Songs that never go to the Tonic chord

[@DavidBennettPiano]

Check out What You Need to Know Before you Learn Music Theory by Eric Fine: www.amazon.com/dp/B0BYRNBTKN 📖🎼🎶 📌SMALL CORRECTION: at 12:02 I mispoke. I meant to say "D mixolydian or G major" not "G mixolydian or D major". Sorry for any confusion caused.

[@janajusimi269]

how do you comment on something before it was uploaded

[@DavidBennettPiano]

@@janajusimi269 the video wasn’t “uploaded” a few minutes ago, it was “published” a few minutes ago. All KZbinrs tend to upload there videos days, if not weeks in advance but privately and then when they hit “publish” it enters your subscription box 🙂🙂

[@clarekuehn4372]

I assume no Beatles songs are examples, but are there any long segments like this? What examples?

[@clarekuehn4372]

I assume no Beatles songs are examples, but are there any long segments like this? What examples?

[@YerBoiPosty]

@@DavidBennettPianoOk kid!!!!!!

[@willie_the_monkey_king]

One thing I like about your videos is that it inspires me to try making some music with what I learned.

[@tomerfeller9993]

I would highlight prelude in E minor by Chopin as the piece avoids the tonic chord until the very end, and it's a really simple and useful way for every listener who doesn't know a lot about music to understand the concept of resolution

[@tonytortora448]

Isn’t the first chord of the piece an E minor in inversion?

[@LoverofLiszt]

Specifically, the E minor chord with E in the melody. Em comes up a few times throughout the piece, but usually with a B in either the bass or the melody.

[@harrisbeatsfrankou6304]

@@LoverofLiszt Yes a second inversion.

[@sauliussh]

@@tonytortora448 Right. Chopin begun from tonic chord. This is the beginning of the first period (or paragraph). In the middle of the prelude, the second period begins. And the same tonic chord again.

[@craigstephenson7676]

@@sauliusshyeah but it doesn’t have an authentic cadence until the very end, so the tonic (which is also inverted) doesn’t feel like a resting point.

[@tljmusic]

Thanks David! My new goal is to write the most complex song I can without ever hitting that tonic.

[@zzzaphod8507]

I plan to write a such a song about gin

[@Lucky7d4]

@@zzzaphod8507heheh good one

[@fernandomartins4236]

​@@zzzaphod8507Nice kkkkkkk

[@brevortofficial]

Seems like it'd be pretty easy, IV, V , vi, V progression would work well

[@zzzaphod8507]

@@brevortofficial IV, V, vi, V might not be sufficient if they are going for the most complex song. Or one could write an obnoxiously repetitive song that avoids the I chord. For example in C major, first bar is the descending melody C B A G F E B C over an F major chord, the 2nd bar is the descending melody B A G F E D B C over a G major chord, and those 2 bars are repeated over and over again until the song ends 24 minutes later.

[@tomloncaric6189]

“Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” is a notable song that never resolves to the tonic chord. For example, the Marvin Gaye / Tammi Terrill version draws from chords in D major but never actually comes to that chord. The closest it gets is the beginning of the verses that start with a I chord, but with the 6th added and the 5th (A) in the bass. It’s ambiguous enough to feel like it’s simultaneously in the relative minor (B minor). After the verses, the bridge ends with chords that sound like they are headed to the tonic, but then that V chord goes up a half step for a key change, and leads to a deceptive cadence with the new I chord (Eb major) but with the added 6th and the 5th in the bass. Actually, there are some live versions by Ashford and Simpson (who wrote the song) that resolve at the very end to the I chord!

[@-303-]

I was hoping someone would point this song out. It’s one of my favorite pieces of music trivia.

[@paulmcgrath6118]

Very interesting. I’ll never be able to listen to that song the same way again 🤣

[@fromchomleystreet]

For me, that opening chord pretty unambiguously represents the tonic chord, albeit in second inversion. The bass playing an A, which is in a D major triad but not in a B minor triad, quenches any ambiguity about which way to interpret it. I don’t particular hear a sixth in it, until the vocals come in and the melody starts on the sixth, but it’s only briefly on that note and the chord is already established anyway.

[@knotwilg3596]

I would interpret the majority of these songs as modal, rather than not having the tonic. Like you say, with short chord loops, it's very hard to decide on what's the root and therefore the tonic chord.

[@tulleuchen]

that's what I was thinking too.

[@Whitestripe71]

I think that 'Frou-frou Foxes in Midsummer Fires' by Cocteau Twins is an example of this. Although the song starts on D minor, I think the song is really in F major, certainly the chorus is in F major, but at no point in the song does it ever resolve to a F major chord. I suppose you could say that it's a song that switches between the relative major/minor, so doesn't count - because we do get D minor chords in the verses - but to me it's a song in F major that never resolves to the tonic. Cocteau Twins are great, I recommend anyone to check them out if you're not familiar with them.

[@landonmitchell6123]

top10 band. n that's their best song

[@thesingingaccountant1]

Never heard this song so had a listen, it's cool thanks. Could imagine it having a drake vibe with moody sounding synths playing it instead. As it is the instrumentation reminds me of rocky training montage

[@TGCat93]

i always thought there was something really striking about "Dreams", specifically the part where that instrumental break begins. Now it makes sense!

[@MarkRichardsonDigital]

Suspends the listener in hypnosis, a similar effect of Jane Says. So cool.

[@man4437]

With Dreams and Jane Says in particular, I notice that it adds this heady bar-sing-along feel to it. Like, the vocals sound almost a little off-key since you're on two very fitting chords but never arrive at the resolution, so it creates this effect as if you were belting it in a big crowd of people while buzzed.

[@capthook1]

Other chords share so many tones of the tonic that it satisfies the ear without being tonic, as well.

[@Meshuggapeth]

You mean like tonic function, iii or vi?

[@veliulvinen]

In the video's examples there's even IV9

[@capthook1]

@@Meshuggapeth yes, and also extended harmonies contain tonic notes.

[@ronaninkster32652]

“This Must Be the Place” by the Talking Heads is also a song that avoids the tonic, it vamps from D to Em to C to Em (V-vi-IV-V) for the whole song, but the melody confirms that it’s in G major Edit: forgot to mention the artist lol

[@tonybates7870]

I love This Must Be The Place! A great song from a band that wrote many, many great songs.

