@PaulR said:

James, you're kidding, of course.

Kidding about what? Nothing he said was kidding. What are talking about Paul?

Evan Evans

Sorry lads! My bad. I misunderstood the use of the word 'speed' [:O]ops:

i went over that part of my post to figure out how one could possibly find 2 meanings in what i wrote....laughed my arse off! [:D]
...it inspired me to figure out how to use the smiley faces.
james

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Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh LOL!!!!!

Now I get it. Although to be honest, Scott does say that Excedrin gives him a Caffiene boost in the wee hours when the crunch its really on.

Evan Evans

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The Mr. Smalley we hung out with would have laughed his butt off.

james, fine explanation (of the II-V-I > 3rds evolution, not the sp--d)
[:)]
thanks

Nigel

oh god, Scott would have been laughing in tears at that Paul. You would have been officially accepted into his "clan".

[;)]

Evan Evans

Moving chords in thirds has been around a couple centuries guys so I'm not quite seeing a big bright light on that one (and yes in a non diatonic manner.) In the last century it's preponderance is abundant.

Any other nuggets to be put forward?

Dave Connor

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Hi Paul!

Okay, chords are built in thirds. If you wanna build a chord where C is the root, you need an E and a G too. You can keep on adding thirds if you want, but three notes is enough for it to be considered a chord.

In any given key, you can build 7 different chords, just by stacking thirds above each of the 7 notes in the scale. If you study harmony, each of these chords is given a roman numeral I II III IV V VI VII, for simplicity.

So, in C major, chord I is C E G. Chord II is D F A. Chord V is G B D. So, in answer to your question, a II-V-I is a progression of chords. You can play a II-V-I in any key, and it will have the same emotional effect. Each chord has an emotional effect (refered to as "function"). For instance, chord I has an effect of resting, of comming home. Chord V has the most tension, and "wants" to go to I. The extent to which I'm simplifying is ridiculous, but what the hell.

Anyway, if you play a II V I using seventh chords (four notes per chord, like C E G B), you will realise it's the staple diet of the jazz language. Well, beebop anyway. It's really boring! I share Scotts boredom with II-V-I.

Now, if you look at the relationship between those three chords, the roots are at a distance of a descending fifth. (D G C) This is a kinda boring relationship, because we have heard it too much. Scott suggests moving arround by thirds instead, like I-III, or I-VI. The magic starts to happen when you start forgetting about being in a particular key, and giving the chords you move to the "wrong" attributes. Tradditionally, chord II (DFA) is minor. Well, make it major if you like [:)] .

So, the concept (which I agree, has been around for about a century and is old news), is to move by thirds, and use whatever kind of chord you like. You are never really in any particular key, and you never get that crappy V-I stark feeling of resolution. Oh, it's also very "Elfman" to move the roots by a tritone (C to F#).

Leon

Paul,

I asked Scott for clarification during the class. I wanted to make sure I understood the whole "Mediant Relationship" thing correctly. So I said, "If we were to apply this as a rule, then chords can move up or down a major or minor third, and to or from a major or minor chord. Plus the diminished fifth, of course."

Scott said, "Exactly. You make it sound so simple."

Which it is, really...on the surface. The tricky part is making sure your voice leadings make those harmonic movements sound fluid...and of course writing lines and melodies that move well with the chords. Scott has gone so far as to create a mediant scale which works over these kinds of chord movements.

Again, a perfect example is that Batman theme. The melody is C, D, Eb, Ab..., G, F#. Under it, the chords are Cmin, Ab..., D. Third, diminished fifth. And the way he voices those low brass chords is just massive. It's a perfect example of another Smalley film orchestration rule which, while not new, certainly bears repeating...

Power comes from simplicity.

Fred Story

Leon and Fred-

Thanks for the excellent tutorial. Very clearly written. Opens up 'new' possibilities (moving in forths, sevenths - regardless of original key??)

Thanks again guys. For me an interesting chordal progression provides for an 'interesting' melody over the top.

Rob

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Man, Paul, you´re outing yourself here in a pretty admirable honesty... [[;)]]

Moving chords in thirds means you move the root of the chord (mostly a triad, which is a sandwich of two intervals called thirds) in thirds.

Don´t mix up triads with thirds, can it be, that you do this?
A triad is a chord, a third is an interval. So you don´t move around in triads like you suggested in your last post, you move around in thirds.

Does that clear it up a bit?

Sorry for the sketchy explanation, Paul.

Yes, the chords underneath the Batman melody are simple triads. Cmin, Ab, D.

