How Do I Choose Non Diatonic Chords For Progressions? || Piano Questions Answered

[@pregnantyellowfish]

The progression you came up with here is lovely. I’m a guitarist with limited music theory knowledge and I’m fighting my way through learning it because my ear really does not enjoy stable diatonic music but I also don’t want to write jarring jazz. The key to writing sophisticated and tasteful music seems to be knowing where to throw out certain chords. You explained this well, thank you. Now to figure out how to properly utilise extensions to help guide the flow 😅

[@BillHilton]

Thanks very much for taking the time to say so! You're exactly right about compositional approach: half of the job is knowing what sounds (chords, notes, scales, dynamics, timbres whatever) are available, and the other half is making good decisions about when and how to use them. Anything creative is just decision, decision, decision - an endless stream of them. I think that's why very creative people are often so disorganised in other ways: pure decision fatigue!

[@EvgeniyBerlin]

There is a whole world behind the diatonic chords that has nothing to do with jazz

[@entity_of_the_cosmos]

half this video felt like him just showing off, his playing is so good i don’t even mind it, keep it up Bill!

[@RLeaguer_Saint]

Going through the video of your own playing, step by step, was a stroke of genius. This would be what we would otherwise need to have done ourselves, but 10x the time and 1/10th the understanding! Thanks so much.

[@BillHilton]

Thanks very much - glad you like it! If you hunt back through my timeline I have quite a few playthrough videos. I'll make a playlist of them sometime soon and let you have the link :)

[@lagerbaer]

Just wanted to add and notice, since the last few days I had been playing a lot of Christmassy songs: Very nice (festive / dramatic) non-diatonic chords can be found in the dominants to the diatonic minors: Say you're in C major. The diatonic minor chords of that scale are d-minor (the ii), e-minor (the iii) and a-minor (the iv). Their respective dominants are A, B, and E. Play around with different inversions and use the dominant seventh versions.

[@lagerbaer]

Bill, I really appreciate how you mix just the right amount of theory (modes, circle of fifths) with good practical advice of just using our ears. Only theory and no practice would not work because you can't think your way to a "cool" sounding progression, but only practice and no theory would leave me wondering "Well, THAT sounded cool, but what else could I be doing, and why did it work?"

[@BillHilton]

Cheers! Yep, I think the best approach is ears first, theory afterwards. Theory is great for working out why something sounds cool and replicating it, but less good as a starting place for creativity (...exceptions apply...!)

[@noahcho5500]

Will have probably the biggest impact what I do next. I will look more into chord functions or describing emotions. Thank you for this video really! Very educational, had to pause a lot of time cause I took notes. ZERO ADS. WOW. Much appreciate!

[@BillHilton]

No problem, Noah - you're welcome!

[@SonicVisualGR]

Now this is what I call a perfect presentation. Thank you sir for this uniquely creative way of presenting music anatomy to us the lovers. Now finally i can follow on someone.

[@Prilly49]

I especially like that you talked about a few modes and how they can function in the harmony/melody. Also, appreciated what you said about the C sus chord and why to use it. Thanks so much!

[@BillHilton]

No problem Priscilla - glad to have been of help!

[@DavidConnors]

This is a great tutorial. Thank you so much for making it. I especially liked the bit of focus on improvisational rhythm as this is an area I struggle with.

[@BillHilton]

You're welcome, David - glad it helped!

[@ohhiguy]

Loved your video Bill. It is over my head. I am just a beginner with no lessons other than KZbin. I have been watching some of your stuff for a while now, trusting by faith that some will absorb in my brain. This is my first comment to thank you. I would love to play like you someday. You are a great inspiration and kind. Thank you.

[@lagerbaer]

Yes, this one is definitely not beginner stuff. But if you keep up with tutorials and practice for "normal" (diatonic) chord progressions, then sooner rather than later you'll find yourself searching for that extra spice in the non-diatonic chords. :)

[@Sighdafekt]

don’t worry it will stick eventually. best thing you can do to learn is fully immerse yourself in it no matter how simplistic or advanced. if you have to re watch a video multiple times to understand the concepts, if you keep going it will eventually click.

