 王道 translates to "easy way". It's more used as in the "most popular / common / basic way" and which doesn't usually mean the easy way. It's very nuanced, but in a culture where tradition is deemed important that efficiency and ease, 邪道 (antonym to 王道 and mean "malicious way") often is the easier / efficient way. I know this doesn't really impact your main point, but something I wanted to share. Edit: a fellow commenter suggested that "well-trodden path" might be easier for anglophones to understand.
Thanks for the information 👍! This is also nuanced but perhaps the predictive text got the better of your excellent English? I think maybe you meant to say "... in a culture where tradition is deemed more important _than_ efficiency and ease ...". Long story short, your point is that the phrase "the royal road" in Japan connotes "the best way", rather than "a shortcut" or "the easy way". If I understand you correctly!
Japanese has so many of these interesting expressions that can be so difficult to translate! I was so confused the first time I ran into this particular one, and it took a long time before I started to understand what it meant. And your explanation helped me understand it better, so thank you! It's more like the "classic" way of doing things, because it's not really a negative thing, if I understand it correctly? I first came across it as the name of a fantasy genre, where it seems to be the type of fantasy fiction that contains the typical things like magic, dragons, and elves and that sort of thing.
@@derivate_lang glad to know my comment helped you! Good luck on your journey 💪 I'd say "classic way" is like 85% good. It can be the classic and Odo way, but Odo is like the most popular way / the staple / the way something should be, and may not always mean the classic (in regards of time). One example I thought of right now is from sushi. Nowadays, the toro cuts from tuna will probably be considered Odo, but it isn't a classic (it's relatively new to consume fatty tuna). But since it's like the norm now to order Toro, it's commonly considered as Odo.
I've wondered for YEARS why Japanese anime openings and video game soundtracks sounded like _that_ . They all had a similar feel that I couldn't quite put my finger on since I don't have a background in music theory. Thanks you for answering a decade long question for me!
@@mushroom11g55 I had to take 4 semesters of music theory as part of my music degree. Whether it's Music Theory, or Game Theory, or Evolutionary Theory, a theory is simply a body of observations about a particular subject. All 3 are theories that you could study for many years and not fully understand. The amount of study you've had in it makes up your "background".
@@mushroom11g55 The back of that unmarked van parked in the dark alleyway you go past on your way home. You know the one, enter it, don't be afraid, you will learn many things there.
It's kind of funny actually, I've always thought Together Forever felt like an anime song. It's got that sort of calculated sappiness. I think a good word for the vibe of this progression is sentimental, it's like reflectively emotional without being necessarily sad and can lean either direction, either more bright and happy or more somber and bittersweet.
Yeah, I was playing around with the progression on piano and it definitely hits different when you use different inversions and play with the placement
I think it does resolve to the minor i, for some reason david took this chord as "IV V iii vi" never resolving to the tonic I, but I strongly feel this is a minor chord progression, to me it resolve to the minor i and the "iii" is the minor v, it's litteraly a v to i, he took the minor v as a slight resolution but to me it's tension, in fact there's a popular variation of this chord progression where instead of a minor v it's a major V (or a dominant7 V or a diminished vii°) resolving again to the minor i to add even more tension and resolution, making it a V to i (my guess is that it's not as often used because with the minor v you keep everything in the natural minor scale), to me it goes: point of rest maybe slight tension (it's a chord just below the next chord and it's gonna start a movement upward) tension (this chord wants to resolve, and we have upward movement now, so it's wanting to resolve up to the minor i wich is right above) more tension (instead of going up it goes down edging that resolution with another chord that want to resolve to the minor i) and resolution (with the tonic minor i), that's the interpretation that feels to me the most accurate to how the chord progression makes me feel
@@thefakepie1126 I like your functional analysis! ✔ But please, do take a breath! 😉 - put a full stop (period) in occasionally, like this -> . Makes for much easier reading and better understanding.
It is worth pointing out that the writers of those two Rick Astley hits, Stock/Aitken/Waterman, used this chord progression on a TON of their hits, not just those two Rick Astley hits. It was even referred to as THE chord progression. However, they very often changed it up slightly, just as you point out with Never Gonna Give You Up.
Yeah, sadly the Stock/Aiken/Waterman trick didn’t age well. Astley’s singles lived on, but those guys were just rubber-stamping their projects in a terribly lazy fashion. 3 seconds into song and you’d be like “well, it’s a SAW production, when the vocals start I’ll figure out who the artist is.” I really wish they didn’t do Donna Summer’s “Another Place in Time” album because there’s @that sound.” (Interestingly the album cover has Donna in Kabuki makeup and the artwork is stylized to look “Japanese” - go figure).
This chord progression is very uplifting, slightly bittersweet, and gives the songs a _soaring_ and hopeful feel compared to the usual I-IV-V or I-V-vi-IV. A lot of the anime/manga series are centered around the themes of turning pain 痛み / struggle 戦い (IV-V-iii) into hope for the future 希望 (vi).
One thing that’s interesting about you including Rick Astley when discussing this topic is that for quite some time people have seen similarities between “Never Gonna Give You Up” and “Robo’s Theme”, from Chrono Trigger’s OST
I feel like it’s prevalence in anime songs/title sequences is exactly due to that sense of movement without resolution that you illustrated. An opening sequence shouldn’t feel resolved, it should engage you right away and then propel you into the story. I think that’s why this progression is so effective in that context.
I remember hearing this progression in songs from shows like Pokémon and Inuyasha and I felt like my doubts are just thoughts,like I can accomplish anything. It’s so nostalgic
My Will, my favorite Inu theme aside from Fukai Mori, uses this progression as well I am sure, if not something dangerously similar. I was obsessed from first listen. I'm not a musicologist but I like picking apart what makes my music taste tick.
Kyohei Tsutsumi, the godfather of J-POP, once said ”Rick Astley’s first album is filled with the sounds that Japanese people like”. かつて筒美京平は「リック・アストリーの1stアルバムには、日本人の好むサウンドが詰まっている」と話していたそうです。
So, have you seen the Japanese cover of Never Gonna Give You Up? The one I know is by American English cover artists on TH-cam, but it still works really well.
it's not just in japan, it's all over east asia; china, taiwan, malaysia and singapore. we have singers here who are topping the regional charts for decades and their songs regularly use the same chord progression over and over again that's it's a thing to mashup their own and even their fellow artist's songs together, even during their live performances
I have no idea about Malaysia or Singapore but at least One thing is for sure. Taiwan is one of the countries most culturally influenced from Japan. Not only in pop musics fields but in almost all domains of its cultural diorama. China in turn has heavily been influenced from Taiwanese musics in 80s-90s period. Teresa teng, Sarah chen etc.. Actually it's not far-fetched to say China didn't have proper pop musics of their own before 00s. China's pop music till 90s or even early 00s are all just an inferior rip-off of that of Japan, Taiwan, Hongkong and more recently, South Korea. Before K-pop hypes started around early 00s, East asian pop culture has been under the heavy influence of Japan so It's not strange to come across Japanese-specific elements in other east asian pop musics beforw 00s.
Singapore has the unique 新谣 signature back in the 60s to 90s which is nothing like anything in Japan or the west or any of its neighbours. Unfortunately, under a government and populace that saw everything home grown as inferior, it got strangled and killed by western, Japanese and Taiwanese music. All Singaporean singers these days are basically Taiwanese in all but name. The last 新谣 song is probably 关怀方式 back in the early 90s. Globalisation has killed a lot of good traditional music in the name of capitalism and trends.
@@Kburn1985 agreed! we had legendary xinyao singers with unique authentic sounds popping up in school campuses, which led to songs with distinctive melodies and great lyrics like 细水长流, but sadly our current system doesn't really encourage such things anymore, first with killing off the dialects and next with the speak english programs
@@tristanho1533 Greatest irony now is they're trying to bring back dialects and hawker culture, after seeing how vapid, empty and soulless "cosmopolitan" capitalist culture is. Unfortunately, they will fail badly, as people already assume 新谣 is part of the low class heartland culture, and would prefer cosmopolitan international acts. Tried to get some friends to support local artistes performing 新谣 in a studio the other day, but they just called it low class and changed to venue to timbre, where some vapid band was aping after westerners singing some meaningless indie covers off-tune. Unfortunately, the damage is permanent and 新谣 is gone forever.
A video explaining the "just the two of us progression that Westerners prefer" is trending among Japanese. Therefore, watching this video explaining "the royal road progression that the Japanese prefer" actually makes me feel like I'm lost in a mirror world (because I'm Japanese).
@@silver6380 the chord progression from "just the two of us" of Marvin Gaye. Lately, I've heard many Japanese video reusing this chord progression and making a new style out of it. It's called Neosoul. This first time I heard it, was on Animal Crossing, don't remember the name but, (I'll give you the link of a great cover of it.). Also in "Colourful" from Meine Meinung (Japanese band) And you can also hear it in some great Western incluences like "Honest" from Jorja Smith. Gives you some kinda, soul/funk/chill vibe
Is just me, or this cord is popular in japanese pop music because it sounds "hopeful"? Is like the perfect one for a hero's theme or a nostalgic medley.
This video uses the term melancholy, but yeah your take is another way to put it. People listen to Japanese stuff and express it in many ways which are all in the same ballpark - melancholic, hopeful, sentimental, nostalgic, warmth or even wet, cheesy, corny and embarrassing. They all reside in the same part of an emotional spectrum, and are the antithesis to muscular, hard, cruel, tough, cold, or whatever else one perceives.
