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My video on songs with NO tonic chord:.
Although a lot of songs will begin on their tonic chord, the home chord of the key, numerous tunes don't and there is certainly an unique feel, a momentum, to tunes that do not begin on the tonic.
The outro music to this video is my track "Kneel" which you can hear in full on Spotify:.
And, an additional unique thanks goes to Peter Keller, Douglas Lind, Vidad Flowers, Ivan Pang, Waylon Fairbanks, Jon Dye, Austin Russell, Christopher Ryan, Toot & Paul Peijzel, the channel's Patreon saints!.
ASSISTANCE ME ON PATREON:.
0:00 Introduction.
0:21 start on IV chord.
2:21 begin on ii chord.
3:18 start on V chord.
4:35 begin on bVI chord.
6:01 Hooktheory.
6:50 what defines the secret of the tune?
8:44 Lost Woods from Legend of Zelda.
9:54 (They Long To Be) Near You.
10:52 Deacon Blues.
11:45 Conclusion.
12:18 Patreono.
Click Here To Learn Piano or Keyboard
i am faster than youtube notifications. i already know this video is 🔥
Can you make a video about videos that don’t END on the tonic? I’ve always found it very interesting that some songs can leave you with tension.
Yes, especially when they end on the IV chord. To me it has such a melancholic feeling
I’ll keep the topic in mind 😊😊
An interesting example of a song that doesn’t just not end on the tonic, it doesn’t even end on a diatonic chord is Marooned by Pink Floyd. The song is essentially a long instrumental jam cycling through Bm-Gmaj7-Em over and over before ending on C. Although this being Pink Floyd who had a habit of making all songs contiguous on their records, this was probably to set up the next song.
Nicklebacks “Savin Me” is an example.
@@DavidBennettPiano if you do that you must put I want you (she’s so heavy) by the beatles
Since I know you’re a fan of First of October (love the shirt every time), their song Do You Want To? from the second album starts on a B chord, and the entire intro is just on that B chord so it sounds like it’s in the key of B. But then the verse starts on B and then goes to F#maj7, and all of a sudden, B sounds like the IV chord and we’re now in the key of F#. Super trippy.
I’m glad you’re addressing this. Often people try to guess a key just based on the starting chord, and while this often works, it’s good to clarify this!
Exquisitely covered a lot of ground in a comprehensive fashion.
I know nothing about music other than that I like some it but I love this guy’s videos (even though it’s like he’s speaking Greek).
“Mermaid” by Train is in C minor but starts on the bVI chord
There are a lot of Japanese songs that start with the IV chord. This is a reason why anime openings sound so harmonically distinct and vivid. They use a lot of the IV V iii vi progressions which is named “Oudou Shinkou” and is characterized by continuous movement, similarly to how David explained it at the beginning of the video
he actually has an entire video on that progression
Also the ‘stock, aikman and Waterman’ progression
Hello Goodbye – The Beatles
Starts on IV (major key)
Yellow Submarine – The Beatles
Starts on V (major key)
Excellent topic! Here’s some important additional song examples 😉
IIIm chord: Wild Horses by Rolling Stones
IIm chord: Goodbye Yellow Brick Road by Elton John, Harvest Moon by Neil Young
II chord: Amelia by Joni Michell (modulation)
bIII (in major): Coyote by Joni Mitchell
IVm chord: Idiot Wind by Bob Dylan
bIII in (minor): September by Earth, Wind & Fire
IV: Wichita Lineman by Jimmy Webb
V: Pink Moon by Nick Drake
bVII chord: You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling by The Righteous Brothers
Ooh really good call on Wild Horses. For the iv chord, my favourite example has to be Break My Stride by Matthew Wilder.
Some nice examples there 🙂
Wichita Lineman is a good example and one of my favourite songs!
yay music
Everytime i start writing a song from a chord other than the tonic, i get confused and end up scrapping it. I love the way pros do it though. 💖
Several Elton John songs come to mind. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road starts on the ii, Empty Garden on the IV.
Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me starts on the V . Goodbye Yellow Brick Road starts on the I (F), though, only the verse starts on the ii (Gm), but the song doesn’t open directly with the verse.
@@althealligator1467 Song intros aren’t as important as the sections that have vocal melodies. A song intro serves as a quick reminder of the song’s tonality for a few seconds before it goes into the melody and harmony, and when a starting verse doesn’t start on the tonic such as Yellow Brick Road, it surprises the listener and creates pleasure when eventually resolved. Most song intros start with the tonic or resolve with it, but some also don’t, and it just depends on how the writer makes their decisions. Light My Fire for example does a wild chord sequence before it eventually gets to the verse (which isn’t on the tonic, but on the minor V chord in the key of D major: Am7 – F#m7 vamp) and then resolves to the tonic in the chorus with a IIm – IV – V – I cadence, F#m7 – G – A – D
@@OurgasmComrade I would actually agree, but that’s clearly not the rule this video is following, it’s taking the actual start of the song into account.
But yeah I do agree that sections starting on an unresolved chord are more interesting to look at than just the start. When the listener gets cues that a section is starting, they get a sort of “soft reset” in their perceived tonality, such that the tonality can easily sound ambiguous again, especially if it’s not starting on a resolved chord.
I don’t agree that the intro is independent from the rest of the song, though, it’s a section like any other.
@@althealligator1467 in songs that have melody, lyrics, harmony, and rhythm, the sections that contain all four of those components do stand on their own and are independent from intros. Eleanor Rigby for example doesnt have an intro but you technically could write one.
another great video david, i’ll watch it later
But… How can you know it’s great until you’ve watched it? I mean it is David Bennett so fair enough
@@althealligator1467 great video one of his best, cant wait to watch it
4:03 Elton John actually seems quite fond of starting on the V chord like this. Another song in which he dies it is Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me. It starts on G, and it sounds like it’s in G, until it clearly resolves to C. But every time in loops bsck to the start of the verse, it sounds like you’re in G again.
Do you think that starting in a different chord always gives a push and a sense of motion? Surely it’s only when put into context by other chords that it becomes apparent.
Well yes, the sense of momentum isn’t felt on the very first beat, it is felt as the chords begin to move forward. 😊
I see you address this later in the video. I always comment too early.
What I think is interesting here is how our brains keep chord sounds in memory as we move through the song. By that I mean that when we start a song on something other than the tonic, we don’t know (or more accurately, feel) that we’re not on the tonic until we move forward to a resolution. Unlike when a song builds to, say, a V chord, where we feel the tension of the V, when we start on the V we don’t know where it’s going. So we obviously subconsciously “remember” where we started, well after we started there.
Yeah that’s a good point! That is definitely a big part of how we perceive key. However I feel like our musical memory is only really a few bars long though. If a song slowly a subtly changed key or even gradually pitch-shifted during its runtime I don’t think we would notice. 😊
@@DavidBennettPiano Yes, I totally agree. I bet there are songs out there with lengthy (many bars) distance between the non-tonic beginning and when they resolve. I’d guess they have a very floaty, ethereal feel. Or maybe our brains are so hardwired to find a key that we’d think they’re modulating between keys? I don’t know. I can’t think of any songs like this offhand, but I bet you could. ;-). Thanks for all you do here!
“21st Century Breakdown” by Green Day has something of a subversion of this, starting with a I-V vamp that sounds like a plagal cadence until the tonic is established with the vocals.
Here’s an idea for a video: theory of the 12-bar blues and why it works despite having a tonic 7, mixing major and minor, and resolving V-IV-I.
3:20 Hm… Most tension? I don’t think so, unless you add some tension by other means. For example make it V7 and put the seventh in the bass — now *there’s* some tension! Far-flung location? V is very close to I in that only one step is needed to resolve it to I.
Always interesting, well done 😉