Also thanks to you Adam. You and Ben really convinced me to get into theory. I should have 20 years. But you know metalheads are sometimes stubborn. ;)
Yeah, fellow bassist and metalhead here. Without Adam, Ben and Rick Beato talking about the more weird and obscure theory, I never would've been motivated or interested enough to go back and learn the basics so I could fully understand what you're talking about.
I was reading the Beatles as musicians, and it was commonplace to use chromatic descending lines, and there are places to use them to develop the progression. But of course with chromatic lines, there is a relevant start and end note, traditionally a modal note to other note in the same mode, or to a modulation. That's intriguing to me, how the beatles and countless others used non scale notes, so significantly.
I was at a Victor Wooten clinic a couple years ago, and he had a big section about this exact principle. He had the other guy there with him play a Gmaj chord, while he played a G# on top of it. He then demonstrated how to make it fit, either by grooving with it, and just hanging on that note, or by adding melodic and harmonic context, just as you do in the video. Great video, as always!
Victor wooten specifically talk about playing with confidence also make a big difference. A note not in the scale played with confidence shows that it is intentional. But he did went in detail like in this video
Ben's just being modest... Victor's been copying him for years. I mean, if that were actually true, it would be so flattering, but I jest. It's just a true concept.
Thanks, Ben. Just this morning I was having a conversation, in my own mind, with my daughter trying to convince her to pick up the bass again. "Look how important the bass is", I would say. "It doesn't just outline a chord, it can DEFINE the chord." I've only just discovered your channel via a recent episode you did with Neely and I'm all over it.
@@BenLevin oh shit I almost forgot about that! cool!!! Thanks for taking the time to do that!!! (Its one of the first projects I've made that I'm genuinely happy with so I hope you like it!)
Honestly the most important thing I got from this video was using the 2nd and the 4th in chords more. I almost never do that unless I’m going to immediately resolve it but this really opened me up to some sounds I’ve been trying to figure out! Great video as always Ben!
I like the concept of the C/D and C/F being similar sounds as they are both suspended chords technically. C/D is functionally a D11 (Root = D, 3rd = E (sus2), 5th = G (11th subbing for 5th function), and the 7th = C) and C/F is really just an Fmaj7sus2 (Root = F, 3rd = G (sus2), 5th = C, 7th = E). Very functional chords.
"Jazz" exists to bring harmony to the world. Everybody's notes, microtonal etc. can be worked together to tell the story of humanity and the greater nature. And of course, our friend rhythm. Havin a good party with Ben Levin. Spicy!
I saw a video of yours a long time back about generating "Radiohead sounding" chord progressions. Lately, as I've been studying music more (I'm a self-taught, hack, comedy songwriting) I've run across you in a couple of Adam Neely collabs. This video has made me a subscriber! Gotta keep learning more theory in order to make proper sense of the weirdness that came from my self-guided musical exploration. Thanks, Ben!
I just love your creativity! I remember watching your videos like 5 years ago when I didn't even have a clue of what a degree meant. Now it's really inspiring to twist my brain over those fresh concepts, thank you from the bottom of my heart. I would love to study with you
I love how your videos are building off of one another! Been practicing to your modes backing track and now I got some spicy chords that lend themselves to particular modes.
Lovely stuff, as always! I watch all YT on x2 speed and some of those progressions really groove. Your mind works in great and admirable ways, Mr. Levin!
Thank you Ben this video is awesome, and the rest of your channel. Whenever I feel my guitar playing getting stale you always have another way of doing something different on guitar. Inspiring stuff! I appreciate you!
Exactly what I've been trying to figure out for a while now noodling around, thanks!... It's one of the ways of creating new interesting voicings in a 'harmonically limited' context. You could also do a video on chord voicings in the context of alternate tunings (or more on voice leading in general) I'd love to watch that
This is a really interesting variation on one of my favorite exercises: Picking one top note, starting on the same note two octaves lower, filling in a consonant sounding chord, and lowering the bass note chromatically as you have done. Instead though, I like to keep the bass note as the root of the chord to show that there is a chord with any root that consonantly fits any top note melody note. Love the video!
I find it funny that I’ve watched so much of your and similar creators content that I instinctively called that one chord spicy at the exact time you did.