[@ohhiguy]

@@Sighdafekt Thanks for your feedback. Encouragement always helps. Just what I needed.

[@ohhiguy]

@@lagerbaer Thanks for your input. It is alway good to be reassured that I am not crazy, but might be on the correct track. Must keep practicing. .

[@abmendez7102]

Thanks Bill!!! As a drummer and amateur composer i found this really easy and clear to digest.

[@BillHilton]

You’re welcome - I’m glad it was useful!

[@lulin2546]

this was very helpful for me, especially you dissecting the process of choosing what you chose and where. appreciated!

[@BillHilton]

Glad it was helpful!

[@ChrisLodyMusic]

This is great stuff. I’ve been looking into modal interchange recently so it’s nice to see how that and this relate to each other. I am slowly starting to make sense of all this at a theory level finally I think 😄

[@taejun9017]

7:00 this is my question, of like, years and years and years, please man, don't let me down!!!

[@taejun9017]

I suppose the bulk of the lesson is the main chord movements are diatonic, and the less consequential chords in between them can be substituted for non-diatonic chords to create a more interesting sound. The longer you are in the key you can get more adventurous so you don't want to throw a really weird chord into the mix right away. There's no wrong way to do it, but over time you will develop a taste and remember tricks that you like personally, which is the other half of his explanation, "it just sounds good" or "i know that i like that". That is helpful, as now I know that i'm not going to start a section with a non-diatonic chord, it will be inthe middle of the phrase somewhere, or as a transitional tool to a new section.

[@taejun9017]

What i would really like to find is charts for borrowed chords, but can't seem to. Like, you can use the parallel minor, secondary dominants, and chords from all of the parallel modes to borrow chords. It would make sense that at some point in human history someone has created charts of all of these chords, so you can just flip through them and try chords in the chart. I can sit down and write them out myself which would be a nice exercise but i would much prefer to just get on to writing music instead!! If anyone knows of such a resource I'd greatly appreciate it.

[@ShakingMadDavid37]

@@taejun9017 I have pictures of such notes you speak of that I found on the internet. Some go over the different chords and their extensions for each of the scale degress in all the modes. Another shows them as roman numerals and indicates if they are minor or flatted , etc. They are very useful. I can pass these a long to you, or you can try and find them by googling something like "all modes and their extensions" or "all modes and chords."

[@alaindubois1505]

This video came naturally after I googled playing two chords simultaneously - such as F & G major to add interest to chord progressions. Now some more great ideas to get away from the simple progressions. I heard people requesting not to have 'jazz-sounding' chords. And then about how people may have expectations of 'getting back' to the tonic. I learnt about using a fourth chord, and more unusual chords used as like how a leading note in the ascending diatonic scale finds resolution. Now, is it fun not ending up where people expect - within reason? Is there a specific chord often played at the end of a jazz piece to indicate a finality? Are there popular pieces that do not end in the tonic, but seam to change key - and stay there? It seems now the next step is to look at what jazz musicians are doing. For me, I find some jazz variations pleasant, and some just too 'way out'. Bill do you go into this, as you're easy going to listen to. I like how it often comes, in the end, that we just have to listen to the result and decide whether it 'works; or not. I quite understand the use of keeping notes of one chord transitioning into another, but also see how sometimes going up a half-tone is what can be done. I was looking at 'The Girl from Ipanema' and like how some things go quite differently to standard progressions.

[@BillHilton]

I would definitely agree that just have to listen to the result and decide whether it 'works' or not! And what works is, as you touch on before that, kind of subjective, because expectations depend on a lot of things, like acculturation, familiarity with genre and so on. So, for example, if a jazz piece ends with something like a Cmaj11#13 (there are LOTS of chords jazz pieces can end on - it's almost limitless) then that would be unexpected to someone who spends their life listening to, say, mainstream pop. But it wouldn't be unexpected (and might even seem somewhat clichéd) to a jazz fan. Like everything in music, theory can only take us so far: so much of it comes down to our subjective judgment, and to the individual perceptions of our listeners. Does that make some kind of sense?