[@Guitar_Wolf]

Yeah fantastic reference. One of my favorites and great performance

[@AutPen38]

That's one where Tina and Jerry swapped instruments, isn't it? I wonder if that's what led to the confusing sense of key, with the guitar being built around Dsus4, the bass spending a lot of time on Em, but the vocals are in G.

[@johnwallace2319]

Wichita Lineman is thought of as being in F, but it never lands on F, it's such an odd song, but so beautiful.

[@alexissongsforyou]

Wichita Lineman is the one I thought of also (just because I'm on a Jimmy Webb kick lately). In at least one interview Jimmy Webb says it's in the key of F. It does seem to have an F chord however*, which would make it not a candidate for this video of David's. (* If one accepts that Fmaj7 in the intro, and F6(9) in the bar "and I drive the main ..." as being true F chords!)

[@johnwallace2319]

@@alexissongsforyou I think I saw that on Beato's channel

[@claudegenereux]

Listening to a recent Rick Beato interview of Jimmy Webb he asks a question about Wichita Lineman, Jimmy leaves the issue for a while and goes on with an anecdote. He refers to a phone call he received from James Taylor who'd like to cover this song (which he now has done) and loves but... can't get his head around the fact that this song is in F. He asks "where's is it?", and Webb answers "it's not there!".

[@MackAxyzz]

...you beat me to this one; saw that interview too...perfect example; only if you resolve to an Fmaj7 at the very end will you hear the actual tonic chord ;>

[@fromchomleystreet]

@@MackAxyzz Fmaj7 appears several times throughout that song, so Webb is playing a little fast and loose claiming the tonic chord never arrives. It just doesn’t arrive in totally stable triad form.

[@adamshield5029]

These songs are largely in Lydian, not Major, that’s why. It’s not IV to V, it’s I to II in Lydian. Your ear definitely starts to hear the first chord as I.

[@vasilismouskouris]

True!

[@fromchomleystreet]

Yours might, but mine certainly doesn’t, and clearly David’s doesn’t either. And I’d be extremely surprised if most people would truly perceive that first chord in those particular songs as ever being at rest, at least once the second chord has arrived to confirm that we’re not in the ionian mode built on the root note of that first chord (the default assumption our brains may have made during the few seconds it was the only chord we’d heard) Lydian is an inherently unstable mode, and one that is relatively unfamiliar to most ears raised on the overwhelmingly ionian-dominated western music of the last half millennium. For this reason, a piece of music has to actively work quite hard to be consistently perceived by most people as being in Lydian rather than the relative ionian mode. Its a recognised pitfall of writing in Lydian - the overwhelming gravity of the ionian chord that wants to barge in and assert itself as the true tonic unless it is actively resisted, by hammering the crap out of the Lydian tonic note and avoiding as much as possible the alternative ionian tonic. Lydian is never going to be the default mode most people’s brains will go to to make sense of a given harmonic movement, if the same harmonic movement is readily understandable in the context of a more familiar and more stable mode (eg ionian or Mixolydian), as is the case here. If you play somebody an F major chord in root position, followed by G major chord in root position, their brains will instantly and automatically calculate the intervalic relationship between the two chords and cross-reference that relationship with every occasion they’ve heard that exact harmonic movement before, in order to make sense of it and anticipate what will happen next. And if that person lives in a developed country and has spent their lives listening to western classical and/or popular music, then the context in which they have unquestionably heard that movement the most often (and overwhelmingly so) is in the context of a movement from the IV chord to the V chord. Unless the composer is doing some pretty fancy footwork to unambiguously tonicise that F note (maybe by peddling it in the bass and consistently landing on it in the melody or something), or we have just spent the last three months listening to nothing but the Lydian mode, etching it firmly into our neural pathways so that it becomes the default, then it is highly likely that by the time we’ve perceived that G chord, we are already anticipating the inevitable (or so we imagine) C major chord that will resolve the cadence, as it has all the other millions of times we’ve heard it. So, C is already firmly tonicised, long before we find out that we’re never actually going to get the resolution of the tonic chord. We continue to anticipate it even when, intellectually, we know it’s never coming. Tonicization happens very early, and very firmly, and we can’t intellectually un-tonicize a note that we originally tonicised because of what we’ve subsequently learnt (ie we know the song doesn’t have C chord because we’ve heard it before). Only new, contradictory harmonic information (in this case, the arrival of a note from outside the C major scale) can do that. Returning to the G chord doesn’t do that, because it’s consistent with C as the tonic. If the first chord is perceived by you as the tonic chord, then it IS the tonic chord - for you - because perception is all tonicization is. But I can assure you it is not the universal experience.

[@vasilismouskouris]

Or, more convincing to my ears, it might just be perceived as VII (G) to I (A) in A Mixolydian.

[@thesingingaccountant1]

Great point but as he said it's subjective and kinda depends on how you want to think about it.

[@jiimmyyy]

​@@fromchomleystreetmine does.

[@Detached_Jam_18]

I'd like to mention that when I heard one more time by daft punk, i couldn't help but think of Digital love in the same album. While it never actually reaches its tonic, it's in the key signature of A Major and A sounds like the tonic note in the lyrics.

[@sweetmusic3821]

I am surprised and impressed that you found so many examples. Well done, David! This must have taken a tremendous amount of research.

[@frankslade33]

"There's a place for us" by Phil Collins avoids Eb except for one brief pass through a Eb/G that does not feel like home, and only hits a root Eb to end. This is perfect for the song, as it's about not being able to find a place to rest, and the last chord is like a sigh of relief.

[@onlynaturaltohardenup4617]

505 by Arctic Monkeys is a great example of a minor iv v vamp! Although some people say it's in D dorian, I always felt like A is the root in this case

[@capcadenza6792]

i think it sounds more like D minor, the melody highlights the D a lot

[@onlynaturaltohardenup4617]

@@capcadenza6792 yeah but for me d minor chord never sounds fully resolved..... idk depends on the listener I guess

[@capcadenza6792]

@@onlynaturaltohardenup4617 id have to listen to it again, ive just dealt with a lot of modal stuff doing classical music and sometimes my ear grabs things other people dont

[@goawayimsleeping509]

Interesting - to me, 505 has always been in E minor!

