Ya know 12tone, I’ve been thinking about “that chord” in Stairway to Heaven and I think it’s a CaugM7 chord. Obviously, for a chord to work either it has to be from top to bottom or an inversion, but this doesn’t always have to be the case. Chromatic voice leading is a good example of this, chords that might not follow the rules of functional harmony, but still operate just as well. If not better. I think that this chord operates as a way to get to the 3rd inversion CMaj chord that followed. That’s just my opinion though.
Check out the quickie two-bar transition between the solo and outro, right at the end ("roll"). Sounds weird, right? John Paul Jones probably spaced out and missed a change, getting back with the program after a quarter-note... it was good enough for rock n' roll, and the rest is history. If memory serves me right my guitar teacher pointed this out to me 30 years ago and somehow it stayed in the noggin.
If I remember correctly, in one interview Cohen said singing the word Hallelujah was especially important to him because people have sung this word for thousand years and since he is singing about troubles that everyone has in life I think choir joining him in the chorus really makes the song.
I’m so glad you revisited Hallelujah! I had actually noticed a lot that dealt with the melodies you mentioned in this video and made a HUGE comment on it in one of your Q&A videos where I explain what I believed the “secret chord” was (that C minor chord). As an amateur music theorist who’s learned a lot from watching your videos, this was a good surprise for me. Thank you!
In Stairway to Heaven, I think the best way to look at that chord is actually Eaug! Here's why: When analyzing chords, we shouldn't be fooled by the melody - singers sing out-of-chord notes all the time, and we don't change the chord name every time that happens. Like you said, it's more of a tension here. Ignoring it we get the remaining notes Ab C E. This is supposedly an Abaug, but I think the chord still has a dominant (V) degree feel to it, despite the underlying line cliché. So I think it is better labeled as an Eaug, so as to be the relative dominant of the Am.
It's basically a E Augmented with a natural 5th also. Having the C under the B though makes the interval a major 7th rather than a minor 9th so it works. The voicing also has the E-B on the top so that strong 5th helps the melody B stand strong and carry itself upwards towards C in chromatic contrary motion with the bass moving down to G
I'd be a bit careful with that. The melody can change the chord. In 8-bit music, where a lot of the harmony is implied, the melody is an essential part of the chords. Sometimes the note the melody sings is so prevalent that I think changing the chord's name is the right approach. In the chorus of RHCP's Parallel Universe, the melody sings a long, strong F when the other instruments are playing a G (G5). As a whole it sounds like a G7 chord and notating/analysing it as G or G5 would lose that quality. Doing that would only be useful as a instruction to the musicians.
A♭+ and E+/G♯ are going to be performed the same way, but the first one takes just a split second less time to decode. It's all a matter of whether you're optimizing for analysis or optimizing for sight-reading. One is better for one purpose, one for the other.
At the same time that I think these videos are fascinating and informative, I think they may be corrupting me a bit. I'm starting to think of every song as a perfect, beautifully crafted puzzle where the author painstakingly obsessed over all of these details. In reality, I think it's much more likely that a lot of these were incidental in the creation, and they were just choosing sounds that sounded interesting and met the idea that was in their head. it just so happens that there are musical ideas that support why these choices work out, but I can't keep thinking about it the other way, cause then I'll never feel like I'm qualified enough to make any music at all.
I think analyzing art is more of analyzing what the piece represents to you rather than trying to interpret exactly what the artist intended when they created it. Just because an artist wasn't thinking about how they could utilize a chromatic mediant to imply some kind of like tonal ambiguity or whatever doesn't mean that you can't notice that that's what's going on. I think music theory is mostly an observation of certain patterns of sounds and the emotional responses they tend to elicit rather than a set of rules that composers have to carefully consider when creating their music.
Stairway to heaven, so the thing to consider with that chord is it is played on a guitar. The finger movements feel good and natural between those first 4 chords, I dont think there was much intent or theory behind that chord choice.
"well maybe there's a god above" often is changed to "i know that there's a god above". that's definitely people trying to christianise the song pretty hard
I always viewed the lyrics to the song, in part, as a rebuttal to the Old Testament idea that love cannot exist without a god (their god, specifically).
funny thing is, I grew up Jewish and didn't hear Hallelujah till it showed up in Shrek it was a good choice for where it appeared in the movie, though, and it stuck with me
@@MaraK_dialmformara Hallelujah was a bit of a sleeper hit, and only REALLY became ubiquitous BECAUSE of Shrek. That's not some weird, sick joke, either. Obviously, Cohen fans heard and probably had loved it already, but it only found mainstream success in the early 00s.