[@eliotlanderos6130]

Bill this is Just the perfect thing that i been looking for since very much time!!!! Thanks

[@BillHilton]

No problem Eliot - hope it's helpful!

[@eliotlanderos6130]

@@BillHilton Bill i've a question, if i use modes (like mixolidian) which scale i can use?

[@TheSIGHTREADINGProject]

Bill, thank you. As others have said, this is beginning to unravel something which has been a complete mystery to me!

[@BillHilton]

No problem, Kathryn - glad to have helped!

[@kahunamoneyminded8362]

Great job, it is very clear and straightforward❤❤❤

[@pgtips4240]

Nice simple idea, I prefer your more advanced jazz type vids though. You are a good teacher and an inspiration.

[@pipkitten]

F | Eb | Bb | F is more simply explained as I - IV/IV - IV - I. IV/IV is pronounced "four of four" and is a secondary predominant chord. It leads to the predominant chord by plagal motion. Sometimes you'd see it written as bVI instead (which would typically be thought of as borrowed from the parallel minor rather than parallel mixolydian, but that's a nitpick), but when it leads to IV like it does here IV/IV is the more appropriate label. Basically, going IV to I is nice so you can treat any chord (in this case IV) as if it were temporarily a I chord and lead into it with the IV chord of that temporary key. Eb is the IV chord in the key of Bb, so Eb to Bb is a nice IV-I cadence that we can borrow even in other keys so long as Bb is in that key, even if Eb is not.

[@BillHilton]

That's very useful extra info, dragonChaser - thanks!

[@janetgoodall6372]

Really useful video Bill, thanks.

[@BillHilton]

Glad it was helpful Janet!

[@tepidfruit]

Beautiful tutorial Bill as always! This was incredibly helpful. Thanks a lot!!

[@BillHilton]

No problem, Robert - glad you liked it!

[@JoeDoe2]

For every source I find that says to borrow chords from the parallel minor, I find one that says to borrow from the relative minor. What do you borrow from if the song is in a minor key? By the time you add up all the chords that can be borrowed from...wherever, the options seem limitless. As someone who's trying to write songs and needs some knowledge that will speed up the process in selecting chords, I've just about decided that I should just focus on coming up with a good melody, without even thinking about harmony, then just find the best chord at each point where I want a chord change, whatever it may be, and not worry about what key(s) that chord belongs too. The time-consuming problem is in deciding what the 'best chord' is when several will work, especially when you consider possible inversions. Then there's the topic of voicing and voice-leading between chords, once I choose them. An experienced pianist who has seen a lot of sheet music and played a lot of songs, which I'm not, is in a much better position to decide voicings and voice leadings cause they've seen it all and developed a tool box of options from which to more quickly choose what they want. I wish you could do a progressive series on voicing, and voice-leading, number them in sequence, and put them in playlists. There may be individual videos that talk about such things, but I find the series/playlist method to be far more structured than individual uploaded videos that might have certain keywords in the title. I can do a search on the keywords and find them, but I don't know what order to watch them in. I'm a very structured learner who does better with the videos that include in the title, 'part 1' or '#2", then in each video, it's "Do this...now do this....now do this.....etc." The piano brain is that way and I believe that's what helps most people in an efficient way. They are shown exactly what to practice immediately, and they can practice those things without watching hours and hours of videos, not knowing what to do next, which is what most online teachers give them.

[@reinoldg]

joe doe I feel the same way as you brother. I’m also just now understanding why some music evoke feelings and other music just sounds like “pop” : Non-diatonic chords.

