“The Chord”—“O Come, All Ye Faithful” and Others
Nick Tamen
Shipmate
in Heaven
After church on Christmas Eve, a friend asked me “Do you know about ‘The Chord’”? (Yes, I could hear the upper-case T and the quotation marks in her voice.) My mind immediately went to “O Come, All Ye Faithful,” but as this friend isn’t a musician, I wasn’t sure that’s what she meant. It is kind of an insider choral thing. I said “You mean . . . ?” “In ‘O Come, All Ye Faithful,” she said. I smiled and said “Oh, yes!”
For those who have no clue what I’m talking about, it’s the chord heard in the fourth verse of Sir David Willcock’s arrangement of “O Come, All Ye Faithful,” on “Word of the Father.” (For the music nerds, it’s a B half-diminished seventh chord.)
It turned out that she had heard a story that afternoon on the WBUR/NPR show “Here and Now” about The Chord, which she had found fascinating. I’ve since listened to the story, and it is indeed interesting. It can be found here: “A music chord so powerful that some consider it sacred.” (Click the play button next to the title of the article.)
Since some shipmates have been known to wax poetic about The Chord—yes, I’m looking at you @piglet, and @Qoheleth comes to mind as well—I thought I’d share the story here.
But it also got me wondering: What chords or chord progressions—particularly unexpected chords or chord progressions—in other pieces of music give you chills, take your breath or particularly move you in some way?
For those who have no clue what I’m talking about, it’s the chord heard in the fourth verse of Sir David Willcock’s arrangement of “O Come, All Ye Faithful,” on “Word of the Father.” (For the music nerds, it’s a B half-diminished seventh chord.)
It turned out that she had heard a story that afternoon on the WBUR/NPR show “Here and Now” about The Chord, which she had found fascinating. I’ve since listened to the story, and it is indeed interesting. It can be found here: “A music chord so powerful that some consider it sacred.” (Click the play button next to the title of the article.)
Since some shipmates have been known to wax poetic about The Chord—yes, I’m looking at you @piglet, and @Qoheleth comes to mind as well—I thought I’d share the story here.
But it also got me wondering: What chords or chord progressions—particularly unexpected chords or chord progressions—in other pieces of music give you chills, take your breath or particularly move you in some way?
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I also like a diminuendo. 'That music hath a dying fall.'
There's a similar effect in English lyric poetry too.
And Welsh hymn tunes in the minor key also.
I was privileged to attend a Romanian carol concert last weekend and was struck by a similar effect there. They all had what we'd call the 'hiraeth' as they sang their traditional carols.
Then there's that bit towards the end of the first of Bach's cello suites. You know. A kind of spine-tingling change of register. I don’t know the technical term.
You can always rely on Bach. He never lets you down.
The "quartal"* chords in "so what" by miles Davis
The Tristan chord is so important iirc because it doesn't resolve and so marks the beginning of traditional western tonality breaking down.
* stacked 4ths rather than stacked 3rds.
@Gamma Gamaliel
So true
Wilcocks' Bm7b5 (aka B half diminished) in v7 (the Christmas day verse and woe betide those who sing it early!!!(one less argument to have now weve moved on from our previous shack!)) Is the ii chord of a quick modulation to A minor (Bm7b5 E7 Am (ii v i)).
Geek mode off
But is it the one that David played and it pleased the Lord?
It is hard to talk about music when, like me, you don't know the lingo.
My late wife used to tell me that I'd generally pick up the bass line on things but I've no idea what's involved in doing that.
But then, I was thrown off the choir at church recently... so my knowledge and practice is pretty minimal.
The actual notes in the chord would occur quite naturally in the Blues. The #9 is a conventional way of writing the same note in the scale as the minor third. Blues melodies use a modified scale with a flattened third (or even a reduced pentatonic scale which also feature the same flattened third) but those melodies sit over a bass and rhythm section using major chords, often dominant sevenths. So in a Blues in E, the rhythm guitarist, keyboards, horn section etc. would regularly be playing an E7 chord, containing the major third, G#, while the singer or solo instrumentalist plays or sings the minor third, a G natural. Because they're coming from different places that minor third doesn't sound like a clash but rather sounds - well, Blue.
Hendrix just took that minor third/#9 and added it to the top of his dominant 7th chord. While a Jazz or Blues pianist might do that in passing, with a
#9 in a melody passing through a dominant 7th chord, Hendrix grabbed it and made it part of the chord itself - but far enough in the voicing from the major 3rd to avoid an ear-distressing clash.
But because the #9 is also a minor third, the chord itself is ambiguous in its tonality - both minor and major. This is a feature to this day in rock music. Rock guitarists often play chords lacking a third altogether - this is because playing full triads through heavy distortion - especially lower in the guitar register - can make for a muddy and indistinct sound - minor thirds being particularly bad. But it also makes the chord similarly tonally ambiguous. If you try to arrange a heavy rock song for acoustic guitar or another instrument playing clean (as opposed to through distortion) where these power chords (as they are known) don't work so well you can sometimes find that nereplacing with minor or major sounds quite right.
