VI-V-IV-V chord loop study

[kensuguro]

Slicing and dicing the VI-V-IV-V chord progression. Really, I just kept the base line consistent, and then changed whatever I could on the chords.. I'm not going to bother with listing out what's happening in each of the sections.. I also have a lead that noodles around wherever. (it's incorrect from time to time) Found some nice ideas. I guess this classically boring ass progression can be fairly tasteful.

Done with a the shitty 2mb EMU GM soundfont. Did some channel effects in Kontakt. The bass sounded so bad I heavily filtered and also passed through a cabinet sim in kontakt.. Man, that GM finger bass... never sounded anything like a bass..

Edit: I removed the noodling lead line because it was annoying.

[wayne]

Ha! All these years and I never thought of it as a 6-5-4-5. Always as a 1-7-6-7 in the relative melodic minor...

Heard a John Hiatt song (name of which escapes me) the other day that did this really well - it always stands out when someone pulls this change off and it's not All Along The Watchtower/Stairway To Heaven

[kensuguro]

haha, the roman numerals were always strange to me. I do agree, the 6 in this case feels much more like a 1. (since it's the tonic) But the 4 and 5 still seem like they should be 4 and 5 just because they are still the subdominant and the dominant. So "feeling" wise, it almost feels like a 1-5-4-5 is more correct, but that doesn't reflect the correct distance.

For the record, I did have to teach myself to instantly think of any minor tonic as a 6 of the major key that is 3 semitones higher. That "weirdness" took 3 years to shake off.

Please do post when you recall the tune. 6-5-4-5 is very bread and butter, and definitely takes some coercing to get a sophisticated, mature flavor. I think the most difficult is to make it sound assertive in its basic form. (without substitutions or any fancy pants stuff, which I did a lot of in this study) Most of the time, if you just go full blast in the basic form, it ends up sounding too naive. This is sort of derailing, but it's sort of like a poached egg with hollandaise sauce. It's easy to get to the "ok" level, but still very bland and overdone. But when you get all the details right, it can be bangin'.

[wayne]

Tracked it down Ken, and it's not what I thought at all - but has some insights into the form John Hiatt - Crossing Muddy Waters

Uneven timing like that - adding a 2/4 or 3/4 bar - can freshen things considerably. As far as the simple, unadulterated VI-V-IV-V, yeah, it's hard to avoid hack - feel and space the best things perhaps. "If you're swinging, swing some more" T.S.Monk

[kensuguro]

variants on 4-5-6 and 4-5-1 eh. 4-5-6 actually seems more assertive than 6-5-4-5 since the 5-4-5 part inherently makes it wishy washy. 4-5-6 on guitar based instruments sounds so good.