[@DojoOfCool]

I'd say most your non-diatonic chords are from the parallel minor (F minor) and that is something used by rock all the time. Another name for that would be modal interchange. Also with using non-diatonic chords using chord inversions can many the changes smoother. Bottom line it's really all about strong bass movement.

[@derpderpypants3264]

Excellent video!

[@CrazyStarr_]

Yeah, you sing it billton

[@SamuelPeckman]

Thank you Bill.

[@RLeaguer_Saint]

Incredibly useful, thank you.

[@JoeDoe2]

At 17:35, did you say "'ARE' or 'AREN'T' fullfilling..." This is a helpful video. I wish you could do one titled "50 Rhythmic Licks To Play Between Beats." (or 100, or 25, or whatever) showing both right and left hand rhythmic patterns like arpeggios and rhythmic 'static' chords that people could learn in all keys. I presume that similar topics are spread out all over your channel, falling under the topic 'Improvisation.' I wish they could all be shown in one place.

[@soumyaranjanpatnaik4695]

Thanks for the tutorial!!... It's really helping me out with selection not chords.... 😁😁😁

[@BillHilton]

No problem - thanks for the question!

[@thismoment57]

Brilliant! Thank you!

[@BillHilton]

Glad you liked it!

[@Rehmoss]

So helpful!

[@BillHilton]

Good to hear, thanks!

[@dancu9271]

Thanks for the video ‼️

[@dragtr0n]

Im a guitarist.. piano is such a beautiful instrunent man :)

[@Sighdafekt]

without sounding jazzy? why would you ever do that?

[@Justin_9423]

That was my knee jerk reaction as well

[@Polyhat_]

Jazz harmonies have a little too much tension for some situations!

[@Sighdafekt]

Nintenjoey much like Justin it’s a knee jerk reaction but i agree plenty moments feel more stable or tender when you pull back on the extensions a little

[@BillHilton]

My initial reaction was a bit the same ("what's wrong with sounding jazzy!?!?!?!"), but like you say yourself sometimes it's good to pull back a little - not every style suits the sound!

[@AspenTruth]

Because it’s interesting, as opposed of today’s diatonic brain dead progressions.

[@fulx1965]

Thanks you Bill. Grazie

[@BillHilton]

Prego! Glad you liked it, Fulvio :)

[@NikosAravanis]

Thank you for explaining these stuff to us mortals :D

[@BillHilton]

You're welcome, Nikos!

[@MisterRlGHT]

That first nondiatonic progression (I-bVII-IV-I aka F-Eb-Bb-F) appears all over the classic Rolling Stones catalog: Sympathy for the Devil, The Last Time, et al. Not to mention Sweet Child o' Mine, Sweet Home Alabama, and thousands of other familiar pop/rock songs.

[@TyQuinn]

For the Bb minor at the end, I've always thought of it as borrowing the IV from the parallel minor key

[@BillHilton]

Good point!

[@TheGuitarrmann]

Is that adding the fallopian flat 5?!?! LOL

[@TyQuinn]

@@TheGuitarrmann your joke is lacking the two fundamental requirements of a joke. 1) It doesn't make sense, and 2) There's nothing funny about it

[@TheGuitarrmann]

Sorry you don't appreciate my humor. I slay me!

[@TyQuinn]

@@TheGuitarrmann Given your other comments about keeping everything in C major because it is easy, I assume the joke is that wilful ignorance is funny, right? Why bother to learn about Ionian (for example) when it's easier to try to be funny by rhyming it with fallopian, right?

[@Mandosami]

Bbmin7 to F = iv (reversed polarity to the typical diatonic IV (major) to I. Minor Plagal Cadence...just to give it that wistful resolution :)

[@BillHilton]

Excellent - yes indeed, a lovely sound!

[@SamuelPeckman]

This was a very interesting tutorial and you made it very clear. Is it necessary for a song to end in the same key as the key it starts in? Thank you for this tutorial.

