8d (edited) • Hangout 🍻
Theory Talk - Analysis of Country Roads 2
Today we will look at the Chorus, from a Harmonic analysis lens.
Why is harmonic analysis so useful? For Me its easier to see a numeric structure, because it gives insight into where in the key that chord came from, not just “what the name of the chord is”.
So now the Chorus, whats going on and what can I tell from this?
G D Em C
G D C G
Right away, I separate this into two sets of 4 bars, because that 4 bar cluster just gives Me more visual and conceptual clarity.
Its an 8 bar chorus. In Nashville terms.
1 5 6m 4
1 5 4 1
So the 1 goes to the 5, right! But we talked about how the 5 wants to pull back to the 1. But in this case, does it do that? Nope. It goes to the 6m.
What gives?
Well the simple answer is, even though a 5 wants to go to the 1… it doesnt HAVE to! In fact, they have a name for this very thing!
When the 5 goes somewhere else, anywhere besides the 1, its called a Deceptive Cadence.
Makes sense, right? You thought the 5 was going to to the 1, and boom, it made a sudden turn, tricking or “deceiving” you! You thought it would zig and it zagged instead!
So it went to the Em, or 6m. Deceptive Cadence! Happens all the time, and its perfectly fine.
From the 6m it went to the 4. C.
Now we are on the next set of 4 bars. What is it? a G, back to the 1!
If you recall, there was a Cadence in our first analysis called the Plagal Cadence? That’s the 4-1 cadence. So now we see that in the last bar we just looked at, C went to G, and now off we go to the remaining chords!
Now we go from 1 to… the 5, and from there, instead of straight to the 1 it goes to the 4 then the 1:
1 5 4 1
The 5 went to the 4, is that therefore a deceptive cadence?
I wouldn’t really say so. We tend to look at it as a bit of an extended/meandering path from 5 back to the 1.
So in essence its still 5-1 but it goes to the 4 first, then the 1, which is basically a Plagal cadence, right?
So we just look at the 5 4 then 1 as a very common move we see a lot of in music.
So, a Deceptive Cadence might be a 5 to 2m or 3m etc.
a 5 4 1 is a rare exception where we just think “yeah its just the 5 going to the 1, still”
Any questions? Cadences are essential concepts that basically tell us how things are moving back to 1, the home chord. Plagal which is 4-1. Authentic which is 5-1 and Deceptive which is 5-? anywhere but 1.
Next time we will look at the Bridge!
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Theory Talk - Analysis of Country Roads 2
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