@12Tone Regarding your interpretation of whether the choir is important or not, it's worth noting that Hallelujah isn't 1 single song. Cohen wrote dozens of verses to the song and constantly changed them in and out while constantly fiddling with the musical elements of the song. It also took the fiddling of other artists who admired the potential of the song to caress it into the versions of Hallelujah that we think of today. Who knows if someone will go back to Cohen's notes and come out with a new interpretation that completely changes the mood and meaning of the song in some unique way? If you haven't heard it already, I'd like to recommend to you the episode "Hallelujah" from Malcolm Gladwell's podcast Revisionist History. The episode discusses the history of Hallelujah as a case study to try to understand Elvis Costello's worst album.
I love that verse of Hallelujah "I tried my best, it wasn't much; I couldn't feel so I tried to touch. I told the truth I didn't come to fool you. Even when it all went wrong, I stand before the Lord of Song with nothing on my tongue but hallelujah." I get how most versions focus more on the romantic side of the song, but I think what Cohen was going for was the idea that you can sing (to God) no matter what you're going through.
I really love these analyses. Thank you. Though these days I sometimes have to slow down the playback a bit, which isn't flattering for you, but it gives me the chance to hear everything clearly. If you could slow down ever so slightly - 95% of normal? - it should be perfect. It's hard getting everything through tinnitus, and for people with other hearing difficulties, or speak English as a foreign language, a little reduction in speed can make a huge difference (I'm relearning French and they speak way too fast in some sections. Trouble is, they have light speed and tortoise as choices lol. Way too extreme!). Thanks for reading this. Don't worry, I will continue to watch. I'm going to recommend you to my daughter's SO because he's a musician and I'm sure he'd really appreciate your incite.
The second arpeggio in Stairway to me is a Cmaj7/G# (or, an inversion of Cmaj7#5). The reason I feel this way is when it starts to come down from the high B, the C "feels" like home.
On the part about Stairway to Heaven, I always heard it as E (implied to be V) with an added b13 as like a pedal-tone. I find this especially evident since the next chord is C, which is like Am7 (I) but with the root omitted. Omitting notes for implied harmony is fairly common in jazz and other contemporary music; it gives extra tension where there otherwise wouldn't be.
Wow, it's the first time I recall seeing a youtuber mentioning Jake's channel! Kudos to him and if the two of you ever do a collab, that would be great :D
I think you're absolutely right about the mood in Hallelujah. The word itself is not a melancholy word, it's "hooray" or "Praise God." One might sigh it in relief, ("Whew!") and I think that's what you say when you face the lord of song after everything goes wrong. Your analysis choked me up almost as much as the song does. Thank you.
12 tone, I think I have a differenr view on that riff from stairway to hevan. Now THIS might just be because I'm inclined by Jazz and how the stair way riff is similar to feeling good but I'd label those chord: Amin-E/G#-C/G-D/F#-F-G-Amin I only do this because I feel it's really important to highlight that bass motion otherwise the song would sound completely different. Take this however you want, just throwing ideas out honeslty :)
"Here's a brilliant revelation that probably completely upends your understanding of a popular song. But that's enough about that, here's something else entirely." Me: ....gah!
What was the disk he drew to represent divinity? I recognized it from Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal but it made me wonder where it came from originally.
Hey, just so you're aware, your captions in the early part of the video are wrong. They have written "tick tick tick tick tock" when the actual metronome sound clearly goes "tock tock tock tock tick". Please fix! Thanks
I was wondering? Could you pick apart (Led Zeppelin - All of My Love), the way you analyze songs. Robert Plant songs sound, different from all others. I can just tell, Plant wrote that, eh? When he did his own albums (Ship of Fools) is a great one of the Plant feels. Wondering, maybe you could tell me why I feel like this?
The voicings in the intro to stairway seem more like counterpoint. And the bass line descending by half steps seems just like a reasonable way to make a voice descend. Therefore, it seems a bit like the "stairways" interpretation is a bit of phallic cigar. Also, with that in mind, then the second augmented chord (Caug#7, Am(maj9), or whatever) is just a chromatic passing into the next chord, which I think is the simplest explanation. To me, I think this chord is more like the I --> Iaug --> vi progression (progressing from a Major chord to the relative minor) in reverse (like in Pink Floyd's "The Gunner's Dream".
This is beautiful. I am a little iffy though on your representation of "higher power" as a Christian-style elephant angel, because Cohen was very Jewish and Hallelujah is about very Jewish philosophies of dealing with loss and questioning one's faith.
That's a fair point. I was aware that his Judaism had a significant impact on the song, but I'll admit I'm not super familiar with the specific visual differences between Christian angels and Jewish angels: I assumed they looked fairly similar, but if I'm wrong on that then I'm happy to own it and apologize.