Not hopeful, but rather melancholic and nostalgic. In Japanese, setsunai and natsukashii. These are two emotions that are fundamental to Japanese art and poetry.
I imagine one of the big reasons this chord progression comes up so often in Japanese music is because it's very disco-y. A lot of the western examples you mention are either from the 80's or a throwback to 80's disco, like Versace on the Floor or Rick Astley's music. A lot of Japan's mass media culture stems directly from this particular era of disco and dance-pop, so it makes sense that if they want to make an upbeat song it's going to be largely informed by this approach to songmaking. Dance music is all about keeping you moving, so a chord progression without a definite, hard resolution makes you feel like the song doesn't stop.
Exactly this, Stock Aitken and Waterman were huge in Japan, and most modern J-Pop (late 80s, 90s stuff mainly, after the Westcoast Pop influenced "city pop" era) is super influenced by their approach to production and arrangement. The term Eurobeat for example was first used to talk about PWL productions, and most italian productions exported to Japan were kinda knockoffs of that approach.
That's an interesting observation, but personally I think the melancholy is still the main reason. Some progressions just naturally ring accord better with the nature and mindset of people in a particular society.
totally not true lol. Don't why everyone when talking about other continents' music just don't give deeper insight and on a whim, everything is prescribed as modern music and common to western influences. No, this progression is not from disco music, and it bears roots in old Japanese music common sense, in traditional music. As also in old music roots of Oriental cultures overall, be it Japanese, African, Arabic etc. Of course, this is not an absolute model of traditional music progression in oriental nations, but a derivate of clash with the modern perception of music and traditional common music sense.
I was wondering why this sounded so familiar and then it hit me: I grew up attending Latin American churches. I started playing piano there as a teenager. This is a common progression in many church songs (mostly from the 90’s). Many of the songs would feature a I - ii - V verse with this Japanese progression in the chorus section.
It's also even more interesting when you think of songs like Llorando se Fue which even has the chorus sang in japanese after the third verse (can't confirm if that's the right verse)
@@LaRana08 assuming you're not joking, it means that you build up some kind of expectation of something ( not necessarily musical ) and then instead of that you start totally unexpectedly playing Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up".
7:52 "Ongoing story." That has got to the most absolute big brain way of describing this. The fact that A LOT of anime/manga have a really long story to them or even after the anime/manga "finishes" people still wait it to go somewhere; they want more. Maybe that's what causes people to want to listen to these kinds of songs on infinite loop.
The Japanese name refers to the saying attributed to the Greek mathematician Euclid, "There is no royal road to geometry," supposedly as a response to the Pharaoh Ptolemy I Soter who wanted a shorter, painless way to learn the subject. So a royal road originally meant an easy path in this context. Edited to clarify that this is where the expression originated and is not necessarily how Japanese speakers would understand the term nowadays.
Yep, Euclid said Ptolemy Soter had to start at the beginning. How else would he get to the final stage of proving that there were only five perfect solids and that Plato was right that they involved irrationals?
This chord progression sounds like what really really missing someone feels like. Your happy at the thought of that person but also sad at the same time because there not here.
This explains why I get such a positive feeling when I listen to japanese music. As someone who tends to worry a lot, I always get a hopeful feeling after listening and it’s very motivating!
“O-Do” is commonly used in Japanese to mean the standard way of doing something. Not necessarily better or easier, but accepted as the standard. Adding milk is the “O-Do” way of eating cereal, for example. The opposite is “Ja-Do” which literally means “the snake way” meaning a non-standard way (and not in a good sense.) Eating cereal with water is Ja-Do. So the translation of O-Do Shinkou could simply be something like “the standard chord progression”. Meanwhile, unresolved tension is a big part of Japanese social culture (and subsequently anime content) and I think this chord progression mirrors that nicely by trying to resolve to the tonic but never quite getting there.
邪道 isn't snake way, it's evil/malicious/wrong way. You're referring to 蛇道 which is a Buddhist term that describes a where the punished are turned into a snake.
plastic love does use this chord progression too (replaces IV with ii, like rick astley). I'm suprised not much people mention this when its one of the most internet popular examples. It is also curious how the lyrics goes like "plastic beat, plastic love" like the composer was aware of the chord progression being the easy way
@@BasilLevski i agree, seems like the composer knows where to add flavor and where to keep it straight. The final result is very magical music, 80s musicians were so good at that..
This chord progression literally SOUNDS like the Hero’s Journey in an RPG. The first is soft and warm, like the protagonist’s home town. The second presents adventure, a challenge for the hero to rise to. The third presents uncertainty and sadness, the hero doubting themselves at a low point. But finally the forth comes, the hero breaks their slump and rises to the occasion.
"Hero's Journey" isn't from RPGs, the earliest example seen in human history is the Epic of Gilgamesh. I hope I clear this up for any children unfamiliar with real life heroic tales
iii is dominant of vi. its a type of subtle modulation. more pronounced modulation is the IV-V-III-vi progression when the 3 of the vi is sharpened to give you that "harmonic minor" vibe, this really amplfies the "iii-vi" feeling. for instance in C major it gives you the chromatic f-g-g#-a which is super useful in building tension/emotion
This progression always felt like a beautiful story unraveling itself, powering through,blossoming and leaving this nostalgic feeling that keeps you coming back, subconsciously having your mind returning and/or gravitating towards music similar to it.
Bowser's Peaches song mainly uses this chord progression!!!! Also, the IV-V-iii-vi is a very very common sequence in Filipino songs but with an added ii-V-I-(I7 if repeating) to the original "Royal Road" progression.
A lot of popular old filipino songs are straight up plagiarized japanese songs. There's a compilation in youtube, you can look it up. I was so surprised myself
Ah, now I understand why most Japanese anime songs sound very similar to each other and this explained why. Thanks for the video! Also I'm glad you put in Super Mario 64 as an example, so that's pretty neato.
@@rarecrom But that anime aspect have to come somewhere. There are reasons why Shonen follow a pattern and LN (especially Isekai, oh god) follows a pattern. Even their Drama is similar, assuming they are not based on anime/manga itself. Compare that to K-Drama, for example. Popular media (not literature) is more than influenced by a culture; it's a reflection of it
This is blowing my mind a bit right now. It makes sense, but it also feels weird that there's a clear-cut science to why I've always had an ear for J-Pop/Rock & other Japanese-influenced music.
From what I understand, this chord progression comes from the way the Japanese non-pentatonic scale developed before western music introduced the chromatic scale. There's a video essay on why Joe Hiashi's music is so good that explains it very well
@@cafecombaunilha th-cam.com/video/hQ9wt3sxpwk/w-d-xo.html the original essay was by Sideways, who does a bunch of other interesting music analysis (including a fantastic one on why the 2017 CATS is a TRAVESTY)
@@joy7367 I meant it as like. It's almost a pentatonic scale but it doesn't quite match up with how the west defines a pentatonic scale; it's still the five notes, but with a slight difference in a select few intervals
@@TheMemeMachineNowInHD If I had to guess, starting from C: The pentatonic scale we tend to refer to in the West: C, D, E, G, A. The one you may be talking about: C, D, E-Flat, G, A. Of course I'm not quite an expert and it seems too easy, but at least that one sounds familiar to me, especially transposed a tone higher (D, E, F, A, B), for example if you are familiar with Mai Shiranui's original theme in Fatal Fury 2, they are literally the first notes played by the flute.
So much about anime is about never giving up and this progression never resolving back to the tonic gives it this sense of uplifting endurance that makes you feel like you can get up and keep going.
After listening to J-Pop for the past 8 years (oh god, has it been that long?), I can confirm that this progression is absolutely everywhere. Even if it's not the main chord progression, they'll jam it in somewhere. At least in the style that I like, that is. XD
I have noticed that j-pop composers don't like simplicity. They use passing chords, secondary chords, modal interchange or any other harmonic resource whenever they can. For example, instead of a simple I to IV change they do a I - IIm/IV - V7/IV - IV, which is a subdominant 2 5 1. (In C major the chords would be C Gm C7 F). It's a very interesting music style for any music analyst.
I enjoyed your brilliant video. If I were to add something, the "royal road" progression refers to the basic and authentic progression as per Japan's words.
I find Japanese Pop/Rock music more similar in chord progressions and melodies to European Pop/Rock (EuroPop) and 70's 80's UK Pop/Rock, with diatonic melodies inspired by Classical music, whereas US Pop/Rock as well as K-Pop music is highly pentatonic based (Blues scales). On a side note, I find Japanese musicians to be a lot more educated in music theory than we are in the West.
Japanese seem more educated in music theory to the point that those who don't have a great understanding of it still seem to of absorbed it by osmosis lol. It sounds kind of like a contradiction, but the first tools we have are our ears and it's easier to create something you've heard your entire life. I say this from studying my favorite composers and reading interviews with them too
Maybe this is why I like Japanese music (anime, videogames) so much, it has a lot more melody and diatonic scales compared to... Rap or whatever the west are into these days
if you wanna hear more while we wait , Gavin Leeper's channel has had some great videos about Japanese chord progressions. Truly awesome stuff as much as they're emotional/nostalgic/melancholic. Just glad to see more jp chord progression coverage
There’s a song by Utada Hikaru called Michi (literally Road) and they sing a few English lyrics ‘it’s a lonely road.’ I think the progression is similar but with maybe some different added notes, and hearing about the ‘royal road’ name adds something extra. I have no doubt they know the name of the progression and would love if they were making an extra music theory joke there. 😅
I guess this is one of the things that I really love about Japanese music, it feels playful but also nostalgic at the same time. The examples gave me chills, it feels so familiar even when it’s not.