I mean this in the best way possible, so I’m sorry if I sound like an asshole, but for the most part, I’m not the biggest fan of your music, however, I have never listened to a piece of yours without being inspired. I think you have some of the most interesting musical ideas and for days after watching one of your videos or listening to a piece I will be constantly turning it over in my head. I will be walking across campus to class and then have to pull out my phone to record some melody I just thought of or try a chord progression and then grab my guitar as soon as I get back to my room. So I just wanted to say thanks for always experimenting and forcing open my narrow mind.
see thats the thing, we need more people that can say "hey, I personally am not a fan of [artist], but I really respect their music or what theyre doing in the industry." For me thats a lot of soundscapes, personally I cant get into them but I really find it interesting what theyre doing and some of the crazy stuff they can make. There's nothing wrong with personally disliking a certain piece, but to have the insight to be able to respect what theyre doing behind it takes a lot of effort.
Have you listened to his bandcamp stuff tho? Or did you just listen to his youtube pieces? Invisible Paradise is a masterpiece in motif delelopment imo, and he's quite varied in different albums too, you should check em out if you haven't :-)
His band Bent Knee is awesome as well. I mean, it's fine if you don't like them, it's all a matter of opinion, but if you have only listened to the songs on this channel you may wanna give them a try :)
I’ve listened to a decent amount of Bent Knee stuff, and I’m not saying he’s never put out a piece that I enjoy listening too, there are actually a few I quite like, I’m just saying his style isn’t typically what I’m looking for. Nothing against him or what he’s playing, just not what I listen to in my free time, but if I want ideas or inspiration, his music is the first place I go typically
@@BobbyHill26 I see. Personally I love Bent Knee, definitely my favorite current act, so I just thought I'd recommend them in case you hadn't listened to them. Either way, as someone said earlier it's nice when people can respectfully say that they are not a huge fan of things without labeling it as garbage. We need more of that
yes i wacthed your Chanel with david and musiscore arranging is excelent , i downloaded it and i start , i used study music at consevatory many years ago ,thanks
Maaaaaan! Now I know it! I know you! I have seen Bent Knees as support for Haken in Cologne! :D You were the guitarist that danced around really funny on stage! And I remember that I really liked your playing. :) Cheers from Germany! And great videos by the way. :)
I hope you talk about using a drone in this series!! (or simulating it by always relating/resolving everything back to a tonic.) I found it really easy to start using every note when I starting thinking about shapes in addition to scales. Like, switching between Aeolian and the blues scale. Woops, did I say blues scale? All of a sudden it's Dorian and you've forgotten you ever heard that minor 6th. Woah, just one sharp away from Mixolydian! Great time to add the flat two and get that augmented second interval happening. Also from Mixo, bring back the sharp 4th and you've got Lydian flat seven. Head back on up past the tonic, that major 9th leads into a nice bluesy minor 10th. Add the 12th to make a minor triad, and now the Major Seven is like a passing tone and we've got a nice resolution back to where we started, a great excuse to go back to using Aeolian, while using all 12 notes in between and never switching keys.
The maj7 chord with the 7th in bass has a Phrygian vibe to it. For example C/B sounds like B Phrygian. Resolve it to Bm or B major (for Phrygian dominant sound).
Thanks for your previous serie about basic music theorie I could anticipate about the melodic minor sound when you reached the b6. That really shows that you videos really consolidated my understanding. Thank you Ben.
If you consider Ab as G#, then you get an E7#9b13, a classic altered voicing that resolves to A minor. Of course, you can still play F melodic minor, but emphasizing the 7th mode (the altered scale) instead of the 3rd.
This brings up the whole question of are there no wrong 'sounds'? As in, what makes music music? Is the simple fact that someone had intention to make some noise enough?
really cool video, it gives a lot of new tools and a new way for me to look at ugly weird chords and try to think of where they want to go instead of just saying they're weird and ugly and not use them
weird thing I experience here is the C chord first inversion sounds dissonant at first because (I think) I am still totally hearing an 'echo' of the Eb from the previous example. some kind of auditory illusion.
Holy shit Ben! I’m so hyped for this series, this is amazing! Btw, Are you gonna be doing any more composition? That is by far my favorite type of content by you.
