Mastodawn

Mike Giarlo Jun 14, 2023

Struggling to figure out the #musictheory (functional harmony analysis) behind this admittedly basic chord progression:

Em - A - Am - B(7)

What I'm finding tricky is none of these chords sound particularly like "home" to me, so I'm fuzzy on what key this might be in. Thoughts? #music

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Mike Giarlo Jun 14, 2023

My current best, somewhat unsatisfying, guess: this is in the key of Am, so it's a v - I - i - V/v, with the I being a borrowed chord from the parallel key of A, and the B functioning as a secondary dominant?

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Sage Ross

Jun 14, 2023

@mjgiarlo hmmm... would have said Em, because the B7 wants to resolve back to an E of some sort (assuming that progression is a loop). counting from the relative major: vi II ii III7. don't have my guitar on hand to listen for whether that sounds right, though. tons of songs (eg, Summertime) use to that B7 to Em cadence.

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archlentil Jun 14, 2023

@ragesoss @mjgiarlo definitely em. it's common to play with sharp or natural 6 and 7th notes in the scale, which is where you get the major / minor IV chord (A) as well as the major V chord (B).

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minor_scale

Minor scale - Wikipedia

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Mike Giarlo Jun 14, 2023

@foment @ragesoss Interesting. So then if the key is Em, it's a i - IV - iv - V with the IV and V having sharp 6/7 notes (a dorian or melodic minor feel)? That at least makes more sense to my brain than a iv - II - ii - III in G, even though I know it's equivalent.

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Mike Giarlo Jun 14, 2023

@foment @ragesoss On one hand, a pretty basic progression. On the other, a fair amount of modal mixture crammed into a short sequence. I'm finding it tough to find examples of songs that use "i-IV-iv-V" on search engines.

Thanks for your help!

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archlentil

@mjgiarlo @ragesoss agree it's pretty rapid to be mixing those minor modes. more frequently you might find melodies that mess around with those individual notes while the underlying chord structure would be more typical (i-iv-V).