[@singsongdan249]

I think the reason you get this a lot on hip-hop and daft punk is the use of sampling - producers will chop up a section of the song and loop it without the full chord progression

[@churricardo1457]

Right, and a lot of people have no idea about these concepts, they just do it intuitively because it sounds good haha

[@gsas]

😮 I didn’t know songs could actually omit the tonic chord completely. I’ve so much to learn 😭

[@robbyr9286]

Rick Beato's amazing new interview w/Jimmy Webb cites 'Wichita Lineman' as being in F without an F chord. There is an Fsus4/A, so I'd have to check it again to see if that acts as a tonic. But their discussion indicates it doesn't ever really resolve to an F major.

[@OurgasmComrade]

Wichita Lineman does go to an Fmaj7 in Glen Campbell's recording. It also references Dm7 which is the relative minor of the song's key and later resolves on a borrowed major tonic D major. Both odd and amazing writing!

[@davidutoob]

Here's the link to the part of the interview with the discussion for those who might be interested. kzbin.info/www/bejne/oGnTg353nLKUhpY

[@OurgasmComrade]

@davidutoob yes the way Jimmy wrote it is presented in his interview, but the arrangers working with Glen must have heard/interpreted it with the tonic, most likely because of bass movement suggesting the tonic of F. Jimmy wasn't present at the recording session to make notes or guidance for Glen or the session players, so in their minds they must have heard the Fmaj7 and played it in the verse on the line "and I drive the main road..." where it goes from Fmaj7 to C9sus4. Other sheet music arrangements say F/A, which is still the tonic but inverted.

[@snookerwither9955]

I've always wondered if you'd make a video about this, since I didn't know whether it was actually possible to have no tonic chord. It was interesting to see so many examples

[@DavidBennettPiano]

It was one of those music theory questions that I knew should be possible but couldn’t actually name any examples until I did the research for this video 😊

[@Meshuggapeth]

@@DavidBennettPiano​​⁠Excuse me if I missed this, but are there two different ways to define key, one using notes and one using feel, so that Jane says would be in the key of D note wise but A mixolydian feel-wise? To my ear, the A chord feels like home in Jane says.

[@DavidBennettPiano]

@@Meshuggapeth well, as I mention near the end of this video, songs based on short looping chord progressions have a tendency to have a “modal ambiguity”, so that will be why you hear the same song as me but hearing A as the tonic rather than D like me 😊

[@Meshuggapeth]

@@DavidBennettPianoRight. Thanks!

[@nloc1929]

@@Meshuggapeth 'home' is a state of mind

[@James_Anderson_]

Wow I remember you replying to my request for this video like a year ago, I guess patience is a virtue 😆

[@DavidBennettPiano]

The best ideas always come from viewers! Thanks for the suggestion 😊

[@jhsounds]

This is why Daft Punk's own mashups of "One More Time" and "Aerodynamic" work so well. "Aerodynamic" is in Bm, with the tonic on bar one, so the "One More Time" vocal layered on top evokes a dramatically different vibe while still being in key.

[@guy0saurus]

A song worth mentioning here is Wichita Lineman. Except for the intro, the song never goes to the Tonic again. When I play it live, I omit the intro and change it from Tonic then Dominant to Sub Dominant then Dominant (borrowed from the "Is still on the line" section) because I'm setting up my looper. In Jimmy Webb's interview with Rick Beato, he stated that his song never goes to 1, but he must've forgotten about the intro :)

[@petter.envall]

Yeah, this is a prime example of a qualitative tonicless song. Vamps like the Drake examples don't thrill me (cloud yelling yeah)

[@marshwetland3808]

@@petter.envall Me either. This video explained one part of why I find that kind of music totally unsatisfying. It doesn't go anywhere, for me. I was just relearning a song I used to play long ago, and was surprised to find the same chords under two completely different melodies. Sneaky. And somehow very satisfying.

[@rosbrughj]

"Against All Odds" by Phil Collins has tonic chords in root position only 3 times, and even then they have a 6th or 9th added, giving the whole tune a restless feel. "Are they going to resolve that ii-V progression or not?" "Oh, it's a I chord, but it's in 2nd inversion!"

[@th.nd.r]

“Leave the City” by Twenty One Pilots is an example of a song that almost never hits the tonic - we only get it once, and it’s only at the very end of the song. Despite being in the key of G (and quite clearly so because of the melody), it only hits G at the end, looping for the vast majority of the song on the chords C, Em, D, and Bm, the IV, vi, V, and iii of the scale.

[@sychaellawinger5448]

Nice, I was mentioning the same exact thing in my post with Pieces by Red. One of my favorite songs! Worth checking out!

[@nickchambers3935]

It never occurred to me that Jane Says was IV-V, I always thought of it as I-II but looking at it now the melody is clearly in D. I love how the same chords can be interpreted so differently

[@Presidentofcheze]

I’ve started to note this in a lot of the music I listen to, and it’s something I’ve been feeling a lot but never considered too much until this well timed video!

[@JoeJohnston-taskboy]

It seems like Jane's Said might be more descriptively labelled G Lydian. Sure, the notes are the same as D major, but this song emits strong Lydian vibes to me rather than D major. I hear you about the melody resolution. This is similar to the argument Adam Neely makes about Sweet Home Alabama. Then again, there are no mathematically provable answers in music theory.

[@violet_broregarde]

G doesn't sound like the tonic at all though, that's the problem. It just doesn't sound like it. "'Jane Says' is in G" is just not correct. Also I haven't done the experiment but I'm pretty sure there is a mathematically-calculable root. Like I don't think "G's not the root" is an *opinion*, I think it's a fact.

[@nstrug]

The melody never resolves to a G and doesn’t contain a C# so can’t realistically be described as as being in G Lydian.

