Ok, I'll admit the title's a little bit rage-bait, so just in case you came here just to object I wanted to assure you that I'm not claiming non-functional harmony doesn't _exist,_ or that it's in any way worse or less valid than functional harmony. As for what I _am_ saying... Well, you'll have to watch the video for that.
This is indeed rage-bait, and fairly successful at that. However, I think as far as introductory videos go, this is good coverage. I do not agree that the abundance of harmonic theories out there negates some sort of model - there have been many efforts, including set theory and contour theory (which were not mentioned) that are edging closer towards a structure based on interval content. Some work has also been done to unite harmony under the banner of partials, and of course their use in an equally tempered system. As always, good video.
J.E. Hernandez, if you're saying that there are efforts edging closer to unifying *all* types of harmony under one model, then I'd be curious if you know of any accessible references? It sounds like it would be interesting to learn about. (If, alternatively, you were saying that various non-functional harmony systems have models, then I think 12tone would agree with you and wasn't claiming that that was not the case. (I wasn't entirely sure which claim you were making.))
There's only two keys Major and minor because it's polar like reality. Everything in between is a contrast between Happy and Sad or Good and Evil. For me I like looking at the root or tonic as the zero point because it is. A Major second up is a leading 7th down, which equals 9 and does this for each one. A Major 3rd up a minor 6th down 3+6=9 naw mean?. More vibration forces you to go higher up. Too much vibration is hell. No joke the concept of Heaven and Hell is based off the 88 key Piano H is the 8th letter. Why? Emotions. A tempered scale is like your tempered mind it's called Temperament or Temperamental.
@@quintongordon6024 it’s funny, the more I learn about theory the more I am thinking the same thing. Theory is just comprised of labels to describe what we’re hearing, but it doesn’t tell you how to write a song. Almost every piece of music I look out shits all over theory, so i often wonder why I’m even learning it. But to its credit, it has shown me a lot and given me the ability to see why other songs work
I'm so glad you made this video! It really shows how dismissive it can be to classify things by negation rather than actual qualities. Sort of ethocentric in a way, since it puts western harmony on the same level as the "everything else" category.
When I was learning about Neo-Riemannian theory, I was also taught that there are "slide transformations" where you slide the root and fifth of a chord to get the next closest triadic harmony that's either major or minor, for instance, C major becoming C# minor. or E minor becoming Eb major. Is this not typical? Because with this, your phantom of the opera example works perfectly fine with Neo-Riemannian analysis by combining slide and parallel transformations.
Slides exist, yeah, but they're a compound transformation: That is, they're built by applying multiple standard transformations at once. In effect, calling something a "slide" is summarizing three transformations as a single operation.
This was a really cool video. I didn't really realize that non-functional harmony isn't a helpful term. Perhaps people just mean "alternative harmony"? In any case, I'd love to hear more videos about all of these different, other ways to analyze and theorize about harmony. I feel like this stuff isn't touched upon a lot. (And you may have touched upon them already!)
Well, I'm not sure I'd say it's not helpful, it's just incomplete. In the context of Western music, avoiding the structures of functional harmony is uncommon enough to be noteworthy, it just doesn't have any inherent structures of its own to replace them.
I think he's trying to say the term "non-functional" isn't helpful by itself. Saying what something isn't only removes one possibility of infinite, so it is far more useful to say what a piece of music _is_ rather than what it isn't.
Hey, I'm a musician, a huge fan of your videos, and... An astrophysicist. Which I normally don't mention when I'm in my "musician skin", but mate, I didn't know that a "neo Riemannian" theory existed!!! Didn't hear of that, neither in my French Pro jazz school nor in Oxford music Uni. For someone who is so much into general relativity, hearing of the concept of "parallel transport" in a music context is really funny !!! To be quite honest, I'm not sure it's gonna help me with my next couple of compositions, but Hey! That's fun ! Thank you for all you bring to music geeks. :)
Bb to C is actually somewhat common in my opinion and is valid in the Lydian mode. C to Eb mi is the inversion of C mi to Eb, Eb mi to Db mi is the relative 7th down in the Phrygian mode, Db mi to A mi appears chromatic as Db moves down to C, E stays the same, and Gb moves up to A, A mi to G mi is just like Eb mi to Db mi, G mi to Bb is a relative transformation from minor to major, and Bb to Bb mi is parallel transformation of Bb. Not so functional, but I found out how those individual chords convert to try to be as functional as possible. BTW, the piece in this progression I find interesting is Eb mi, Db mi, A mi, G mi. Not only is the chord and it’s neighbor two chords over is a tritone apart, but the progression, if it’s just those four chords, loop quite well. There can be potential for a song that rapidly switches between two Phrygian scales opposite of eachother. While I talked about Eb mi to Db mi, Db mi to A mi, and A mi to G mi, G mi to Eb mi would work similarly to Db mi to A mi, as it’s also chromatic. G moves down to Gb, D moves up to Eb, and Bb stays the same. Pretty distant, yet pretty close.
Thanks for doing this video! I've always found the term "non-functional harmony" a bit misleading, as a lot of music described this way actually does have function, it is just not the traditional Tonic-Predominant-Dominant series of functions we have heard over and over. This is why I prefer to think of music using particular "harmonic models", of which the T-P-D model is the most popular in Western music. Other models, such as Transformational Harmony, are just using the Transformational Model and are, therefore, functional. This is much like how the Major and Minor scales are by far the most popular scales in Western music, however other scales (such as the Dorian scale you mentioned) are still very much scales. Even music that just goes from one chord to another randomly is using the Randomized Model, in which a chord's function is to move to another chord chosen at random. I sometimes go through the exercise of taking a piece that supposedly has "non-functional harmony" and try to come up with a harmonic model that this particular piece is in agreement with. Then I'll compose my own piece of music that uses the same model, but the result ends up being a very different piece, and uses ideas I may not have normally come up with. Thanks again; love this video and channel.