@@12tone Modern Judaism doesn't deal much with angels at all. They're in there in a couple places, but that specific two-wings-and-a-halo is extremely Protestant. Come to think of it, I'm not sure what a good Jewish image for "higher power" is. Maybe a Torah scroll? An Indiana-Jones-style Ark of the Covenant might be a good compromise, but would it be recognizable?
Hey man, thanks for yet another great video. I am trying to leave TH-cam, but I really enjoy your channel. Have you ever considered publishing your content on alternative platforms, such as LBRY? There is not a lot of music theory analysis there yet, and if you could help remedy that, that would be awesome :-)
And as for the second chord in the Led Zeppelin song thing, it sounds to me like they diminished an inversion. And if I had waited maybe 15 more seconds, I would have watched you transpose everything into variations on a, which sounds like it supports that thought even more, though I am not a music theory major.
To be completely honest, I think that, while labels are interesting, the Stairway intro is best analysed as a line cliché harmonised ever so slightly differently to usual. Whenever I see a line cliché like say, Dm C#aug F/C Bm7b5, I don't analyse the functions of those four chords, I look it as an elaboration on a Dm chord. That said, my method definitely isn't the only correct way of looking at it, and you did talk about the voice leading a lot, which to me is the star of that guitar part.
i usually dont like to name the chords in the beginning of stairway to heaven and just view it as a line cliche. Honestly, putting a name to chords doesn't really do much, but understanding the movement of the invdividual notes seems to help me more. Like here, there is a downwards trend in the form of a downwards line cliche(movement by semitones) which is fitting for this part of the song.
If the andalusian cadence can teach us anything, it's that the idea of a progression or even a line cliche can mean something different when played on guitar. The way guitar is played can lead to harmonization that might otherwise seem... unnatural. I do think the idea that the beginning of Stairway is effectively a line cliche is perfect(ly imperfect because... guitar). I'm sticking with A, G, F on the solo though.
F#/D Maj, I think? (It would be spoken as F sharp over D Major). It's a type of chord inversion where the root is replaced with a note from the original chord structure itself. There are other types where the root is replaced with something that's not part of the chord structure (the bridge section has a good example where the Dsus4 has a C note held over it, just after the three D chord strums). I can't remember for the life of me what those inversion types are called, I'm sure I saw it in a Rick Beato video recently. Probably something like harmonic inversions and non-harmonic inversions, but I'm probably wrong!
@@mrkrunch4340 D/F# you mean. Very close, but for slash chords, the chord is first with the bass 2nd. The chord is a D with F# in the bass. Also known as first inversion with the 3rd in the bass
I think what you should address is how in the early, original recordings of "Stairway to Heaven" the recorder and the guitar are rudely completely separated by stereo. Normal stereo recording gives you a little more of one side than the other, maybe a minimal phase shift, but generally if you put one earphone in your ear you'd be hard-pressed to tell left channel apart from right. In "Stairway" you hear -just- the recorder with one ear, and -just- the guitar with the other. Later recordings do away with it and keep things more "traditional". The original - damn, two completely different soundtracks on two channels. It really messes with one's perception... how do you hear a chord where the base note is in your one ear and the remainder in the other?
I love watching stuff that's way over my head, when it's delivered in an entertaining way. 12tone is such pleasant company that not understanding most of what he's saying is just fine.
Hallelujah also has a bit of dry humor to it, well at least to me it does. My favorite lines which demonstrate this are as follows: "You say I took the name in vain I don't even know the name But if I did-well, really-what's it to you?" Cohen pronounces the last "you" as "yah" which can either be interpreted as just vernacular for "you," but I like to imagine it can also mean "Yah" as in Yahweh, or God, so it can also be interpreted as "what's it to God?" which is pretty funny if you're Jewish since Cohen, right after claiming he doesn't know The Name, speaks one of the names of God which is considered rather blasphemous to do outside of prayer if you're orthodox. It's why most orthodox jews will say "hallelu" (praise be!) instead of "hallelujah" because that "yah" at the end is one of God's names. Hallelujah itself actually means to specifically "praise God in song." Whether Cohen actually intended this I dont know, but I like to imagine he did. It adds a bit of playfulness to this bittersweet song, us Jews like to joke when faced with adversity after all haha.
Yes. That particular group is known as a glider. Some of us actually play the Game of Life as an actual _game,_ over at lifecompetes.com/ if that interests you.
About the thing about Louis Armstrong's voice and seeing it even through the clouds, it may just be because the speech is on my mind, since it was 2 days from now - well now it's one day from now - in 1962, I'm thinking of JFK's Rice University speech ... "We choose to go to the Moon!"? thst speech... "Not because it is easy, *but because it is hard*". That seems like kind of the same thought to me.
