email a question to marc (at) marclowenstein (dot) com

and the question will be forwarded to the Theory Weasel, who will post a response with wet, matted fur and uneven teeth….

Hey Weasel, how you doing? things are going ok with me, got a chord progression question. I have a small piece I am working with and here is the part I am messing with key C major. I am in 6/8 and each chord gets a full bar I - iii - IV - V now the next chord is what I am looking for. it needs to be something that inticapates fear something not stable. like something is about to happen. got any good ideas? for a better idea the section goes like this I - iii - IV - V - I - iii - IV - V - new chord new direction —–Erik

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hmmm.

well…

when you’re looking for a new chord there are a lot of ways to look at it.

if you want new direction but similar, try to figure out what you’re doing, then do it in another way, key or direction, but maybe not literally

figuring out what you’re doing can be interesting as i always find there are many different ways to look at what i’m doing and finding new ways often opens up doors to unusual places

it seems to me that your progression so far

• has an ascending bass line
• has an implied descending top line if you want it (C-B-A-G)
• and pretty clear tonal function
• stays in one key area
• repeats

so…..

if you want ‘not stable’ you can go to an unstable chord (but that might sound ‘out of place’ – a diminished or augmented chord for instance would change the flavor. (as would almost any triad with and added note at this point on account of the cleanliness of the progression so far) do you want to change the flavor? or, do you want to change the area?

another way to create instability is to have a larger scale formal instability by stabilizing different, far away keys. closely related keys will sometimes work as well if there is a mode shift from major to minor or vice versa.

Some examples in no particular order:

• - Red Hot Chili Peppers sometimes have radical key-area changes for bridge or C sections, (e.g. Falling into Grace) they often use common tones.

• More standard Funk always has very close key areas. There are relatively few out-of-area-chord changes as they are very groove oriented.

• Standard Jazz tunes often have one ‘special’ out-of-area chords ( e. g. the Db in ‘what a wonderful world’ which is in F) or special out of area bridges (night and day/girl from impanema etc etc etc) these also use common tones.

• Chick Rock stuff will often have close-but artish related keys (Aimee Mann, e. g.)

• contrasting harmonies in Country music are usually analyzable as secondary dominants (e. g. ‘Crazy’ the second chord is a V/ii)

• The Beatles…well, I wish I could generalize…they do like to borrow a lot from the minor side, e.g. pass down from IV to iv….but it’s hard to categorize….

but none of that is comprehensive in anyway and it’s just to get you thinking…

So……

Common tones are a great way to go – If you find yourself stuck on that final G chord, try holding one note and reharmonizing it. My favorite in this context would be to hold the G and hold it as part of an Eb chord. Then you can try to imitate one of your previous processes. Try a descending line from the Bb to an A-nat (while holding the Eb maybe? If you do the exact same thing and bring the bass line up again it might sound too obvious….hmm…..

If you choose something like the descending line from Bb while holding the Eb you’ll have to move eventually, and now you can ask yourself if you want to keep the same kind of motion. That might lead you to a C minor chord when the line gets to the G and that could follow to a crazy B7 right after…..

Then you’d be a bit far away from home but perhaps you have left enough bread crumbs to find your way back…..

so something like…..

C-e-F-G

C-e-F-G

Eb-Eb#11-Eb-c

B7——-[G7?…kind of cheesy – how about g-7?….oooo….]

Cheers,

TW