I think you expressed the most salient point towards the end, i.e. that sufficient repetition will creat expectation of a particular sequence of note clusters, which can come to replace traditional chords. It's one of my favorite techniques at the moment, putting notes on 12-node graphs and then cycle through paths in this graph. I'd like to be able to work out a natural way of introducing modulation in this system. I believe Messiaen and Webern and also some newer serialists such as Babbit and Stockhausen experimented with similar techniques.
Such a great explanation. I feel like 'functional' is such a bad word for what folks were trying to explain with it when it was coined. It seems that the non-functional models 'function' just fine thank you. I hope that's what you meant to convey. If so, it fits with so much of the organic growth of musical vocabulary. Like the naming of intervals. As a new student of this stuff, I find myself wishing for a 'metric system of music nomenclature' to come along and clean up all the inconsistency. Is there such a thing?
Really great video Tangentially related, something I like to do with chords like Dorian's vi diminished or harmonic minor's bIII+ that are dissonant but not necessarily very directional towards the tonic is use them immediately before a strong dominant like V7 or even vii diminished. The directionality (and obvious impending resolution) of the dominant feels like a little reprieve from that harsh, less obviously directional sound, and then the tonic resolves the acoustic dissonance. Not totally Dorian in this case, but hey. I like to see how these less traditional chords can get worked into a progression somehow.
That sound cool and you could even use melodic minor ascending and Dorian descending to get V7 again. A resolution could go like this: II m7 to to III to IV or IV7 to bVII to V minor to V7 to I minor.
composing non-functionally is far more enjoyable and rewarding. you don't always know where to go next and have to experiment. it's more enjoyable to discover something new that sounds good than to follow instructions and already know what you're going to end up with. It also gives you a great opportunity to abandon triadic chord building and use the intervals within a chord to inform what sort of 'role' it plays
3 types of harmony modal, blues and, tonal. But actually in practice I've often written jazz compositions that are hybreds. Or derived from thinking differently like concetrating on common tones. Plus you can put the common tone on top or in the middle or on the bottom or a pedal.
Brilliantly described, Cory (hope you’re OK with me using your first name)! I wish I could have made today’s stream, because I would have asked you and 8-Bit Music Theory about the boundaries of (non)functional Western harmony and how to properly compose nonfunctionally, harkening back to this video and his on Chrono Trigger.
Because I can't inderstand/remember scales or chords (yet), most of the stuff I tried to compose seems to be non-functional... Thank you for this vid, it was - like most of your stuff - intriguing and liberating!
I'm not a music theorist, but sure enjoy your videos and it's opened my eyes to more about music. One song that might have some cool stuff is Jim Croce's Time in a Bottle. I know it's got the descending bass line, and that final chord of the song is pretty cool
1:33 I kind of have my own system to analyse music, and as you'd expect it's a slightly modified and embellished version of traditional western music theory. I've been able to analyse every single piece of music I've come across, as far as I'm concerned. Bb, C, Ebm, Dbm, Am, Gm, Bb, Bbm Following this system, these 8 chords are pretty clearly in the keys of Bb, Db, E, and G. That might sound really vague, but those are actually all the same key, whether they be major or minor, just not diatonically. In my system, every key has 8 tonic chords: i, I, biii, bIII, t, T (no point in calling it #4 or b5), vi, and VI. This is pure chance, but every single chord in this progression points toward these key "epicenters," other than the C chord. Because this is modal (what I define by just not staying within the diatonic boundaries of the very first chord of a progression), and _very_ modal, there are plenty of opportunities for key changes or chords that might sound somewhat tonic. The thing to remember is that _context matters._ So we start on a Bb chord, meaning that we're automatically in the keys of Bb, Db, E, and G. We then have a C major chord, which would be using the Lydian flavour of Bb, so it's already modal. The context of these two chords, Bb and C, would be pointing you toward the keys of F, Ab, B, and D, because not only are Bb and C diatonic to F/Dm as a IV-V / bVI-bVII, but C is dominant to those keys. You also could hear C as the tonic, considering that Bb is dominant to C. Then we get a Ebm chord, so we're already shying away from the key of F. Ebm would still be tonic in C, so that could work, but more importantly, it's a dominant chord to Bb, so that just seems like the logical motion. Instead of resolving to Bb, though, we resolve to Dbm, which, though perhaps a bit jarring, works perfectly fine as Db is a tonic in Bb, along with E and G. Now Ebm followed by Dbm could possibly set up a key change to F-Ab-B-D again, since it's a diatonic v-iv / iii-ii to Abm/B, and along with this, Dbm is dominant to those. But we don't go there, and we instead get an Am chord, which is dominant to Bb-Db-E-G, pointing us back there yet again. Then we get Gm, which is tonic to those keys. Then Bb, which is tonic, and even diatonic to Gm, since it's the relative major, and it's even the chord we started with. And finally, we get Bbm, which is still tonic, but implies a motion to the keys of F-Ab-B-D yet again, because that would be going from the subdominant Bb to the dominant Bbm. Of course the progression ends before we change keys or stay in the same ones or whatever. Or course this progression by itself sounds like crap because it was generated randomly without the intent of sounding good, and it's also played very quickly, which is about the worst thing you could do with highly modal progressions like this, since it makes it harder to hear the logic behind them. Anyway, if we really want to clarify that it's in the key of Bb-Db-E-G, all we have to do is add the right extensions, like this: Bbmaj7, C7, Ebm6, Dbm9, Am6, Gm9, Bbmaj7, Bbm9 The chords would be pretty similar in F, but yeah. That's how you analyses it, in F. This probably made no sense to you with no further explanation of my system, but maybe you got something out of it.
