Hello everyone,
I’m new here and I hope I’m not breaking any rules by posting a link to the video in question. I also need to add that my knowledge of music theory is, sadly, extremely limited.
So, in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPmalRr6Yxo (you can jump to 2:10) we first have Amaj, then a lick in A maj pentatonic, and then the player lands on C#min. As far as I understand, that’s the 3rd step in the Amaj scale. Not sure what kind of chord progression it is (I - iii … ?) but right after that there’s another lick, which is explained as “outlining the 5th chord”, which is E maj. The moment I get confused is when he says that it’s the Emaj triad in the first inversions and right after that says that it’s also C#min.
I’ve got a bunch of other questions, but I’ll leave them for later. Hope this question makes sense. It’s been a long day.
Thanks for any insights and answers.
The chord he is using for the second lick is indeed E/G# a.k.a Emaj in first inversion.
Emaj (E-G#-B) works really well over c#m (C#-E-G#) because it’s essentially just three quarters of a c#m7 (C#-E-G#-B) and he even adds the missing C# with the hammer-on on the third string. So we can really think of this as c#m7/G#.
The entire progression is A - c#m(7) - D - A, so that would be I - iii(7) - IV - I in roman numerals.
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Thank you for your reply.
What I don’t get is how to think of that chord. Are we playing the iii chord (C#min) or the V chord (Emaj with G#)? Technically speaking, he’s playing licks there and says they’re “outlining” the V chord… I’m really confused.
Would you be able to recommend where I should start learning to understand concepts like that?
Another thing is that when I change that lick and end it on an F# note, it sounds quite nice, but I don’t know why. Also, when I go from C#min (or Emaj/G#?) t F# minor (F#, A, C#), it sounds very pleasant to my ear, too. Again, I don’t know why. All I know is that F# minor is the relative key of A maj.
A good habit to get into is to trust your ears. When you listen through the entire progression, does it sound like there’s a chord change happening halfway through the second measure? I’d be surprised if it does.
If we look at that lick in isolation and disregard the hammer-on, then yes - it does outline the V chord in first inversion. But the C# bass note he played at the beginning of the second measure still lingers in our ears, because he doesn’t play any new bass notes to “overwrite” it. So our brain interprets that entire lick against that C# bass note.
So instead of hearing the G# as the 3rd of Emaj, we’re hearing it as the 5th of C#min. Instead of hearing the B as the 5th of Emaj, we’re hearing it as the 7th of C#min. And instead of hearing the E as the root of Emaj, we’re hearing it as the 3rd of C#min. The fact that he’s adding a C# with the hammer-on only reinforeces this.
So it really is iii all the way through the second measure.
F#min is the vi chord in the key of A major. If you grew up listening to western music, your brain is so accustomed to diatonic harmony that you can basically play the chords within a key in any random order and it will always sound “right” to you.
I think you would really benifit from learning the fundamental concepts of western music theory before you do anything else. It is not necessary to do that, but since it seems like you really want to understand why things sound the way they do instead of just playing what sounds right, you won’t really get around that.
I think this video does a pretty good job at explaining the basics, but it’s rather lengthy. You can basically just search for anything along the lines of “music theory for beginners” or “basics of music theory” and find a video that works for you. There are literally hundreds of these out there.
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