Need a chord name...

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Shooshie
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Need a chord name...

Post by Shooshie »

This is a ridiculous request, I know, as I could figure it out with a little effort, but I thought I'd try the easy way, first, and see if you guys know the answer.

There's a chord that Richard Rodgers used a lot. You all know the chord, and most of you have played it at some point. It's the one that falls on the word Mu-sic, in the following passage:

Key of F
The hills are alive, with the sound of [Mu-sic...]

Would you call that a half-diminished 9th?
It's almost a VII7 (leading tone major/minor 7), and it functions pretty much as that chord (E7) but the C and F negate that. (song's in F)
I'm spelling it d-f-ab-c-d-e, with a C pedal. The first five notes would be an easy half-diminished, but the main note (melody) is the 9th, so I'm thinking half-diminished 9th... but then there's that C pedal. Would you write that:
Image

Whatever it's called, I've always loved it. I can't remember what songs I've heard it in, but it seems like it provides some of the textures to South Pacific, in addition to this function in Sound of Music. Like a Tristan chord, it imparts a certain exotic ambiguity to a song that otherwise is quite conservatively harmonized. Seems like I remember Martin Denny using it back in the 50s, in the album, "Exotica." He probably stole it from Rodgers!

Different books use a wide variety of chord symbols, but I think we can all agree on the half-diminished symbol. The question is whether you can really have a half-diminished 9th, and especially whether you can have one with the minor 7th doubled as a dominant pedal in the bass. I mean, I think if I wrote it as shown, most people would get it. But is it legit?

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FMiguelez
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Re: Need a chord name...

Post by FMiguelez »

Where does it go after that? I think that would give you your answer.

If the piece is in F, I wouldn't call it a half diminished vii (the 9th would be minor, taking Locrian as a chord scale).

Without more info, it sounds to me like it could be some kind of modified vi chord, possibly functioning as a ii-7b5 in a secondary ii- V- I pattern (with the minor seventh in the bass).
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Re: Need a chord name...

Post by stubbsonic »

Yea, that is a lovely sound.

With those half-dims, there's always that ambiguity about it being a minor-6 chord.

But I think when it is voiced as a kind of "poly-chord" where you have an E7 voice over a F and/or C drone, it gives that feeling of sliding into another major chord.

Your chord symbol seems fine. or Fm6/C (add E) or E+7(b9)/C

I am absolutely the wrong person to comment on what is legit and what aint. I cain't.
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Shooshie
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Re: Need a chord name...

Post by Shooshie »

FMiguelez wrote:Where does it go after that? I think that would give you your answer.

If the piece is in F, I wouldn't call it a half diminished vii (the 9th would be minor, taking Locrian as a chord scale).

Without more info, it sounds to me like it could be some kind of modified vi chord, possibly functioning as a ii-7b5 in a secondary ii- V- I pattern (with the minor seventh in the bass).
No, it's not a vii (diminished or locrian mode) chord at all. I said it resembles a VII7 chord in sound, but the presences of C and F make that not a valid comparison. It's based on the vi chord (d), but instead of being minor or minor 7, it's half-diminished, with the added 9th (E). The C pedal and the E, which is the main note of the melody right there, give it a quasi-major sound, but with all these altered chord degrees in it. It's got a bit of the submediant and dominant mixed together.

However, if I were simplifying it for beginning pianists, I might change it to an E7 chord with the pedal C. That gives it a dominant function based on the leading tone, but rather than a locrian diminished sound, it's an augmented dominant 7th. I remember some kind of name for that, back in theory, when instead of going to a dominant, you instead go to the 7th, but build a major-minor-7th chord on it. It's hard to voice correctly, since all notes want to resolve up a half-step, parallel, to the tonic.

Note that I'm not trying to write it as a relative function, with roman numerals. I'm just trying to find the simplest way to represent it with an actual root: D in this case. So, if I was to write:
Image
would you know to play a pedal C, with D-F-Ab-C-D-E? (or some voicing of that chord?)

Actually, I'm thinking that the upper C may be an appoggiatura that resolves to B on the second syllable (mu-SIC), making it a fully diminished chord with a 9th on top and a C pedal. That sounds better to my ear, but I'd have to listen to Rodgers original score to see if that's actually what he did. It does seem like there was motion in it, rather than the same notes on both syllables.