Most people called him Louie at the time, but according to the Louis Armstrong House Museum, he mostly pronounced it "Lewis", so I tend to use that pronunciation. www.louisarmstronghouse.org/faq/
I actually don't think it's unfortunate that we are human and make mistakes. When we make mistakes, we can work to fix them and learn from them. This makes us grow and become better people. But something that is perfect, or at least pretends to be, cannot make mistakes, or cannot own up to them. They are unable to see past their perfection. Unable to comprehend your flaws, and unable to understand that it's okay to be wrong.
This isn't a guy who built the railroads. I'm a novice and I understood that if you have a 7th and a 9th in a chord, you just call it a 9th, so wouldn't the "A minor major 7th add 9" be called "A minor major 9th" ? Also, did you just say Stairway to Heaven has a chorus?
Stairway, Also You want to look at GreenDay BrainStew, That's your chord progression near the end (mostly) A, G, F, open, F, open, F... , G, A, A, G, F... a bit different than Greenday, but same basic progression. To me this is Funny, as Zepplin is getting Sued, Yet, their songs, influenced so many others ... Quite ridiculous!
"at first glance, its a deeply sad song, and when most artists cover it they just lean into that, layering on more and more melancholy in a never ending arms race to see who can make it the most depressing, but that's not what Hallelujah is" Thank you for finally giving words to the feeling I've had for over a decade that the Jeff Buckley cover is actually wrong and bad
I wouldn't say they all do that. I heard a cover by Caleb Hyles and 4 other guys on TH-cam and I wouldn't say it's sad. Not sure I'd say it's happy but, it's definitely not sad.
This might mean we finally get a video clarifying about Hurt's chorus. The world has to know that Hurt uses (a variant upon) the progression from Take On Me! _the truth is coming_
Try 2 months of Skillshare absolutely free! skl.sh/12tone20
That's dope
Ya know 12tone, I’ve been thinking about “that chord” in Stairway to Heaven and I think it’s a CaugM7 chord. Obviously, for a chord to work either it has to be from top to bottom or an inversion, but this doesn’t always have to be the case. Chromatic voice leading is a good example of this, chords that might not follow the rules of functional harmony, but still operate just as well. If not better. I think that this chord operates as a way to get to the 3rd inversion CMaj chord that followed. That’s just my opinion though.
Check out the quickie two-bar transition between the solo and outro, right at the end ("roll"). Sounds weird, right? John Paul Jones probably spaced out and missed a change, getting back with the program after a quarter-note... it was good enough for rock n' roll, and the rest is history. If memory serves me right my guitar teacher pointed this out to me 30 years ago and somehow it stayed in the noggin.
Don't know if you want/accept requests, but it would be incredible if you did an understanding video for pearl jam's "even flow"
spunds like a shakuhachu hallelujah cover (: . well done thx!
" i am unfortunately human" *draws elephant*
Elephants are humans final form
past reincarnation, duh
Honestly the follow up "...which means I make mistakes" was even more hilarious to me.
Elephants are incapable of drawing humans to any degree of likeness... - Fortunately, they're elephants.
If I remember correctly, in one interview Cohen said singing the word Hallelujah was especially important to him because people have sung this word for thousand years and since he is singing about troubles that everyone has in life I think choir joining him in the chorus really makes the song.
I’m so glad you revisited Hallelujah! I had actually noticed a lot that dealt with the melodies you mentioned in this video and made a HUGE comment on it in one of your Q&A videos where I explain what I believed the “secret chord” was (that C minor chord). As an amateur music theorist who’s learned a lot from watching your videos, this was a good surprise for me. Thank you!
Will there be a video named "what i got wrong in the "what i got wrong video""? ;)
I hope this becomes a series!
What I got wrong in correcting my mistakes in the omissions in what was wrong in the video about the errors in my video on....
Thank you emphasizing that later verse in Cohen's Hallelujah. A lot of covers leave it out and seems to be like an imperative conclusion for the work.
In Stairway to Heaven, I think the best way to look at that chord is actually Eaug! Here's why:
When analyzing chords, we shouldn't be fooled by the melody - singers sing out-of-chord notes all the time, and we don't change the chord name every time that happens. Like you said, it's more of a tension here. Ignoring it we get the remaining notes Ab C E. This is supposedly an Abaug, but I think the chord still has a dominant (V) degree feel to it, despite the underlying line cliché. So I think it is better labeled as an Eaug, so as to be the relative dominant of the Am.
Personally I like the Abaug interpretation more, but Eaug also works and I can see why you prefer it.
It's basically a E Augmented with a natural 5th also. Having the C under the B though makes the interval a major 7th rather than a minor 9th so it works. The voicing also has the E-B on the top so that strong 5th helps the melody B stand strong and carry itself upwards towards C in chromatic contrary motion with the bass moving down to G
I'd be a bit careful with that. The melody can change the chord. In 8-bit music, where a lot of the harmony is implied, the melody is an essential part of the chords.