Very nice demonstration. Arnold Schoenberg has taken this further and shown that with giving each of the twelfth notes the same weight you can create beautiful music with an entirety different open space!
Nice video, I love the fact that you (and other like you) make these kind of videos! Good stuff! And I love that someone is talking about the outside notes and their possibilities! :-) If I were to be critical, though, I'd argue that Gb and F# is not really interchangable (even if they're enharmonic) in the C/F# scenario. The G "step" is already taken, and as long as it's a C lydian sound, it'll have to be F#. Also, you missed an obvious one on the C/D one, that's of course a very typical way of voicing a D11. ;-)
I've always liked finding some really chrunchy sounding dissonant chord and playing them in progressions that are really consonant, it's always created a really strange sound that I can't quite describe (though if my theory chops were better I'd probably know the term for it I suppose). Like taking something that sounds horrible and doing a V I vamp or something is something I keep coming back to.
I just realized that everything sounds good when it's played, but the soundfonts in notation software makes everything sound dissonant (in this case meaning that you don't like the sound of it).
Ok, the end really blew my mind. You just created one of the most interesting melodies by just playing what's essentially an e-Minor (E and G were the notes that sounded throughout the entire lick) and just changed the bass notes. That's how you do it. That melody made me think of some new stuff. You should write songs for Radiohead. Better then this one rapper whose name I just forgot. Or.. was it Lil Wayne?
LOVE this one dude! The C/Eb can resolve super nicely to an Abm or Ab chord - C/Eb is a nice voicing of Eb7(b9,13)
Also thanks to you Adam. You and Ben really convinced me to get into theory. I should have 20 years. But you know metalheads are sometimes stubborn. ;)
Yeah, fellow bassist and metalhead here. Without Adam, Ben and Rick Beato talking about the more weird and obscure theory, I never would've been motivated or interested enough to go back and learn the basics so I could fully understand what you're talking about.
Ben's my favorite music youtuber. Sorry Adam.
@Brad D i find them sounding similar as a sort of 9th voicing. C/F just sounds like an Fmaj9 to me, and C/D sounds like a Cmaj9
Ooh that's a fun one! Thanks my man. Great job with the final mix of Drunk by the way, you nailed it!
That sounds nauseatingly consonant XD
"Yikes that's spicy!" lol I'm going to be borrowing that occasionally!
Everytime I play something unexpected, I say that :P
"... Or C in first inversion, and that's a real snoozer."
this guy's skills as both a guitarist and a musical educator never fail to amaze me
I call Maj7#5 chords "The spy" chord because it's got that classic, "Meanwhile, at the super secret lair." vibe.
That's from James bond. Try a chord with a chromatic ally ascending 5th.
But the true spy chord is the min Maj 7
Yeah, gotta go with the min Maj 7 for the "spy" chord
I was reading the Beatles as musicians, and it was commonplace to use chromatic descending lines, and there are places to use them to develop the progression. But of course with chromatic lines, there is a relevant start and end note, traditionally a modal note to other note in the same mode, or to a modulation. That's intriguing to me, how the beatles and countless others used non scale notes, so significantly.
nice, really enjoyed that!
“It’s not the note you play that’s the wrong note - it’s the note you play afterwards that makes it right or wrong.”
2:27 "...it sounds less like a stink-fest and more like an adventure." LOL... too funny Ben.
I was at a Victor Wooten clinic a couple years ago, and he had a big section about this exact principle. He had the other guy there with him play a Gmaj chord, while he played a G# on top of it. He then demonstrated how to make it fit, either by grooving with it, and just hanging on that note, or by adding melodic and harmonic context, just as you do in the video. Great video, as always!
Wow that's wild! We both came up with this explanation approach independently which is a testament to how cool it is as a concept!
maj7#8 is a great sound!
Victor wooten specifically talk about playing with confidence also make a big difference. A note not in the scale played with confidence shows that it is intentional. But he did went in detail like in this video
Ben's just being modest... Victor's been copying him for years.
I mean, if that were actually true, it would be so flattering, but I jest. It's just a true concept.
Thanks, Ben. Just this morning I was having a conversation, in my own mind, with my daughter trying to convince her to pick up the bass again. "Look how important the bass is", I would say. "It doesn't just outline a chord, it can DEFINE the chord." I've only just discovered your channel via a recent episode you did with Neely and I'm all over it.