That's a really good way to put it. I don't know why I enjoy Japanese pop music so much, but when I hear it, it just feels somehow familiar even though I might not know the song. Like that last song he played in the outro. I have no idea what it was. But it brought back those warm memories of childhood.
Man, I don't know a thing in music but all i know is this is my favorite type of music, and now i know why some rare western music really attracts my attention, it's all because of this
Yes, that's the first one that came to my mind also. But I looked up the chord chart and it's almost, but not quite. Time After Time is actually IV V iii IV-only one note different.
David, thank you for such clarity and excellent examples to explain this concept. I've been watching several videos trying to understand this, and yours is the best ! I get it. Yay!
So I was noodling around with that Progression while you were talking, feeling a pretty good vibe....then you played Rick Ashely and now that's all I hear everytime I start strumming it.
IMO it’s popular in Japan because it translates well from their traditional instruments (like the koto) into modern instruments from the West. So that sentiment/affinity is deeply rooted in history
It's a really beautiful progression, and really does hit you with a lot of "Oooh where is it going?" vibes. What sells it for me is how composers enter it, and especially how they exit it. It's used a lot as a bridge because the IV is a tidy transition from V or I, but coming out of the vi is a whole other ball game. It's fun to add even more tension and drama, or just repeat it to keep you in that sense of being stable, yet lost, until BAM you're into some weird key change or revisit to the main theme with more instrumentation (or usually... both). It's inescapable in Japan, but somehow I never get tired of hearing it.
Another Western example of a song that uses this progression is "Knowing Me, Knowing You" by ABBA. Which was actually what I immediately thought of when I heard the progression.
@@althealligator1467 That one is very similar, but a little different. In Cmajor the "Japanese version" is F G Emin Amin, whereas the intro to "Time After Time" is F G Emin F. So only one chord different. However, it is important to note that we still get the feeling of a wandering between subdominant and dominants. Eventually "Time after Time" resolves to C in the chorus.
From music theory perspective, if the minor iii is replaced with major III, the progression actually becomes a minor progression in its relative minor. The vi would become I and the "modal mixture III" would be V. So the chord progression would then be actually VI - VII - V - i. Personally, this chord progression is less interesting than the Royal Progression because the Royal progression uses iii chord in a major key, which is a less often used chord in traditional western tonal music.
Honestly, I fully believe that skilled musicians are no different from mages and witches; like, I NEVER would have caught on to the whole reusing of those chord progressions without anyone (like you and The Axis of Awesome) pointing it all out. Musicians who can incorporate similar (or straight up the exact same) notes from other songs but do so in a way that still sounds different from others is just freaking incredible to me!
Also, I’d like to point out that out of all of the examples from Japanese media that used this chord progression, the opening theme for Madoka Magica, Connect, I feel like makes the best use of exactly what you described on the vi chord, because of how the story (and I won’t mention too much due to spoilers) never really resolves, at least from the perspective of a certain character. Music is just absolutely incredible to me!
I still can't tell that in most of this examples they are using the same progression. In the Axis of Awesome video is more obvious because they use the same instruments and the piano in particular is very "in your face". In this video I can't "hear" the chords most of the time, I'm just reading the graphics and accepting
@@fostena They are probaly using inversions of the chord or the accompaniment is melodic so it isnt as clear as hear block of chords without inversion.
I grew up listening to Yuki Kajiura and started making music myself around 16. I remember once I learned about chords I realized she uses the same basic progressions in nearly every song. Took me a while to break from it once I started composing myself. I love the progression obviously or she wouldn’t still be my favorite composer, but most of her songs could basically be combined and no one would notice. It’s a different progression than this but I think also fairly common in anime
I had the same realization while learning various Kajiura soundtrack songs on the piano. Lots of the same chord progressions, lots of (note, fifth, octave note) chords everywhere... Well. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, I guess! lmao
Kajiura is HEAVILY influenced by European Folk music, specifically from Medieval era. I believe she also lived for a time, and studied music in Europe when she was young, which is where she picked it up from Some of her songs are basically just pure traditional European music
Holy crap how crazy it feels for me to hear 0:48. A song I once downloaded as a kid off the internet - as a huge megaman fan - and thought to be incredibly niche to be featured on such a break down video from the west.
Melancholic is the feeling it always brings to mind. Never realized it was all the same chord progression, but a lot of those tunes have been in my ears for a long time, and ya, melancholy. The only time it gets close to resolving is when it's arguably at it's saddest as well, but still compelled to move forward. That's melancholy, stagnation, but still going on with it.
These chords give me goosebumps. I don't know if it is because they automatically bring me to my childhood or because they strike a chord and it is physically impossible to remain impassive.
I remember seeing a mashup of Brave Heart (Digimon) and Never Gonna Give You Up years ago, so this is the reason why they blend so well- they have almost the same chord progression
I’m doing a Japanese pop culture class this semester, and basically the main reason I’m basing my final project around Japanese music is because of this chord progression
My first thought when he played those notes was "Time After Time", because that's such a straightforward one. I love this progression no matter how many songs I hear it in. Edit: Alright, so it turns out I misheard and "Time After Time" is not an example of that chord progression. Whoops.
Time after Time is one note different, it's IV V iii IV instead of IV V iii vi, in the key of C that's F major instead of A minor for the last chord. And I know that some moron will comment "those are chords not notes" so I'll spell it out to pre-empt the "akchually...." bores: an F chord is the notes F-A-C and and A minor chord is A-C-E, they have two notes in common and one different.
There's another way of looking at this chord progression. If you regard the final chord (the vii) as the tonic in a minor key, then it become VI VII v i, ending on a perfect cadence in a minor key. The VI VII i progression has been done to death in rock and and metal - this merely interposes the dominant minor before the tonic.
Yes, this puzzled me quite a lot - why isn't it analyzed as a minor progression, any reason for that? This is also a very popular minor progression in Western electronic and dance music for its emotional load; generally a lot of VI VII X i, where X can be some other chords as well.
Being a musician and an anime fan as i am, watching this video with the information i have been looking so long, about why the music in anime often has the same kind of drama in their chord progressions... This video is awesome! thanks for sharing, really loved it and enjoyed it!
I was thinking of the same thing and was wondering if there is a benefit to thinking of this with an Ionian scale rathe than Aeolian. I’m sure some of these songs eventually do resolve to an Ionian I chord, but in isolation I’d also think of this as VI VII v i
We also tend to think of the 2nd or more strongly the 4th chord of any progression, especially one that's repeated in a loop, as a goal of harmonic motion. So, it's easier to think of the 4th chord as the tonic, which is where the motion finds rest. I also tend to hear VI VII v i. We're very strongly conditioned to hearing progressions that end on a tonic! Which makes it fun - and sometimes insightful - to think of it differently, as here.
I'm loving that there's more videos coming out about Japanese music. I've been a fan for 15 years now, been learning guitar for 2 and wanted to dig into it more. Started writing about my theory discoveries on my blog 😊 Hope I can find more people who want to learn more!
If you haven't yet, look up Marty Friedman. In the vid he talks about Japanese rock chord progression compared to US rock. I always felt that J-Rock hit different. That kind of different that feels like a breathe of fresh air. Idk if that made sense lol
@@CrackinACold1 I have! :) It was thanks to that video on him talking and demonstrating the differences that gave me the confidence to keep digging into it. While I took music class through school, we only learned how to read, not much about theory, especially not chords since we played melodic instruments. I knew Jmusic sounded different but didn't know how or why so I wanted to understand it more, especially since I'm a logical learner. In my early days, I would ask other guitarists who aren't Jmusic fans for help, but they would say 'all music is the same' and how I'm just biased when I say it's different. I could try to send a few songs, doubt they listened to it, but if they did, they probably thought that was the exception, or may try to bring up English songs that they thought were unique -__- So yeah, I've referenced that Marty clip so many times to show people what I'm talking about. I know there's many anime and Jmusic fans out there who can't find the resources they need, cause I was one of them. I really want to help them with my blog ^_^
Great video! I’ll request next video for the latest JPOP trend is a chord called the Marusa progression (IV>III>Ⅵ>I for major, Ⅵ>V>I>III for minor). This name was taken from the song Marunouchi Sadistic by Ringo Shiina, but it is also the chord used in Just the two of us. This chord progression is a favorite of recent JPOP artists such as YOASOBI, Ado and such.
One example of this in a video game, you can find by searching here on TH-cam "Project SEKAI COLORFUL STAGE! feat. Hatsune Miku Original Soundtrack Vol.2". The very first entry in the playlist that should show up as the first result is the title screen of a smartphone game. (and it also features the Royal Road progression lol)
This is great! Gives me inspiration for my own music. The Rick Astley connection is interesting too because both of his hits always reminded me of music you would hear in anime from the late 80s and early 90s. Now I know why.
The explanation in the second half of the video about the "mood" of different chords, makes perfect sense to me, but I have no idea why. Like, was music designed specifically to have these effects, or are these just observations we've made about our own music system? It sounds so intentional and yet so arbitrary at the same time
Music wasn't designed to have these effects. Music that sounds sad or dramatic to us in one culture may be construed differently in a different culture.
