Naming and analyzing chords : problem with a stack of fourths (and 2 other slash chords)
I am writing a piece from little licks I have from years, and I found what seems to me a really moody intro consisting of 3 "exotic" chords.
for context, I have no education in music theory, but I am really enthusiastic about it. If I speak nonsense below, please pardon me.
I love these chords and I would like to analyse them or find any progression with the same vibe because I would like to revisit this chord progression later in the piece
For the intro part, they resolve in a Gm (in a dorian scale) which I'll consider the I chord
The piece is modulated later (in Eb dorian/Db major) so I need transposable relations of these chords with this resolving Gm
here is the score (ignore the chords names in purple) :
this is what I found so far :
the first chord : A D G C (F B) is just a stack of fourths in A minor.
it could be some kind of Am11
or using a slash, a... D7sus/A ??
is there any way to notate a stack of fourths ?
if i was obliged to find the position of the chord, I would say II since the bass is A
but it could be V with the D as tonic.
the second chord : Ab Eb G Bb (Db G)
is either a very complex Ab
or a simple Eb major triad over Ab bass (Eb/Ab), but in this case, how am I supposed to analyse it ?
is it a bII or a VI ? I would go for a VI so far
the last chord : G C Eb A (G Eb)
has the same problem,
either a complex G chord
or a Adim/G or more close a Cm6/G
so this sounds like it's either announcement to the I chord with decoration
or a II chord (Adim) or a IV chord (Cm)
After many tries and simplification I could sustitute these chords with this progression, with these transpositions (notice that the I becomes major in transpositions, sound better in the ear). I think I could play with that.
D7 Eb Cm6 -> Gm (intro)
V bVI IVm -> I (relations)
Bb7 Cb(B?) Abm6 -> Eb (transposed)
G7 Ab Fm -> C (transposed in C)
I find this sweet.
Am I doing this right ? did I miss something obvious ?
(2)2 Comments
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There is very little point in trying to analyse this sort of thing as functional harmony. Or even in trying to pin labels onto the individual chords. Just let it be what it is, described by the notation. We're not in 'chord sequence' territory here. The brief, accurate way to describe these chords is the notation.
The last chord can certainly be heard as a type of chord IV leading to Gm: as you say, Cm6/G
The first two chords are not functional in the Roman numeral sense but there’s plenty to say about them as regards voice leading if you want to write similar sequences.
Firstly the bass descends by semitone a-ab-g. There are also tritone pairs that descend in major thirds f-b db-g a-eb.
The slide into chord 3 is seamless because of two things. Firstly they share eb-g. Second is the parallelism (planing) ab-bb to g-a. I would argue that in addition there is a db-c with the c octave-displaced.
All composers really do is do stuff with music - if you do some more stuff like this you’ll easily find some more sequences that fit/contrast as you like.
It’s always worth looking and thinking about what you’ve written.
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