Advanced Chord Theory Analysis of Steely Dan's "The 2nd Arrangement"

[@theprivatepile]

Great stuff ur Dan lessons are the best !!!!

[@PatriotParody]

Yo Tim, this is all really great info and it's communicated in a very understandable, coherent way. You're a fantastic educator. Big big big fan over here. Happy holidays!

[@TimSmolens]

I really appreciate those props. I am trying to up my educator game for my new conservatory so thanks for letting me practice on you!

[@ryannelson1666]

Couldn’t have said it better myself. This is amazing. Thanks so much Tim!

[@HeathenHammer80]

Just seven months ago on Father’s Day I received an electric piano as a gift from my wife. I have played guitar for a good majority of my 43 years, but had not the slightest clue how to read music and the only music theory I knew was that if you want to make a chord minor, flatten the third, but I had no idea what that meant, or why it meant that. The first thing I did was learn how to read sheet music and between videos like yours and practicing with yousician I can understand most of what is going on in your video. It is like learning a whole new language. Thank you so much for making these videos. If it wasn’t for people like you I wouldn’t have progressed nearly as far as a musician.

[@TimSmolens]

Thanks so much for leaving the comment! I am so glad you find my videos helpful. You might be a good candidate for joining my Patreon called High Castle Conservatory. Check out more videos on my channel and I think many will be right up your alley. Thanks again for watching.

[@timothyhornyak6276]

Awesome work and highly instructive!

[@TimSmolens]

Thanks for the props Tim, I appreciate that!

[@BGallo-wnc]

Fascinating analysis, Tim! Can you make the chord sheet you use in the video avail as a PDF? Thanks!

[@paljardine1538]

Hey man. Appreciate your dedication. Really good stuff.

[@TimSmolens]

Thanks so much for checking it out and the compliments. If you haven't subscribed yet please consider doing so so I can continue to expand this tiny operation!

[@vasukilaru8252]

Great analysis Tim.

[@TimSmolens]

Thank you so much. I am going to be doing lots of similar content from beginning through advanced at our conservatory when it opens. Thanks for checking it out.

[@peregrinetomkins]

Hi Tim, love your harmonic analysis of ‘The Second Arrangement’. How we hear harmony is very individual isn’t it?Your theoretical analysis is excellent-I just had two observations that I thought I would share with you as a fellow Steely Dan fan and musician. I think, in your admirable aim to keep to a minimum the changes in tonal centre, you have misdiagnosed the first 8 bars of the verse as being in G major, whereas I would say this segment is really in E minor. That would make the chord sequence VI, V, I (albeit an ambiguous version of chord one!) IV, V. BTW in the second chord of the verse (B7 augmented), I would keep G at the top of the voicing rather than the A you choose. That makes the G a pivot note from the previous chord, strengthening the harmonic progression. Obviously, by the time we get to the chorus, the tonal centre has modulated to the subdominant key (A minor).

[@TimSmolens]

I appreciate you taking the time to comment and offer honest critique or alternate possibilities. I think you are making a good point of considering the 1st verse in E minor. As I kind of hinted at int he video I consider using relative major or minor a bit of a matter of mere semantics. So in this case E minor is the relative minor of G major which i named as the key of that verse. I do appreciate the subtle differences between Gmajor and Eminor that are unique and worthy of consideration when naming keys but in this case I felt it looked a little neater (to my eye) to keep it all in G major. Plus the verse never actually resolves to Eminor. The 1st 2 chords C major, B7#5 seem like they are heading towards E minor, but then instead it has the bass go to E (deceptive!) and the chord becomes the Bmi7/E which for me seals the deal that was going to call it Gmajor, since Bmi7 is not in Eminor. I do thing the verse flirts and points at E minor bu quickly goes away from it. Thanks again for sharing your thoughts! Please subscribe if you like the content.

[@peregrinetomkins]

Thanks for taking the time to address my points. I think our difference in interpretation can be distilled down to the fact that I think that what you call Bm7/E is actually E11 (albeit with an added B) not Bm7.

[@TimSmolens]

@@peregrinetomkins Interesting. I have never been comfortable calling a chord a straight 11 chord. By E11 do you mean an E major with a suspended 4, and is it an add 11 or is there a 9 and 7. I am comfortable calling something a minor 11 because you can have a minor 3rd in a chord and also fit an 11 without any problems. In this case that I call Bmi7/E....there is definitely a B,D,F#, A with an E in the bass. If we were to fit this in Eminor, as you suggest, we could call that chord Emi9sus4 (which semantically sounds better to me than E11). That is what is so great about these changes, they truly hint at multiple keys and I doubt Donald was even thinking that. Fun little debate though and I think a good case could be made for your claims of Eminor but I still think it fits more neatly into G

[@peregrinetomkins]

@@TimSmolens Interesting points. I think most jazz musicians take it as read that E11 already includes the seventh and the ninth-it's just a convenient shorthand. It is sometimes alternatively denoted as D/E, but I avoid this as some bass players mistakenly play the first note they see when sight-reading! E11 does not fully describe the chord, as there would normally be no B in an E11 chord! I think fundamentally it is a type of E chord with extensions and no third (which adds to the ambiguity!). By writing Bm7/E, you get the musician to play the right chord, but it is not a satisfying theoretical description as it is not really anything to do harmonically with B minor; the B, D, F# and A notes are just extensions of the E chord. You describe the separate notes in this chord perfectly, so we are just quibbling pedantically over preferred notation! Like you, I intuitively think in slash chords, but when notating for other musicians, I try apply as much academic rigour as possible. I agree about the key ambiguities adding to the greatness of the song. Keep up the great transcription work!

[@Howard_Wright]

@@peregrinetomkins On the Bm7/E question (or E11 or D/E) do you guys hear a B in the voicing? I hear it as D/E with just ADF# in the right hand. The melody hits a B here of course, but I don't hear it in the chord itself.

[@jirushimusic5135]

I'm just a self thought here, but if there's no 3, a chord is not defined? Cause if I end a song on a i11no3, isn't the function a tonic? But if I call it V7/i, doesn't that dismiss the melancholically resolutive quality that can be perceived from it in such context? Otherwise, very informing, thank you for this analysis :)

[@Theprogressivemusician]

Hey Tim, this is golden! Could I ask for some advice? I would like to learn jazz to expand my songwriting toolkit but a bit confused about what exactly should I learn from jazz? I'm studying music, so we already study advanced harmony, modes and ear training etc. What other skills should I be extracting from jazz for my own songwriting and musicianship? Thanks for all the stuff you do :)

[@ScreamingPopeMindlessnes-xb1cm]

Hey Tim - could you get someone to tune that piano. Dang my ears hurt.

[@johnhagen5886]

Glad you’re doing this, but having the piano cycling under your words makes this difficult listening.

[@miserablesod1]

That piano needs tuning bud

[@1970tomorrow]

Nice commentary but I had to stop listening because your piano is so out of tune.

[@TimSmolens]

Sorry about that, I ended up tuning it myself the week after I shot that. I will try to make sure it is tunes before I film more lessons!