You should do an episode on Pet sounds! I love the album and I keep hearing that the chord changes are really advanced but being a musical layman, that doesn't really make sense to me. What makes one chord change more innovative than another? Thanks!
Exactly (almost). There are only two chords that can not be connected functionally: a major with a minor at tritonus distance (example: C-maj and f#-min), which is to few to make a new harmonic world. All other relations can be riemannniany explained. May sound far, but related.
I'm reminded of a remark made about the term "non-linear dynamics" in the context of chaos theory, that it was like designating non-elephant biology as a field of study.
Would you go over Steve Vai's "For the Love of God?" He has said in an interview that he wrote the guitar based on what sounded good when he hummed and vocalized, producing very different sounding music which I find incredible.
You should definitely check out Ernö Lendvai's Axis System and Albert Simon's "Tonfeld-Theorie"! (as we call it in Germany, roughly translated to: note field theory). Not too many people seem to teach this kind of stuff and I think, it's very useful!
Whilst I still struggle with understanding music theory in general (I might take a class on it one day, who knows), watching these videos always intrigue me. Always fun to learn!
I will never perceive these videos in the same way now that I have seen 12tone's face!! Yes, talking about that live transmission going on in Adam's Neely channel right now
wow, i just realised half the songs i wrote are some kind of non functional harmony O_o one of the last songs i wrote is a bunch of chord progressions that you can find in clasic pop and rock songs, played by a guitar in a reggae style, but the conection between those chord progressions is an experiment in modulation that i wanted to do, and in the middle, for that modulation experiment, i use many of the things you described here! one of my favorite is playing Am to A7, to Dm, to D, to g... and it makes a weird walking progression, BUT! the whole song is just recorded and played backwards... it sounds somewhere between satanic and alien...
Great video as always. I’m very interested Neo-Riemannian analysis (and also in whatever original “Riemannian” analysis may have been), could you possibly analyze a neo-riemannian piece or recommend a book about it? I went through a phase a while back where I bought a lot of old harmony/counterpoint treatises and I think I have counterpoint book by Riemann (or maybe it’s some other theorist whose name starts with an R 😂)
How exactly would you describe the harmony model of Indian classical music? I know, they use drones, but I'm curious to know what else you can tell about it!
There the harmony is implicit in the melody and each raga also contains directions on how to use its particular notes. Often a raga will not be the same ascending as descending
Why not call it afunctional harmony, to indicate that it's any harmony that simply doesn't follow the scheme of functional harmony? Typically, when I think of nonfunctional harmony, I think of the soundtracks of Chrono Trigger and Donkey Kong Country 1 and 2. So maybe we can describe nonfunctional (or my term, afunctional harmony) as: 1. Slow tempo. 2. Music is supposed to create a mood, feeling, or vibe. 3. We have chords, so it's not atonal. 4. Smooth voice leading between each chord. 5. Rich and colorful chords to add interest, to counteract the piece sounding too stagnant. 6. Avoids chords that inherently have too much harmonic movement. 7. Makes use of melodic ideas, vamps, or beats that remain constant throughout the piece to generate tension and release in a different, more gentle manner as opposed to functional harmony. Maybe it works? But I dunno, I could just be spouting complete nonsense.
Hey, I discovered your channel just a few days ago and I really liked it. Do you have any advice for learning music theory by myself besides watching these videos?
Laitz's The Complete Musician. Pros: Extremely thorough, with good pedagogy and philosophy. Cons: Very dense reading that can put off some readers. Clendinning/Marvin's Musician's Guide to Theory and Analysis. Pros: Also thorough, very easy to read (conversational writing style). Cons: definitions are not always clear in the text, although the glossary in the back can help remedy this. Aldwell/Schachter's Harmony and Voice Leading. Pros: this is basically a bible for part writing. Extremely thorough; the standard text for part writing. Cons: Doesn't discuss much outside of part writing. --- Tonal Harmony: With an Introduction to Twentieth Century Music Stefan Kostka and Dorothy Payne as a good introductory book for music theory. It doesn't assume any prior musical knowledge, even knowing how to read music or what noes correspond to what keys on a piano or anything, and it proceeds comprehensively all the way to the harmony of the late 19th century when conventional tonality was starting to break down. It comes with a CD that has recordings of all the musical examples in the book so you can actually hear the principles and techniques described at use in well-known pieces. The exercises included are very good, with a nice mix of score analysis and composition assignments, and there are answers in the back of the book so you can check your work (the composition assignments have sample solutions).
Not dumb at all! The short version is that there's a standard progression called the Twelve Bar Blues that a lot of blues songs use, giving them a similar foundation that the artist then builds on top of. You get the same harmonic structure, but the riffs, melodies, lyrics, and other elements are all still up to the artist.
Hey! I love your vids, maybe you could do an analysis of Your Latest Trick by Dire Straits. It was a pretty popular song in its time and it has a pretty wacky harmony in my opinion
Hay man I love your videos. Im currently making a documentary about the value of music theory for my MA in journalism. Im hoping to cover the debate about its value and ask why some musicians are afraid of it being overly prescriptive. Just thought id ask if there was asy chance of a 5 min skype interview? Would be good to get your perspective on the issue as a leading figure in music theory on youtube. Best, Adam
I dont know if its your kinda stuff, but the theory behind Opeth is really cool and different. You haven't covered much metal, and boy is this different then the rest of the stuff on your channel.
Opeth (and most progressive metal, tbh) isn't really all that special or different from a theory perspective. Opeth certainly didn't do anything new, nor did Porcupine Tree, Haken, Dream Theater, or anyone else. Perhaps there is something to talk about in Meshuggah's rhythmic concept or Last Sacrament's microtonal concept; but from a strictly theory perspective, heavy metal isn't terribly special.