Sometimes the note the melody sings is so prevalent that I think changing the chord's name is the right approach. In the chorus of RHCP's Parallel Universe, the melody sings a long, strong F when the other instruments are playing a G (G5). As a whole it sounds like a G7 chord and notating/analysing it as G or G5 would lose that quality. Doing that would only be useful as a instruction to the musicians.
A♭+ and E+/G♯ are going to be performed the same way, but the first one takes just a split second less time to decode. It's all a matter of whether you're optimizing for analysis or optimizing for sight-reading. One is better for one purpose, one for the other.
That was three years ago? But...but... that was like...yesterdayish! How can it be 3 years ago?
“There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.” Everyone makes mistakes ☺️
Bless you sir!
One of my favorites.
Love the Conway glider at 3:54. Brilliant!
Hallelujah AND Stairway to Heaven in one video? Winter will come soon!
Wow this was the 3 year anniversary of the first video and youtube says it was 3 years ago
Much love for the Glider at 3:54 !!!
3:57 I really appreciate this point and how well-said it was, thank you
At the same time that I think these videos are fascinating and informative, I think they may be corrupting me a bit.
I'm starting to think of every song as a perfect, beautifully crafted puzzle where the author painstakingly obsessed over all of these details. In reality, I think it's much more likely that a lot of these were incidental in the creation, and they were just choosing sounds that sounded interesting and met the idea that was in their head.
it just so happens that there are musical ideas that support why these choices work out, but I can't keep thinking about it the other way, cause then I'll never feel like I'm qualified enough to make any music at all.
I think analyzing art is more of analyzing what the piece represents to you rather than trying to interpret exactly what the artist intended when they created it. Just because an artist wasn't thinking about how they could utilize a chromatic mediant to imply some kind of like tonal ambiguity or whatever doesn't mean that you can't notice that that's what's going on. I think music theory is mostly an observation of certain patterns of sounds and the emotional responses they tend to elicit rather than a set of rules that composers have to carefully consider when creating their music.
Oh man! I saw that video back when you first posted it and forgot to subscribe, then had no idea how to find the channel again. Thanks for this!
> draws SMBC God
Ah, I see you're a man of culture as well.
Stairway to heaven, so the thing to consider with that chord is it is played on a guitar. The finger movements feel good and natural between those first 4 chords, I dont think there was much intent or theory behind that chord choice.
I loved this video. Going back and looking at previous analysis always teaches me something. It is something I did a lot in my music theory class.
This new line of videos will definitely go over well. I'm looking for the next video!
I came for Leonard Cohen and you threw in "What a Wonderful World" and "Stairway" Bravo!
A+++
Dude, i dont know how or why. But I LOVE SO MUCH THIS CHANNEL
I feel like most people leave out Leonard Cohen being Jewish and how that heavily flavors his poems and lyrics.
"well maybe there's a god above" often is changed to "i know that there's a god above". that's definitely people trying to christianise the song pretty hard
@@twiinapocalyp2e2 Well, de-secularize. Not all Jews are secular.
I always viewed the lyrics to the song, in part, as a rebuttal to the Old Testament idea that love cannot exist without a god (their god, specifically).
funny thing is, I grew up Jewish and didn't hear Hallelujah till it showed up in Shrek
it was a good choice for where it appeared in the movie, though, and it stuck with me
@@MaraK_dialmformara Hallelujah was a bit of a sleeper hit, and only REALLY became ubiquitous BECAUSE of Shrek. That's not some weird, sick joke, either. Obviously, Cohen fans heard and probably had loved it already, but it only found mainstream success in the early 00s.
@12Tone Regarding your interpretation of whether the choir is important or not, it's worth noting that Hallelujah isn't 1 single song. Cohen wrote dozens of verses to the song and constantly changed them in and out while constantly fiddling with the musical elements of the song. It also took the fiddling of other artists who admired the potential of the song to caress it into the versions of Hallelujah that we think of today. Who knows if someone will go back to Cohen's notes and come out with a new interpretation that completely changes the mood and meaning of the song in some unique way?
If you haven't heard it already, I'd like to recommend to you the episode "Hallelujah" from Malcolm Gladwell's podcast Revisionist History. The episode discusses the history of Hallelujah as a case study to try to understand Elvis Costello's worst album.
"I am, unfortunately, human" is such a great line
I love that verse of Hallelujah "I tried my best, it wasn't much; I couldn't feel so I tried to touch. I told the truth I didn't come to fool you. Even when it all went wrong, I stand before the Lord of Song with nothing on my tongue but hallelujah." I get how most versions focus more on the romantic side of the song, but I think what Cohen was going for was the idea that you can sing (to God) no matter what you're going through.
