Why House Music Theory Is Different (Chord Progressions & Techniques)

[@synthsoniq]

Every video of yours has tons of great info as well as awesome house grooves. One of my all-time favorite channels on KZbin!

[@OleansHouse]

That's so nice of you to say :D Im very glad you're liking the videos and will try to keep em coming 🕺

[@xXAnonymasterXx]

Please do more house theory videos! Really loved your first video as well as this one!

[@Andrew-rz7qt]

Nice bit of hard house is good.

[@b00ts4ndc4ts]

That was very important to mention about skipping chords out if uo just pitch a chord and use that. I keep telling people that learning a bit of theory is a great way to spend your time. Music is a journey and progressions are the steps we take. If you want to lead your listener's then those progressoins are the paths to do that. Great channel ❤

[@peteatkins9508]

Best channel for deep and dope House Music. Keep the good work going.

[@beatmeater5225]

Great stuff . Like someone else said there's not many that get it with House stuff on YT.

[@kevingrieger]

This is excellent advice! A major 7th chord does a good job of ending the progression of all the minor 7th chords.

[@nickskywalker2568]

I've been dreaming of making these type of powerful chord riffs - this video is god sent

[@wesevans6455]

last chord in your last section is an E9 (aka a dominant with an added 9, not a major chord. For this you'd need a D# rather than D natural). Also the F/G is not only a sus chord but also a dominant with an added 9 (F natural being the 7th of the G, thus making it dominant), this is also why the gospel release you use as an example works so well, because it's just a variation of a classic V - I progression, the strongest of all resolving progressions. Anyways good overview, keep it up :)

[@OleansHouse]

@@wesevans6455 Thanks for all this extra insight!!! I was hoping for some OGs to jump in the comments and kind of film in the blanks 🤗

[@msld_sound]

At 7:10, you can notate that as G11 or Dm7/G. Somebody might have reasons why to prefer one or the other but I had to do a lot of band charts in university and nobody cared either way. 😅

[@msld_sound]

The late Quincy Jones has a TON of “11” chords in his work. “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough” is a great example on the main riff.

[@Dekoherence-ii8pw]

Easy Like Sunday Morning vibes here! 7:35

[@monssenscitylife...]

Always waiting for the next video man, love your channel ☺

[@OleansHouse]

🙏🏼🥲

[@skyvibe_music_english]

Interesting take on house music theory! The chord progressions and techniques really set it apart. 🎵✨

[@user-mr7db2lh6r]

this is gold man. i make house music and styduing music theory now.

[@future62]

Dmin7 over G is Gsus9. Exact chord names dont matter though, Dm7/G is way more informative of what's going on. Great video... an awesome house chord progression is Gypsy Woman. Charles Cornell did a great video on it.

[@CharlesLobo-c8t]

Really nice! Subscribed!! My first time here in the channel and I absolutely loved the content... I'm a Tech House / Minimal Deep music producer but I always wanted to know how to make those vibey House Chords and I finally found the right tutorial! Thanks =)

[@pmtoner9852]

This was interesting and well explained

[@Hopesinhas]

Thanks - interesting. Near the end when you use a D# in the scale of Em, you are effectively using the harmonic minor scale (not the natural minor). Exploring the other minor scales is also fun - esp. Dorian, Phrygian.

[@red_onex--x808]

Awesome video

[@paulblake1164]

Personally, I never used cord samples but would use the bass cord progression technique as mentioned at 6:30

[@rck1official]

Hah i had same idea for absorbers but i was used stones.Good video .Becouse house... " its a a spiritual thing....and soul thing..and body thing.." 🥳 Nice classic groovy stuff

[@payton846]

Thank you for this! I've been learning to how to make house recently and I had many piano-related questions that this helped answer. Much appreciated!