It still is the most dynamic genre today as a lot of these bands use the theory of jazz / classical music (for instance : AAL, Plini, Opeth, meshuggah, tools, et cetera) They really invented no harmony theory but they eventually brought the love of music back from the dead
Havok You clearly know more than me! Lol I just heard a lot of cool use of the dominant diminished scale and even some of its chords (I and i , Vb, etc.) And some other stuff and thought it was cool.
But chromatic mediants are part of functional harmony. They just lack chord function. They only serve to embellish a chord. However it is still part of functional harmony. It simply creates a static progression.
It can be explained pretty functionally, although it doesn't have your standard dominant to tonic motion. First three chords are pretty standard, it's just the ii that's different. It's sort of similar to a plagal cadence (the ii chord is the relative minor of the IV) but a bit weaker.
Everything I do is non-functional and that's not a thing, it's a lot of things that don't all even have anything to do with one another. I can't use most of them, and I can do music as a real hobby with only the ones I do.
well isn't that mainly because western scales are made up of the same L-L-S-L-L-L-S pattern (L=long 2 semitone interval, S=short 1 semitone interval), they're just shifted, so if you stick to the same scale and same key in the riff, it will be quite limited in order to play an arabic sounding melody, that require intervals of 3 semitones in between, and have more short intervals as opposed to the 2 we have in traditional western classical scales. you'd have to switch root notes or scales around throughout the riff in western classical hamony, whereas other cultures approch scales and chords in a whole different manner, even some western jazz does, although many of them know the classical rules in order to break them. a traditional western scale consists of 7 notes, of which the chords are 3 minor, 3 major, and 1 diminished. the diminished is the 7th in a major scale, or the 2nd in a minor scale, i has a little thing to memorize it that way: major->up=dim chord is up high. minor->down=dim chord is down low. they are exactly 1 from the center (root note), but on the other side depending on whether it's major or minor, and obviously the major it's only a half step from the root, whereas in minor it's 2 steps from the root, as per usual :D i know i'm oversimplyfing it, as there's harmonic and natural scales too, but they still don't address 3-semitone intervals, let alone 3.5 semitones. because in my example of arabic music and it's quarter note scales not represented in western theory, 7 quarter note intervals are used, which i can play on a guitar by bending, but is out of the question for a regular piano, no point in writing music your instrument can't perform, right? but guitar and its possibilities for alternative tunings and microtonality lends itself very well for experimenting. for most western ears, the frequencies in between the 12 notes that make up our octaves, are considered microtonal additions, not really a basis for composition. loved that little *cough* when you said influence, i see what you did there :D
Can any of the things you mentioned at the beginning be used to analyze the last 20 seconds of Jacob Colliers version of you and I? I can't get enough of the progression. I would list them here but I honestly don't even know how to name them. June Lee transcribed them on his channel.
"Non Functional" in this context it doesn't mean "it doesn't function". It means that the chords of the progression doesn't have a well defined "Function" as "Home", subdominant or dominant.
@@rmv9194 I know, it's just a nitpick cause it can still function according to different rules. X or Y can have a specific function in a specific style of music, Indian Raga gets really particular, for example, certain scale degrees have their own sort of rules associated with them and basically have an ''intended'' effect. Even if you don't really have a set of rules, say you've got a minor 7th chord that just slides down to another minor 7th a half step below, on which the progression mostly stays. The two chords definitely have a role here, 2nd one is home while the 1st one has super strong angular tension towards it. You can basically establish the ''function'' of your harmony by doing things like that, whereas some functional pieces can actually be more ambiguous than this example.
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Ok, I'll admit the title's a little bit rage-bait, so just in case you came here just to object I wanted to assure you that I'm not claiming non-functional harmony doesn't _exist,_ or that it's in any way worse or less valid than functional harmony. As for what I _am_ saying... Well, you'll have to watch the video for that.
This is indeed rage-bait, and fairly successful at that. However, I think as far as introductory videos go, this is good coverage. I do not agree that the abundance of harmonic theories out there negates some sort of model - there have been many efforts, including set theory and contour theory (which were not mentioned) that are edging closer towards a structure based on interval content. Some work has also been done to unite harmony under the banner of partials, and of course their use in an equally tempered system.
As always, good video.
12tone Well, you did add the “(Sort Of)” so no sweat I guess.
J.E. Hernandez, if you're saying that there are efforts edging closer to unifying *all* types of harmony under one model, then I'd be curious if you know of any accessible references? It sounds like it would be interesting to learn about.
(If, alternatively, you were saying that various non-functional harmony systems have models, then I think 12tone would agree with you and wasn't claiming that that was not the case. (I wasn't entirely sure which claim you were making.))
12tone just say it’s like saying that atheism is a religion.
There's only two keys Major and minor because it's polar like reality. Everything in between is a contrast between Happy and Sad or Good and Evil. For me I like looking at the root or tonic as the zero point because it is. A Major second up is a leading 7th down, which equals 9 and does this for each one. A Major 3rd up a minor 6th down 3+6=9 naw mean?. More vibration forces you to go higher up. Too much vibration is hell. No joke the concept of Heaven and Hell is based off the 88 key Piano H is the 8th letter. Why? Emotions. A tempered scale is like your tempered mind it's called Temperament or Temperamental.
non-functional harmony has 1 rule, to quote Debussy "There is no theory. You have only to listen. Pleasure is the law..."
Im sure debussy was real good at listening after he had learned all the theory
@@quintongordon6024 Your comment is so underrated lol
@@quintongordon6024 it’s funny, the more I learn about theory the more I am thinking the same thing. Theory is just comprised of labels to describe what we’re hearing, but it doesn’t tell you how to write a song. Almost every piece of music I look out shits all over theory, so i often wonder why I’m even learning it. But to its credit, it has shown me a lot and given me the ability to see why other songs work
I'm so glad you made this video! It really shows how dismissive it can be to classify things by negation rather than actual qualities. Sort of ethocentric in a way, since it puts western harmony on the same level as the "everything else" category.