[@fromchomleystreet]

@@violet_broregarde I disagree. The tonic is something you experience, not something you work out via a scientific formula. And it may change dependent on occasion and context. Any piece of music that utilizes a heptatonic scale is really in all seven modes at once. Yes, there are things a composer can do to make it more likely one note will be perceived my most people as the tonic, but there are degrees of ambiguity that run along a spectrum, and there is a huge cultural component that contributes to which modes are more likely to have the status of “default” because of their cultural ubiquity. For example “G is not the root” in this case is “true” only to the extent that the ionic mode is overwhelmingly more culturally ubiquitous than (for example) the Lydian mode, which means that when western ears hear a G major chord followed by an A major chord, and instantly cross-reference it with occasions we’ve heard that harmonic movement before, we find a lot more examples of them operating as the IV and V chord than the I and II chord, and are therefore very likely to interpret it as D major with an absent tonic chord, unless the composer is consciously working really hard to unambiguously present G as the tonic, and to actively resist the strong gravity of the “default” ionic mode. This is despite the fact that, from a purely analytical standpoint, it probably makes more sense to interpret it as G Lydian (where the tonic chord would not only be present but has the advantage of being the first chord heard), or even A Mixolydian (where the tonic chord would at least be present), rather than D ionic (where the tonic chord is entirely absent) It is recognition of familiar patterns and the expectations they set up that create tonality for us. If you spent a month locked in a room listening to nothing but resolutely Lydian music, and then listened to a loop of a G major chord and an A major chord that you had previously experienced as being in D major, it’s entirely possible that your heightened awareness of that movement in a Lydian context might cause you to now perceive it in G Lydian. Tonality IS perception, so telling someone that what they perceive is “wrong”, is essentially nonsensical. If you play the “axis or awesome” chord sequence “I/V/vi/IV on perpetual loop, and invite people to enter the room at random intervals, some will hear a piece of music in the ionic mode, others will hear a piece firmly in the aeolian mode, depending on what part of the loop was playing at the point they became conscious of it. Neither is wrong.

[@alvinlo9944]

The melody hits the a, f sharp and d note, which forms a D major chord. This fights back the four (G) chord

[@JoeJohnston-taskboy]

@@alvinlo9944 Fair enough.

[@guitarkindofguy2]

Beautiful Girls by Bruno Mars Song is in Bb Progression is Ebmaj7-Cmin7-Dmin7-F Never resolves.

[@Kadaj456]

Great video David. Btw I really think you should translate every chord progressions in roman numeral. For the One More Time example it would have been really helpful for me because I don't know every key I only refer to the degrees :)

[@thesingingaccountant1]

Agree this would help me too!

[@MarkPMus]

I’m getting Gary Numan’s song, “Me I Disconnect From You “ here. It’s a pretty similar set up to Dreams, but even though there is a C major chord passage in it, it doesn’t really sound like the tonic, because every time you feel the song should land on C, Gary shunts up to a D major chord. Similarly, a song like Down In The Park sounds like it might be in C, but hang on there’s a Bb and now an A major. But there’s no way you could say it’s in D minor either. The key centre seems to drift all over the place.

[@FrankCosbyNo-Relation]

😂😂 By this point I'm convinced that I could just randomly play any notes and some music theory nerd could explain that it's actually some complex chords

[@shateq]

I typed in British piano music theory guy and found you You are incredible and the amounts of transcribing by yours

[@BenD_Bass]

The part where you said the key isn't based on the chords you use. Rather, it's the notes used in the melody. This was a lightbulb moment for me. Thanks !

[@fromchomleystreet]

It’s the totality of the harmonic structure, which includes the melody. Thinking of melody and harmony as different things is misleading. As is the suggestion that the part of that harmonic structure that one perceives as the melody can necessarily tell you, in isolation, what key a piece of music is in. As David demonstrated, it is possible to write a song that will be widely perceived as being in a given key while never once playing the tonic chord, but (crucially), it is ALSO possible to write a song that will be widely perceived as being in a given key, with a melody that never once plays the tonic NOTE.

[@thesingingaccountant1]

@@fromchomleystreet true and also play various notes outside the key. Probably more common in melody than chords

[@startreatment36]

i think another example of this would be "leave the city" by twenty one pilots, where the song is in G major, however the chord progression throughout the whole song is C, Em, D, Bm, but never plays the G major chord until the end of the song, where it is the final chord

[@GizzyDillespee]

The Simply Red song, the D feels like a IV, especially with the way he approaches it in the eponymous passage.

[@alexkennett5972]

Wolf Alice - How Can I Make it Ok Another tune that just goes from IV to V over and over, building and building beautifully!

[@DavidBennettPiano]

Good example 😊

[@joelwagg8314]

Run Away With Me by Carly Rae Jepsen is (as far as I remember) a perfect example of this, as well as being an all round stunning song. Beautiful sax intro as well.

[@MrTerrormonkey]

Thats one's supposedly in F# major, right?

[@ryang1600]

@@MrTerrormonkey Yeah it's in F# major, and what's cool about it is that it goes B, D#m7, C#sus, G#7sus (IV vi V ii) so even though it never goes to the tonic, the F# note is still present in each chord.

[@thesingingaccountant1]

I love that song (well the whole album actually)

[@wastedtime2701]

HE FINALLY USED MAINSTREAM ARTISTS god thank you 😭 it just helps really drive the point home when you know the song

[@etiennelantuit7845]

Only in Dreams, by Weezer. Beautiful song that would deserve more recognition even I were/am wrong.

[@MichaelSotoCE]

That's what I was thinking. Checking the chords, you do hear some G power chords and such, but you never get a full resolution to G until the last note.

[@mylooneyzac]

Watching this video made me remember a song I wrote back a few weeks ago. It's in the key of Eb, but it never goes to the tonic chord. The chords are: Abmaj7-Gm7-Db-B-A#7.

[@EN_les]

Carousels by Beirut is another song in the key of D major that spends its entire length only ever playing Gmaj7 and A chords, which for me always felt as if the tonic served as the song's center with the chords perpetually dancing around it, like an actual carousel. it was the first song i thought of when i saw this video's thumbnail so it was very interesting to see more like it

[@GingerWaters]

Thanks! An alternative way to talk about modes: Songs that avoid tonic chord or start from other chord than the tonic.

[@wellurban]

I’m much more comfortable with the later part of your analysis, where you suggest that a piece might be modal or in a space of modal ambiguity rather than having no tonic. Maybe it’s because I listen to a lot of music where the melody isn’t the defining factor, but I tend to feel that the key a tune is in isn’t defined by the melody but by the bassline. If the bass feels at rest in a certain place, that feels much more like the foundation of the piece, even if the melody doesn’t rest there and it implies a mode other than major or minor.

[@tangobasso]

Another song that does this is ‘Never Gonna Give You Up.’ My analysis is that the intro and chorus progression is a ii / V / iii / iv / progression. The verses are a ii / V / vamp.