As far as I know it, it's a mixture between intrinsic acoustic properties (e.g. the relationships between notes in the harmonic series) and psychological associations that are deeply ingrained in our culture (minor is "sad", major is "happy", etc). Fascinating stuff, anyway!
Music is a human invention, as no other animals make music. Creatures can "sing" but not in the way we can. Music evolved from ancients' vocalization, and expressions of emotions. All sounds are vibration, and our emotional states are related to the internal vibration of our bodies and spirits. "Sad" or "happy" chords are labeled as such because of the way the sound vibrations interact and register in our minds. It's like how our tongue registers chemicals and assigns tastes. Our ears register vibrations and assign moods
Yeah, I think anime songs have made this seem like a Japanese thing to western audiences but I've heard some Cantopop and Mandopop and it's pretty common there too. I'm pretty sure this is just a broader Asian pop thing, or possibly even just a non-American or non-western pop thing.
Another great example of this chord progression that came out after I uploaded the video is “Peaches” by Jack Black from the Super Mario Movie 🍑
Great video thanks for the content made a progression in E major within 2 mins of watching. You inspire bless you.
I’ve always liked Pizzicato 5 - do they use the western or the royal road chord progression?
Highly intellectual rickrolling.
Question. Since the resolution is the minor vi, wouldn't it make more sense to analyze as minor?
bVI bVII v i
@@tiyenin you certainly could do that. I stuck with the major scale reading as that is what most other sources do. With aeolian stuff it can work just as well analysing it as the relative minor. 😊
it's like a progression that makes you want to never give it up
never let it down
Never gonna run around
Same, I love it
Or desert it
Never gonna make it cry
When that chord progression was played for the first time, I almost had a heart attack. It's like getting Rickrolled without actually getting Rickrolled.
"Together Forever" came to mind for me.
God, I know I literally almost died the last time I got rickrolled. This needs to be banned. Rickrolling is dangerous!!!
I just heard the title screen song of Hatoful Boyfriend in my head when it played. th-cam.com/video/H81MZRLr1kM/w-d-xo.html
@@tacobell2009 ?
@@tacobell2009
Are you joking? If so, lol.
I'm from Japan (born and raised), and yes this chord progression itself makes me feel like I'm home immediately.
Hi, can we start chatting somewhere? I'm from Russia and I'm really interested in Japan!
おかえりなさい
Do you get that with dear maria from all time low?
I (for some reason) read "makes me feel like I'm home immediately" as "makes me feel like I'm *horse* immediately"
@@ClovesnSpice why 🤣
This feels like the most elaborate Rick roll I've ever fallen for in my entire life
I was at 03:25 and read you comment, asking why..... Not long till I found out
The way he initially plays the progression on the piano doesn’t help.
Got together forever'ed more than anything
he was in the thumbnail.
You have only yourself to blame.
I'm Japanese and while I enjoy the video I wouldn't entire say that Odo 王道 translates to "easy way". It's more used as in the "most popular / common / basic way" and which doesn't usually mean the easy way. It's very nuanced, but in a culture where tradition is deemed important that efficiency and ease, 邪道 (antonym to 王道 and mean "malicious way") often is the easier / efficient way.
I know this doesn't really impact your main point, but something I wanted to share.
Edit: a fellow commenter suggested that "well-trodden path" might be easier for anglophones to understand.
私も同感です。「王道」という言葉は「定番」という意味で使われることが多いですね。この「王道進行」という言葉も「J-POPでよく使われる定番のコード進行」という意味で使われていると思います。
辞書によればたしかに「royal road (安易な方法･近道)」の訳語でもあるようですね。けれど「王道進行」の場合は「安易」のようなネガティブな意味合いは薄く、むしろ儒教の「王道楽土」に近いポジティブな意味合いを感じます。
@@z-e-r-o- 面白い解説、ありがとうございました。
Thanks for the information 👍! This is also nuanced but perhaps the predictive text got the better of your excellent English? I think maybe you meant to say "... in a culture where tradition is deemed more important _than_ efficiency and ease ...". Long story short, your point is that the phrase "the royal road" in Japan connotes "the best way", rather than "a shortcut" or "the easy way". If I understand you correctly!
Japanese has so many of these interesting expressions that can be so difficult to translate! I was so confused the first time I ran into this particular one, and it took a long time before I started to understand what it meant. And your explanation helped me understand it better, so thank you! It's more like the "classic" way of doing things, because it's not really a negative thing, if I understand it correctly? I first came across it as the name of a fantasy genre, where it seems to be the type of fantasy fiction that contains the typical things like magic, dragons, and elves and that sort of thing.
@@derivate_lang glad to know my comment helped you! Good luck on your journey 💪 I'd say "classic way" is like 85% good. It can be the classic and Odo way, but Odo is like the most popular way / the staple / the way something should be, and may not always mean the classic (in regards of time).
One example I thought of right now is from sushi. Nowadays, the toro cuts from tuna will probably be considered Odo, but it isn't a classic (it's relatively new to consume fatty tuna). But since it's like the norm now to order Toro, it's commonly considered as Odo.
I've wondered for YEARS why Japanese anime openings and video game soundtracks sounded like _that_ . They all had a similar feel that I couldn't quite put my finger on since I don't have a background in music theory. Thanks you for answering a decade long question for me!
What constitutes a background in music theory?
@@mushroom11g55 basic knowledge about chords and progressions
@@mushroom11g55
I had to take 4 semesters of music theory as part of my music degree. Whether it's Music Theory, or Game Theory, or Evolutionary Theory, a theory is simply a body of observations about a particular subject. All 3 are theories that you could study for many years and not fully understand. The amount of study you've had in it makes up your "background".
@@takigan where can I study for free?
@@mushroom11g55 The back of that unmarked van parked in the dark alleyway you go past on your way home. You know the one, enter it, don't be afraid, you will learn many things there.
Can't believe it took this long for you to do a Rickroll. You'd think as a music theory channel there would be more opportunities for it.
i need to hear the piranha plant sleeping theme mixed with rickroll vocals now
Well, you know the rules and so do I.
There have been a few other hidden rickrolls throughout the channel's older videos if you look closely 😉
He actually did it in one of his first videos years ago!
th-cam.com/video/dQw4w9WgXcQ/w-d-xo.html
ugh, no spoilers please :-(
You just gave a lot more people an opportunity to remix never gonna give you up into more anime songs
this pls!
Damn it…
It's kind of funny actually, I've always thought Together Forever felt like an anime song. It's got that sort of calculated sappiness. I think a good word for the vibe of this progression is sentimental, it's like reflectively emotional without being necessarily sad and can lean either direction, either more bright and happy or more somber and bittersweet.
There's also his other hit "Don't Say Goodbye", which I think has that 80's anime opening cheesiness down to a T.
Sharigan levels of assessment there senpai.
Yeah, I was playing around with the progression on piano and it definitely hits different when you use different inversions and play with the placement
“Calculated sappiness” I love that description XD Very accurate
And to be completely honest, for me "Together Forever" is better song than "Never Gonna....".
No reason, it's just feel better.
Never quite coming to a full resolution feels like a very Japanese storytelling aesthetic to me.
I think it does resolve to the minor i, for some reason david took this chord as "IV V iii vi" never resolving to the tonic I, but I strongly feel this is a minor chord progression, to me it resolve to the minor i and the "iii" is the minor v, it's litteraly a v to i, he took the minor v as a slight resolution but to me it's tension, in fact there's a popular variation of this chord progression where instead of a minor v it's a major V (or a dominant7 V or a diminished vii°) resolving again to the minor i to add even more tension and resolution, making it a V to i (my guess is that it's not as often used because with the minor v you keep everything in the natural minor scale), to me it goes: point of rest maybe slight tension (it's a chord just below the next chord and it's gonna start a movement upward) tension (this chord wants to resolve, and we have upward movement now, so it's wanting to resolve up to the minor i wich is right above) more tension (instead of going up it goes down edging that resolution with another chord that want to resolve to the minor i) and resolution (with the tonic minor i), that's the interpretation that feels to me the most accurate to how the chord progression makes me feel
@@thefakepie1126 I like your functional analysis! ✔
But please, do take a breath! 😉 - put a full stop (period) in occasionally, like this -> . Makes for much easier reading and better understanding.
@@yuyiya ........................................
Mandopop expands on this chord progression by taking it another 4 bars: IV-V-iii-vi-ii-V-I-(I7 to loop back, I to stay resolved).
@@thefakepie1126 yeah, just like that! 😆
It is worth pointing out that the writers of those two Rick Astley hits, Stock/Aitken/Waterman, used this chord progression on a TON of their hits, not just those two Rick Astley hits. It was even referred to as THE chord progression. However, they very often changed it up slightly, just as you point out with Never Gonna Give You Up.
Stock, Aitken & Waterman were big in Japan. 🤔
Its actually funny since Together Forever and Never Gonna Give you Up are part of a story that is told in that album.
Yeah, sadly the Stock/Aiken/Waterman trick didn’t age well. Astley’s singles lived on, but those guys were just rubber-stamping their projects in a terribly lazy fashion. 3 seconds into song and you’d be like “well, it’s a SAW production, when the vocals start I’ll figure out who the artist is.” I really wish they didn’t do Donna Summer’s “Another Place in Time” album because there’s @that sound.” (Interestingly the album cover has Donna in Kabuki makeup and the artwork is stylized to look “Japanese” - go figure).