[@BillHilton]

Thanks Samuel! No, it's by no means necessary, and many don't :)

[@JoeDoe2]

I struggle when I try to analyze the music of Stevie Wonder. The tendency is to look at the key signature and start writing roman numerals to represent every chord, based on that key, but then you come up with such weird numbers, you start to wonder if he's changing 'tonal centers,' (keys) each time he uses a chord that has nothing to do with the original key. Do you have any idea what he's doing?

[@ianmalone431]

borrowing chords from other keys, modulation, tri-tone substitution etc......using non diatonic chords

[@suga4all]

Nice! So for the most part it is relying on the ear, right? I also found, that the Eb major is a Gmin in negative harmony, so it has the same pull and dissonance like a diatonic chord.

[@rutheproppi6265]

Hello: Thanks to your teaching I have learned the ii V I Progression. I would like to know if you can provide us amateur musicians with the ii V I Chromatic Progression. We are in the C Major Scale we want to go to the F Note, however, we want to go there chromatically by the ii V I Progression in the C Major Scale. Please let me know if you have such a challenge. Respectfully, R

[@BillHilton]

Hi Ruthe! by the 2 5 1 chromatic progression do you mean a chromatic substitution for a 2 5 1? If so, I'd use something like (in C major): Dm7 --> Db7/G --> C. Does that help?

[@rutheproppi6265]

@@BillHilton Sir: I am hooked, I think it is beginning to click; please can you provide the notes to the Dm7 - Db7/G and C so that I will get the procession. Thank you

[@Capt.Ed11]

Bill, thanks for the video and your illustration, very beautiful sound. :) I have a question on choosing non-diatonic note. As Eb is non-diatonic in F scale and also it is the 4th of 4th (Eb = 4th of Bb) Will that be commonly use "4th of 4th" when choosing non-diatonic chords?

[@BillHilton]

Yes indeed! But in effect it's just doing what I was talking about in the video (going down a fifth, then another fifth) in reverse - go up a fourth and you hit the same note as if you were going down a fifth, but an octave higher. Make sense?

[@JoeDoe2]

Is it fair to say that a C7 is not a diatonic chord in the key of C, since the 7 is Bb, and it only takes one non-diatonic note within a chord to make the entire chord non-diatonic? (same as with a G major triad in the key of F, since it uses a B natural? )

[@BillHilton]

Yep, you're quite right. It would be diatonic to F major (where it's the dominant seventh chords), but not C.

[@muhammadirhamshaari4568]

The progression starts at 5:47

[@ShakingMadDavid37]

Asamiya Shin at 0:29 has no soul. Who in the world would ever not want to sound jazzy?? I am looking into non diatonic chords for the whole purpose of wanting it to sound more jazzy.

[@ianmalone431]

Same.... the whole purpose of learning to use them for me is specifically to sound more jazzy

[@JoeDoe2]

When you say 'extension, ' I presume you mean based on context, a 4th note added to the triad. Is this correct?

[@BillHilton]

Yep!

[@mikeverzosa2061]

Thanks for the video. When introducing chords outside of the key --- what is possible melodically? Do you stay within the key or can you use the chord tones[of the non-diatonic chord] when playing the non-diatonic chord?

[@BillHilton]

No problem, Mike! Really, you can do either, depending on the chord: some melodies will use notes from the non-diatonic, some won't (which might cause a more jarring sound); others will switch to a whole different scale for what is, in effect, a mini-key change. As always, the trick is to rely on your ears rather than theory knowledge to decide what works, because it's one of those situations where what's "right" and what isn't depends on the context.