[@OleansHouse]

@@payton846 very glad that this helped :)

[@icaro-mana]

Dope!! Would very nice some videos showing some presets for synths , Pianos and pads for classic house and deep house!! 😊

[@bontempo1271]

Excellent content, am glad i found you. Easy sub ! Thanks :)

[@lozoz]

that second chord is a G sus4 - technically known as the Roy Ayers chord.

[@delsinnisled9443]

cool video

[@DjLamech]

Thanks for this channel I've been looking for you for a while this theory is so important for me as a producer I haven't checked every video but do you have a video on jazz in house music?

[@OleansHouse]

not yet 😇 but good idea, thanks!

[@jeremyuzan1169]

super video

[@monovibe5924]

Good stuff, it's not exclusive to House though, it's a technique that's been used across a lot of genres, Hip Hop, DnB, Harcore / Rave etc etc. Either way, mixing it up is good advice as it can very quickly become a bit of a cliched sound but on the opposite side, sticking to diatonic harmony exclusively results in a sound which is too song-like or synth pop or whatever. I like the sound of a m9th chord and apart from root position, there's 2 other inversions I'm fond of and it's good to mix those up, so essentially you're planing the chord / playing parallel harmony but the inversions just add a different flavour and can go some way into better leading tones. A 9sus4 chord is also a useful one, it's literally like a m9th chord but with a raised 3rd up a whole step. Ie: Em9 = EGBDF# compared to E9(sus4) EABDF#. Also useful for the odd jazzier thing is a dominant. There's probably no real need for that tension and release in this type of House music though because you are already introducing tension with the out of key chords and the in key chords are then the consonant variety but still, something like a 7#5#9 can be sweet in the right context and it's resolved to either a 5th below or a 4th above, eg: GFA#BD# down to a Cm9 - You can do a whole series of this stuff for the more jazzier thing as secondary dominants, sticking one in between each chord and resolving in cycles. Esp nice is a downward chromatic sort of way. The parallel chord throws up a lot of interesting musical challenges in terms of melody parts so that can be a thing too but probably an entire video unto itself :)

[@OleansHouse]

thaanks for taking the time to write all this down!! I find it very interesting and helpful. And yeah its not exclusive to house. I guess at least it was amongst the first genres to do it :) looking forward to try the 9sus4 and stuff

[@monovibe5924]

@@OleansHouse I love your content btw, there's not that many that 'get it' with regard to House stuff. Look forward to your next video :)

[@benjaminbritschfayet7510]

huge video !

[@ryannicholls8127]

thanks man! subbed 🔥

[@FC-xc3zy]

Thanks

[@AL573]

Amazing👌🏻

[@SAVANTI711]

Please do one on Drum Theory... How to place... How to build your drums... How to make complex loops with oneshots etc.

[@OleansHouse]

@@SAVANTI711 uhh thats a good one! i have a bunch of videos on drums, but might be interesting to take a more theoretical perspective :)

[@SAVANTI711]

@ Yeah I feel like it's a common thing i see where people show all these videos on how to make music like this particular style... But don't ever do videos on how to understand the theory of Drum implementation to consistently improve and make the music you want to make. How does someone learn to improve if they don't know what they are doing to begin with? Has always confused me.

[@SAVANTI711]

@ It seems like you have to dig incredibly Deep just to find something theory based around drums. It's wild. Theory is the most important thing to learn and understand... You'd think it would be the first thing someone would teach, but not the case these days. Really good one I have only seemed to find is... Red means recording - Fundamentals of Rhythm for Electronic Music. Apart from that basically the subject is completely dead on youtube.