Sorry if I'm boring anyone. I'm forever fascinated with how chords resolve, and where they take us, emotionally, when they stretch our ears away from the tonic, suspend time in the furthest reaches of the key, and lead us back home, sometimes through unexpected paths. It must have been amazing to be JS Bach or F. Chopin, and to realize that you were exploring the very vocabulary of human emotion, telling stories without words by finding where these connections were, where they took us, and back. Then come up to the 20th century when bebop jazz, bossa nova, samba, and such found even new places the Romantics hadn't explored. It's just the most incredible conversation on earth, and people who never venture out of the pop mentality aren't even aware that it has been going on — and for 500 years or more. Thousands, if you take it back to the ancient Greeks, Persians, Africans or Chinese. I've been doing this since I was 8, and at nearly 60, I am still inspired by every song and opus I hear.

Like the song says: the hills are alive, with the sound of music!

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Re: Need a chord name...

Post by FMiguelez »

Shooshie wrote: Image
would you know to play a pedal C, with D-F-Ab-C-D-E? (or some voicing of that chord?)
Yes. I could figure it out like that.

But you haven't said where that chord goes next, Shoosh. That's very important.
Is this part of a cadence, or more like a passing chord in the middle of a phrase?

I haven't had the chance to listen to the song, but MOST TIMES, anything that isn't a chord tone (3rd, 5th, 7th), when voiced as the bass, tends to sound like a root of an uper-structure.

In all probability, the AURAL effect is some kind of C chord, some kind of dominant form for the V.
It could be a V sus4 b6 with an added major 9th.
(That's why it's important to know where the chord progresses)

Shooshie wrote:Sorry if I'm boring anyone. I'm forever fascinated with how chords resolve, and where they take us, emotionally, when they stretch our ears away from the tonic, suspend time in the furthest reaches of the key, and lead us back home
I'm like a total geek, so I LOVE this stuff too!
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Re: Need a chord name...

Post by FMiguelez »

... and yet, that doesn't explain the E as a chord tone (unless its some kind of accented passing tone or similar)...

Hmmm...

Though, they way it's voiced, it's not unheard of to use the 3rd and 4th together as major 7 (Ionian flavour).

Without listening to it, I'd say it's an Aeolian (or Har. min) -flavoured dominant chord, as suggested above (the upper structure being a passing or app. chord).
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Re: Need a chord name...

Post by Shooshie »

FMiguelez wrote:But you haven't said where that chord goes next, Shoosh. That's very important.
Is this part of a cadence, or more like a passing chord in the middle of a phrase?
Sorry; I thought it was one that everyone knew. The chord immediately returns to tonic for the second half of the phrase, then it starts again, and the second phrase does the same thing, but this time resolves to a submediant/subdominant/dominant/tonic cadence. Again, the key is F, so the chord, whose practical root is D would be submediant based, with the pedal C giving it some ambiguity, and the melodic E coming off as a 9th (or the E could be called the 3rd of the pedal C, which may affect the mood, but you don't really hear it that way).

It's a beautiful bit of tension, held longer than any other note in the phrases.

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Re: Need a chord name...

Post by FMiguelez »

It would've helped if I had actually looked for the song and heard it myself. Now that I heard it, the song sounds familiar...

It's this one, right Shoosh?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YILe81I ... freload=10

Anyway, I think I know what it is, and it's much simpler than that.

I think I was thrown off by what you wrote, Shoosh, because I don't hear any C pedal in there at all (I could've misunderstood you)...
What I hear, with my iMac speaker, is an F pedal over a i dim 7. So it could be F - F dim7 - F. That's a very Tchaikovsky-like progression. He used that a lot in his ballets.
What makes the difference with this song is the E in the melody (in MU-sic). Since it creates a nice maj7 against the bass (F maj7), and a min2 against the tenor, it gives the chord a very nice mystique, like you said.

I would analyse it as a neighbouring chord, thus F - Fdim7 (added E) - F.

The added E could be though of as part of the F maj7 chord, or as a spice note that could be thought of as a dim7 chord with an added maj7 for kicks...
Last edited by FMiguelez on Thu Feb 26, 2015 5:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Need a chord name...

Post by FMiguelez »

The chord in question could also be thought of as some kind of E7 b9, but it doesn't sound like that to me at all. Besides, the F in the bass negates this (so it's only the upper-sturcture that looks like it).

The more I think about it, the more my previous analysis convinces me. But I'm wrong more often than I'm not...

Anyway. Very beautiful example. Now I will steal it and put it in my harmonic toolbox :)
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Re: Need a chord name...