@@cwize Really? I love that Donna Summer album. IMO, SAW were vastly underrated by critics.
@@stephenmcg4299, one of the few times that 'big in Japan' isn't a euphemism for a failing career!
As a Japanese person, this may be the nostalgia I feel when I listen to Western songs from the 80's.
This chord progression is very uplifting, slightly bittersweet, and gives the songs a _soaring_ and hopeful feel compared to the usual I-IV-V or I-V-vi-IV. A lot of the anime/manga series are centered around the themes of turning pain 痛み / struggle 戦い (IV-V-iii) into hope for the future 希望 (vi).
I was thinking, airy but not super-serious...love your description.
In a sense it is a variant of 4-5-1-6
why’d you use japanese if you don’t know the correct term anyway
@Punkrock Noir while i like anime, this is an extremely based comment
Using Japanese to pepper words you already used in English was absolutely a choice.
One thing that’s interesting about you including Rick Astley when discussing this topic is that for quite some time people have seen similarities between “Never Gonna Give You Up” and “Robo’s Theme”, from Chrono Trigger’s OST
Good ol' Rick Robo
When my aunt was watching the last Olympics, I overheard when they played Robo's Theme and at first I thought they were Rickrolling the world! :P
OMG I NEVER THOUGHT OF THAT
Any discussion of modern Japanese music should include Chrono Trigger.
I feel like it’s prevalence in anime songs/title sequences is exactly due to that sense of movement without resolution that you illustrated. An opening sequence shouldn’t feel resolved, it should engage you right away and then propel you into the story. I think that’s why this progression is so effective in that context.
i pressed ctrl+f and write "rick" in order to find "rickroll" and your name showed up lol
@Punkrock Noir This isn't anime specific, but thanks for the feedback.
no, its prevalence in anime songs/title sequences is due to the fact that it's common in japan.
I remember hearing this progression in songs from shows like Pokémon and Inuyasha and I felt like my doubts are just thoughts,like I can accomplish anything. It’s so nostalgic
My Will, my favorite Inu theme aside from Fukai Mori, uses this progression as well I am sure, if not something dangerously similar. I was obsessed from first listen. I'm not a musicologist but I like picking apart what makes my music taste tick.
Kyohei Tsutsumi, the godfather of J-POP, once said ”Rick Astley’s first album is filled with the sounds that Japanese people like”.
かつて筒美京平は「リック・アストリーの1stアルバムには、日本人の好むサウンドが詰まっている」と話していたそうです。
so you are saying is, japan got rickroll therefore they rick roll everyone in japan
To this day, I don't understand what is "Rick Roll"
So, have you seen the Japanese cover of Never Gonna Give You Up? The one I know is by American English cover artists on TH-cam, but it still works really well.
@Allen Wong kinda forgot japanese R and L almost sound the same
@Allen Wong unnecessary
it's not just in japan, it's all over east asia; china, taiwan, malaysia and singapore. we have singers here who are topping the regional charts for decades and their songs regularly use the same chord progression over and over again that's it's a thing to mashup their own and even their fellow artist's songs together, even during their live performances
I have no idea about Malaysia or Singapore but at least One thing is for sure. Taiwan is one of the countries most culturally influenced from Japan. Not only in pop musics fields but in almost all domains of its cultural diorama.
China in turn has heavily been influenced from Taiwanese musics in 80s-90s period. Teresa teng, Sarah chen etc..
Actually it's not far-fetched to say China didn't have proper pop musics of their own before 00s.
China's pop music till 90s or even early 00s are all just an inferior rip-off of that of Japan, Taiwan, Hongkong and more recently, South Korea.
Before K-pop hypes started around early 00s, East asian pop culture has been under the heavy influence of Japan so It's not strange to come across Japanese-specific elements in other east asian pop musics beforw 00s.
Singapore has the unique 新谣 signature back in the 60s to 90s which is nothing like anything in Japan or the west or any of its neighbours.
Unfortunately, under a government and populace that saw everything home grown as inferior, it got strangled and killed by western, Japanese and Taiwanese music. All Singaporean singers these days are basically Taiwanese in all but name. The last 新谣 song is probably 关怀方式 back in the early 90s.
Globalisation has killed a lot of good traditional music in the name of capitalism and trends.
@@Kburn1985 agreed! we had legendary xinyao singers with unique authentic sounds popping up in school campuses, which led to songs with distinctive melodies and great lyrics like 细水长流, but sadly our current system doesn't really encourage such things anymore, first with killing off the dialects and next with the speak english programs
@@tristanho1533 Greatest irony now is they're trying to bring back dialects and hawker culture, after seeing how vapid, empty and soulless "cosmopolitan" capitalist culture is. Unfortunately, they will fail badly, as people already assume 新谣 is part of the low class heartland culture, and would prefer cosmopolitan international acts.
Tried to get some friends to support local artistes performing 新谣 in a studio the other day, but they just called it low class and changed to venue to timbre, where some vapid band was aping after westerners singing some meaningless indie covers off-tune. Unfortunately, the damage is permanent and 新谣 is gone forever.
I didn’t know the word “music” needed a plural.
A video explaining the "just the two of us progression that Westerners prefer" is trending among Japanese. Therefore, watching this video explaining "the royal road progression that the Japanese prefer" actually makes me feel like I'm lost in a mirror world (because I'm Japanese).
What's the progression they say Westerners prefer?
So sorry bro, hope you get out of the mirror World soon
@@silver63801-5-6-4
Can you link it? I'd love to watch, not sure how much I'd comprehend though. My Japanese is pretty poor these days😢
@@silver6380 the chord progression from "just the two of us" of Marvin Gaye.
Lately, I've heard many Japanese video reusing this chord progression and making a new style out of it. It's called Neosoul. This first time I heard it, was on Animal Crossing, don't remember the name but, (I'll give you the link of a great cover of it.). Also in "Colourful" from Meine Meinung (Japanese band)
And you can also hear it in some great Western incluences like "Honest" from Jorja Smith.
Gives you some kinda, soul/funk/chill vibe
You are helping me return to music theory and playing my guitar in middle age, and you are doing me a world of good. Thank you!
Is just me, or this cord is popular in japanese pop music because it sounds "hopeful"?
Is like the perfect one for a hero's theme or a nostalgic medley.
This video uses the term melancholy, but yeah your take is another way to put it.
People listen to Japanese stuff and express it in many ways which are all in the same ballpark - melancholic, hopeful, sentimental, nostalgic, warmth or even wet, cheesy, corny and embarrassing.
They all reside in the same part of an emotional spectrum, and are the antithesis to muscular, hard, cruel, tough, cold, or whatever else one perceives.
I think I’d probably frame it as “hopeful with a touch of melancholy”
Absolutely agree.
Not hopeful, but rather melancholic and nostalgic. In Japanese, setsunai and natsukashii. These are two emotions that are fundamental to Japanese art and poetry.
I listen too much Sonic music, and many from his soundtrack sounds like anime openings or J-Rock/J-Pop songs lol. Just like that.
I imagine one of the big reasons this chord progression comes up so often in Japanese music is because it's very disco-y. A lot of the western examples you mention are either from the 80's or a throwback to 80's disco, like Versace on the Floor or Rick Astley's music. A lot of Japan's mass media culture stems directly from this particular era of disco and dance-pop, so it makes sense that if they want to make an upbeat song it's going to be largely informed by this approach to songmaking. Dance music is all about keeping you moving, so a chord progression without a definite, hard resolution makes you feel like the song doesn't stop.
Exactly this, Stock Aitken and Waterman were huge in Japan, and most modern J-Pop (late 80s, 90s stuff mainly, after the Westcoast Pop influenced "city pop" era) is super influenced by their approach to production and arrangement. The term Eurobeat for example was first used to talk about PWL productions, and most italian productions exported to Japan were kinda knockoffs of that approach.
That's an interesting observation, but personally I think the melancholy is still the main reason. Some progressions just naturally ring accord better with the nature and mindset of people in a particular society.
I agree
totally not true lol. Don't why everyone when talking about other continents' music just don't give deeper insight and on a whim, everything is prescribed as modern music and common to western influences. No, this progression is not from disco music, and it bears roots in old Japanese music common sense, in traditional music. As also in old music roots of Oriental cultures overall, be it Japanese, African, Arabic etc. Of course, this is not an absolute model of traditional music progression in oriental nations, but a derivate of clash with the modern perception of music and traditional common music sense.
yea! that's also why when we think of japanese music, we think of those japanese city/dance pop songs!!
I was wondering why this sounded so familiar and then it hit me:
I grew up attending Latin American churches. I started playing piano there as a teenager. This is a common progression in many church songs (mostly from the 90’s). Many of the songs would feature a I - ii - V verse with this Japanese progression in the chorus section.
It's also even more interesting when you think of songs like Llorando se Fue which even has the chorus sang in japanese after the third verse (can't confirm if that's the right verse)
Now that you've mentioned it, I'm also a church pianist i always use this chords on some songs
So what you're really saying is that these chords literally have the power of God and anime! 😂
@@thedukeofchutney468 yea. That’s probably why I always kicked into Super Saiyan when the chorus hit
@@thedukeofchutney468 lmaooo T.T
It goes like this: the fourth, the fifth, the minor fall and the major lift...!
