# Different chords on diatonic scale



## miguel88 (Apr 1, 2016)

hi
sorry if this not about soundtrack and orchestra but I m try to make other kind of music and I have some questions

I m trying to study harmony but I have some question about it:

I hear some songs which for example if they are in C major so should follow the diatonic scale, ( C dm Em F G Am Bdim)

But in the song in some part the add this chords: Eb(III b) , Ab (VI b), Bb (VII b), or Bm (VIIm) and they make the song sound refreshing and cool and they back to diatonic scale again so is like they add tension to the song on that parts, also sometimes they use 7th but I already know that 7th make more tension,

so what I d like to know is If I study more harmony (advance one) I gonna understand when i can use that chords cause when i composing a song and I try to add this chords but doesnt sound right so maybe I have to learn more harmony to know in which Degrees on the scale I should change to then and in which Degree back,

what do you think?


I left here some samples song where they use these kind of chords:


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## ed buller (Apr 1, 2016)

Hi Miguel.

This IS a tricky subject. You are quite correct . The music you posted uses a lot of borrowed Harmony . And THAT can be confusing. If you study you will find out how to use this harmony. As you like pop music ( i assume ) study good pop songs. Most pop music is strictly Diatonic however the good stuff isn't !

People like , The Beatles, David Bowie, Queen , Radiohead, Muse..and many many others use chords from parallel modes and keys. The trouble is that this a huge subject and there are really are no shortcuts. If you start to study other peoples music, you will see what THEY do that YOU like.......... and copy it.

For instance :



In this song they Start in G maj and play a G. Then a B maj ( which should be a minor !). then a C maj ( fine ) but follow it with a C min. ! None if this is particularly groundbreaking. But it sounds wonderful. So this is a useful trick. Try to make what should be Maj ..Min..and vice versa ( if it was strictly Diatonic )



Here they start on D min...then Bb Maj ( so far diatonic )...then E Maj....Followed by A maj. The E should be a Diminished and the Amaj7th is unusual in pop ( not in classical ) because it's normally min.

Both these examples are from parallel modes. But you can go further. And use a chord NOT in the key at all.

So if we where in C maj Any of the Sharps would be unused. C#, D#, F#,G#,A#. But you Can use them too. The most common in Classical music is the C#. This would be called a Neapolitan. You can hear this very clearly in The raiders theme. It's in C and Moves up a half step.

where it get's tricky is if the music isn't firmly Diatonic....But that's another subject.

The best bet is to be really scientific. Pick ten songs you like. Write out ALL the chords. Give them roman numerals so you can identify what chords are foreign. You will start to see a patten of what pleases you.

This is a beautiful piece by Faure. I was fascinated by the harmony so I did the chord map. The odd ones out are in red.




simple video


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## miguel88 (Apr 1, 2016)

Thanks so much dude for all this stuff very,

Yes i like this kind of jazzy J-pop

I also usually listen muse and radiohead but in not focus on chords when i m listening so i didnt know they use like that, will be nice to see their charts. 

At this moment I m reading this book: Harmony for computer musicians
so i hope i can understand the way to use much more chords,

I trying to make music like the japanese Producer Yasutaka nakata: he make pop and techno but in all his productions sound like jazz, blues or even some bossa nova, He use a lot of 7th chords and no diatonic chords,
the problem is not have much score sheets from his tracks so I use the riffstation app and by hear to take the chords he use

maybe i should see some chords charts from jazz and bossa nova songs and try create progressions,
normally i start with chords progression before the voice melody so on that way is also more complicate to add that chords

thanks again


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## ed buller (Apr 1, 2016)

That is a great book. Look at the chapters on seventh chords. Thats what you need to master. It's much harder to spot weather something is diatonic once extended harmony comes in to play. Adding 7th's, 9th's 11th's etc tends to blur the sound somewhat. You may find it's all still pretty simple.

e


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## MartinAlexander (Jul 15, 2016)

In the end nothing helps as much as getting creative, compose and produce a lot of music and trying to do this in an aesthetically pleasing way


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## Rodney Money (Jul 15, 2016)