When I was learning about Neo-Riemannian theory, I was also taught that there are "slide transformations" where you slide the root and fifth of a chord to get the next closest triadic harmony that's either major or minor, for instance, C major becoming C# minor. or E minor becoming Eb major. Is this not typical? Because with this, your phantom of the opera example works perfectly fine with Neo-Riemannian analysis by combining slide and parallel transformations.
Slides exist, yeah, but they're a compound transformation: That is, they're built by applying multiple standard transformations at once. In effect, calling something a "slide" is summarizing three transformations as a single operation.
Ohh, gotcha. Thanks for the clarification!
Doesn't Radiohead use that trick a lot?
@@tutorialeshtmlprod, yeah.
Functionaln't
This was a really cool video. I didn't really realize that non-functional harmony isn't a helpful term. Perhaps people just mean "alternative harmony"? In any case, I'd love to hear more videos about all of these different, other ways to analyze and theorize about harmony. I feel like this stuff isn't touched upon a lot. (And you may have touched upon them already!)
Well, I'm not sure I'd say it's not helpful, it's just incomplete. In the context of Western music, avoiding the structures of functional harmony is uncommon enough to be noteworthy, it just doesn't have any inherent structures of its own to replace them.
I think he's trying to say the term "non-functional" isn't helpful by itself. Saying what something isn't only removes one possibility of infinite, so it is far more useful to say what a piece of music _is_ rather than what it isn't.
5:07 I think you meant non-functional and not functional.
Hey, I'm a musician, a huge fan of your videos, and... An astrophysicist. Which I normally don't mention when I'm in my "musician skin", but mate, I didn't know that a "neo Riemannian" theory existed!!! Didn't hear of that, neither in my French Pro jazz school nor in Oxford music Uni. For someone who is so much into general relativity, hearing of the concept of "parallel transport" in a music context is really funny !!! To be quite honest, I'm not sure it's gonna help me with my next couple of compositions, but Hey! That's fun ! Thank you for all you bring to music geeks. :)
wait till you hear about "metric modulation"
Bb to C is actually somewhat common in my opinion and is valid in the Lydian mode. C to Eb mi is the inversion of C mi to Eb, Eb mi to Db mi is the relative 7th down in the Phrygian mode, Db mi to A mi appears chromatic as Db moves down to C, E stays the same, and Gb moves up to A, A mi to G mi is just like Eb mi to Db mi, G mi to Bb is a relative transformation from minor to major, and Bb to Bb mi is parallel transformation of Bb. Not so functional, but I found out how those individual chords convert to try to be as functional as possible.
BTW, the piece in this progression I find interesting is Eb mi, Db mi, A mi, G mi. Not only is the chord and it’s neighbor two chords over is a tritone apart, but the progression, if it’s just those four chords, loop quite well. There can be potential for a song that rapidly switches between two Phrygian scales opposite of eachother. While I talked about Eb mi to Db mi, Db mi to A mi, and A mi to G mi, G mi to Eb mi would work similarly to Db mi to A mi, as it’s also chromatic. G moves down to Gb, D moves up to Eb, and Bb stays the same. Pretty distant, yet pretty close.
Thanks for doing this video! I've always found the term "non-functional harmony" a bit misleading, as a lot of music described this way actually does have function, it is just not the traditional Tonic-Predominant-Dominant series of functions we have heard over and over.
This is why I prefer to think of music using particular "harmonic models", of which the T-P-D model is the most popular in Western music. Other models, such as Transformational Harmony, are just using the Transformational Model and are, therefore, functional.
This is much like how the Major and Minor scales are by far the most popular scales in Western music, however other scales (such as the Dorian scale you mentioned) are still very much scales.
Even music that just goes from one chord to another randomly is using the Randomized Model, in which a chord's function is to move to another chord chosen at random.
I sometimes go through the exercise of taking a piece that supposedly has "non-functional harmony" and try to come up with a harmonic model that this particular piece is in agreement with. Then I'll compose my own piece of music that uses the same model, but the result ends up being a very different piece, and uses ideas I may not have normally come up with.
Thanks again; love this video and channel.
I think you expressed the most salient point towards the end, i.e. that sufficient repetition will creat expectation of a particular sequence of note clusters, which can come to replace traditional chords.
It's one of my favorite techniques at the moment, putting notes on 12-node graphs and then cycle through paths in this graph. I'd like to be able to work out a natural way of introducing modulation in this system.
I believe Messiaen and Webern and also some newer serialists such as Babbit and Stockhausen experimented with similar techniques.
That random progression that you came up with about a minute and a half in actually sounds cool as hell
Nice use of the rotation matrix!
Such a great explanation. I feel like 'functional' is such a bad word for what folks were trying to explain with it when it was coined. It seems that the non-functional models 'function' just fine thank you. I hope that's what you meant to convey. If so, it fits with so much of the organic growth of musical vocabulary. Like the naming of intervals. As a new student of this stuff, I find myself wishing for a 'metric system of music nomenclature' to come along and clean up all the inconsistency. Is there such a thing?
Non-functional harmony: My excuse when I play a stinker.
:)
Really great video Tangentially related, something I like to do with chords like Dorian's vi diminished or harmonic minor's bIII+ that are dissonant but not necessarily very directional towards the tonic is use them immediately before a strong dominant like V7 or even vii diminished. The directionality (and obvious impending resolution) of the dominant feels like a little reprieve from that harsh, less obviously directional sound, and then the tonic resolves the acoustic dissonance. Not totally Dorian in this case, but hey. I like to see how these less traditional chords can get worked into a progression somehow.