Congrats on getting the reference.
I've never been less ready for a rickroll than now. Awesome video
What’s a rickroll?
@@LaRana08this th-cam.com/video/dQw4w9WgXcQ/w-d-xo.html
@@LaRana08 th-cam.com/video/dQw4w9WgXcQ/w-d-xo.html
you can learn about them by watching this informative video :)
@@LaRana08 you are probably toxic 9 year old / 34 year old florida man or depressed 25 year old. or you're just new to social media
@@LaRana08 assuming you're not joking, it means that you build up some kind of expectation of something ( not necessarily musical ) and then instead of that you start totally unexpectedly playing Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up".
"Plastic Love" by Mariya Takeuchi and Tatsuro Yamashita have the same progression of "Never Gonna Give You Up" (ii7, V,iii,vi)
Ahhh that's why in "everybody's plastic love circulation" mashup those two worked so well together
Always suspected that S A and W had some Japanese albums in their collections
7:52 "Ongoing story." That has got to the most absolute big brain way of describing this. The fact that A LOT of anime/manga have a really long story to them or even after the anime/manga "finishes" people still wait it to go somewhere; they want more. Maybe that's what causes people to want to listen to these kinds of songs on infinite loop.
When he said this my immediate thought was "oh like One Piece"
@@benosick8542 Still waiting for the sequel: Two Piece
@@benosick8542 The "One Piece" will just end up being the friends the made along the way. Or worse, it's just a dream from the fat guy in Lost
Royal Road Progression lives in my heart. All the American songs that had it also happened to be my favs. 😭
The Japanese name refers to the saying attributed to the Greek mathematician Euclid, "There is no royal road to geometry," supposedly as a response to the Pharaoh Ptolemy I Soter who wanted a shorter, painless way to learn the subject. So a royal road originally meant an easy path in this context.
Edited to clarify that this is where the expression originated and is not necessarily how Japanese speakers would understand the term nowadays.
This is so insightful. Needs to be higher.
Yep, Euclid said Ptolemy Soter had to start at the beginning. How else would he get to the final stage of proving that there were only five perfect solids and that Plato was right that they involved irrationals?
That may be the origin of the Japanese saying but in the context used to day it does not equate "easy path".
@@OfficialTigerino Thanks, I edited my comment to clarify that I was talking about the origin of the expression and not how it is understood today.
I thought that this was a thing Socrates (or Plato?) said to Alexander the Great
This chord progression sounds like what really really missing someone feels like. Your happy at the thought of that person but also sad at the same time because there not here.
Why does this hit so hard
Yup. 💯
Pseudo deep teenage girl stuff here 😂
Wow this is actually a very good thought. I'm happysad now :) :(
So, it's like you've known someone for so long, and your heart's been aching but you're too shy to say it?
This explains why I get such a positive feeling when I listen to japanese music. As someone who tends to worry a lot, I always get a hopeful feeling after listening and it’s very motivating!
It also feels nostalgic sometimes
Ahhhhh yess!!!! I love them cuz they tell stories in the lyrics and are more specific and descriptive compared to American pop songs!
I agree with you, especially those 80s anime openings ✨
@@princessthyemisyea American songs are all just like S%# S?# F_#%
How boring
I immediately recognized this progression as I listen to lots of songs from there but never thought so many songs had this
“O-Do” is commonly used in Japanese to mean the standard way of doing something. Not necessarily better or easier, but accepted as the standard. Adding milk is the “O-Do” way of eating cereal, for example. The opposite is “Ja-Do” which literally means “the snake way” meaning a non-standard way (and not in a good sense.) Eating cereal with water is Ja-Do. So the translation of O-Do Shinkou could simply be something like “the standard chord progression”. Meanwhile, unresolved tension is a big part of Japanese social culture (and subsequently anime content) and I think this chord progression mirrors that nicely by trying to resolve to the tonic but never quite getting there.
Is it 蛇道 (snake way) or 邪道 (evil way)? They're both pronounced the same, but I've never heard of the 'snake way' etymology before.
@@TheWanderingNight it's 邪道 the op is wrong in his translation
邪道 isn't snake way, it's evil/malicious/wrong way. You're referring to 蛇道 which is a Buddhist term that describes a where the punished are turned into a snake.
i eat Evil Way cereal. its not too bad
@@TheWanderingNight I feel like the closest translation would be the mainstream
plastic love does use this chord progression too (replaces IV with ii, like rick astley). I'm suprised not much people mention this when its one of the most internet popular examples. It is also curious how the lyrics goes like "plastic beat, plastic love" like the composer was aware of the chord progression being the easy way
I knew it sounded similar!
Plus it does have this melodramatic feeling to it as well, so it fits.
yeah I was waiting for David to mention it
ye ii instead of IV and V7b9 instead of V which adds some crunch - really boring tune without that added flavour
@@BasilLevski i agree, seems like the composer knows where to add flavor and where to keep it straight. The final result is very magical music, 80s musicians were so good at that..
plastic love was one of the first things I thought of
This chord progression literally SOUNDS like the Hero’s Journey in an RPG. The first is soft and warm, like the protagonist’s home town. The second presents adventure, a challenge for the hero to rise to. The third presents uncertainty and sadness, the hero doubting themselves at a low point. But finally the forth comes, the hero breaks their slump and rises to the occasion.
ok this SUPER helps explain a lot, ty!
Really cool way to put it, after all, art is all about expression.
For people following along at home, what he's calling the "first" is the IV chord, the "second" is the V chord, etc...
cringe
"Hero's Journey" isn't from RPGs, the earliest example seen in human history is the Epic of Gilgamesh. I hope I clear this up for any children unfamiliar with real life heroic tales
iii is dominant of vi. its a type of subtle modulation.
more pronounced modulation is the IV-V-III-vi progression when the 3 of the vi is sharpened to give you that "harmonic minor" vibe, this really amplfies the "iii-vi" feeling. for instance in C major it gives you the chromatic f-g-g#-a which is super useful in building tension/emotion
This progression always felt like a beautiful story unraveling itself, powering through,blossoming and leaving this nostalgic feeling that keeps you coming back, subconsciously having your mind returning and/or gravitating towards music similar to it.
Wow. Yes! Very beautifully worded. 😊
Bowser's Peaches song mainly uses this chord progression!!!!
Also, the IV-V-iii-vi is a very very common sequence in Filipino songs but with an added ii-V-I-(I7 if repeating) to the original "Royal Road" progression.
dude i heard the peaches too lol
It's a great reference to Japanese music structure.
A lot of popular old filipino songs are straight up plagiarized japanese songs. There's a compilation in youtube, you can look it up. I was so surprised myself
Peaches peaches peaches peaches peaches peaches peaches... i love youuuu
because its based off of the rick roll . so peaches is rick rolling you ( this was intended by the writer )
Ah, now I understand why most Japanese anime songs sound very similar to each other and this explained why. Thanks for the video!
Also I'm glad you put in Super Mario 64 as an example, so that's pretty neato.
The third does all the magic
Meanwhile me who still cant get this iv v iii vi thing
You do a great job of explaining in words the movement and feeling of individual chords and the progression as a whole
It evokes hope and has a sense of overcoming challenge. Japanese storytelling is really big on those themes.
Pretty much the quintessential Shonen plotline.
@@Jestersagejapan ≠ anime
@@rarecrom But that anime aspect have to come somewhere. There are reasons why Shonen follow a pattern and LN (especially Isekai, oh god) follows a pattern. Even their Drama is similar, assuming they are not based on anime/manga itself.
Compare that to K-Drama, for example.
Popular media (not literature) is more than influenced by a culture; it's a reflection of it
You relate that to music because of the story, not the other way around.
Add Kurosawa for cinema, even Miyazaki is amazed with him
This is blowing my mind a bit right now. It makes sense, but it also feels weird that there's a clear-cut science to why I've always had an ear for J-Pop/Rock & other Japanese-influenced music.
me to even though i come from trance music
everything is science man. Even the emotions you feel from music and why you agree with certain emotions that music may portray
@@lordtraxroy that chord progression was used quite a lot in eurotrance or happy hardcore of 90s
Weeberosis
Because you're a weeb
From what I understand, this chord progression comes from the way the Japanese non-pentatonic scale developed before western music introduced the chromatic scale. There's a video essay on why Joe Hiashi's music is so good that explains it very well
could you link the video essay here, please? got me curious
@@cafecombaunilha th-cam.com/video/hQ9wt3sxpwk/w-d-xo.html the original essay was by Sideways, who does a bunch of other interesting music analysis (including a fantastic one on why the 2017 CATS is a TRAVESTY)
what's the non-pentatonic scale? is it all scales that are not the pentatonic scale?
@@joy7367 I meant it as like. It's almost a pentatonic scale but it doesn't quite match up with how the west defines a pentatonic scale; it's still the five notes, but with a slight difference in a select few intervals
@@TheMemeMachineNowInHD If I had to guess, starting from C:
The pentatonic scale we tend to refer to in the West: C, D, E, G, A.
The one you may be talking about: C, D, E-Flat, G, A.
Of course I'm not quite an expert and it seems too easy, but at least that one sounds familiar to me, especially transposed a tone higher (D, E, F, A, B), for example if you are familiar with Mai Shiranui's original theme in Fatal Fury 2, they are literally the first notes played by the flute.
As soon as you played the chird progression, in the first 10 seconds, i thought
"If you're lost and you look, then you will find me! Time after time!"
