Quote:
Originally Posted by bbass75  Janek,
Thanks for the quick response. I was actually asking about the harmonic functions of the chords in the verse, not the bridge (I worded the question incorrectly). Being a Berklee student I'm accustomed to just automatically thinking of chords and progressions in a tonal universe where everything has a function as opposed to just disregarding that and thinking of chord sound. Is this how you approach your tunes harmonically? If so, do you ever think analytically when composing? Thanks!
James |
I guess you could think in terms of how the chords are moving. There's some mediant harmony (a la Giant Steps) - movement in major thirds - Bb- to F#-, F#- to Dmaj. The second 4 bars also has a nice kind of symmetry that I can't really nail any kind of theoretical explanation to. As Janek says, best just to get inside the sound. Here's something interesting; if you play the 7th chord arpeggios over the changes, just say quarter notes, and go up an inversion each bar (starting with the first chord on 1st inversion), your first note for the first 3 bars will be C#, and your first note for bars 4 and 5 will be B. There's a lot of interesting little patterns that crop up from the unusual harmonic movement if you dig in just a little bit. How useful are they? Who knows, they certainly don't come out in my improvising, but it's always cool to get as far inside a tune as you can, particularly to find new ways to practice.