[@piotrpopczyk8154]

Mr Bill, Tell me please, I am very confused, I am doing tutorial on non diatonic changes in Music and scales best fitting them, but I encounter a problems, when want to put secondary dominant and other non diatonic chords both on the same example - I actually do not know, for example: I start tune with C major chord, go to A7, next for example Eflat7 chord or Dsharp7 chord should I give a name for that chord (somebody told me not to mix sharps and flats on the same piece of music), then I am confused, please help me. Because A7 chord consist of csharp note using for example chord Aflat7 instead of Gsharp7 would not be proper? Or does it depend on scale proposed for that non diatonic chord? And one more thing: my proposed chord progressions would not be about real world modulations, only on short changes Many thanks for the answers in advance🤗👍

[@BillHilton]

I'm not ignoring this, Piotr - just thinking about the best way to reply. Back at you soon...!

[@piotrpopczyk8154]

@@BillHilton Thank You very much for interest🤗

[@BillHilton]

@@piotrpopczyk8154 No problem! OK, I think the best approach would be to step back and make sure your understanding of chord function is sound. As you might know, a chord’s “function” (and in “harmonic functions” and “functional harmony”) is the job it typically does in a chord progression in a given key - acting as the tonic or dominant or something between the two, typically. It’s kind of hard to answer your questions without writing about 3000 words and sounding insanely technical (when you try to explain music theory in words it seems way more complicated than it actually is...) but if you developed your understanding of functions a little more, then you would probably find your questions began to answer themselves: the way chords, diatonic and otherwise, flow into each other would make more sense to you. So, for example, you might find this tutorial useful: kzbin.info/www/bejne/q4anoqyGfpZ7pJY -- equally, searching for things like "functional harmony" will pull up quite a number of good KZbin tutorials on the subject. I'm sorry if this sounds like I'm not answering your question - I just think it's a case of building your knowledge of the basics more securely so you can answer it for yourself. I hope it helps a little!

[@soumyaranjanpatnaik4695]

Now I wish to ask another question... How do I avoid sounding similar in every improvisation. Despite what chords I chose my improvs sound like they all belong to the same song.. It gets really frustrating especially when I want to do something new but fail to do so.

[@BillHilton]

Hmmm - interesting. The second chord in a progression tends to help define it: having you tried coming up with a few different progressions in, say, C, but with different second chords? Bear in mind that some progressions are very common, and many are very similar - although there is variety in progressions, there's far less than there is in melodies.

[@soumyaranjanpatnaik4695]

@@BillHiltonThanks for the advice 😊😊. My usual choices for the second chord are minor 3rd, minor 6th and major 4th. But as you said, 7b major does work pretty well for me. I've seen some chord progressions starting with chords other than root chord. I tried that but I feel like I'm unable to establish the scale until I play the root!

[@MoolsDogTwoOfficial]

So this is how Japanese artists make their music really stand out huh? Can’t wait to add this to my improv sessions for max spice 🌶️

[@shuklajayant]

Sounds so sweet. Lovely:)

[@lagerbaer]

Couldn't you call the G7 just the "double-dominant" to F? Or would that thinking be more useful if you had a progression that directly went something like G7 -> C7 -> F?

[@BillHilton]

Good thinking, and you've nearly landed on the right term - usually it would be known as the "secondary dominant" to F (and D7 would be the "tertiary dominant" etc etc.)

[@lagerbaer]

​@@BillHilton It was an educated guess, because the German term is indeed Doppel-Dominante: The dominant of the dominant :)

[@JoeDoe2]

I couldn't understand what you said at 26:28, discussing what you avoided. "That would have sounded much more (inaudible)?"

[@BillHilton]

"kind of.... [pause] try it on the piano, yeah?" Basically I lost my train of thought...!

[@marcinmodelski2607]

A for the G7 chord, can we think about it as secondary dominant chord? Wouldn't that be technical term for this chord?

[@BillHilton]

Yes indeed it would!

[@KarenJewels]

Ok that also what I was wondering because it's the V7 in the Key of C would that make Bb a b7 sub tonic resolving to the CSus? Forgive me if I'm making no sense still trying to make the connections

[@AFRoSHEENT3ARCMICHAEL69]

Is saying none diatonic the same as saying borrowed chords? Diatonic is as far as my knowledge goes on this. I noticed that pretty much all the music I enjoy uses the natural minor and occasionally harmonic minor scales diatonic functional harmony. I'm not coming up with genius material here lol.