Let me just say first, I am a very weird person. Where I am supposed to look at C Major and tell myself I only have 7 chords in the key of C Major, because of borrowed chords, secondary dominants, augmented 6th chords, and the Neapolitan chord which is normally found in 1st inversion my brain calculates at least 28 chords that can still be considered C Major. So with using this information, the Radiohead Creep example makes perfect sense. In G Major it would be: I, V/vi, IV, and iv if my math is correct. I just quickly wrote this down this morning while drinking coffee, but off the top of my head all of these chords would still be in the key of C:


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## ed buller (Jul 15, 2016)

Rodney Money said:


> because of borrowed chords, secondary dominants, augmented 6th chords, and the Neapolitan chord which is normally found in 1st inversion my brain calculates at least 28 chords that can still be considered C Major.



Yes you can say this. But it really is a bit of a construct . Terms like "borrowed harmony" are necessarily misleading in my view. It makes it much harder for must people to study and understand. 

e


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## Rodney Money (Jul 15, 2016)

ed buller said:


> Yes you can say this. But it really is a bit of a construct . Terms like "borrowed harmony" are necessarily misleading in my view. It makes it much harder for must people to study and understand.
> 
> e


Nah, its so easy a child can understand when we teach them. It's borrowed chords from their minor so the tonic is still C or whatever key you are in. Don't make it complicated. It's all about where is the sounding pitch that is home, aka scale degree 1 or do. If they have the same home, it works. Majors can borrow from the minor, because they simply have the same home.


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## Rodney Money (Jul 15, 2016)

Now not all of those are borrowed chords, the others are secondary dominant and German augmented 6ths for example, but their home is still C.


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## trumpoz (Jul 15, 2016)

And once you have been able to get your head around all of that then there is jazz harmony. I still remember 3rd Year Jazz Theory looking at how to resolve any V7 chord from any key to one of I maj, I maj7 or I maj13#11 through using voice leading and minor 3rd substitution on a V7 chord.


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## Rodney Money (Jul 15, 2016)

trumpoz said:


> And once you have been able to get your head around all of that then there is jazz harmony. I still remember 3rd Year Jazz Theory looking at how to resolve any V7 chord from any key to one of I maj, I maj7 or I maj13#11 through using voice leading and minor 3rd substitution on a V7 chord.


And that's what I call fun times!


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## Rodney Money (Jul 16, 2016)

trumpoz said:


> And once you have been able to get your head around all of that then there is jazz harmony. I still remember 3rd Year Jazz Theory looking at how to resolve any V7 chord from any key to one of I maj, I maj7 or I maj13#11 through using voice leading and minor 3rd substitution on a V7 chord.


By the way, it's funny that you mentioned that, because that's exactly what I did at the end of my piece, Foret Enchantee, right now in the composition area.


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## David Story (Jul 16, 2016)

The OP question is great because every songwriter and composer hears something and wonders "what's that?" The answer is to learn to play the music you love really well. Get the sheet music. If there's none, get someone who can transcribe to help you. Theory will help a lot, but the unusual harmonies Miguel likes are understood by playing the music and then analyzing what's happening. With a few years of theory you can get from any chord to any chord. Playing the music helps you choose when to use those chords.


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## bryla (Jul 16, 2016)

Much of what is said belongs to the term secondary dominant. E maj > A maj in the key of D minor fx. B maj > C maj in the key of G major aso.

The neapolitan chord is called the neapolitan sixth chord. It is not usually found in first inversion, it IS first inversion. The function is not of a Db maj in the key of C but an F minor sharp 5 predominant chord in the key of C minor. Check it out in the moonlight sonata every time you hear a 'D major chord'


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## Fer (Jul 16, 2016)

Hi Miguel, as it has been said here, you have a lot of chords in any diatonic scale. But this doesnt resolve your question, because at the end the key is to know how those chords should be structured and arranged in a tonal context, which is your goal in order to expand your harmonic vocabulary, isnt it? So to start with the basics, i would ask to you… are you familiarized with the concept of cadence? And do you know what a secondary dominant is?
Regarding to your question if you study some harmony then you will understand the inherent logic behind the examples posted here, of course! : )
Edit: just viewed the last video that ed buller posted... which covers the explanation of those secondary dominats.. very useful.