[@damianrf6309]

Thanks for another extremely informative video, David.

[@DavidBennettPiano]

Thanks 😊

[@Ftanftangfnarrr]

Amazing. David Bennett analyses Jane's Addiction! My favourite band.

[@MrLuigiFercotti]

I often get that aha moment with his videos, such as the restlessness and lack of resolution for that song.

[@dougr5187]

Excellent video and discussion David (although to me, "Holding Back the Years" is definitely in A Minor, as the D melody note is too 'uplifting' rather than 'resolving' compared to that A example). Cheers

[@MomLAU]

It sounds to me like it's in a major key, but it doesn't resolve.

[@zesta77]

@@MomLAU Yes.. sounds like C major to me with no resolution. ii-V, which is very similar to the earlier examples of IV-V

[@scottkunghadrengsen2604]

Why Bb instead of Gm for the Wulfpeck song??

[@JuniperCo]

Beautiful to play on acoustic 🥰

[@thesingingaccountant1]

Seems a very minor vibe song to me

[@mezu-e]

Turns out that when you write songs by trial-and-error using only guitar chord symbols or the auto-chord tool in a piano roll editor, what comes out usually breaks simple music theory conventions.

[@slidenaway]

What a great topic. This is gonna be great!!

[@cmyk8964]

4:29 - I perceive One More Time to be D major, so that bridge actually uses the I chord (albeit an inversion) to me.

[@ThinWhiteAxe]

I think Holding Back The Years is in A minor. The D note just sounded like a 4th to me

[@PaulTheSkeptic]

Reggae artists use these kinds of chord progressions often. The Grateful Dead use it for Fire On the Mountain. I always thought of it as a modal progression. A nice way going from the lydian and mixolydian modes.

[@dylanmcaloran]

Vulfpeck in a David Bennett video, you love to see it.

[@robster7316]

Fascinating stuff, especially the part about modal ambiguity. Thank you David!

[@CurieuseMusique]

"Ennemy" by Imagine Dragon (the music from Arcane) is also a great exemple of that, staying on the VIth and Vth forever in B minor

[@GreenLightFlight]

Saw enemy mentioned a few time so decided to poke at it and Gb in phrygian dominant feels like it fits perfectly as the tonic or home as i see it. 2nd and 1st chords in that harmonic mode.

[@CurieuseMusique]

@@GreenLightFlight Not sure about this mate, the melody kinda screams of B minor

[@GreenLightFlight]

@@CurieuseMusique The problem with just going with the b minor scale is A. It doesn't really fit in most of the song. Change that A to an A#/Bb and you are now in the B harmonic minor scale. Although that scale fits best in the second phrase. B minor fits in the first phrase as the third of G Lydian, and in the second phrase as the 4th of Gb phrygian dominate. So might be better to see it as a modal scale and key change from regular G Lydian, to Gb phrygian dominate. Cleanest for when playing on top at least.

[@CurieuseMusique]

@@GreenLightFlight yes all the As in the song are indeed sharp ! The song is in B harmonic minor. The melody at the "oooh the misery" moment spells 4 out of the 5 notes of B minor pentatonic. You can use it pretty well. The G is a tonic substitute for B minor and the F# is the dominant seven chord. I think you're mistaking "the mode you're using to solo on top of the song" and the actual key the song is in. I'm a music theory teacher at high level but english isn't my first language, I'd love to be able to explain it more precisely. I'm not saying what you are saying doesn't work, I'm saying it's very unlikely that the musicians from Imagine Dragons thought of their song this way. Also G Lydian doesn't work here, all the As are sharp as we said. Phrygian dominant F# (and not Gb aha) would work as a mode we play over the Vth chord. But the song is still in B minor (key of the song). I hope I made the difference between those two concepts clear in your mind

[@btbb3726]

It calls out for the tonic but it’s left for you mind to provide the tonic. It this sense the song is ~incomplete (explicitly) but pulls our minds in to participate in this song by semi- or un-consciously ~completing the song.

[@ThinWhiteAxe]

As soon as I heard the first chord progression, I thought of "Dreams" 😄

[@jonnyboybrownie6390]

So many of these pop songs dont go to the tonic because they often dont really travel anywhere and go round in circles. no forward motion and not my type of song ....great analysis.

[@EclecticHillbilly]

And they drag along doing it...........

[@rhythmjones]

I've always interpreted those "IV, V" loop songs as "bVII, I" in Mixolydian. The scale is the same. But Anyway by Blues Traveler is an example.

[@fromchomleystreet]

But the scale is ALSO the same for six other modes of the major scale, each with a different tonic, so the fact that it draws all its notes from that scale tells you nothing about which one of the seven modes it’s in. Only your ears can tell you that. Does the chord David interprets as the “V” chord really sound at rest to you? Does it really feel like you’re back home and everything’s resolved when you arrive there? Does the music actually seem MORE resolved than it would if it hypothetically then proceeded to the chord David interprets as the (never heard) tonic chord? If it really does, to you, then for you it IS in mixolydian. It’s ultimately subjective.

[@rhythmjones]

@@fromchomleystreet but it could be in another key or mode or set of 7 notes or non diatonic. The fact is that the D Major/A Mixolydian are two of MANY choices, depending on everything else. I-bVII is as mixolydian as you can get. So yes that's what my ears tell me.

[@rhythmjones]

Just so I'm clear, a song with that two chord loop doesn't HAVE to use a scale that matches the mode cycle mentioned....

[@rhythmjones]

@@fromchomleystreet "the scale is the same" is the least important bit of info in my comment

[@Roberto-nn6kb]

Same here

[@ericsclar905]

Paul Simon's I Do It For Your Love . . .is a GREAT example . . .featuring a very sophisticated main progression + bridge, and finally resolves to its tonic on the very last chord of the song

[@RichHughes]

Jimmy Webb told Rick Beato, if I recall correctly, that Wichita Lineman is in the key of F but never plays an F.

[@EclecticHillbilly]

You're correct. I saw that, too.

[@HankAder]

I found this video because I was listening to Parker's Band by Steely Dan and realized it never resolved, and I wanted to learn about more examples. Thanks!