Loved your point about What a Wonderful World. Nobody can top the original.
did you just draw a glider for 'life'? XD
Yep. I caught that too.
I saw the drawing, but failed to identify it as a glider. That's awesome.
Great nod to the Game of Life!
Yep! I totally saw that. Very witty!
Very insightful, thank you for that series!
I really love these analyses. Thank you. Though these days I sometimes have to slow down the playback a bit, which isn't flattering for you, but it gives me the chance to hear everything clearly. If you could slow down ever so slightly - 95% of normal? - it should be perfect. It's hard getting everything through tinnitus, and for people with other hearing difficulties, or speak English as a foreign language, a little reduction in speed can make a huge difference (I'm relearning French and they speak way too fast in some sections. Trouble is, they have light speed and tortoise as choices lol. Way too extreme!). Thanks for reading this. Don't worry, I will continue to watch. I'm going to recommend you to my daughter's SO because he's a musician and I'm sure he'd really appreciate your incite.
Lol, sounds funny to hear Armstrong's name pronounced as 'Lewis'! J'ai toujours pensé que c'est 'Louie'!
I noticed that too. :)
The second arpeggio in Stairway to me is a Cmaj7/G# (or, an inversion of Cmaj7#5). The reason I feel this way is when it starts to come down from the high B, the C "feels" like home.
On the part about Stairway to Heaven, I always heard it as E (implied to be V) with an added b13 as like a pedal-tone. I find this especially evident since the next chord is C, which is like Am7 (I) but with the root omitted. Omitting notes for implied harmony is fairly common in jazz and other contemporary music; it gives extra tension where there otherwise wouldn't be.
This was amazing! Cant wait for the next one!!!
Wow, it's the first time I recall seeing a youtuber mentioning Jake's channel! Kudos to him and if the two of you ever do a collab, that would be great :D
Great addition to your video repertoire!
I think you're absolutely right about the mood in Hallelujah. The word itself is not a melancholy word, it's "hooray" or "Praise God." One might sigh it in relief, ("Whew!") and I think that's what you say when you face the lord of song after everything goes wrong. Your analysis choked me up almost as much as the song does. Thank you.
12 tone, I think I have a differenr view on that riff from stairway to hevan. Now THIS might just be because I'm inclined by Jazz and how the stair way riff is similar to feeling good but I'd label those chord:
Amin-E/G#-C/G-D/F#-F-G-Amin
I only do this because I feel it's really important to highlight that bass motion otherwise the song would sound completely different.
Take this however you want, just throwing ideas out honeslty :)
"Here's a brilliant revelation that probably completely upends your understanding of a popular song. But that's enough about that, here's something else entirely."
Me: ....gah!
mad respect for retraction...thank you for your work
What was the disk he drew to represent divinity? I recognized it from Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal but it made me wonder where it came from originally.
I think it was more about salvation than divinity, so he drew the floppy disc that’s used as a save icon in most modern programs
Hey, just so you're aware, your captions in the early part of the video are wrong. They have written "tick tick tick tick tock" when the actual metronome sound clearly goes "tock tock tock tock tick". Please fix! Thanks
Love this style of video. More music analysis!
I was wondering? Could you pick apart (Led Zeppelin - All of My Love), the way you analyze songs. Robert Plant songs sound, different from all others. I can just tell, Plant wrote that, eh? When he did his own albums (Ship of Fools) is a great one of the Plant feels. Wondering, maybe you could tell me why I feel like this?
I wish you'd make a key for some of the symbol/drawings you use. I think the snowman means building, but what does that ant(? bug?) thing mean?
The voicings in the intro to stairway seem more like counterpoint. And the bass line descending by half steps seems just like a reasonable way to make a voice descend. Therefore, it seems a bit like the "stairways" interpretation is a bit of phallic cigar. Also, with that in mind, then the second augmented chord (Caug#7, Am(maj9), or whatever) is just a chromatic passing into the next chord, which I think is the simplest explanation. To me, I think this chord is more like the I --> Iaug --> vi progression (progressing from a Major chord to the relative minor) in reverse (like in Pink Floyd's "The Gunner's Dream".
REally good content man :)
I definitely hear a quiet bass (or contrabass? idk) recorder holding the root at that moment in Stairway.
This is beautiful. I am a little iffy though on your representation of "higher power" as a Christian-style elephant angel, because Cohen was very Jewish and Hallelujah is about very Jewish philosophies of dealing with loss and questioning one's faith.
That's a fair point. I was aware that his Judaism had a significant impact on the song, but I'll admit I'm not super familiar with the specific visual differences between Christian angels and Jewish angels: I assumed they looked fairly similar, but if I'm wrong on that then I'm happy to own it and apologize.
