Pentatonic power (Songwriting tips)

For a powerful, universal feel, and to spur people to sing along, limit your melody to the 5-note pentatonic scale.

For example, the C major pentatonic scale includes the notes C, D, E, G, and A. Those same notes comprise the A minor pentatonic scale, with A as the keynote instead of C.

Songwriters often use the pentatonic scale for just part of a song, where they want a primitive and powerful effect. Then they balance it by using the full diatonic (7-note) scale for a more nuanced melody in other parts of the song.

A pentatonic chorus melody is good for a rousing, anthemic singalong. A pentatonic verse is good for an abstract, detached mood.

Messing with "Hey Jude"

On Thursday I asked you to review the fadeout of the Beatles' "Hey Jude," which famously features the [seven]♭ chord. The full chord phrase is:
[one] - [seven]♭ - [four] - [one] -

That great singalong chant melody in "Hey Jude" does not include the subtonic 7♭note, so it wasn't the melody that drove the Beatles to use [seven]♭ instead of [five]. And the rest of the song uses [five] and the regular ionian chords. They pointedly switched to mixolydian chords just for the fadeout of "Hey Jude."

Try singing the "Hey Jude" chant with these alternate chords:
[one] - [five] - [four] - [one] -

You'll notice that those alternate chords work just as well with the melody, but they bring a very different feel to the phrase.

It's hard to remember how groundbreaking "Hey Jude" was in a time when rock hits were trimmed to a length of 3:15 or shorter to meet the demands of radio. Since then, lengthy repeating fadeouts have become a staple of rock music, but at the time it took the biggest stars in music to break the mold and give us a 6-minute-long song with a couple minutes of repetitive ecstatic chanting at the end.

I think the Beatles' choice of [seven]♭ instead of [five] for the fade might make the mood a little more mellow, to help you surrender to the trancey groove instead of becoming impatient with the repetition. It's just my theory, and we'll never if "Hey Jude" might have been just as successful with different chords. But sometimes it's just this kind of subtle thing that makes the different between a good song and a great song.

Favorite guest chord #7

We recently reviewed rock music's basic set of chords for a major key. There are six diatonic triads (chords built from the notes of the major scale), plus nine non-diatonic triads.

Yesterday we learned why the diatonic chord build on the seventh note of the scale, [seven]dim, doesn't get invited to the rock and roll party very often.

But there is one of those nine non-diatonic triads that's more widely used than any of the others, and it happens to be the "other seven chord," [seven]♭. In the key of C major, this is the B♭ chord. This chord is borrowed from the key of C minor, where it serves as the major alter ego for the minor [five]m chord.

You can use the [seven]♭ chord as a substitute for the dominant [five] chord. That is, you can take any of the basic three-chord phrases, and play [seven]♭ in place of [five]. The result is a new chord phrases that has the same harmonic functionality as the original, but with a different vibe. It's more earthy and tribal, less European and imperial.

The [seven]♭ is very popular in rock songs, especially in blues-based rock. Traditional blues melodies eschew the regular 7 note in major (the leading tone) in favor of the lowered 7♭ note, (the subtonic). If you don't sing the leading tone, then it's only natural to avoid chords, such as [five] that contain the leading tone. Of course, you can also go with [five]m, but throughout rock history [seven]♭ has been the favorite substitute dominant chord.

What do you get when you take a major scale and lower the 7 note to 7♭? I know that sounds like the setup for a clever joke, but the straight answer is, you get a different scale, the mixolydian scale. Music that uses the mixolydian scale is said to be in the mixolydian mode. (You can read the whole sordid and convoluted history of mixolydian mode at Wikipedia.)

Many rock melodies are written in mixolydian mode, or alternate between mixolydian and regular major (called ionian mode when you want to be precise about it). And that's just a fancy way of saying that rock melodies often use subtonic 7♭instead of leading tone 7.

Intervals in music

Second, third, fourth, fifth... sounds kinda like people are waiting in line. But actually we're talking about intervals, which means pairs of notes and their pitch relationship to each other.

If you're an experienced musician, you know this stuff backwards and forwards, and you can skip this post. If you're a beginner, this part of musical terminology takes a bit of explaining, and you should read on.

There's no way to talk about the specifics of music without using metaphors. We say that one pitch is higher than another, but pitch is a metaphor, and so is higher.

A sound is actually a vibration in the air. In a timescale of thousands of a second, some sounds have a regular, repeating waveform, which we hear as a musical tone. A regular waveform has a frequency, which we define as the number of cycles per second. Another word for cycles per second is hertz, abbreviated Hz. Our ears are especially attuned to repeating waveforms, and we hear the frequency as musical pitch.

The A below middle C is traditionally defined as a musical tone with a frequency of 440 Hertz. That means the waveform of the A note has a cycle that repeats 440 times per second.