Post by MIDI Life Crisis »

First I just played it w/o cheating... I came up with E/F (E man. with F in the bass. Then I checked my fake book and that is how they also name it. It's a similar kind of progression as "One of those songs" and "All for the best" (Godspell).

Other than that, we can just call it "George" or better yet, "Richard with Oscar in the bass...." LOL
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Re: Need a chord name...

Post by Shooshie »

That was not like Rodger's version in the film or Broadway book. I'll have to watch the opening of the film again. I think it plays during the opening credits or title sequence. There's more to it than the guy was doing in the example you posted. I hear it clearly in my mind, but that could be way off from the reality. (memory, it turns out, can be like a sieve, or like LSD)

Then again, various versions of the same song can also be hallucinogenically different.

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Re: Need a chord name...

Post by Shooshie »

Ok, I played the opening credits in the movie, from my iTunes version, which I think is the exact version I remember in the movie. Right off the bat, I noticed that I was wrong about the 2nd phrase. It never gets to the 2nd phrase, but immediately heads off with a different motif from "Do, a Deer..."

But the chord in question does indeed have a C pedal, but it's in the timpani, and it may actually be a C-F roll. There's an F in the pedal, too, or maybe it's a CD trill... I don't know for sure. Every time I listened to it, I heard it a little differently, but the last few times I played it, I was 100% sure I heard a C in the timpani, and as I said, probably a C-F roll. When it goes to straight F in the timpani, you can clearly hear the difference.

But that's not the critical part of the chord, though it does provide the instability it needs to accent the tension.
[return to the film for certainty]
I just put on headphones to be sure of what i was hearing. It's an F-C timpani roll, with F in the bass, but you hear the C as a pedal, too. Very destabilizing, because the timpani is so subtle it will swing either way as you listen.

The brass are playing an E-maj chord with an F in 2nd position (E-F-G#-B-E), but I'm not absolutely sure that a brass instrument is playing the F. The harp does, though. It sweeps through with a more complex chord than the brass are playing, and if I'm correct, it's probably C-E-F-G#-B-E, and possibly a D in there, too, but I'd have to study it a little more carefully to ascertain that.

It turns out that the F-C timpani roll really IS the critical voice in the chord, because without it the music would be much more predictable with less tension. With the F-C pedal, the E chord becomes both C augmented 7 and F diminished. That's what's causing that incredible ambiguity, like the dam is about to burst, threatening to turn the placid lake into a deadly torrent.

Darn! I wish I had the score. What with all the masking going on in a 1965 recording, it's really hard to hear every note, but if I just judge by the "feel" of it, I know those other notes have got to be there. A simple E-major or E7 chord just wouldn't give that momentary foreboding, a foreshadowing of the Anschluss, no doubt.

What are you all hearing?

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Re: Need a chord name...

Post by davedempsey »

I sketched out the the first couple of bars of the tune on my piano here at home I end up with and E chord in the right hand and F in the bass. Sounds a little more interesting with a 7th: G#, B, D and E in the right. So I'm with MLC on this one - put simply it's E/F. I don't have a version here to listen to, so only going on what works at the keyboard. With the 7th added in the right hand I guess you could see it as Fdim with an E in the melody.
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Re: Need a chord name...

Post by HCMarkus »

Playing my piano, I, too, vote for E7 over F as the basic sound; there can certainly be a low C in there too, pedaling with the F as the chord moves from F to E. Love the film and its music.

On that note, I thought Gaga sounded great at the Oscars. So wonderful to see the timeless film, its amazing tunes, and Ms. Andrews honored. First Tony, then Julie. What's next… opera? Gaga continues to impress.
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Re: Need a chord name...

Post by Shooshie »

If you all get a chance to hear the opening of the actual film, put on headphones and listen to the timpani. If you don't agree with me that it's rolling C-F, then I'll have to go back and figure out why it sounds as it does, because at this point I'm 100% sure it's doing that, and the C is the critical note that gives the whole thing its ambiguity. There is also an f in the chord itself, the 2nd note of the chord, which is coming through the harp and possibly another instrument. That E chord is there, but the added tones really change it.

I played the flute book dozens of times in the pit for local productions of Sound of Music, which is why I originally was just referencing it in my head. That's how I remembered it. But I wasn't sure I got it right. Turns out I was more right than wrong, but it wasn't a D half-diminished.

Just listen to the way Rodgers flushes out the full potential of that chord. I think you'll agree in the end that his was wan't merely an Emaj/F. If not, then I need to see an ear doctor, because my ears would have to be making stuff up! :lol:

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