[@fromchomleystreet]

A point David didn’t raise but which I suspect is key here is the ORDER in which the chords make their first appearance in a given song. If a song we’ve never heard begins with a simple triad (or an otherwise relatively stable chord, like a major 7) our brains automatically tonicise the root note of that chord - it becomes the default tonic until such time as new information contradicts that impression. If there is a readily accessible way for us to perceive the second chord as being consistent with the first being the tonic, our first impression is confirmed and validated and by that point we are probably locked into that first chord being the tonic, regardless of what happens next. But if the second chord problematises that impression, we have to reevaluate. A two-chord song that utilizes only Fmajor and Gmajor, for example, will likely fall into this camp, and the order may be the key factor that decides whether those same two chords are typically experienced as being IV and V in the ionic mode or VII and I in the Mixolydian mode. If the song BEGINS with the G major chord, then G is automatically the default tonic and ionic is (probably) the default mode (because of its cultural ubiquity over other “major” modes). But the F that follows problematises that - it’s now definitely not in G Ionic. Our brain calculates the relationship between the second chord and our default tonic chord, cross references it to other times we have heard that same movement, and seeks an explanation that allows us to retain that first chord as the tonic if at all possible. And if we are a 21st century person who has spent their entire life listening to blues-influenced pop music (ie all pop music), we are likely to latch onto the Mixolydian mode and see that second chord as a flat 7. If, on the other hand (and as is the case with the songs presented here), the order is reversed and the F comes first, something entirely different happens. Now the F is experienced, in the first instance, as the default tonic. But that impression is immediately confounded by the arrival of the G, and in a way that is not as readily reconcilable as it was the other way round. If Lydian was as common and stable as Mixolydian, our brains would probably conclude at this point that we were in Lydian, so as to retain our default tonic of F. But Lydian is inherently unstable (probably, at least in part, simply because it is relatively unfamiliar, at least to western ears) so, instead, we cross reference that movement from one major chord to another a tone above it, subconsciously recognise the harmonic context in which we’ve heard that movement the most often in our lives (which is the movement from IV to V before resolving to I - the single most classic and common cadence in western music for at least the last half millennium), and instantly are already anticipating the C major chord that would resolve it. Only the C chord never arrives, leaving us in perpetual anticipation of a home we never reach. We see this exact same phenomenon at play in the two versions of the “Axis of Awesome” chord sequence, namely I/V/VI/IV and i/VI/III/VII - the same exact chords, looped in precisely the same order, the only difference is which one we perceive as being the beginning, which switches the tonality of the whole thing from ionic to aeolian. Probably everyone has at some point had the discombobulating experience of hearing a song they know distantly playing, but because they weren’t concentrating they “mishear” where the “one” is and so suddenly the song is transformed (until their brains figure it out and switch back) into an entirely different piece of music that isn’t even in the same key.

[@serolrom]

I now remember when I was young (internet was not available for us) learning guitar from a friend of mine, trying to identify the key of some songs to get the rest of it, and never getting to "what the heck of the key is this song in???". I feel today like I have found (and played) the key of one of my life's songs, that finally resolves and comes to rest, after roughly 35 years later.

[@picksalot1]

A song without a Tonic is probably in a Mode, and uses the Mode's Tonic chord. This is likely the case on most songs that alternate between two adjacent chords.

[@thomasmacmillan]

Yes I also find the "absent tonic" concept not so convincing. And possibly too eurocentric (i.e., assuming all music is orientated around classical notions of "key").

[@fromchomleystreet]

@@thomasmacmillan Of course it’s Eurocentric. That doesn’t make it wrong. Most people the world over - at least those in developed countries - have spent their lives having music based on western functional harmony daily poured into their brains. What a given person perceives as the tonic is obviously going to be informed by their recognition of harmonic patterns they’ve heard before. That recognition of pattern is literally ALL tonicisation is. So if you play somebody (assuming they have the degree of familiarity with western or western-influenced classical or popular music that the vast majority of the world’s population now possesses) an F major triad in root position, followed by a G major triad in root position, it is highly likely that the pattern they will recognise is the one they have heard the most often in their lives, by far - a movement from the IV chord to the V chord with an anticipated resolution to a tonic C major. C is already tonicised long before we find out that the C major never arrives. We subconsciously anticipate it even when, intellectually, we know it isn’t coming, and so neither of the other two chords ever feel at rest. The fact that the tonic chord never arrives is irrelevant to its status AS the tonic. It is the anticipation that tonicises it, not the satisfaction of that anticipation, which can be denied indefinitely. But, of course, those two chords belong to all six other modes of the major scale, not to mention possibly several other exotic scales and the modes thereof, and it’s entirely possible that a hypothetical culture that privileged another mode in the way western music does the ionic, might instead hear another note as the tonic, or even not perceive a tonic at all. In a sense, the tonic isn’t real. It’s something you perceive, not something you calculate. Any piece of music that utilizes a heptatonic scale is, in reality, in seven different modes at once. Yes, there are certain things a composer can do to make it more likely that the average listener will perceive a given note as the tonic, with varying degrees of ambiguity that run along a spectrum. But there is also a whole lot of cultural baggage we bring to the table that makes certain modes the “default”, meaning the composer has to work harder to make a piece NOT in that mode if they don’t want it to be. The concept of a tonic is a useful tool to understand how a piece of music functions. That’s all.

[@brdrnda3805]

@@thomasmacmillan it's not "absent tonic", it's absent tonic chord. The difference is that the tonic is not absent in the melody. Just try to write a very simple four bar melody in C major. Start with C, end with C and have most notes being chord tones of the C major chord - you'll have a melody in C major (most probably sounding like a children song). Now put a chord progression like Dm, F, G, F, Dm, F, G, F, Dm (two chords per bar) to it. No tonic chord, but it's still C major - the melody enforces it.

[@thomasmacmillan]

@@brdrnda3805 I agree that some people may perceive the harmony like this, but only those who have been brought up in a musical environment that prioritises functional tonality. I still don't think I would hear C as the tonic in the example you cite - there's no reason why a melody note could not start and end on the 7th degree (creating a Dm7). I think "absent tonics" as a concept may be useful in certain situations, but its far from a universal mode of listening.

[@brdrnda3805]

@@thomasmacmillan " I still don't think I would hear C as the tonic in the example you cite" Try it! Ending with B has quite a different effect than ending with C.

[@remco2777]

Fantastic video David. Excellent analysis as ever

[@floaty10]

Surprised Wichita Lineman was missed off the video. This is one of the earliest and most famous pop song examples. The song never resolves to F.

