musicality degree zero

don't expect to find "music" here, this is just me playing a squarepusher chord progression. i don't have a sustain pedal so it might sound a bit mechanical. i might use this thread for more stuff like that in the future, who knows. enjoy!

I tried so hard to figure out which song this is until I realized Plotinus is the title. I'm an idiot sometimes. Also I'm not as familiar with Hello Everything as his other stuff.

Anyway, pretty good job of figuring these out! It's a pretty tricky chord progression that seems to modulate at least two times and throw in a bit of phrygian-ness near the end. Have you tried to analyse it or make any sense of it at all?

Plotinus = top tier track. Nice chords b

Figuring out the chord/melody sequences for Rotate Electrolyte was one of the most rewarding song cover experiences I've had.  So much cool and unique stuff going on harmonically all throughout that album.

Now you have to name all the chords and post your results here.

cheers everyone! 

  On 5/11/2021 at 6:14 AM, Zephyr_Nova said:

Now you have to name all the chords and post your results here.

can't be bothered naming the chords + i really suck at it as you may have noticed flol - but naming the modes is rather easy:

C#m (minor) - D jazz m - F#m - C lydian augmented - Eb mixolydian - Eb dorian b2 - Bb dorian - Bb altered/mixolydian (alt when played solo, mixo when orchestrated) - Gm - E jazz m - C# mixo - Bb - Abm - Bb - A mixo b6  

and then transpose the progression a half step above. again, there may be mistakes as i'm new at this.

@ArtificialDisco i did analyze it this afternoon but i can't be bothered posting this right now, i'll do so another day. but yeah there is indeed some phrygian action at the end, the Bb-Ab-Bb is a phrygian dominant I-b7-I 

  On 5/11/2021 at 6:14 AM, Zephyr_Nova said:

Figuring out the chord/melody sequences for Rotate Electrolyte was one of the most rewarding song cover experiences I've had.  So much cool and unique stuff going on harmonically all throughout that album.

nice! i too figured out the progression for this one, in fact i did so for other tunes from the album as well, maybe i'll post them sometime. it is indeed a very nice album harmony-wise. freaking love these tunes. 

i hate not being able to edit my posts past a certain time. i meant a phrygian dominant I-bvii-I

not that anyone gives a shit

yeah i spotted a mistake: it's Ab dorian at the end, instead of Abm. so Bb - Ab dorian - Bb - A mixo b6

Always great to discover new music trough someones likes.

You motherfucker!

This is savant-level perfect though! My god, you just absolutely nailed it!

Awesome

  On 5/16/2021 at 3:18 AM, ArtificialDisco said:

You motherfucker!

This is savant-level perfect though! My god, you just absolutely nailed it!

haha thanks, props to you for crafting this great chord progression and cool solo! you're the artist

groundbreaking

groundbreaking 

It's interesting. Is this something you wrote or something you transcribed? And do you plan on doing something more with it?

  On 5/11/2021 at 10:00 PM, brian trageskin said:

C#m (minor) - D jazz m - F#m - C lydian augmented - Eb mixolydian - Eb dorian b2 - Bb dorian - Bb altered/mixolydian (alt when played solo, mixo when orchestrated) - Gm - E jazz m - C# mixo - Bb - Abm - Bb - A mixo b6  

Does it being 15 modes mean he goes trough 15 different chords ?

  On 8/12/2021 at 10:21 PM, Wunderbar said:

Does it being 15 modes mean he goes trough 15 different chords ?

yeah. i mean, technically, the progression consists of a few selected modes played in different keys, as you may have noticed. 

as a reminder, a mode is just a scale that's derived from another scale, a parent scale (major, jazz minor, etc.). by naming the modes, i meant to indicate specific intervals - specific chord qualities, to use a technical term. but that's just one way of doing it. i could have labeled the chords, with their specific qualities, but that's actually harder to do (involves a lot of b13, #9 and what have you, the kind of stuff that's only useful to jazz musicians/ that only jazz musicians care about - and i suck at it). 

does this answer your question?

Would C# minor be the main scale that all the other modes are derived from ?

When im listening to that soundcloud piece im trying to listen for repeats. But i cant really pinpoint them is that just me or is it really that long without repeats? Also another guy mentioned there were modulations. Could u maybe show me exactly where they took place ,to see if i was somewhat close.