Really amazing performance. As a visual artist music is inspiring. When I’m drawing musicians I realize, there are no wrong notes.
Interesting approach
I love that you demonstrated what useful and exhaustive experimentation looks like. Great video
Those are some real fancy looking chords you got yourself there
Best is the end, where you use all of them in a very musical way! Bravo!
You lovable lug
C Lydian is awesome!!! just love it!
I think you managed to give me like 50 different ideas for songs from each chord/bass note thing. Your ability to inspire is astounding.
Yes! Write them all!
This is gonna be such a cool series!!
Seth Seabolt this... Is a series?
@@yoloswag6242 it says episode 1 so I assume so!
Thanks my man! I'm excited to finally be able to listen to your CD now that I'm back from tour. Going to spin it in the soccer van!
@@BenLevin oh shit I almost forgot about that! cool!!! Thanks for taking the time to do that!!! (Its one of the first projects I've made that I'm genuinely happy with so I hope you like it!)
Honestly the most important thing I got from this video was using the 2nd and the 4th in chords more. I almost never do that unless I’m going to immediately resolve it but this really opened me up to some sounds I’ve been trying to figure out! Great video as always Ben!
Gonna love this series
You are God sent.
Thank you so much for showing that any note has a purpose if you know how to treat them.
I like the concept of the C/D and C/F being similar sounds as they are both suspended chords technically. C/D is functionally a D11 (Root = D, 3rd = E (sus2), 5th = G (11th subbing for 5th function), and the 7th = C) and C/F is really just an Fmaj7sus2 (Root = F, 3rd = G (sus2), 5th = C, 7th = E). Very functional chords.
"Jazz" exists to bring harmony to the world. Everybody's notes, microtonal etc. can be worked together to tell the story of humanity and the greater nature. And of course, our friend rhythm. Havin a good party with Ben Levin. Spicy!
The music you make is always so pretty!
I'm so excited to see what happens next in this video series!
Saw Bent Knee last month in New York and was instantly hooked, just found out you have a youtube channel! Keep killin it man!
I saw a video of yours a long time back about generating "Radiohead sounding" chord progressions. Lately, as I've been studying music more (I'm a self-taught, hack, comedy songwriting) I've run across you in a couple of Adam Neely collabs. This video has made me a subscriber! Gotta keep learning more theory in order to make proper sense of the weirdness that came from my self-guided musical exploration. Thanks, Ben!
One of my favourite UA-cam channels. Always a pleasure.
I just love your creativity! I remember watching your videos like 5 years ago when I didn't even have a clue of what a degree meant. Now it's really inspiring to twist my brain over those fresh concepts, thank you from the bottom of my heart. I would love to study with you
I love how your videos are building off of one another! Been practicing to your modes backing track and now I got some spicy chords that lend themselves to particular modes.
This video has helped me appreciate how great of a guitarist you are. You are VERY skilled. =)
Lovely stuff, as always! I watch all YT on x2 speed and some of those progressions really groove.
Your mind works in great and admirable ways, Mr. Levin!
definitely one of the most eyeopening videos i have ever seen. as a musician, i am greatful for this videos creation ! :)
Thank you Ben this video is awesome, and the rest of your channel. Whenever I feel my guitar playing getting stale you always have another way of doing something different on guitar. Inspiring stuff! I appreciate you!
An absolutely wonderful lesson. Beautiful.
Nice lesson, I'm looking forward to Episode 2!
Repeat anything 20 times and it's no longer wrong.
Love this series!
Exactly what I've been trying to figure out for a while now noodling around, thanks!... It's one of the ways of creating new interesting voicings in a 'harmonically limited' context. You could also do a video on chord voicings in the context of alternate tunings (or more on voice leading in general) I'd love to watch that
your videos give such an amazing creative boost, thanks pal
Modal approach to music... this is how I try to write too this is a great video Ben Levin!
Thank you for this lesson Ben, you're deeply appreciated. Love
Great idea for a series, Doc!
This is a really interesting variation on one of my favorite exercises: Picking one top note, starting on the same note two octaves lower, filling in a consonant sounding chord, and lowering the bass note chromatically as you have done. Instead though, I like to keep the bass note as the root of the chord to show that there is a chord with any root that consonantly fits any top note melody note. Love the video!