That sound cool and you could even use melodic minor ascending and Dorian descending to get V7 again. A resolution could go like this: II m7 to to III to IV or IV7 to bVII to V minor to V7 to I minor.
composing non-functionally is far more enjoyable and rewarding. you don't always know where to go next and have to experiment. it's more enjoyable to discover something new that sounds good than to follow instructions and already know what you're going to end up with. It also gives you a great opportunity to abandon triadic chord building and use the intervals within a chord to inform what sort of 'role' it plays
I would love to see an episode about planing and other kinds of parallellism, also one about two chord loops would be very cool
By the way 8-bit music theory is a really cool channel, I love the episode on Chrono Trigger
Very good episode, really liked the Math/Chemistry analogies in the drawings this time
3 types of harmony modal, blues and, tonal. But actually in practice I've often written jazz compositions that are hybreds. Or derived from thinking differently like concetrating on common tones. Plus you can put the common tone on top or in the middle or on the bottom or a pedal.
Brilliantly described, Cory (hope you’re OK with me using your first name)! I wish I could have made today’s stream, because I would have asked you and 8-Bit Music Theory about the boundaries of (non)functional Western harmony and how to properly compose nonfunctionally, harkening back to this video and his on Chrono Trigger.
Because I can't inderstand/remember scales or chords (yet), most of the stuff I tried to compose seems to be non-functional... Thank you for this vid, it was - like most of your stuff - intriguing and liberating!
I'm not a music theorist, but sure enjoy your videos and it's opened my eyes to more about music. One song that might have some cool stuff is Jim Croce's Time in a Bottle. I know it's got the descending bass line, and that final chord of the song is pretty cool
Hey, could you do a theory analysis of Linus and Lucy? I’ve been dying to know how the changes work!
So many tools for composing in such a short time, you Sir deserve praise!
Would you consider doing a video on the Maqamat and the various modal non tempered scales of the Arab world? It would be amazing! =)
Thanks a lot for your time and effort. The best channel 😍
1:33 I kind of have my own system to analyse music, and as you'd expect it's a slightly modified and embellished version of traditional western music theory. I've been able to analyse every single piece of music I've come across, as far as I'm concerned.
Bb, C, Ebm, Dbm, Am, Gm, Bb, Bbm
Following this system, these 8 chords are pretty clearly in the keys of Bb, Db, E, and G. That might sound really vague, but those are actually all the same key, whether they be major or minor, just not diatonically. In my system, every key has 8 tonic chords: i, I, biii, bIII, t, T (no point in calling it #4 or b5), vi, and VI.
This is pure chance, but every single chord in this progression points toward these key "epicenters," other than the C chord. Because this is modal (what I define by just not staying within the diatonic boundaries of the very first chord of a progression), and _very_ modal, there are plenty of opportunities for key changes or chords that might sound somewhat tonic. The thing to remember is that _context matters._
So we start on a Bb chord, meaning that we're automatically in the keys of Bb, Db, E, and G.
We then have a C major chord, which would be using the Lydian flavour of Bb, so it's already modal. The context of these two chords, Bb and C, would be pointing you toward the keys of F, Ab, B, and D, because not only are Bb and C diatonic to F/Dm as a IV-V / bVI-bVII, but C is dominant to those keys. You also could hear C as the tonic, considering that Bb is dominant to C.
Then we get a Ebm chord, so we're already shying away from the key of F. Ebm would still be tonic in C, so that could work, but more importantly, it's a dominant chord to Bb, so that just seems like the logical motion.
Instead of resolving to Bb, though, we resolve to Dbm, which, though perhaps a bit jarring, works perfectly fine as Db is a tonic in Bb, along with E and G. Now Ebm followed by Dbm could possibly set up a key change to F-Ab-B-D again, since it's a diatonic v-iv / iii-ii to Abm/B, and along with this, Dbm is dominant to those.
But we don't go there, and we instead get an Am chord, which is dominant to Bb-Db-E-G, pointing us back there yet again.
Then we get Gm, which is tonic to those keys.
Then Bb, which is tonic, and even diatonic to Gm, since it's the relative major, and it's even the chord we started with.
And finally, we get Bbm, which is still tonic, but implies a motion to the keys of F-Ab-B-D yet again, because that would be going from the subdominant Bb to the dominant Bbm. Of course the progression ends before we change keys or stay in the same ones or whatever.
Or course this progression by itself sounds like crap because it was generated randomly without the intent of sounding good, and it's also played very quickly, which is about the worst thing you could do with highly modal progressions like this, since it makes it harder to hear the logic behind them. Anyway, if we really want to clarify that it's in the key of Bb-Db-E-G, all we have to do is add the right extensions, like this:
Bbmaj7, C7, Ebm6, Dbm9, Am6, Gm9, Bbmaj7, Bbm9
The chords would be pretty similar in F, but yeah. That's how you analyses it, in F.
This probably made no sense to you with no further explanation of my system, but maybe you got something out of it.
You should do an episode on Pet sounds! I love the album and I keep hearing that the chord changes are really advanced but being a musical layman, that doesn't really make sense to me. What makes one chord change more innovative than another? Thanks!
Whoaa! Thanks for the cool music :)
Another good video - and thanks for the link to 8-Bit, whose video really is worth watching too.
Exactly (almost). There are only two chords that can not be connected functionally: a major with a minor at tritonus distance (example: C-maj and f#-min), which is to few to make a new harmonic world. All other relations can be riemannniany explained. May sound far, but related.
Great video! Links to a lot of different ideas, like Wikipedia article would.
you should analyse tubular bells
I like how as a left-hander you tend to arrange elements from right to left on your pages.
I'm reminded of a remark made about the term "non-linear dynamics" in the context of chaos theory, that it was like designating non-elephant biology as a field of study.
Every. Video. Is. Gold.
Loving the SU(2)
Would you go over Steve Vai's "For the Love of God?" He has said in an interview that he wrote the guitar based on what sounded good when he hummed and vocalized, producing very different sounding music which I find incredible.