[@SamPan20]

Non diatonic chords can sound great in a piece of music that has one layer, say just a harmony or chord melody, but makes it not so straightforward when writing a melody over.

[@jinolim64]

Hey Bill, i've been having a difficult time trying to use the 2 5 1 chord progression on my right hand for the melody, it feels like there are notes that i could use in between 7th chords in each bar, but i can't seem to figure out how to fill those so we say "gaps", i can use the 2-5-1 chord progression on my left hand as my harmony just fine and then i could use the pentatonic scale as my melody on my right hand, but if i play the 7th chords on my right hand, it just sounds dull and spacious enough for more notes to be used in between those 7th chords is there some kind of tip you can give that i could apply to my right hand when i'm using the 7th chords? i've also tried broken chords but they don't sound right to my ears for some reason. apologies if my dilemma is not clear enough, but Thanks for answering if you happen to read this and Thanks for all these tutorials they've been helping me a ton through out my piano journey!

[@BillHilton]

Apologies for the delay replying to this - I'm still dealing with the Christmas backlog! I understand exactly what you mean, and I think you need to approach it in two ways. First, bear in mind that it may not sound as "dull and spacious" as you think: when you're learning to improvise it's like your brain suddenly grasps the idea and then wants you to do absolutely as much as possible, like more movement and more improvisation crammed into every bar is the ideal. You have to kind of rein back that impulse (you probably never will entirely; I certainly haven't) and get to grips with the idea that less can be more, and something quite barebones can be very musical. Second, maybe think of sections like that in terms of melodic improvisation rather than chordal improvisation - in other words, you're developing a melodic line "thickened out" with other chordal notes rather than just playing a bunch of chords. Does that all make something like sense?

[@jinolim64]

@@BillHiltoni never thought of it that way, i'll try to dial it back and make it as musical as possible 1st then. so by chordal notes you mean i should use broken chords, am i correct? Ones again, thanks for taking the time to reply! I would'nt know where i'm at in my piano journey if it wasn't for you!

[@xisotopex]

was that a chromatic mediant movement in that short intro piece?

[@BillHilton]

Good question! It depends what school of thought you belong to when it comes to chromatic mediants. If you think that a major chord on a sharpened submediant root (so, Eb/D# in this example) is a chromatic mediant... then yes. Some people will tell you that the only true chromatic mediants are parallel chords on the mediant/submediant themselves or chords of either tonality on the flattened mediant or submediant. Personally I think sharpened chromatic mediants are a liiiiiittle bit of a stretch (it would mean that the diatonic subdominant was also a chromatic mediant...) so I'd tend to think of that Eb as just a chromatic chord, or, if forced to blather on the subject, I might mention a brief transition into mixolydian. The general test I try to apply is: "does it sound OK?". If it passes, I tend not to bother too much about trying to explicate the underlying theory 😂

[@xisotopex]

@@BillHilton to my ears there is just a "sound" that I associate with chromatic mediant... its maybe not the strictest definition, and in time I may be able to more precisely enunciate it, but for now any movement that I hear that seems to have that movement in thirds works for my ear

[@xisotopex]

@@BillHilton I listened a second time and didnt hear the same thing ... I just heard that chromatic movement

[@BillHilton]

@@xisotopex The thing I'm hearing is that it sounds like I recorded this tutorial in a swimming pool 😂 Yes, indeed: I think one of the interesting things about non-diatonics in general is that the adjustment they cause our ears to make to cause some very subjective, uncertain effects - one of the reasons, I guess, that they're so handy for modulations.

[@xisotopex]

@@BillHilton does the chord progression suggest the melody, or does the melody suggest the chord progression?

[@xisotopex]

playing along this, pausing the video a little jamming some more, all of a sudden I realize I am playing lonesome loser

[@BillHilton]

😂😂😂

[@JoeDoe2]

At 9:38, what is an embostrian four?