[@OleansHouse]

@@SAVANTI711 nice, will check it out for sure! Im still gathering my thoughts on this, cause its a bit tricky. there seems to me that people dont use theory for drums that much in their production process, but still manage to create cool drums. for harmony and melody people seem to more often rely on theory. maybe because drum machines often just have 16 steps and you simply but some drums in there and copy basic grooves coming from disco. so in a way the variaty of drum grooves is smaller than the veriaty and emotional difference in melody and harmony. (still gathering my thoughts in this) gonna look more into this one 😇

[@SAVANTI711]

@ Yeah please. Yeah that seems to be the common way. I was looking up videos on people using drum machines as that was easier to understand before I found your channel. I get most people just use Drum Machines so it's kinda more of a afterthought.. I just prefer to understand the theory side of it as it's really fascinating for me and I suffer from ADHD and Autism so i prefer a visual theory approach to learning then the usual approach others use. Like i common thing for me is i like learning the history of certain drums used in various things.. I wanna know how to make a record with Jazz Drums, Afro drums, Latin Etc. That all just fascinates me. I don't like using loops ... I feel it's lazy... We have brains to learn for a reason you know... Why be Lazy about it? Why not try and learn how to make that certain percussion loop you hear from scratch... You know? ... I don't know thats just me i guess.

[@cryptout]

Excellent video, new sub

[@OleansHouse]

welcome :)

[@fantasyproduct1042]

Subbed!

[@OleansHouse]

🙏

[@Vishesche-Electronic]

I had an idea about it, but I can't make house music...somehow it doesn't sit right with me if the chord isn't in key...but I'll give it a shot. Thanks for the explanation. I'll try this out It's fun to listen to, but when actually trying to produce, I can't, something feels off...when I just take a single chord and pitch it up or down....you know...

[@OleansHouse]

haha yeah I understand! maybe you could go for house with less quirky progression leaning more into a jazzy disco vibe or if you prefer a pop like sound go for melodic house which can include normal pop piano chord progressions

[@Andrew-rz7qt]

Phrygian scale is nice for house because it's a little darker compared to the minor scale.

[@OleansHouse]

@Andrew-rz7qt yeaaah. I kind of already habe something Qed up about that for part 3 😇

[@Andrew-rz7qt]

@OleansHouse I will look forward to it, nice in F specially for those bass lines by using octave jumps and descending runs.

[@Chamilawarna]

nice video what piano sound is that a VST ?

[@OleansHouse]

So Im mainly using just the ableton stock grand piano. which is played in abletons simpler. and I think I also have the M1 House piano in there at some point :)

[@nickskywalker2568]

7:07 - it's a G chord with a missing 3rd that you are extending from it's 5th - Gmin11 I'm no expert though so please correct me if I'm wrong

[@OleansHouse]

Thanks! I think this might be it :) but Im also curious what others might have to say. maybe it also kinda depends in what context you see it. Im also no music theory expert haha just enough to talk a bit about it in the context of house music 😅

[@kwameofori1121]

bouncy

[@nickskywalker2568]

what happened to the mic at 1:30 XD

[@OleansHouse]

🤣 I kinda forgot about it and moved too far away.

[@domdraper3221]

Max? Du machst Musik?

[@OleansHouse]

haha max?? 😅

[@silvertongues2]

Didnt you play a major 9 not minor 9? Minor would have Bb not B in it

[@OleansHouse]

@@silvertongues2 very possible 🥲 whats the timecode?

[@silvertongues2]

2.14 you play a major by hand, but say minor….. you meant to play a minor of course, you play it right a few seconds later

[@OleansHouse]

@@silvertongues2 damn your right! thanks for pointing that out. I was a bit to fast on this one. I think it is even a G9 right? since im playing the minor 7. 😅 oopsie

[@silvertongues2]

@@OleansHouse yes you’re right, i didn’t notice the 7th, just that the third was major

[@OleansHouse]

@@silvertongues2 major blunder from my side haha thanks for pointing it out anyway

[@gtubgle]

House Music theory? It came from the streets

[@OleansHouse]

so was jazz 😇 the theory usually describes afterwards how something works, not before hand, I would say :) also the “streets” in this case were private underground clubs for gay African american’s and latinos to be more exact 😊.

[@gtubgle]

@OleansHouse you're right