@@12tone Modern Judaism doesn't deal much with angels at all. They're in there in a couple places, but that specific two-wings-and-a-halo is extremely Protestant.
Come to think of it, I'm not sure what a good Jewish image for "higher power" is. Maybe a Torah scroll? An Indiana-Jones-style Ark of the Covenant might be a good compromise, but would it be recognizable?
Giant wheel covered in eyes?
Loved this vid. Thanks!
Hey man, thanks for yet another great video.
I am trying to leave TH-cam, but I really enjoy your channel. Have you ever considered publishing your content on alternative platforms, such as LBRY? There is not a lot of music theory analysis there yet, and if you could help remedy that, that would be awesome :-)
12tone is on Nebula too, I think you might have to pay but its not much.
And as for the second chord in the Led Zeppelin song thing, it sounds to me like they diminished an inversion.
And if I had waited maybe 15 more seconds, I would have watched you transpose everything into variations on a, which sounds like it supports that thought even more, though I am not a music theory major.
To be completely honest, I think that, while labels are interesting, the Stairway intro is best analysed as a line cliché harmonised ever so slightly differently to usual. Whenever I see a line cliché like say, Dm C#aug F/C Bm7b5, I don't analyse the functions of those four chords, I look it as an elaboration on a Dm chord. That said, my method definitely isn't the only correct way of looking at it, and you did talk about the voice leading a lot, which to me is the star of that guitar part.
7:56 was this dubbed in later?
i usually dont like to name the chords in the beginning of stairway to heaven and just view it as a line cliche. Honestly, putting a name to chords doesn't really do much, but understanding the movement of the invdividual notes seems to help me more. Like here, there is a downwards trend in the form of a downwards line cliche(movement by semitones) which is fitting for this part of the song.
If the andalusian cadence can teach us anything, it's that the idea of a progression or even a line cliche can mean something different when played on guitar. The way guitar is played can lead to harmonization that might otherwise seem... unnatural. I do think the idea that the beginning of Stairway is effectively a line cliche is perfect(ly imperfect because... guitar). I'm sticking with A, G, F on the solo though.
Most get the 4th chord on Stairway Wrong ... on Guitar it's a 'D' with a pinky on "d"string fret 4. Don't know what you'd call it
F#/D Maj, I think? (It would be spoken as F sharp over D Major). It's a type of chord inversion where the root is replaced with a note from the original chord structure itself. There are other types where the root is replaced with something that's not part of the chord structure (the bridge section has a good example where the Dsus4 has a C note held over it, just after the three D chord strums). I can't remember for the life of me what those inversion types are called, I'm sure I saw it in a Rick Beato video recently. Probably something like harmonic inversions and non-harmonic inversions, but I'm probably wrong!
@@mrkrunch4340 D/F# you mean. Very close, but for slash chords, the chord is first with the bass 2nd. The chord is a D with F# in the bass. Also known as first inversion with the 3rd in the bass
@@domdude64dd ahh, I knew someone with a better memory than me would pick this up! Thanks!
I think what you should address is how in the early, original recordings of "Stairway to Heaven" the recorder and the guitar are rudely completely separated by stereo. Normal stereo recording gives you a little more of one side than the other, maybe a minimal phase shift, but generally if you put one earphone in your ear you'd be hard-pressed to tell left channel apart from right. In "Stairway" you hear -just- the recorder with one ear, and -just- the guitar with the other.
Later recordings do away with it and keep things more "traditional". The original - damn, two completely different soundtracks on two channels. It really messes with one's perception... how do you hear a chord where the base note is in your one ear and the remainder in the other?
I always thought the dsus transition ended with a d/c the d/b, similar to White Room
What happened to your voice at 7:56 to 8:04 ?
One day I would like to understand what the hell are you talking about... I don't. But it was fun.
Ditto. I watch a bunch of music analysis on TH-cam, and I really don't know why.
I used to never understand, it will happen somewhen don't worry lol
I love watching stuff that's way over my head, when it's delivered in an entertaining way. 12tone is such pleasant company that not understanding most of what he's saying is just fine.
Hallelujah also has a bit of dry humor to it, well at least to me it does. My favorite lines which demonstrate this are as follows:
"You say I took the name in vain
I don't even know the name
But if I did-well, really-what's it to you?"
Cohen pronounces the last "you" as "yah" which can either be interpreted as just vernacular for "you," but I like to imagine it can also mean "Yah" as in Yahweh, or God, so it can also be interpreted as "what's it to God?" which is pretty funny if you're Jewish since Cohen, right after claiming he doesn't know The Name, speaks one of the names of God which is considered rather blasphemous to do outside of prayer if you're orthodox. It's why most orthodox jews will say "hallelu" (praise be!) instead of "hallelujah" because that "yah" at the end is one of God's names. Hallelujah itself actually means to specifically "praise God in song." Whether Cohen actually intended this I dont know, but I like to imagine he did. It adds a bit of playfulness to this bittersweet song, us Jews like to joke when faced with adversity after all haha.