So much about anime is about never giving up and this progression never resolving back to the tonic gives it this sense of uplifting endurance that makes you feel like you can get up and keep going.
So true, never getting up, never letting down, never running around and never deserting.
They do sometimes make you cry though.
Absolutely. "Never gonna give you up" feeling
Also its often very dramatic and emotional.
Is this a subtle Rick Roll
After listening to J-Pop for the past 8 years (oh god, has it been that long?), I can confirm that this progression is absolutely everywhere. Even if it's not the main chord progression, they'll jam it in somewhere. At least in the style that I like, that is. XD
I have noticed that j-pop composers don't like simplicity. They use passing chords, secondary chords, modal interchange or any other harmonic resource whenever they can. For example, instead of a simple I to IV change they do a I - IIm/IV - V7/IV - IV, which is a subdominant 2 5 1. (In C major the chords would be C Gm C7 F). It's a very interesting music style for any music analyst.
Look at onepiece's second(?) opening "We Go" 🤯
@@YounesLayachi That's a good example
@@YounesLayachi you mean 15th opening
But ok xD
@@M-yue882 huh ? Were there really 14 different opening songs before "we go" ?
@@YounesLayachi
Yeh exactly
"We go" is the 1st opening Post Time-skip
I enjoyed your brilliant video. If I were to add something, the "royal road" progression refers to the basic and authentic progression as per Japan's words.
I find Japanese Pop/Rock music more similar in chord progressions and melodies to European Pop/Rock (EuroPop) and 70's 80's UK Pop/Rock, with diatonic melodies inspired by Classical music, whereas US Pop/Rock as well as K-Pop music is highly pentatonic based (Blues scales). On a side note, I find Japanese musicians to be a lot more educated in music theory than we are in the West.
Japanese seem more educated in music theory to the point that those who don't have a great understanding of it still seem to of absorbed it by osmosis lol.
It sounds kind of like a contradiction, but the first tools we have are our ears and it's easier to create something you've heard your entire life.
I say this from studying my favorite composers and reading interviews with them too
Agree
Maybe this is why I like Japanese music (anime, videogames) so much, it has a lot more melody and diatonic scales compared to... Rap or whatever the west are into these days
@@YounesLayachi you sound so cool saying that
@@YounesLayachi agree with previous commenter. Much cool, very impressive.
Got Rick rolled so beautifully i'm not even mad. Great stuff, as always.
😊😊
Please more vids on modern Japanese chord progressions. It's awesome!
+++++
just japanese music in general would be cool
Just take the vi and make it a VI. They do a lot of mixolydian too! That’s a very modern take
if you wanna hear more while we wait , Gavin Leeper's channel has had some great videos about Japanese chord progressions. Truly awesome stuff as much as they're emotional/nostalgic/melancholic. Just glad to see more jp chord progression coverage
Korean too. A lot of people love to hate Kpop, but Kpop harmony can be pretty interesting.
There’s a song by Utada Hikaru called Michi (literally Road) and they sing a few English lyrics ‘it’s a lonely road.’ I think the progression is similar but with maybe some different added notes, and hearing about the ‘royal road’ name adds something extra. I have no doubt they know the name of the progression and would love if they were making an extra music theory joke there. 😅
I almost cried when you listed Brave Heart 😭that's definitely how I first made a connection with that chord progression and it still hits hard
Same it reallly hit out of nowhere
The nostalgia bomb you put with the example songs in the beginning almost broke me
It was the Pokémon that killed me 🥲
I guess this is one of the things that I really love about Japanese music, it feels playful but also nostalgic at the same time. The examples gave me chills, it feels so familiar even when it’s not.
That's a really good way to put it. I don't know why I enjoy Japanese pop music so much, but when I hear it, it just feels somehow familiar even though I might not know the song.
Like that last song he played in the outro. I have no idea what it was. But it brought back those warm memories of childhood.
Man, I don't know a thing in music but all i know is this is my favorite type of music, and now i know why some rare western music really attracts my attention, it's all because of this
"Time after Time" by Cindy Lauper comes to mind.
As always an excellent breakdown. Thank you!
Yes, that's the first one that came to my mind also. But I looked up the chord chart and it's almost, but not quite. Time After Time is actually IV V iii IV-only one note different.
That’s exactly what I thought of too.
Thank you! It was gnawing at my brain and I just couldn't remember what it went to.
First thing that came to mind!
A ton of Western 70s/80s hits use subtle variations on these progressions. Examples include Material Girl, Bizarre Love Triangle, and September.
The progression sounds like a very melancholic way to resolve tension. This is why it's popular for them. It almost has a romantic quality to it.
uplifting trance music use that type of progression as well also trance has become over the time really melancholic and romantic
@@lordtraxroy Nitrous Oxide FTW!! Check out "Show Me" or "Cyan"
David, thank you for such clarity and excellent examples to explain this concept. I've been watching several videos trying to understand this, and yours is the best ! I get it. Yay!
So I was noodling around with that Progression while you were talking, feeling a pretty good vibe....then you played Rick Ashely and now that's all I hear everytime I start strumming it.
IMO it’s popular in Japan because it translates well from their traditional instruments (like the koto) into modern instruments from the West. So that sentiment/affinity is deeply rooted in history
Yup. Probably right
It's a really beautiful progression, and really does hit you with a lot of "Oooh where is it going?" vibes. What sells it for me is how composers enter it, and especially how they exit it. It's used a lot as a bridge because the IV is a tidy transition from V or I, but coming out of the vi is a whole other ball game. It's fun to add even more tension and drama, or just repeat it to keep you in that sense of being stable, yet lost, until BAM you're into some weird key change or revisit to the main theme with more instrumentation (or usually... both). It's inescapable in Japan, but somehow I never get tired of hearing it.
lovely explanation of the subdom, dom, tonic, resolution and tension bit, thank you
Another Western example of a song that uses this progression is "Knowing Me, Knowing You" by ABBA. Which was actually what I immediately thought of when I heard the progression.
I thought of that bit in Time After Time
I thought about Not The One by RHCP's new album
And that song catches on
@@althealligator1467 That one is very similar, but a little different. In Cmajor the "Japanese version" is F G Emin Amin, whereas the intro to "Time After Time" is F G Emin F. So only one chord different. However, it is important to note that we still get the feeling of a wandering between subdominant and dominants. Eventually "Time after Time" resolves to C in the chorus.
I love that song so much
I personally love it when this progression has a major 3 chord instead of a minor. Gives it an intoxicatingly melancholic feeling
Feels like almost home
i love ii9 V6 III IV
major 3 goes hard i cant lie
Any examples please?
From music theory perspective, if the minor iii is replaced with major III, the progression actually becomes a minor progression in its relative minor. The vi would become I and the "modal mixture III" would be V. So the chord progression would then be actually VI - VII - V - i. Personally, this chord progression is less interesting than the Royal Progression because the Royal progression uses iii chord in a major key, which is a less often used chord in traditional western tonal music.
3:26 this is a very interesting and simple concept man. Every musician should remember and use it 🤯🤯🤯
@@1-seed-slot-pvz-YT yeah, that's also true
Wow. You're absolutely right.
This comment thread...
So thats how they do it
Damn it 😅
When you realize that one of your favorite game soundtracks has half the songs including this very prominently
I always thought of the chord progression as 'Things seem dark but there's always a glimmer of hope"
Honestly, I fully believe that skilled musicians are no different from mages and witches; like, I NEVER would have caught on to the whole reusing of those chord progressions without anyone (like you and The Axis of Awesome) pointing it all out.
Musicians who can incorporate similar (or straight up the exact same) notes from other songs but do so in a way that still sounds different from others is just freaking incredible to me!
Also, I’d like to point out that out of all of the examples from Japanese media that used this chord progression, the opening theme for Madoka Magica, Connect, I feel like makes the best use of exactly what you described on the vi chord, because of how the story (and I won’t mention too much due to spoilers) never really resolves, at least from the perspective of a certain character.
Music is just absolutely incredible to me!
@@jaraidiarmuid9093 you want dark magic?
i take da progression i invrt da chords i add da revrb i add distrtion stuff add BOOM BAP in da baground
i am magicin get rekt muggles it all magic.
I still can't tell that in most of this examples they are using the same progression. In the Axis of Awesome video is more obvious because they use the same instruments and the piano in particular is very "in your face". In this video I can't "hear" the chords most of the time, I'm just reading the graphics and accepting
@@fostena They are probaly using inversions of the chord or the accompaniment is melodic so it isnt as clear as hear block of chords without inversion.
I grew up listening to Yuki Kajiura and started making music myself around 16. I remember once I learned about chords I realized she uses the same basic progressions in nearly every song. Took me a while to break from it once I started composing myself. I love the progression obviously or she wouldn’t still be my favorite composer, but most of her songs could basically be combined and no one would notice. It’s a different progression than this but I think also fairly common in anime
I had the same realization while learning various Kajiura soundtrack songs on the piano. Lots of the same chord progressions, lots of (note, fifth, octave note) chords everywhere...
Well. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, I guess! lmao
Kajiura is HEAVILY influenced by European Folk music, specifically from Medieval era. I believe she also lived for a time, and studied music in Europe when she was young, which is where she picked it up from
Some of her songs are basically just pure traditional European music
Yuki Kajiura is incredible! She mixes so many influences so skillfully.