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## Rodney Money (Jul 16, 2016)

bryla said:


> The neapolitan chord is called the neapolitan sixth chord. It is not usually found in first inversion, it IS first inversion. The function is not of a Db maj in the key of C but an F minor sharp 5 predominant chord in the key of C minor. Check it out in the moonlight sonata every time you hear a 'D major chord'


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neapolitan_chord


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## Zenkkon (Aug 20, 2016)

To answer Miguel's question, say we're in the key of C and the examples you gave were Eb,Ab,Bb, I'm leaving Bm out just for now. The 3 chords you hear are indeed borrowed from the parallel C minor, or C Aeolian mode. Reason why these 3 works is because technically they are still in the key of C, which gives them the same leading tone if we are looking for a cadence, this will provide the writer with the same dominant chord, which is G or G7. The leading tone is not in regular C minor but is in C melodic minor. The Bm chord is borrowed from parallel C Lydian mode.

These usages are usually called modal interchange, how to use these chords are really subject to individual taste, listen to some Jazz standards, read and play some leadsheets, look up scales of all the modes in the Key of C, try to combine them knowing they are still in the same key and have some fun!


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## Coincidental (Aug 21, 2016)

There's loads of great advice above. I would just add that knowing some diatonic chords is a bit like knowing some letters of the alphabet - you can put them side by side, but not all combinations will form words. The order, the _progression_ of the harmony is the vital thing to look at: tension and release, modulation, surprise - it's like the storyboard structure of a film.

Analysis will help you understand _what_ you're hearing. The _why_ brings in other things like the melody, the movement of the bass line (even jangly guitar pop has voice leading going on), the emotional structure and the overall architecture. Almost everything in music theory can be looked at from at least two different perspectives, though, so it can be hard to get a grip on how to study it.

The original examples you posted use a lot of extended chords (9, 6/9, 13, altered dominants etc) and a lot of b5 substitution (very common in bossa nova). If that's what you're into I would look out some resources on basic jazz/latin harmony. So find out about cadences, secondary dominants (eg ii-V-I progressions) and tritone (b5) substitution (Wikipedia is not too bad a place to start, amazingly). Learn the rhythm changes, find chord charts for some bossa nova classics and listen to different versions of them... Have fun!


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## Chandler (Aug 22, 2016)

As other have said above in any given key there are quite a few extra chords that can be used besides the 7 diatonic chords and you can still be considered "in the same key". In the examples you posted above, those are modal interchange chords(also known as borrowed chords or mode mixture). I'll do some shameless self promotion and post a video I did on the subject a few months ago.



Also check out some 70s/80s pop jazz for more of this type of harmony. Also a lot of 80s R&B will use these types of chords too. Ex Anita Baker, Chaka Kahn, Stevie Wonder, etc. I hope that helps.


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## Dave Connor (Aug 22, 2016)

It seems to me that it's in the limitation or categorization of knowledge that the brain functions most efficiently. An art student first learning to paint is probably better off sketching with a pencil than being handed a large palette with every shade of color under the sun and being told, "You can use any of these - good luck." The point being that incremental growth where one gains a certain command at every step ensures an underlying strength no matter how far out of bounds he/she ends up from the basic concepts. Schoenberg taught his students who wanted to learn his radical 12 tone system Bach counterpoint. Why? Too many reasons to count. Suffice to say that every musical principle one can think of is found in J.S.'s music on as high a plane as ever conceived by a composer. (Mozart thought so anyway.)

I suggest learning basic functional harmony (diatonicism) where you could pencil in the chord function of every bar of a Haydn Sonata's 1st Movement (one in a major key and one in a minor.) Having that foundation in your head and in your ears will then allow you understand and make use of non-diatonic harmony (or borrowed chords or whatever the terminology you prefer.) This way, everything you chose to do _relates _to something; is with or against it; is a seasoning of or complete departure from: or somewhere in the middle.

Learn English before you attempt to write a play that will rival Shakespeare.


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