I find it funny that I’ve watched so much of your and similar creators content that I instinctively called that one chord spicy at the exact time you did.
Great video Ben! Very inspiring. I'm taking this one to the piano.
Don't understand much of it but maybe I will someday
Oddly inspiring hearing these chords. Thanks!
Love these videos. Love scallops, too!
I mean this in the best way possible, so I’m sorry if I sound like an asshole, but for the most part, I’m not the biggest fan of your music, however, I have never listened to a piece of yours without being inspired. I think you have some of the most interesting musical ideas and for days after watching one of your videos or listening to a piece I will be constantly turning it over in my head. I will be walking across campus to class and then have to pull out my phone to record some melody I just thought of or try a chord progression and then grab my guitar as soon as I get back to my room. So I just wanted to say thanks for always experimenting and forcing open my narrow mind.
see thats the thing, we need more people that can say "hey, I personally am not a fan of [artist], but I really respect their music or what theyre doing in the industry." For me thats a lot of soundscapes, personally I cant get into them but I really find it interesting what theyre doing and some of the crazy stuff they can make. There's nothing wrong with personally disliking a certain piece, but to have the insight to be able to respect what theyre doing behind it takes a lot of effort.
Have you listened to his bandcamp stuff tho? Or did you just listen to his youtube pieces? Invisible Paradise is a masterpiece in motif delelopment imo, and he's quite varied in different albums too, you should check em out if you haven't :-)
His band Bent Knee is awesome as well. I mean, it's fine if you don't like them, it's all a matter of opinion, but if you have only listened to the songs on this channel you may wanna give them a try :)
I’ve listened to a decent amount of Bent Knee stuff, and I’m not saying he’s never put out a piece that I enjoy listening too, there are actually a few I quite like, I’m just saying his style isn’t typically what I’m looking for. Nothing against him or what he’s playing, just not what I listen to in my free time, but if I want ideas or inspiration, his music is the first place I go typically
@@BobbyHill26 I see. Personally I love Bent Knee, definitely my favorite current act, so I just thought I'd recommend them in case you hadn't listened to them. Either way, as someone said earlier it's nice when people can respectfully say that they are not a huge fan of things without labeling it as garbage. We need more of that
That's amazing Ben! You are a genius!
you're a genius ben!
All the wrong notes next?
Kind of!
ua-cam.com/video/JTEFKFiXSx4/v-deo.html
yes i wacthed your Chanel with david and musiscore arranging is excelent , i downloaded it and i start , i used study music at consevatory many years ago ,thanks
Awesome, can't wait for the second episode!
Maaaaaan! Now I know it! I know you! I have seen Bent Knees as support for Haken in Cologne! :D You were the guitarist that danced around really funny on stage! And I remember that I really liked your playing. :) Cheers from Germany! And great videos by the way. :)
Good work. Very inspiring.
I hope you talk about using a drone in this series!! (or simulating it by always relating/resolving everything back to a tonic.) I found it really easy to start using every note when I starting thinking about shapes in addition to scales. Like, switching between Aeolian and the blues scale. Woops, did I say blues scale? All of a sudden it's Dorian and you've forgotten you ever heard that minor 6th. Woah, just one sharp away from Mixolydian! Great time to add the flat two and get that augmented second interval happening. Also from Mixo, bring back the sharp 4th and you've got Lydian flat seven. Head back on up past the tonic, that major 9th leads into a nice bluesy minor 10th. Add the 12th to make a minor triad, and now the Major Seven is like a passing tone and we've got a nice resolution back to where we started, a great excuse to go back to using Aeolian, while using all 12 notes in between and never switching keys.
The maj7 chord with the 7th in bass has a Phrygian vibe to it. For example C/B sounds like B Phrygian. Resolve it to Bm or B major (for Phrygian dominant sound).
Excellent video
Thanks for your previous serie about basic music theorie I could anticipate about the melodic minor sound when you reached the b6. That really shows that you videos really consolidated my understanding. Thank you Ben.
So cool that you could tell the melodic minor right away!
@@BenLevin If I am not wrong it is but not starting on the root because it start in major and finish in minor. Right :)
@@BenLevin I need to look at the modes of melodic minor like I did for harmonic. I underuse this scale. Thanks for your awesome channel.