[@singlesideman]

Actually, the way that I hear most of these songs is in Mixolydian, with the chord progression being bVII I, where the second chord is the tonic chord, and you can hear the b7 scale degree used in these songs which defines the sound of the Mixolydian mode.

[@ryantraynor9830]

Great video as always David. Although i must say i felt a bit lost on some of the examples when you only used the chord names and didnt include the roman numerals.

[@jamesbench-capon7627]

Let Me Be Your Fantasy (Baby D) is a good example. It's a four chord loop of (I think) vi V iii IV. You could hear it as being in the minor key of the vi chord but the melody is more in the major key. Gives the song its restless, nervy sound.

[@kelprofitt]

I'm not 100% certain, but I always feel like 'Someone Saved My Life Tonight' by Elton John never sounds as though it resolves fully. I know it uses a lot of unusual inversions.

[@Difop]

For me, Holding Back the Years is definitely in D doric since I feel that the reason that that A in the melody sounds resolved is because it anticipates the Dm9 which comes right after

[@SriLankanStuff]

I'm sure Drake doesnt have any idea about this fact about his songs 😂

[@reuvenmarkmozes-mozesmusic7000]

Of course, his music is coincidental music

[@fromchomleystreet]

I find it bizarre that David sees only two possibilities for the key of “holding back the years” - A aeolian or D Dorian - when to my ears it is unambiguously in C ionic, despite never resolving to a C major chord. To my ears, the D minor and the G are a classic “ii / V / I” except it keeps denying us the “I”. If you sing the line “holding back the years”, the “years” note sounds (at least to me) like the second degree of the scale, and it sounds like what it really wants to do is resolve down a tone to the tonic (C), accompanied by a C major chord, and if you actually sing/play precisely that on an instrument, you’ll see that it sounds completely at rest when you hit that C. You could play an Am too, and it sort of works, but it doesn’t sound (at least to my ears) nearly as satisfyingly resolved, rather it sounds like we’ve reached the “semi” resolution of a vi chord, and still have a little further to go before we get home. That said, I’m not so arrogant as to tell David he’s “wrong” to say it’s in A minor (or, for that matter, the people who say it’s in D Dorian, although I do question whether they really do HEAR that D minor chord as being a place of rest or they are simply resistant to the notion that the tonic chord might not be a chord we ever hear). That’s the thing people get wrong about modes - they are inherently subjective and unstable. The tonic is something that your ears tell you, not something you work out via some foolproof formula. Sometimes your ears tell you it’s something completely unambiguous, but sometimes they’re vague and indecisive. Sometimes you can “flip” your perception to hear the same piece of music in two different keys (see “Sweet home Alabama”, where I’m naturally in the D Mixolydian camp but can sort of “choose” to hear it in the G ionic which is the key in which many, including the band that wrote it, appear to conceptualise it). Theory can really get in the way of your ears and I do wonder if that’s what’s going on here. Theory and analysis can’t definitively tell you what note the tonic is, because it’s just not a black and white thing. Analysis can tell you that, for example, “Holding back the years” uses the seven “white key” notes. But as with any heptatonic scale, a piece of music that uses those seven notes could be in any of seven modes (of which the two with which we are most familiar, ionic and aeolian - colloquially known as “major” and “natural minor” are only two). And here’s the kicker - any piece of music that uses those seven notes is really in ALL SEVEN MODES AT ONCE - because, essentially, they’re all the same key, and a note that your brain, at any given moment during a piece, tonicises, IS the tonic, and that IS the key it’s in, for you, at that particular moment. That tonicization is personal and involuntary, and based not only on harmonic context (the WHOLE harmonic context, not just the melody - it is entirely possible to write a song that will be widely perceived as being in a certain key without the melody ever using the tonic note) but also the context in which you heard it on that particular occasion, and a whole lot of cultural baggage we can’t even begin to unpick. That baggage includes the fact that western ears are conditioned to enormously privilege the ionic mode as the default, for example, which is why modal writing is mostly an exercise in fighting against the overwhelming gravity of the ionic mode - it is the schoolyard bully of modes who, given any opportunity, will barge in and take over. Try writing a song in Lydian (ie all white keys with F as the tonic), for example, and you pretty soon realise that you kind of have to avoid playing the chord built on the fifth degree (C major if in F Lydian), or at least be very careful how you introduce it, because the moment it arrives it will decide it’s the boss and insist that you were really in C ionic all along. It is impossible for me to know to what extent this last point, for example, might be at least part of the reason I find it impossible to hear “Holding back the years” as being in D dorian, or even A aeolian. I am culturally conditioned, by a lifetime of listening to western music made by people for whom middle C was ground zero of a musical education, to subconsciously think of the ionic mode of the major scale as the default, which means that even if the ionic one chord is entirely absent (as it is here), a piece of music that uses those seven notes has to work harder to NOT be in ionic than “Holding back the years” does, if I am to perceive it as being in any other mode.

[@hman1151]

woah, no beatles or radiohead songs?

[@angeldiaz762]

I've finally found it, a David Bennet video with no Beatles songs in it

[@chadlindsey2608]

I'm shocked! No inclusion of Radiohead: "Everything in It's Right Place"?! The composer Steve Reich explained his interest in the song because it never lands on it's tonic chord F minor, instead we only get F major. He went on to write a chamber piece called "Radio Rewrite" based on two Radiohead songs. Great stuff!

[@thesingingaccountant1]

Ha I was going to say this but see you already did so thanks

[@thatJackBidenTalksAbout]

1:26 Hooold up - the harmony (chords) absolutely define the key. But if you only look at songs in terms of major (Ionian) or minor (Aeolian) melody rather than harmonic mode, you're going to have a hard time working out the tonal center. For example: "Jane Says" seems to be in A Mixolydian. Even the melody hangs on the A for the beginning of the song, when the key is typically established, only dropping down at "...but if." This also makes what was the V into the I, and so the progression becomes VII-I. To me, Dreams is in G Mixolydian, and it's also a VII-I progression. That makes the bridge start with ii-I-VII. One More time seems to be in G Lydian, which would make the harmony I-II x3 then vii-II. 5:11 Okay, Smile Meditation is just clearly in E flat major. I-V-I-V-IV Seems like God's Plan is b♭m7 (i) cm7 (ii), which would make it B flat Dorian.