[@BillHilton]

Between 9:35 and 9:42 I say: "instead of using that V-I (5-1) resolution in bars 3 and 4 I'm using what we call a IV-I (4-1) resolution" - there's a bit of a stumble in the middle of it, which might be what is causing you to mishear (or causing the closed captions to get it wrong, if you're using them). Does that help?

[@JoeDoe2]

@@BillHilton Yes thanks. You were saying "in bars 3 and" and I was hearing "embostrian."

[@yungyung5842]

Yeh?

[@chazmichael7967]

Isnt bbm7 just modal from minor?

[@JoeDoe2]

Do you have the sheet music to this so that people don't have to start and stop the video every millionth of a second to try and memorize it over a period of years? Some of us have never played anything like this before.

[@BillHilton]

Nope... because the aim isn't for you to memorise what I'm playing here: the aim is for you to get a feel for how I'm managing the chords and use those principles to come up with improvisations of you own :)

[@suga4all]

Conclusion: Step 1: Use your ears Step 2 (optional): Try to explain it with modal theory or intermediate key changes. Goes to show that there are no fixed rules in music, which is the beauty of it 😁

[@TheGuitarrmann]

It amazes me why one would start off explaining things in the Cmaj scale, then when they choose a key for an example, they change it to the F scale. The reason I ask this is I use the C scale now for everything, since I can transpose any song with my digital keyboard, just like the keyboard player from Crowder. If you just want to make music, the KISS principle reigns. Keep It Simple, Sonny! Keep it in C. When I'm ready to play Beethoven, I'll call......somebody else! LOL

[@TyQuinn]

He uses different keys because the point of these videos is to teach people about music. Teaching people to only use C major is basically teaching them to be ignorant of 11 other possible tonal centres and the background knowledge required to understand those keys. His goal here isn't to find cheats that allow ignorant people to sound like they can play keyboard. His goal is to actually help people to become actual keyboardists. His goal is to educate people correctly about the instrument they are learning, not to reinforce their ignorance. If you want "10 tricks to make yourself sound awesome on piano when you actually aren't" then find another channel. This one is for those you want to *learn* Whatever are you going to do when you have a piece of music they uses a few keys? Hit the transpose button constantly mid-song LOL

[@BillHilton]

Thanks very much, Ty - I don't really have anything to add, because you've precisely summed up exactly what I think about teaching this stuff!

[@stevefrommi]

Not sure why you are switching keys from C to F five minutes in. That just made it a lot more confusing.

[@BillHilton]

Possibly confusing, Stephen, but good for your brain - I do it deliberately, because it helps to be able to think independently of an individual key. I know it's painful (sorry!) but there's a reason for it!

[@noahcho5500]

4:18 did you mean Edim?

[@BillHilton]

Certainly did, Noah - I say "E diminished". That's what "Edim" is short for. Does that answer your question, or am I missing something?

[@noahcho5500]

Srry Bill, do not have native English language skills so I overhead the “D” - thats what she said 😁 You did well, excellent tutorial, helped me a lot move forward 👌🏻

[@jackbolitho7404]

Yeah? Yeah.

[@BillHilton]

Aye aye!

[@fenderstratman0713]

dude sounds like Paul McCartney. Dead or alive version

[@kelvinappiah7958]

Using your ear without knowing the rules is difficult😁

[@BillHilton]

It is difficult, Kelvin, but it's also very useful training, because your ear is the ultimate judge of everything musical. A huge problem, especially now that self-teaching is so popular, is that many learners become so obsessed with learning the rules that they overlook the importance of listening, and of judging what they hear, or they don't realise how important it is to start with. That's why I bang on about it so much!

[@gasparucciox9706]

xcellent tutorial mate

[@BillHilton]

Thanks very much!

[@piqaren]

Beautiful, thank you so much!

[@BillHilton]

No problem, Silas - thanks for watching!