The interval between root notes from C to Ab is a major third. From Ab to D is a diminished 5th.

In the Mediant concept, chords dont move in triads, technically. Chords are moving in INTERVALS of thirds. Major or minor thirds - doesn't matter.

A mediant chord progression could be Cmaj - Abmin - Emaj - Gmin - Bmaj. Look at the intervals between the root notes. Down a major third, down another major third, up a minor third, up another major third. The triads built on the root notes can be major or minor, depending on the color you're going for. If you add an Fmaj to the progression, that's a root note a diminished 5th higher than B - the wild card interval. You could try first playing all those chords in root position. Sounds kind of 'blocky', right? Now try playing them so that voice leadings move smoothly from one to the next and you start to get the idea. It's an interesting progression, isn't it? I just dashed this out as an example without even hearing it myself, but it you were to write a melody over that progression you can see that it would be a little more of a challenge than if it were a traditional ii-V-I or IV-V-I progression.

Scott made the point that so-called 'color' notes, 7ths, 9ths, even 13ths, can make a modern film score sound dated. Great, if that's the desired effect. But by moving in more interesting (like mediant) chord progressions...and sticking to simple triads - major or minor chords...we acheive a 'film' sound. (He went into a further explanation of how you can reflect more complex chords as triads over triads. A C 11, for example, could be seen as a Bb triad over a C triad.)

For film scoring, I think there are two terrific advantages to mediant harmonies. First, they sound inherently emotional and dramatic to me. Second, you can create almost endless chord progressions, never really landing on a recognizable tonic. Great device for building emotion in a scene.

Did I explain it better?

Fred Story

Gentlemen, I really want to thank you for describing this mediant/tri-tone harmonic movement thing. That's very cool. I've looked at moving major and minor triads around before, but always struggled to make it sound good. Restricting the movement to thirds and tritones seems to be the ticket. I don't know why I never realized it before.

In case anybody still isn't getting it, here's a simple experiment I just did that blew my mind. First write a simple little melody of, say 4 bars. Pick a triad that fits the first couple notes. Then change to a new triad that fits the next couple notes, making sure to move the triad root only by a major or minor third or tri-tone, up or down. Keep going until the end of the phrase. Then revoice the chords for optimal voice leading.

Say the melody is Auld Lang Syne: C F E F A G F G. We can put the first three notes over Dmin. Then the next two will go under Bbmin (pretend it's a harmonic minor scale for the A). Then we have a problem for the next two notes: G-F. We don't want to go back to Dmin. Dmaj won't work, F#maj and F#min don't work (implies a scale including F-F#-G, and no such diatonic scale exists). Or we could jump by a tritone from Bbmin to Emin, but all of the options from there are rather dull. Bbmin to Emaj works, but it's a little too dissonant for the melody, and I don't like the options it leaves for the last note, G.

I think the best option is to go to Gmaj and then end on Ebmaj. It's not great, but it does have a nice atmospheric feel to it. And it sounds even better if you start with a melody that isn't strictly diatonic. There are other solutions to Auld Lang Syne, of course, but this demonstrates the concept. Play the chords as a pad in cellos and horns and give the melody to an oboe, and you've got a film cue.

Now I'm playing with fitting odd bass lines under the whole thing. Thanks again, this is really useful stuff.

With a little more thought, I figured out why it has to be thirds and tritones.

The goal is to provide lots of harmonic motion without ever resolving. Triads are used because they have nice transparent orchestral voicings. There are other options like stacks of fourths but they have different motion rules. Diminished and augmented triads also don't work, but I haven't worked out their rules yet.

Anyway, major and minor triads can't move by fourths or fifths because it sounds too cadential, even if you mix up the majors and minors in unusual ways. You can't use minor second motion for two reasons: poor voice leading and the implication of tritone substituted cadences. Major seconds work slightly better as they don't feel cadential, but they will often feel like you're setting up a cadence as in a IV-V or vi-V type motion. They will work in a pinch, but they invariably suffer from voice leading problems.

However, movement by major or minor thirds always has good voice leading and it sounds non-diatonic as long as you avoid things like moving a major triad up by a major third to a minor triad. That and minor triad moving up by a minor third to a major triad both sound static for obvious reasons.

It's obvious when you think about it. I don't know why I never noticed before.

@kevind said:

Diminished and augmented triads also don't work, but I haven't worked out their rules yet.

Sorry, that should have been "dim and aug triads also *should* work, but I haven't worked out their rules yet."

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