If a frequency has a higher number, we hear it as a higher pitch. A tone of 880 Hz has a frequency twice as high as the A at 440 Hz. We hear the 880 Hz tone as another A tone, exactly one octave higher that the 440 Hz tone. Twice the frequency equals an interval of one octave.

Our musical system is based on dividing the octave into 12 equal parts. Each 1/12 of an octave is called a half-step or semitone. Musical intervals are defined as the number of semitones you have to travel to get from the first note to the second note. (This is easiest to see on a piano keyboard or a guitar fretboard, where the semitones are clearly marked off.)

If two notes are at the same pitch, the distance is 0 semitones, and the interval is called unison. (For shorthand, unison can be abbreviated P1).
1 semitone is called a half-step or a minor second, abbreviated m2.
2 semitones is called a full-step or a major second, abbreviated M2. (Capital M for major, small m for minor.)
3 semitones is a minor third (m3).
4 semitones is a major third (M3).
5 semitones is a perfect fourth (P4)
6 semitones (half an octave) is an augmented fourth or diminished fifth (A4/d5).
7 semitones is a perfect fifth (P5).
8 semitones is a minor sixth (m6).
9 semitones is a major sixth (M6).
10 semitones is a minor seventh (m7).
11 semitones is a major seventh (M7).
12 semitones is an octave (P8).

The names of these intervals might make more sense if you think about the notes that make up the major and minor scales, and each note's interval to the keynote (the first note) of the scale.

The major scale contains P1, M2, M3, P4, P5, M6, M7.
The minor scale contains P1, M2, m3, P4, P5, m6, m7.

With the sole exception of the M2 in the minor scale, you can see that the major scale contains all the major version of the intervals, and the minor scale contains the minor versions of the intervals.

With this handy vocabulary of intervals, we can also describe the different kinds of chords as the intervals between each note in the chord and the chord's root. So far we've talked mainly about major and minor chords.

The major chord contains P1, M3, and P5.
The minor chord contains P1, m3, and P5.

If you are new to reading music, this vocabulary of musical intervals might seem like a whole lot of details to try to learn. Don't worry! Like everything else in music, it just requires practice.

Tuesday is Beastly Fundamentals Day.

Can I borrow a chord?

Can I borrow a chord or two? You sure can!

Think of all those 1980s hair-band boys with long hair, makeup, and frilly clothing. They basically dressed up like girls and somehow made it look cool. And remember the hard-rock girls who cut their hair short and acted tough -- you sure wouldn't pick a fight with them, but you still loved to look at them.

Yes, rock culture has no qualms about borrowing stuff from the opposite sex and making it work out. And rock music is just as free about borrowing chords from the opposite mode. If you're in C major, you can throw in chords from C minor (the parallel minor). And if you're writing in C minor, the chords from C major (the parallel major) are fair game.

These chords borrowed from the parallel major or minor are called borrowed chords.

In a minor key, using the major [five] or [five]⁷ chord provides decisive cadences that you can't quite get with [five]m. The major [four] in might help a minor-key song sound a little more bright and open.

In a major key, the minor [four]m chord strikes a poignant note, while the minor [five]m might help create an introspective atmosphere.

You can jump back and forth between major and minor flavors of a chord. This sequence is a favorite of ELO's, using both flavors of four:
[one] [four] [four]m [one]
In the key of C, that's C | F | Fm | C

Guiffria's "Call to the Heart" uses major [five] in the verse and switches to minor [five]m in the chorus to anchor the song's distinctive, memorable hook. (Here's Call to the Heart on YouTube.)

When a tornado picked up Dorothy in Kansas and put her back down in the parallel land of Oz, she said to her little dog, "Well, Toto, I don't think we're limited to just three chords anymore." That trip opened up so many harmonic possibilities for Dorothy, it was almost like switching from black-and-white to technicolor.

Three-chord rock, in major and minor

Has it really been a month since we first talked about Three Major Awesome Chords? Yes, it took a whole month to circle around so we could get back to three chords and take this next step.

As we learned yesterday, the difference between a major chord and a minor chord is the third. (The third is the middle note of the chord.) If you take a major chord and lower the third by a half-step, you turn it into a minor chord.

Now, the difference between the standard major and minor scales is that three notes are a half-step lower in the minor scale. Those notes are the 3rd, 6th, and 7th notes of the scale.

You could say that the major scale contains the notes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, while the minor scale contains 1, 2, 3♭, 4, 5, 6♭, 7♭. Flat (♭) means a half-step lower.

[one], [four], and [five], are, of course, the three famous chords of rock and roll. In a major key, these three chords are major chords. In a minor key, these three chords are minor chords.

