Chords in a key and progressions?

[discofuel]

To improve my songwriting and productions I'm taking some time to learn more about music theory - specifically the chords in a key and chord progressions.

I've just worked out the chords that take place at 1m30s in the breakdown of the following song and it's confused me slightly:

Alex Gopher - Aurora (Riot In Belgium & Knightlife Remix) [HQ] - YouTube

The chords I worked out were:

E MIN (I) – 2nd inv
G MAJ (III) – 1st inv
D MAJ (VII) - 2nd inv
A MAJ (IV) – 1st inv

But I've been looking at the following site which shows the chords for the key of E minor and it says that the IV chord of the key should be A Minor rather than A Major.

http://www.guitar-chords.org.uk/chords-key-e-minor.html

Could somebody please shed some light on this?!

Thanks

[raymondwave]

You find those chords in the key of D major.

My guess is that many self taught electronic musicians don't really care about theory so much, but rather just lay down what they think sounds good to them. I'm not saying this particular composer doesn't necessarily "know what he/she's doing".

I guess it's also not that uncommon to shuffle chords in choruses and bridges so that a D maj song wouldn't necessarily start the chorus from D maj.

I'm self taught, so I'm not really an expert here.

[JohnnyAmato]

The Amaj chord at the end usually seems to constitute a quick key change, and then right back to the key of Em...
This is usually the case with such progressions (a Major 4th in a minor key)
It's usually a slower song where this key change will stand out more, if the Amaj chord holds long enough you'll be able to hear the whole Amaj scale fit in over it (in your head)...
You hear these types of changes often in songs, and it fits seemlessly, so it sounds like the same key...
The only note in the Amaj chord that doesn't belong with Em is the C# - which means if you were to study the same notes with actual sheet music, it would be a flatted "D" note, because the key is Em...
Often notes like that will be thrown in with something because it can sound unique, and good if used right, when writing melodies and progressions...
But they are usually notated as flatted or sharpened notes in whatever is the main key of the piece.

[JohnnyAmato]

Ok, just listened to the tune...
The A major does sound kind of like a quick key change...
The second chord kind of has an Em7 feel to it...(which has a lot of the same notes as the key of "G"...
Third chord is definately Dmaj...
The Eminor feel never leaves, though, as the E riff plays continuously through the progression (again, something used often, all depends on what kind of "feel" the artist is looking for)

[theblue1]

Harmonic/music theory shouldn't be thought of as rules that can't be broken -- but rather as a coherent system to try to explain why some things sound good to us.

So you could think of defining key changes, modulations, etc, as finding a way to fit general theory to specific instance.

But, while theory shouldn't be considered unbreakable rules, knowing how music goes together can provide enormously helpful tools in understanding why what we're doing works -- and, when we're stumped, it can give us valuable insight into what types of things might work in any given context.

[initialsBB]

It's just borrowing the IV from the parallel major key. Or you could think of it as adding a sharp 6th. You could also think of it as being in E dorian I believe.

[jasman]

I hear this section as:
vi -IV
I
V
IIsus -ii

The IIsus has no third, so it's neither major nor minor, and then resolves to the minor.
So there's nothing out of the (major) key center that I can hear.

James

p.s I don't usually think in minor key centers, which is atypical I think

[pinadaaa]

Originally Posted by discofuel

E MIN (I) – 2nd inv
G MAJ (III) – 1st inv
D MAJ (VII) - 2nd inv
A MAJ (IV) – 1st inv

Haven't listened to the song you're referencing, but these chords point at D major. Try playing those 4 chords, then play D at the end; the A major is the dominant and it wants to resolve to D. It's also common to resolve this to B minor.

[Travis3Miller]

one of my favourite sites is

all-guitar-chords.com

even tho it's a guitar site, you can use it to apply to some other areas of music; if you know your chords, scales on other instruments.

A major does not correctly fit into the E natural minor scale.

If you look at all the notes that produces the E minor scale its:

E, F#, G, A, B, C, D

These are always the notes that are used to form chords with in the E Natural Minor scale. A MAJOR uses a C# as it's third.

Realize, the relative major of E Minor is G - Major! If you use G as your tonic or root note and start you progression with G Major instead of E minor , your song will have a much more lifted feel to it.

Of course there are always little exceptions that are super deep into theory. For instance, Beethoven's Fur Elise is technically composed in C Major, but it has sooo many accents in it that it basically uses every note possible. LOL

[pinkheadedbug]

You can use whatever chords you like.

Tattoo this on your forehead.

What you need to do is learn how every chords sounds with every other chord.

That's a big challenge, so do it bit by bit. But there are no wrong chords. Melody is what makes sense of chords. For example, the most dissonant chord is the flat five, F# in the key of C, say. Used to be called the 'diabolus in musica'. The devil in music. But it's actually a perfectly usable chord if you know how to get into it and out of it.

Diatonic music (using the 'correct' chords for your given key) is (in my opinion) really colourless. Play a C chord and then play something 'wrong'. D, Eb, E, Fm, Gm, Ab, Bb. Now do something else wrong, but just link the chords with melody. See? It works.

[theblue1]

Originally Posted by pinkheadedbug

You can use whatever chords you like.

Tattoo this on your forehead.

What you need to do is learn how every chords sounds with every other chord.

That's a big challenge, so do it bit by bit. But there are no wrong chords. Melody is what makes sense of chords. For example, the most dissonant chord is the flat five, F# in the key of C, say. Used to be called the 'diabolus in musica'. The devil in music. But it's actually a perfectly usable chord if you know how to get into it and out of it.

Diatonic music (using the 'correct' chords for your given key) is (in my opinion) really colourless. Play a C chord and then play something 'wrong'. D, Eb, E, Fm, Gm, Ab, Bb. Now do something else wrong, but just link the chords with melody. See? It works.

[bold added]

It's a big job but since the harmonic relationships are the same within all 12 keys, you can, in a sense, cut that big job down to 1/12th the size by learning how the chords relate within any given key, since, absolute pitch aside, those harmonic relationships will be the same across all keys.


To explore this from a different angle... you can use any chord you like -- but the results in many cases will not be what you were looking for.

Harmonic theory tries to give us explanations for why certain harmonic movements and combinations work well and others work less well or work well for different purposes.

[jeffreyheart]

just another trick to add to your book mate!