6:25 isn't that just Am(M9)
Yeah, I think the name they gave is clearer, though.
I feel like calling it "major 9" implies the 9 is major, so I prefer "major 7 add 9", but yeah if I saw that on a chart I'd know what you meant.
Hey 12tone can you make a Spotify playlist with all the songs you analyze
Is the "life" squared symbol a reference to the computer simulation "life" (early age programming reel)?
Yes. That particular group is known as a glider. Some of us actually play the Game of Life as an actual _game,_ over at lifecompetes.com/ if that interests you.
nice a signals music studio shoutout
does the dorian scale have a picture hanging in the attic?
About the thing about Louis Armstrong's voice and seeing it even through the clouds, it may just be because the speech is on my mind, since it was 2 days from now - well now it's one day from now - in 1962, I'm thinking of JFK's Rice University speech ... "We choose to go to the Moon!"? thst speech...
"Not because it is easy, *but because it is hard*".
That seems like kind of the same thought to me.
Please, check out the "What a wonderful world" cover from Soap & Skin. Never heard a cover like that!
Isn't the thing with the chorus line in the original just a reference to "The Hallelujah Chorus?"
Could you do something on Steely Dan sometime. They have a lot of interesting stuff.
Could you do a video on repeats?
Can you do an episode on tom Waits -underground
Understanding Il Vento D'oro when?
6:25 Bruh thats just a C aug M7
I love Signals Music Studio so much tbh
Brilliant.
I love this! Yay!
2:21 NBC
is it not pronounced louie armstrong?
Most people called him Louie at the time, but according to the Louis Armstrong House Museum, he mostly pronounced it "Lewis", so I tend to use that pronunciation. www.louisarmstronghouse.org/faq/
I actually don't think it's unfortunate that we are human and make mistakes.
When we make mistakes, we can work to fix them and learn from them. This makes us grow and become better people.
But something that is perfect, or at least pretends to be, cannot make mistakes, or cannot own up to them. They are unable to see past their perfection. Unable to comprehend your flaws, and unable to understand that it's okay to be wrong.
catching that early upload
i watched the original an hour ago. odd
i had to stop bc panflute love ur vids bai
This isn't a guy who built the railroads.
I'm a novice and I understood that if you have a 7th and a 9th in a chord, you just call it a 9th, so wouldn't the "A minor major 7th add 9" be called "A minor major 9th" ? Also, did you just say Stairway to Heaven has a chorus?
4:49 -- SMBC reader: Confirmed.
Should the title not reflect the fact that you also discuss Stairway to Heaven as well?
I consider it a bonus for those willing to watch the whole video
Whoa I definitely shouldn’t have smoked before watching this....I missed the transition to Stairway, I’m so confused
At 7:57 it sounds like someone else doing an impression of you. Very strange.
He probably changed the dialogue and redubbed it with a different mic
Thank you for the floppy disk! I feel spoken to.
Stairway, Also You want to look at GreenDay BrainStew, That's your chord progression near the end (mostly) A, G, F, open, F, open, F... , G, A, A, G, F... a bit different than Greenday, but same basic progression.
To me this is Funny, as Zepplin is getting Sued, Yet, their songs, influenced so many others ... Quite ridiculous!
Fascinating
"at first glance, its a deeply sad song, and when most artists cover it they just lean into that, layering on more and more melancholy in a never ending arms race to see who can make it the most depressing, but that's not what Hallelujah is"
Thank you for finally giving words to the feeling I've had for over a decade that the Jeff Buckley cover is actually wrong and bad
I wouldn't say they all do that. I heard a cover by Caleb Hyles and 4 other guys on TH-cam and I wouldn't say it's sad. Not sure I'd say it's happy but, it's definitely not sad.
Lou-ee Armstrong.
Sorry for the small nitpick on a good video
In the song “Hello Dolly,” Mr. Armstrong sings “Hello, Dolly, this is Louis, Dolly,” with a strong emphasis on that “s.”
This might mean we finally get a video clarifying about Hurt's chorus. The world has to know that Hurt uses (a variant upon) the progression from Take On Me! _the truth is coming_
I smbc what you did there
I'm pretty sure the drawing for "the divine" at 4:49 is the SMBC God. 😆
Who is Lewis Armstrong?
"i am, unfortunately, a human"
WHAAAT? YOURE NOT AN ELEPHANT? UNSUBSCRIBING!!!
Unpopular opinion: Jeff Buckley's cover of Hallelujah is the only cover of a Leonard Cohen song that is better than the original.