Those three lowered notes in the minor scale happen to be perfectly placed to change those three chords from major to minor. 3♭, is, of course, the third of the [one] chord. 6♭ is the third of the [four] chord. And 7♭ is the third of the [five] chord.

In a minor key, the three main chords are [one]m, [four]m, and [five]m, where the m suffix indicates a minor chord. In the key of C minor, these chords are Cm, Fm, and Gm.

You can rock perfectly well in either major or minor. You might have heard someone say that the major mode is brighter and happier, while the minor mode is darker and gloomier. There is some truth to that, but don't pigeonhole the modes. Both major and minor are suitable for a broad range of moods and expressions.

There is much more to the story of 3-chord rock, and many cracks in the wall between major and minor. We'll get to all those nuances soon. For now, let's enjoy the clear-cut difference between major and minor in these two clips from YouTube:

• Three-chord rock in major: Do Ya by Electric Light Orchestra. This was a hit for Jeff Lynne's earlier band The Move, and an even bigger hit when he rerecorded it with ELO.
• Three-chord rock in minor: Tony Adams by Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros. I'm still sad about Joe's untimely death, but he gave us some great songs in his last few years, like this one from Rock Art & the X-Ray Style. But don't ask me who Tony Adams is or what this song is about.
  

Major vs. minor -- what's the difference?

What's the difference between a major chord and a minor chord? What's the difference between a major key and a minor key?

The different is the third.

C major chord: C (root), E (third), G (fifth)
C minor chord: C (root), E♭ (third), G (fifth)

C major scale: C, D, E, F, G
C minor scale: C, D, E♭, F, G

C major has a major third -- E -- while C minor has a minor third -- E♭.

Remember that major literally means big, while minor means small. The distance from C to E is bigger by one semitone (one half-step) than the distance from C to E♭.

Now, what about the sixth and seventh notes of the scale? It's true that in standard C major those notes are A and B, while in standard C minor, they are A♭ and B♭. But, fundamentally, those notes don't hold any weight.

You can make A♭ and B♭ as flat as you want, and if the scale includes E, it's still going to sound major. Conversely, as long as you keep E♭, you can use A and B natural, and it will still sound minor.

The sixth and seventh notes have important roles to play, but it's the third that makes all the difference between major and minor.

Tomorrow, we'll take a fresh look at three-chord rock, in major and minor.

Keys, modes, and scales

This is a super-simple introduction to a complex topic. For fun, you can show this blog post to your knowledgeable musician friends, and ask them, "Which of these statements aren't true?"

All music is built from 12 basic notes (often called tones): A, A♯ (or B♭), B, C, C♯ (or D♭), D, D♯ (or E♭), E, F, F♯ (or G♭), G, G♯ (or A♭). This full set of 12 tones is sometimes called the chromatic scale.

Each piece of music is set in a key based on one of those twelve notes. The central note of the key is called the keynote or tonic, or simply [one]. When someone says, "This song is in E," they're telling you that E is the song's keynote.

In addition to its keynote, each piece of music has a mode. A mode is a flavor of tonality. The most famous modes are called major and minor. The combination of a keynote and a mode is sometimes called a key or a scale. "This song is in the key of A minor." "This melody uses the C major scale."

Twelve keynotes times two modes give us 12 x 2 = 24 different "keys." That's one for each hour of the day, if you like. J.S. Bach's The Well-Tempered Keyboard made a point of offering pieces in each of these 24 keys.

A scale is a set of seven tones chosen from the complete set of 12 tones. The seven chosen tones are said to be "in the key" or diatonic. The other five tones, if they appear in the piece of music at all, are said to be "not in the key," non-diatonic, or chromatic tones.

On a musical keyboard, this is easiest to see for the key of C major. The seven white keys in each octave are the diatonic tones in C major, the tones that are in the C major scale. The five black keys are chromatic tones if they appear in a piece set in C major.

The white keys on a keyboard also happen to be the diatonic tones of the key of A minor. Yes, A minor uses exactly the same set of seven tones as C major. Even though they share the same set of white-key tones, these two keys are distinctly different keys. The keynote falls in a different place in the set of tones, and that makes an enormous difference.

Though they are different keys, C major and A minor do share a special relationship. Because they use the same set of tones, it's quite easy to slip from the key of C major into the key of A minor, and vice versa. We say that A is the relative minor key of C major. C is the relative major key of A minor.

C major also has a special relationship with C minor. These two keys share the same keynote and four out of their seven tones. C minor is the parallel minor key of C major. C major is the parallel major key of C minor.

Every major key has its own relative minor and parallel minor. Every minor key has its own relative major and parallel major. If you can grasp these special relationships between closely related keys, you've got a big head start on the next chapter, when we go beyond three-chord rock and learn how to use dozens of different chords.

More technical details on keys, modes, and scales can be found at Wikipedia.

Tuesday is Beastly Fundamentals Day.