You should definitely check out Ernö Lendvai's Axis System and Albert Simon's "Tonfeld-Theorie"! (as we call it in Germany, roughly translated to: note field theory). Not too many people seem to teach this kind of stuff and I think, it's very useful!
The ICEBERG with glasses and goatee becomes ICENBERG. Mindblown
Whilst I still struggle with understanding music theory in general (I might take a class on it one day, who knows), watching these videos always intrigue me. Always fun to learn!
This is a refusal to explain nonfunctional harmony, but it does so really well anyway. Thanks!
Please make a video about modal harmony :)
Provocative title, but solid and direct video. Good stuff!
Is it okay to write a piece where the harmony is mostly functional, but there is n V chord? (it's in a minor key, so I used the flat vii instead.)
great lesson
Great point(s)! Non functional harmony is a pretty unproductive way of looking towards something different than the traditional modes
Placing Sonic's head directly under "8-bit Music Theory"... I see what you did there!
This video is incredible!
Hi 12tone, could you some time make a video "Understanding Wuthering Heights"?!
This is amazing! :)
Great video, thank you
I will never perceive these videos in the same way now that I have seen 12tone's face!! Yes, talking about that live transmission going on in Adam's Neely channel right now
so much learning
wow, i just realised half the songs i wrote are some kind of non functional harmony O_o
one of the last songs i wrote is a bunch of chord progressions that you can find in clasic pop and rock songs, played by a guitar in a reggae style, but the conection between those chord progressions is an experiment in modulation that i wanted to do, and in the middle, for that modulation experiment, i use many of the things you described here! one of my favorite is playing Am to A7, to Dm, to D, to g... and it makes a weird walking progression, BUT! the whole song is just recorded and played backwards... it sounds somewhere between satanic and alien...
Do madhouse from anthrax, I think it's a nice example to this and I'd love tou hear you break down the "spider chord" part of it
12tone, you should look at save the population by the red hot chili peppers , one of my favorites. I think it would be pretty interesting.
Great video as always. I’m very interested Neo-Riemannian analysis (and also in whatever original “Riemannian” analysis may have been), could you possibly analyze a neo-riemannian piece or recommend a book about it? I went through a phase a while back where I bought a lot of old harmony/counterpoint treatises and I think I have counterpoint book by Riemann (or maybe it’s some other theorist whose name starts with an R 😂)
How exactly would you describe the harmony model of Indian classical music? I know, they use drones, but I'm curious to know what else you can tell about it!
There the harmony is implicit in the melody and each raga also contains directions on how to use its particular notes. Often a raga will not be the same ascending as descending
fantastic!
This was a great video! I have a challenge for you, Negative Harmony.
Why not call it afunctional harmony, to indicate that it's any harmony that simply doesn't follow the scheme of functional harmony?
Typically, when I think of nonfunctional harmony, I think of the soundtracks of Chrono Trigger and Donkey Kong Country 1 and 2.
So maybe we can describe nonfunctional (or my term, afunctional harmony) as:
1. Slow tempo.
2. Music is supposed to create a mood, feeling, or vibe.
3. We have chords, so it's not atonal.
4. Smooth voice leading between each chord.
5. Rich and colorful chords to add interest, to counteract the piece sounding too stagnant.
6. Avoids chords that inherently have too much harmonic movement.
7. Makes use of melodic ideas, vamps, or beats that remain constant throughout the piece to generate tension and release in a different, more gentle manner as opposed to functional harmony.
Maybe it works? But I dunno, I could just be spouting complete nonsense.
Hey, I discovered your channel just a few days ago and I really liked it. Do you have any advice for learning music theory by myself besides watching these videos?
Laitz's The Complete Musician. Pros: Extremely thorough, with good pedagogy and philosophy. Cons: Very dense reading that can put off some readers.
Clendinning/Marvin's Musician's Guide to Theory and Analysis. Pros: Also thorough, very easy to read (conversational writing style). Cons: definitions are not always clear in the text, although the glossary in the back can help remedy this.
Aldwell/Schachter's Harmony and Voice Leading. Pros: this is basically a bible for part writing. Extremely thorough; the standard text for part writing. Cons: Doesn't discuss much outside of part writing.
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Tonal Harmony: With an Introduction to Twentieth Century Music Stefan Kostka and Dorothy Payne as a good introductory book for music theory. It doesn't assume any prior musical knowledge, even knowing how to read music or what noes correspond to what keys on a piano or anything, and it proceeds comprehensively all the way to the harmony of the late 19th century when conventional tonality was starting to break down. It comes with a CD that has recordings of all the musical examples in the book so you can actually hear the principles and techniques described at use in well-known pieces. The exercises included are very good, with a nice mix of score analysis and composition assignments, and there are answers in the back of the book so you can check your work (the composition assignments have sample solutions).
Thanks very much!
this is such a cool channel!
i agree
I know this might sounds dumb, but how come a lot of blues songs sounds the same but very different at the same time?
Not dumb at all! The short version is that there's a standard progression called the Twelve Bar Blues that a lot of blues songs use, giving them a similar foundation that the artist then builds on top of. You get the same harmonic structure, but the riffs, melodies, lyrics, and other elements are all still up to the artist.
Can you do John Denver's take me home country roads
Hey! I love your vids, maybe you could do an analysis of Your Latest Trick by Dire Straits. It was a pretty popular song in its time and it has a pretty wacky harmony in my opinion
nice
SO COOL!!!
Hay man I love your videos. Im currently making a documentary about the value of music theory for my MA in journalism. Im hoping to cover the debate about its value and ask why some musicians are afraid of it being overly prescriptive. Just thought id ask if there was asy chance of a 5 min skype interview? Would be good to get your perspective on the issue as a leading figure in music theory on youtube. Best, Adam
Sure, send me an email! I'm fairly busy for the next month or so but I can try to find some time.