That C/Ab reminds me of the last guitar chord of the james bond theme.
yeah it's like a rootless FminorMaj9 (F Ab C E G)
I think the James Bond chord is a MinorM7 (C Eb G B)
If you consider Ab as G#, then you get an E7#9b13, a classic altered voicing that resolves to A minor. Of course, you can still play F melodic minor, but emphasizing the 7th mode (the altered scale) instead of the 3rd.
This brings up the whole question of are there no wrong 'sounds'? As in, what makes music music? Is the simple fact that someone had intention to make some noise enough?
really cool video, it gives a lot of new tools and a new way for me to look at ugly weird chords and try to think of where they want to go instead of just saying they're weird and ugly and not use them
Yay! I hope you get some cool songs out of it!
weird thing I experience here is the C chord first inversion sounds dissonant at first because (I think) I am still totally hearing an 'echo' of the Eb from the previous example. some kind of auditory illusion.
Holy shit Ben! I’m so hyped for this series, this is amazing! Btw, Are you gonna be doing any more composition? That is by far my favorite type of content by you.
Very nice demonstration. Arnold Schoenberg has taken this further and shown that with giving each of the twelfth notes the same weight you can create beautiful music with an entirety different open space!
Hey Ben, It would be interesting to see you take a chord progression and try to impose a different melody starting with every note for this series
This was awesome, I love this new series!
Yes! New video!
I do this with sus chords instead of triads, can get some wild turnaround chords.
C/B really , really feels like if this chords screamsssss to resolve on C
Carlos Garaycoa yeah that’s kinda the point of a maj7
Mario Kart has fantastic music love This vid! definitely helped me learn some new ideas🤘🏻
This is really interesting and informative - nice job!
Nice video, I love the fact that you (and other like you) make these kind of videos! Good stuff! And I love that someone is talking about the outside notes and their possibilities! :-)
If I were to be critical, though, I'd argue that Gb and F# is not really interchangable (even if they're enharmonic) in the C/F# scenario. The G "step" is already taken, and as long as it's a C lydian sound, it'll have to be F#.
Also, you missed an obvious one on the C/D one, that's of course a very typical way of voicing a D11. ;-)
I subscribed at the second chord.
lot of this is too advanced for me but I do get the jest of it
Hope to return back here in a few months to understand it better
Why was I not subscribed before!!!!?
Welcome back from the tour. Thanks for the video, Ben!
Thank you Vitor!
Excellent video, can't see where else you go with this series. Now do this again but with every single humanly possible microtonal interval.
Awesome
I've always liked finding some really chrunchy sounding dissonant chord and playing them in progressions that are really consonant, it's always created a really strange sound that I can't quite describe (though if my theory chops were better I'd probably know the term for it I suppose). Like taking something that sounds horrible and doing a V I vamp or something is something I keep coming back to.
Great video Ben, thanks
I just realized that everything sounds good when it's played, but the soundfonts in notation software makes everything sound dissonant (in this case meaning that you don't like the sound of it).
I'm hearing the Maj4 on the bottom as making the chord into a Maj9(no3) chord. F-C-E-G
you mean p4 correct?
@@TheShadowblast123 he means Maj/4
@@TheShadowblast123 Ahh yes I did mean perfect fourth. Guess I just said major four bc thats why Ben called it in this video
Would be interested to see this done for a minor chord instead of C major.
Great video!
I've noticed that when you put a diatonic note under the chord, it seems to take on the role of the note. That may just be me though.
That's a very cool observation. I feel the same way now that I think of it!
I dont know what u gonna talk but I like the title. And is enough
I Ef'ing love you.
That FLAMANCO geez
Ok, the end really blew my mind. You just created one of the most interesting melodies by just playing what's essentially an e-Minor (E and G were the notes that sounded throughout the entire lick) and just changed the bass notes.
That's how you do it.
That melody made me think of some new stuff.
You should write songs for Radiohead.
Better then this one rapper whose name I just forgot. Or.. was it Lil Wayne?
real good video dude
What if you could do this on a minor chord
The third one reminds me a lot to King Crimson
Bravo! I suport this channel
Very interesting! thanks so much Ben :)