  On 8/13/2021 at 1:30 AM, Wunderbar said:

Would C# minor be the main scale that all the other modes are derived from ?

what do you mean exactly? 

  On 8/13/2021 at 1:30 AM, Wunderbar said:

When im listening to that soundcloud piece im trying to listen for repeats. But i cant really pinpoint them is that just me or is it really that long without repeats?

what do you mean by repeats? 

  On 8/13/2021 at 1:30 AM, Wunderbar said:

Also another guy mentioned there were modulations. Could u maybe show me exactly where they took place ,to see if i was somewhat close.

it's tricky actually, it depends on how you analyze it. i said i did analyze the progression but here's the thing: on closer inspection, i quickly realized i wasn't sure what was going on at times, that it depended on how you analyzed it + i realized my knowledge of theory was too limited to come to any conclusion. i'm confused as to where the tune modulates and which chords can be analyzed as having diatonic relationships (apart from the phrygian dominant move at the end). 

one easy solution is to analyze the chords as having no diatonic relationships (belonging to the same scale) and no functional relationships (subdominant-dominant-tonic). you could argue it's a non-functional progression with modulations all over the place. that would be the easy way out. but it's more interesting and more fun to try to figure out functional relationships. 

the thing though is that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. wrong assumptions will lead lead you to wrong conclusions and will leave you even more confused as a result. which is why i didn't post my analysis. i didn't because i don't really what's going on in this progression. there are areas where the harmony is easier to analyze, where it can be analyzed functionally, but other than that, i'm too ignorant as of yet. 

  On 8/13/2021 at 2:32 AM, brian trageskin said:

what do you mean exactly? 

what do you mean by repeats? 

it's tricky actually, it depends on how you analyze it. i said i did analyze the progression but here's the thing: on closer inspection, i quickly realized i wasn't sure what was going on at times, that it depended on how you analyzed it + i realized my knowledge of theory was too limited to come to any conclusion. i'm confused as to where the tune modulates and which chords can be analyzed as having diatonic relationships (apart from the phrygian dominant move at the end). 

one easy solution is to analyze the chords as having no diatonic relationships (belonging to the same scale) and no functional relationships (subdominant-dominant-tonic). you could argue it's a non-functional progression with modulations all over the place. that would be the easy way out. but it's more interesting and more fun to try to figure out functional relationships. 

the thing though is that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. wrong assumptions will lead lead you to wrong conclusions and will leave you even more confused as a result. which is why i didn't post my analysis. i didn't because i don't really what's going on in this progression. there are areas where the harmony is easier to analyze, where it can be analyzed functionally, but other than that, i'm too ignorant as of yet. 

Expand  

I don't suppose you'd be willing to post the midi file?

From the sound of it there are definite tendencies in there. If not actual dominant 7ths, then something that functions as such. I'm guessing a lot of the trickiness of this is from unresolved cadences. You could call them deceptive cadences I think. Like the fourth chord really wants to go somewhere, but is kind of left hanging.

You call it C lydian augmented, so I guess it would be Cmaj7#5? You can check that it resolves back to the C#m at the beginning, so that sets up the expectation, which is then broken when it goes to Eb mixo.

  On 8/13/2021 at 3:19 AM, ArtificialDisco said:

I don't suppose you'd be willing to post the midi file?

i don't mind at all, i'll post it tomorrow. 

  On 8/13/2021 at 3:19 AM, ArtificialDisco said:

You call it C lydian augmented, so I guess it would be Cmaj7#5? You can check that it resolves back to the C#m at the beginning, so that sets up the expectation, which is then broken when it goes to Eb mixo.

my thoughts exactly. this progression is basically jenkinson going full deceptive cadence, apart from the phrygian bit that resolves back to D minor when the progression gets transposed up a half step. which is, paradoxically, also a deceptive move, as we weren't expecting a dominant to tonic move, or a transposition for that matter.

here you go plotinus.mid

btw, to those who know even less about theory than me, there are other tools to analyze harmony. functional harmony is just the entry-level one. 

  On 8/13/2021 at 10:32 AM, brian trageskin said:

here you go plotinus.mid

Thanks!