SongTrellis
Music and Musical Know-how For You

Author:  David Luebbert Posted:  5/30/02; 5:01:56 AM Msg#:  2591 (top msg in thread) Prev/Next:  2590/2592 Reads:  6819

Newest Chord Changes

Here's everything that's new this month. You can always find the newest submissions in The Changes by following the List 100 newest progressions link that appears towards the top of that page.

• Wes Montgomery's West Coast Blues
• Cy Coleman's Witchcraft
• Michel Legrand's I Will Say Goodbye
• Willard Robison's Old Folks
• Miles Davis and Gil Evans' Miles Ahead
• Johnny Mandel's Emily
• Cole Porter's Anything Goes and All Through The Night
• George Gershwin's I've Got A Crush On You
• Frederick Loewe's Almost Like Being In Love
• Bernie, Pinkard and Casey's Sweet Georgia Brown

Simple tunes that Americans probably know

I also thought it would be good to list the chord sequences for tunes with very simple harmony that many people know by heart. Nearly everyone in the US learns some of  these at school. Snatches of them surface frequently in American movies, TV programs and news programming. Also, "My Country Tis Of Thee" is an Americanization of  "God Save The Queen" the British national anthem, known everywhere in the British Commonwealth. If you are trying to understand harmony, these might be good ones to start your investgations with.

• Home On The Range
• Steven Foster's Old Folks At Home (sometimes called Swanee River)
• Woody Guthrie's This Land Is Your Land
• America (My Country Tis Of Thee/God Bless The Queen)
• Irving Berlin's God Bless America
• America, the Beautiful
• Columbia, The Gem Of The Ocean
• Battle Hymn Of The Republic
• Charles Zimmerman's Anchors Aweigh

The BEAD-GCF mnemonic

I wrote an article in mid May to introduce a mnemonic that I've found useful when I try to analyze chord sequences. This lets you determine almost instantly when a composer is following the descending cycle of fifths in a chord progression. Since motion back and forth on this cycle accounts for a majority of the root motion that happens in many songs, and has a characteristic sound,  recognizing this is very helpful. After I submitted my article, Joe Jagelka figured out a way to extend the mnemonic in a very cool way.

Rhythmaddicts

This seems to be a page maintained by a percussion band called The Rhythmaddicts. They have notation for several rhythms I haven't heard before: Tiriba, Essombe, N'kisi, Bwanga, Omalarasu and Illesa. The notation is good. They include small mp3 clips for a number of the rhythms.

The Tonal Centre

"The Tonal Centre is an interactive site for music composers and theorists which explains and demonstrates some of the key concepts of tonality; including chords, scales, cadences, and modulation. Most of the musical examples are illustrated with a midi file - just click on the relevant link to hear it." The author of the site is Andy Milne. I especially like his explanations of cadences and modulations.

Composers and Lyricists Database

Billed as "The ORIGINAL, and The LARGEST TUNESMITHS DATABASE". Here it is.

Cannonball

Recently found a transcript of this wonderful radio interview with Cannonball Adderly from 1972.

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