[@BigZencreates]

I was going to post this exact thing.

[@MatrixGuitar]

That’s how I’m thinking too…these are songs in Mixo and Lydian

[@StanleyDevastating]

no man, the melody of Dreams is clearly in A - look at how the phrases both end on by dropping down a 4th to A! The first note in the bridge is also just an A an octave higher - go and listen to that line again and see how complete the phrase sounds once the euphonium comes to rest on that A.

[@thatJackBidenTalksAbout]

@@StanleyDevastating It might sound that way to you, but that's not what makes theory useful. The real test is whether we can combine that analysis with theory to get what we'd expect based on theory. #1: If the tonic *really* is A min, then playing that chord under the melody should give a greater sense of resolution than what the song gives us. But playing the A min chord with the song makes it sound more dissonant, less resolved, because the notes in the minor chord are too close to where the melody sits, making it sound dissonant. Same with the the supposed dominant chord of A minor, which is E. #2: If we treat it as F Lydian or G Mixolydian and translate it to F or G Phrygian, it sounds much darker. According to theory, that's what should happen. Pro tip: if you're not in the mood to write the song you want to, just use the mode that matches your current mood and change the mode later. It's great! #3: If we treat it as A Minor there isn't many places we can go that make sense with the song. That leaves us with modes that *should* be *brighter* than minor. Sooo: > A Phrygian isn't much different from A Min, so not much changes. > A Locrian sounds fine right up to the line "it's only right that you should play the way you feel it," where the melody and harmony start openly fighting each other. 🤣 > Changing to A Major makes it sound *darker,* and a little weird on account of the diminished 7, and A Dorian has the same problem with the diminished 6 chord. > Finally, playing it in A Lydian and A Mixolydian sound darker, when they should be *brighter.* These are all pretty good indications that there's something wrong with the analysis. #4: We can try approaching it from the perspective of other modes. Calling it C Major would make it a IV-V progression, so we'd be going back and forth between dominant and subdominant instead of saying we're going between submediant and leading tone. Moreover, converting it from C Major to C Minor actually makes it sound like it's in C Minor! If I had to guess, it's probably on account of the major chords becoming minor chords and the major melody becoming minor. But if someone can explain how it makes sense to call it A Minor when actually using theory based on that assumption makes the theory useless, I'd love to hear it!

[@urbangorilla33]

@@StanleyDevastating The melody is clearly from the A minor scale, a lot of it pentatonic.

[@paosullivan1]

Katy Perry's song "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)" never goes to the tonic chord. It just loops a 4-2-6-5 chord progression the entire time.

[@dolphincat7132]

There are a lot of songs with two chords one semitone apart that could fit into this category (e.g. Montero by Lil Nas X, Get into it (yuh) by Doja Cat, Enemy by Imagine Dragons) that I tend to hear as V-VI chords in aeolian, but others say they're I-II chords in phygrian dominant.

[@lawrencetaylor4101]

My piano professor friend told me about a student studying for his piano exams that was in a difficult situation with a neighbor. So he'd do several hours of scale practice each day, and always ended on the leading tone. The neighbor moved out.

[@samuelmarger9031]

"Pumped Up Kicks" by Foster the People can be in the list if you assume is it in C minor (it sounds so to me.) Another close example for me is "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" by Tears For Fears, in D major, with very little D chord in it but still some.

[@Igor_Vinicius]

"Pumped Up Kicks" seems to resolve in Eb to me.

[@samuelmarger9031]

@@Igor_Vinicius I would that's possible in chords. The melody, though, seems to resolve to C. Well, C during the verse and Eb during the chorus, I'll grant that. To sum up, it's a tonal adventure and mixture.

[@lisamann]

The Spinners - I'll Be Around comes to mind

[@edkaempf906]

Proving that Drake actually doesn't make music, but rather just talks in a fairly monotone voice. And people like his "sound".

[@keithshapiro]

These chords completely define the key. 2 major chords a whole step apart are always the IV & V chords of a major key unless the melody takes it out. The character of this tune is that it doesn't resolve to I. G B D A C# E imply the F# from the supposed I Chord as no other key has just a C# in it but this is 6 of the 7 notes of the D major scale or the Key of D. ;) so there's that.

[@gemmachaos]

Mate. I love your work but put a content warning on Chris Brown next time, okay?

[@Endhog]

Always love a little Vulfpeck appreciation

[@JiveDadson]

I find those songs extremely irritating. Yucko.

[@loganressler9173]

I'm hearing the "I'll keep holding on" sequence in C, basically a ii V I cliche that loops early instead of ever resolving to its I chord.

[@pedrodionisio2733]

I've heard "Bizarre Love Triangle" and "Crush" that also seem to float around the tonic chord :)

[@ferudunatakan]

Video: Songs that never goes to tonic chord Me: Thinks modes that doesn't exist (Hypodorian)

[@sychaellawinger5448]

Pieces by Red is one of my favorite songs. The song could be considered in G#m, but it I like to view the song in B, it spends the whole song using the 6, 4, and 3 chords. Literally, the last note of a moving 6 minute song, it resolves to the 1 chord on B!

[@omnisdjw]

Love the outro music you created for this video, very Radiohead

[@eduardooliveira7433]

David I always learn so much with your videos! Thanks for that. I was listening Say it right from Nelly Furtado and I thing is a popular example of a song that never go to the tonic chord.

[@simontinguely862]

Nice video, well structured. I like that you build up from basic to more developped forms of the concept and then opening the reflexion with songs with questionable keys, very cool !

[@buraktones]

I think 505 by Arctic Monkeys also is an example, while the key is A minor, it goes back and forth between D minor and E minor (the respective 4th and 5th chords)

[@juliettest.laclaire8931]

The song “Nothing Feels Good” by the Promise Ring got me thinking about this. It’s in the key of C but only plays F and G chords. It’s my favorite song by them

[@DjVortex-w]

Yay, this is the exact topic I have been asking in the comment section of several videos. I don't know if my comments inspired you to do this, but thanks anyway.

[@rayg2724]

Not to validate a certain person’s behaviors, but I always really enjoyed how “Ignition” loops a ii and IV-iii-ii progression the whole time, and only incorporates the I and V chords in “Ignition (remix)” to almost signify a LOT of sexual tension that gets resolved in the second song.