I might try replacing them with a 7#9 later today... Smoke on the Water, Hendrix version...
Oh, late addendum, if you listen to Steppenwolf's Born to be Wild, in the main riff and verses the guitar plays an E major alternating with a riff based on the E power chord, while the organ plays an E minor 7 with the #9/flat 5 G note high in the voicing. Between them, they create the E7#9 Hendrix chord.
Spot on
And Resultant Bass stops on some organs. It's all about frequency reinforcement.
Nothing like heavy distortion on guitar for spotting any tuning inaccuracies
I agree. Problem is it's one of these areas where the lingo was invented because you need it to describe the thing it was invented for
The knack is explaining things clearly, showing how they work with clear audible examples and not blinding folk with science...
And some synths.
The distortion brings out the higher harmonics (more square wave sound than sine wave) which clash more obviously highlighting any tuning issues (which why the cowboy chords sound mushy and horrible).
That is actually the progression I had in mind when I wrote “what chords or chord progressions” in the OP. It is divine; that Leonard Cohen of Blessed Memory describes it as it’s played is added brilliance.
To answer my own question, I’ve been thinking of Britten’s War Requiem. The C-F# tritone is a fundamental part of the framework, and I'm thinking particularly of how at the end of the first movement (Requiem aeternam), and I think also the ends of the Dies Irae and the Libera Me (it’s been a while), the tension of the tritone resolves to an F-major chord, which isn’t the tonic. It always struck me as haunting and just the slightest bit hopeful of what might come next.
I need to go back and listen to the whole War Requiem. It’s been far too long.
Also Howard Ho, but his videos are mostly about musical theatre.
And David Bennett, who explains things very clearly. He is a huge Beatles fan, don’t start a drinking game for every time he me tions the Beatles unless you want to end up plastered.
I like jazz and blues and Hendrix 'sends' me, man. I don't know enough of the lingo to put my finger on why.
I know 'Foxy Lady' and 'Purple Haze' well so will listen out for whatever it is I'm meant to be listening out for.
I don't do You Tube much but have occasionally seen something where they take a look under the bonnet (hood) or where a classical musician listens to a rock track and reacts or responds to it in some way.
I was going by the numbering in the video which lined up with my memory of the processional version in AMR (the non-processional version being 4 verses with "yea lord" as v4 iirc)
AMR?
Those empty chords -- intervals of perfect fifths with no distinguishing third in the middle to render it a major or minor chord -- can be hair-raising for sure, and that Mozart moment is a great example. Root pitch or fundamental and it's corresponding scalar fifth, or 3rd partial in just intonation. Elemental harmony that works every time.
Hymns ancient and modern revised (the hymnal of my yoof)
It's the power chord that @KarlLB and myself so love with distortion on guitar.
As I’ve said here before I’m a fan of Federico Mompou’s masterpiece of meditative minimalism - four sets of short pieces published under the title Musica Callada. The harmonies do a lot of the work in unexpected ways. In particular somehow the last piece of the last set manages to create this powerful valedictory concluding feel with just a few bars of otherwise fairly simple chords. Or not from the Musica Callada, the fifth prelude for left hand alone is in effect a chordal progression using entirely broken chords.
I find a lot of his pieces the musical equivalent of trick shots, but the section of Jacob Collier's 'In the Bleak Midwinter' where he modulates up to G half sharp for the final verse, and then back down again at the end .
I have just found a link to some of his broadcasts
https://open.spotify.com/album/7bOzxXRHjPcGK2kjHeJs9v
I’m going to have to look it up - though I was thinking of the chorale itself rather than the prelude. It’s reproduced in the Cambridge Hymnal.
Sorry I got the title wrong - BWV 667 is the prelude and Bach also harmonized the chorale itself - Komm, Gott, Schöpfer, Heiliger Geist
They are indeed.
That’s right. I was posting on my phone and from (apparently not entirely reliable) memory.
Ecclesiantics denizens informed me it was named "the bonk" (or as Bishops Finger called it, "POM"): the note before the verse begins in For All The Saints: stirring!
I've no idea what a chord progression is, a chord is in the back of my memory from school, but the "introductory" notes before the verses of Personent Hodie move me also.
For a concrete example from this thread, listen to the sequence of chords in Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” that go with the words:
It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth,
the minor fall, the major lift,
the baffled king composing Hallelujah.
Listen to how each chord moves to the next one, increasing the tension or resolving it. That’s the chord progression.
That's -ing weird. The lyrics are incredibly well crafted, and I'm an Al Stewart fan so have pretty high standards for that sort of thing.
But de gustibus...
Deal with it. 😉