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Why does the iii chord seem to be usually avoided in many styles?
I'll go a slightly different direction with my answer and say that I think this is a misconception. And frankly, I blame lackluster textbooks for it.
I recall Kostka/Payne's Tonal Harmony in my ...
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Sharps used in Super Mario theme
You are right, this piece is in the key of C major. There are countless songs written in C major, or any other major key that don’t use any notes outside the major scale or any chords outside the 7 ...
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Sharps used in Super Mario theme
Adding to John Belzaguy’s answer: The piece is pretty much straight C major, but it is using something we call chromatic approaches. This means that when playing a note you approach it from a half ...
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Doja Cat - Paint the Town Red Chord Progression
This progression is sampled from a Dionne Warwick’s “Walk On By” written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David in the early 1960’s.
It is not uncommon to use a ii chord with a natural 5th in pop music in a ...
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Does melody come from root progressions?
Historically, melody existed long before harmony. Before the modern theories of chords were developed, people were writing music that we can analyze harmonically today without any harmonic theory: ...
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Opening of Bach's mass in b minor: why does it make sense?
Structurally, the second chord is not a C♯ half-diminished seventh but an A♯ diminished seventh in first inversion. The B in the second soprano is a suspension. The harmonic rhythm is in half notes ...
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7
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How is augmented major seventh chord functioning? (Gadd9/B Ebmaj7#5/B Cadd9)
It's actually a very common chord progression, but disguised by the spelling.
The progression G G+ C — or, more generally, I I+ IV — is a frequent way to move chromatically from a I chord to a IV ...
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Why does the iii chord seem to be usually avoided in many styles?
Just an addendum to the other answers:
The iii chord is central to the so-called royal road progression, which is used in a great deal of Japanese pop music, especially anime.
The royal road ...
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What is this descending riff of notes referred to as?
That riff is called a montuno. It is actually only a snippet of a montuno because a montuno is generally a repetitive rhythmic pattern that extends over many bars and also outlines the harmony with ...
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What is the function of G Major in the key of B Major
Unfortunately your key, chords and enharmonic spelling are inaccurate. The key is G# minor (not Ab minor) the relative minor of B. The passage can also be spelled in Ab minor but then everything else ...
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Explain chord progression
Whenever you encounter a non-diatonic chord, it's worth checking if it's a modal interchange or a secondary chord. And perhaps also trying enharmonic spelling variations.
G# and A# could be rewritten ...
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How to Identify & Complete Sequences
Sequence
A sequence is a musical pattern that is repeated in transposed form.
Melodic vs. Harmonic (a.k.a. Tonal vs. Real)
In a melodic sequence, the literal pattern is repeated.
In a harmonic ...
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Sharps used in Super Mario theme
A particular key is defined far more by its 'home', 'place of rest', than which notes are included in the tune involved.
It's a partial truth that most melodies will mostly use diatonic (belonging to ...
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Rachmaninoff - Piano Concerto No. 2 (1st movement) Tempo I - Bar 86 - why D not D flat?
The second half of the bar is a half-step-lower transposition of the first half. Note each voice:
Soprano: C - D , Cb - Db
Alto: G - F# , Gb - F
Tenor: Eb , D
Bass: Bb-A-Eb, A-Ab-(Cb)
...
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Does melody come from root progressions?
No. A lead melody can be accompanied or harmonized with countless different chords with different roots, and each alternative just feels different. A melody line may "imply" certain chords, ...
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5
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Ambiguity of Roman numeral analysis of Andalusian cadence
To add to or expand on Richard's answer: You're running into the distinction between analysis and practice. To get really basic: humans make music. They also put ink on paper to say things about that ...
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Ambiguity of Roman numeral analysis of Andalusian cadence
Isn't roman numeral notation just useless?
I don't believe so. Whereas strict chord labels (C, Dm, etc.) tell you exactly what chords to play, Roman-numeral notation can tell you:
how these chords ...
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Chord III is rarely used, but Pachelbel's Canon in D has F#m
Yes, it does. This sequence is one of the places where the III chord appears. Another place one might expect it is in consecutive first inversion chords.
For another example (but a debated one), see ...
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Trouble understanding the CAGED chord shapes
There are other ways to play an A major chord on a guitar, for instance with a barré on the 5th fret (looks like an open E major chord shifted five semitones up). The one you're describing is just one ...
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What is this descending riff of notes referred to as?
It is a very typical example of a Montuno, a common Latin (eg. salsa) piano comping riff that features (in the right hand) arpeggiated (broken) chords while accentuating (in octaves) one of the chord ...
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5
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Why are triads considered perfect chords and the basis which all extensions are built off of?
Why are dyads not the basis or even considered a chord by a lot of music theorists?
They certainly used to be. The modern theory of chords evolved gradually over several hundred years during which ...
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Explain chord progression
You'll probably find it easier to justify G#, A# and D# if you spell them as A♭, B♭ and E♭.
There are many reasons why a chord can 'fit'. The most simple is when it's diatonic in the home key or in ...
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Bb7 chord in C major , function
Despite the chromaticism this song is firmly rooted in the key of C. The F chord you are starting on is actually bar 11 of the song. That is a IV chord. The next chord, Bb7 is a tritone substitution ...
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ii-ii6-I progression
Minor chords with inner movement within the harmony are very common in different styles of music. They may have a specific name or history, I can’t recall offhand. When a chord progression works it ...
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Ambiguity of Roman numeral analysis of Andalusian cadence
All the things you add to your question about "ambiguity" boil down to saying "I don't know what key I am in."
Am – G – F – E
When you identify the progression by name, and list ...
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how to replace the diminished chord in a key to write a good song without a diminished chord (for example e diminished to F)?
If you mean "use E" as a pitch as opposed to a chord, you can always harmonize that E (scale-degree 7) with a V chord, which in the key of F would be a C-major (or a C7) chord. This is very ...
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Why is the Royal Road progression (IV-V-iii-vi) often resolved by a ii-V-I cadence?
I don't think this is specific to the Royal Road progression, but if you look at the final chords after the IV–V motion, you realize this is just a big circle of fifths progression: iii–vi–ii–V–I.
...
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I'm so confused about modes that I can't make a specific title
Just to add on to the good answers here, and boil an important part down very simply: You've been using some modes all along. Our good old major and minor are themselves modes. Just like those, the ...
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Why are triads considered perfect chords and the basis which all extensions are built off of?
There is a general rule for intervals, which could be phrased like:
If a tone intersects a given interval in an arithmetic way (at the arithmetic mean) it will support the base tone, if it intersects ...
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