@Punkrock Noir why the heck are you spamming this everywhere?
Holy crap how crazy it feels for me to hear 0:48. A song I once downloaded as a kid off the internet - as a huge megaman fan - and thought to be incredibly niche to be featured on such a break down video from the west.
Came for Japanese chord progression songs, got Rickrolled, instantly thought of Robo's Theme from Chrono Trigger. Great video
YES i rickrolled my family with robo's theme once haha
I was hoping someone had mentioned Mitsuda's composition for Robo's theme
3:26 this part is really useful im gonna make a song using this
This is probably the most interesting and educational Rick Roll in existence. Well done. This was really cool! Enjoyed this a lot. God bless you!
no wonder i love japans music so much. definitely gonna use this "core" for my music searches now
Melancholic is the feeling it always brings to mind. Never realized it was all the same chord progression, but a lot of those tunes have been in my ears for a long time, and ya, melancholy.
The only time it gets close to resolving is when it's arguably at it's saddest as well, but still compelled to move forward. That's melancholy, stagnation, but still going on with it.
These chords give me goosebumps. I don't know if it is because they automatically bring me to my childhood or because they strike a chord and it is physically impossible to remain impassive.
"Strike a chord..." 😂 you funny, in a good way
It’s such a beautiful and pleasing chord progression, and probably a big reason why I’m drawn to so much Japanese music lol
You explain the function of the chords so well, it's really engaging. Nice work!
As someone who loves Japanese music, but doesn’t know any music theory (even though I play the piano) I really appreciate this kind of videos.
honestly western music these days is either just bad, or repetitive, while Japanese or even Chinese and other language songs are much more interesting
@@monkeymuncher2 You’re not looking in the correct places if you think English music is bad or repetitive.
@@Rambleology tell me some good songs then
@@monkeymuncher2 th-cam.com/video/X_8Nh5XfRw0/w-d-xo.html
@@monkeymuncher2 genshin and Yu-peng Chen🌸
I remember seeing a mashup of Brave Heart (Digimon) and Never Gonna Give You Up years ago, so this is the reason why they blend so well- they have almost the same chord progression
I’m doing a Japanese pop culture class this semester, and basically the main reason I’m basing my final project around Japanese music is because of this chord progression
My first thought when he played those notes was "Time After Time", because that's such a straightforward one. I love this progression no matter how many songs I hear it in.
Edit: Alright, so it turns out I misheard and "Time After Time" is not an example of that chord progression. Whoops.
Time after Time is one note different, it's IV V iii IV instead of IV V iii vi, in the key of C that's F major instead of A minor for the last chord. And I know that some moron will comment "those are chords not notes" so I'll spell it out to pre-empt the "akchually...." bores: an F chord is the notes F-A-C and and A minor chord is A-C-E, they have two notes in common and one different.
thats the same thing that came to my mind lol
I think this progression is very interesting when the III of the progression is a major chord, for example
F | G | E | Am
Average secondary dominant enjoyer
Just made a progression with it in e major the bass notes are perfect for some happy DnB!
What would it be if instead of F there was C?
Sorry all i know about music theory is that i should start studying it.
@@dantefloressq This progression works well in major or "ionian" mode. It's Ok in minor but sounds a little obscured in my opinion.
@@beejazz3185 More like functional dominant. That's just the Andalusian cadence in a different order.
That chord progression is all over DDR tracks. Absolutely love it, so nostalgic.
There's another way of looking at this chord progression. If you regard the final chord (the vii) as the tonic in a minor key, then it become VI VII v i, ending on a perfect cadence in a minor key. The VI VII i progression has been done to death in rock and and metal - this merely interposes the dominant minor before the tonic.
Yes, this puzzled me quite a lot - why isn't it analyzed as a minor progression, any reason for that? This is also a very popular minor progression in Western electronic and dance music for its emotional load; generally a lot of VI VII X i, where X can be some other chords as well.
Thank you!
@@BartWronsk People just tend to analyze chord progressions in the relative major for some odd reason.
I was thinking this too. Why wouldn't we analyze it in minor instead??
I think it depends on if it actually resolves to that final chord.
one of my favourites
Being a musician and an anime fan as i am, watching this video with the information i have been looking so long, about why the music in anime often has the same kind of drama in their chord progressions... This video is awesome! thanks for sharing, really loved it and enjoyed it!
I really recommend you check out Gavin Leeper’s channel. He’s a wealth of knowledge in Japanese music theory
I tend to default to minor scales when I write (more forgiving of accidentals), so I tend to hear vi as i.
VI, VII, v, i
I was thinking of the same thing and was wondering if there is a benefit to thinking of this with an Ionian scale rathe than Aeolian. I’m sure some of these songs eventually do resolve to an Ionian I chord, but in isolation I’d also think of this as VI VII v i
I was thinking the same thing to be honest
And so was I...
We also tend to think of the 2nd or more strongly the 4th chord of any progression, especially one that's repeated in a loop, as a goal of harmonic motion. So, it's easier to think of the 4th chord as the tonic, which is where the motion finds rest. I also tend to hear VI VII v i. We're very strongly conditioned to hearing progressions that end on a tonic! Which makes it fun - and sometimes insightful - to think of it differently, as here.
+1 yes yes YES! I'm glad I'm not mad!
I'm loving that there's more videos coming out about Japanese music. I've been a fan for 15 years now, been learning guitar for 2 and wanted to dig into it more. Started writing about my theory discoveries on my blog 😊 Hope I can find more people who want to learn more!
Could I get a link to that blog? Also learning guitar and have been a longtime fan of anime music.
@@kevindemand look up 'ChromaticDreamers' :)
If you haven't yet, look up Marty Friedman. In the vid he talks about Japanese rock chord progression compared to US rock. I always felt that J-Rock hit different. That kind of different that feels like a breathe of fresh air. Idk if that made sense lol
@@CrackinACold1 I have! :) It was thanks to that video on him talking and demonstrating the differences that gave me the confidence to keep digging into it. While I took music class through school, we only learned how to read, not much about theory, especially not chords since we played melodic instruments. I knew Jmusic sounded different but didn't know how or why so I wanted to understand it more, especially since I'm a logical learner. In my early days, I would ask other guitarists who aren't Jmusic fans for help, but they would say 'all music is the same' and how I'm just biased when I say it's different. I could try to send a few songs, doubt they listened to it, but if they did, they probably thought that was the exception, or may try to bring up English songs that they thought were unique -__- So yeah, I've referenced that Marty clip so many times to show people what I'm talking about. I know there's many anime and Jmusic fans out there who can't find the resources they need, cause I was one of them. I really want to help them with my blog ^_^
4:20 for some reason this song does have a japanese vibe to it. I could imagine Japanese guy singing it or it being in an anime
Those chords will never let you down or desert you
I like how you just jam session over the credits. That's one way to keep people engaged.
Great video!
I’ll request next video for the latest JPOP trend is a chord called the Marusa progression (IV>III>Ⅵ>I for major, Ⅵ>V>I>III for minor). This name was taken from the song Marunouchi Sadistic by Ringo Shiina, but it is also the chord used in Just the two of us.
This chord progression is a favorite of recent JPOP artists such as YOASOBI, Ado and such.
Interesting! I’ll have to check that out. Thanks for the suggestion
One example of this in a video game, you can find by searching here on TH-cam "Project SEKAI COLORFUL STAGE! feat. Hatsune Miku Original Soundtrack Vol.2". The very first entry in the playlist that should show up as the first result is the title screen of a smartphone game. (and it also features the Royal Road progression lol)
This is great! Gives me inspiration for my own music. The Rick Astley connection is interesting too because both of his hits always reminded me of music you would hear in anime from the late 80s and early 90s. Now I know why.
The explanation in the second half of the video about the "mood" of different chords, makes perfect sense to me, but I have no idea why. Like, was music designed specifically to have these effects, or are these just observations we've made about our own music system? It sounds so intentional and yet so arbitrary at the same time
Music wasn't designed to have these effects. Music that sounds sad or dramatic to us in one culture may be construed differently in a different culture.
As far as I know it, it's a mixture between intrinsic acoustic properties (e.g. the relationships between notes in the harmonic series) and psychological associations that are deeply ingrained in our culture (minor is "sad", major is "happy", etc). Fascinating stuff, anyway!
Music is a human invention, as no other animals make music. Creatures can "sing" but not in the way we can.
Music evolved from ancients' vocalization, and expressions of emotions. All sounds are vibration, and our emotional states are related to the internal vibration of our bodies and spirits. "Sad" or "happy" chords are labeled as such because of the way the sound vibrations interact and register in our minds.
It's like how our tongue registers chemicals and assigns tastes. Our ears register vibrations and assign moods
Most Chinese pop songs used this chord progression too, for example, this progression is used in a lot of Jay Chow’s songs choruses.
Yeah, I think anime songs have made this seem like a Japanese thing to western audiences but I've heard some Cantopop and Mandopop and it's pretty common there too. I'm pretty sure this is just a broader Asian pop thing, or possibly even just a non-American or non-western pop thing.
Marty Friedman: You know Jay Chow?!
because of 80s to 90s eurodance and japanese pop's affections?
Of course, Rick Astley is huge in Japan. I saw him there a few years ago in a festival.
Now that I think about it, he sounds like a Japanese guy with a deep voice singing in English
oh my god i hear it in everything japanese nw this is wicked
🇯🇵😊