Amazing. Will do. Thank you so much. I have a couple of months to do the project so whenever is best for you is fine by me.
3:58 or Echoes
Can you do a video on a Styx song? Mr Roboto or Come Sail Away?
Dorian mode is my favourite :D
You just let me know how much I don't know about music. To me,learning this stuff is like English class in school. As you can tell.lol
I dont know if its your kinda stuff, but the theory behind Opeth is really cool and different. You haven't covered much metal, and boy is this different then the rest of the stuff on your channel.
Opeth (and most progressive metal, tbh) isn't really all that special or different from a theory perspective. Opeth certainly didn't do anything new, nor did Porcupine Tree, Haken, Dream Theater, or anyone else. Perhaps there is something to talk about in Meshuggah's rhythmic concept or Last Sacrament's microtonal concept; but from a strictly theory perspective, heavy metal isn't terribly special.
It still is the most dynamic genre today as a lot of these bands use the theory of jazz / classical music (for instance : AAL, Plini, Opeth, meshuggah, tools, et cetera)
They really invented no harmony theory but they eventually brought the love of music back from the dead
I second that. An analysis video on, say, Burden or Harvest would be really fun.
Havok You clearly know more than me! Lol I just heard a lot of cool use of the dominant diminished scale and even some of its chords (I and i , Vb, etc.) And some other stuff and thought it was cool.
Ah, Chrono Trigger... you understood non-functional harmony
But chromatic mediants are part of functional harmony. They just lack chord function. They only serve to embellish a chord. However it is still part of functional harmony. It simply creates a static progression.
I usually slow down your videos to better understand lol
I think voice leading should have played into this video
I don't mind letting ads play through if it's for a channel I like.
Even if it is musical.ly 🙄😌
Would you consider a I - vi - V - ii four-chord song non-functional harmony?
It can be explained pretty functionally, although it doesn't have your standard dominant to tonic motion. First three chords are pretty standard, it's just the ii that's different. It's sort of similar to a plagal cadence (the ii chord is the relative minor of the IV) but a bit weaker.
"Everything in non-functional harmony. Functional harmony lasted six years" - Morton Feldman
it would be amazing if you took on a tech death song say like Spawn Of Possession.
i was just binging your channel lol
I can't get past how you hook your thumb around your knuckle when you write. I can't stop looking at it.
not first
Franciszek Klonowski you stole my comment
Also not first.
You should do Enter Sandman
nice video you have there
Everything I do is non-functional and that's not a thing, it's a lot of things that don't all even have anything to do with one another. I can't use most of them, and I can do music as a real hobby with only the ones I do.
well isn't that mainly because western scales are made up of the same L-L-S-L-L-L-S pattern (L=long 2 semitone interval, S=short 1 semitone interval), they're just shifted, so if you stick to the same scale and same key in the riff, it will be quite limited
in order to play an arabic sounding melody, that require intervals of 3 semitones in between, and have more short intervals as opposed to the 2 we have in traditional western classical scales.
you'd have to switch root notes or scales around throughout the riff in western classical hamony, whereas other cultures approch scales and chords in a whole different manner, even some western jazz does, although many of them know the classical rules in order to break them.
a traditional western scale consists of 7 notes, of which the chords are 3 minor, 3 major, and 1 diminished.
the diminished is the 7th in a major scale, or the 2nd in a minor scale,
i has a little thing to memorize it that way:
major->up=dim chord is up high.
minor->down=dim chord is down low.
they are exactly 1 from the center (root note), but on the other side depending on whether it's major or minor,
and obviously the major it's only a half step from the root, whereas in minor it's 2 steps from the root, as per usual :D
i know i'm oversimplyfing it, as there's harmonic and natural scales too, but they still don't address 3-semitone intervals,
let alone 3.5 semitones.
because in my example of arabic music and it's quarter note scales not represented in western theory, 7 quarter note intervals are used, which i can play on a guitar by bending, but is out of the question for a regular piano, no point in writing music your instrument can't perform, right? but guitar and its possibilities for alternative tunings and microtonality lends itself very well for experimenting.
for most western ears, the frequencies in between the 12 notes that make up our octaves, are considered microtonal additions, not really a basis for composition.
loved that little *cough* when you said influence, i see what you did there :D
Can any of the things you mentioned at the beginning be used to analyze the last 20 seconds of Jacob Colliers version of you and I? I can't get enough of the progression. I would list them here but I honestly don't even know how to name them. June Lee transcribed them on his channel.
Thank you 12tone. A very interesting clip. Drawn swords and hermit crabs.
super fucking interesting, thanks
Obvious fact: A plagal cadence is a inverted authentic (perfect) cadence. Means that the chords switched places.
I was just thinking about non functional chords last night lol
Non Functional has always been a bit of a funny way to describe music that doesn't function according to a specific system, to me at least.
"Non Functional" in this context it doesn't mean "it doesn't function". It means that the chords of the progression doesn't have a well defined "Function" as "Home", subdominant or dominant.
@@rmv9194 I know, it's just a nitpick cause it can still function according to different rules. X or Y can have a specific function in a specific style of music, Indian Raga gets really particular, for example, certain scale degrees have their own sort of rules associated with them and basically have an ''intended'' effect.
Even if you don't really have a set of rules, say you've got a minor 7th chord that just slides down to another minor 7th a half step below, on which the progression mostly stays. The two chords definitely have a role here, 2nd one is home while the 1st one has super strong angular tension towards it. You can basically establish the ''function'' of your harmony by doing things like that, whereas some functional pieces can actually be more ambiguous than this example.
Brb creating three new schools of harmony
mmmh I'm hearing some ViHart quotes in here eh...
"Movement from E to B only takes two" what movement are you talking about. I know, silly question.