'House of the Rising Sun' confused about chords

[JMarcomb]

Thinking of notes as melodies inside of a chord breaks down the complexity of chord theory.


The way the chords work in that song is their based off of the I IV V notes of the scale. Just like most catchy blues and pop.

I II III IV V VI VII
A B C D E F G


knockin on heavens door

I II III IV V VI VII
G A B C D E F

G--->D----->C once again working the I IV V

 

[Light]

Re: Disagree!!!

I disagree with Light in that harmonic and melodic minor scales are just ways of explaining certain Bach pieces, and that they have little relation to music.

If you play a natural minor scale (C - Am) you will discover, that the VII degree doesn’t resolve to the root because there’s a whole tone between them, so what the "theorylogists" did was to sharpened the VII degree of the natural minor to add that resolving feeling to it, ending with what is known as the harmonic minor scale, but then again this scale presented a flaw and that is the whole tone and a semitone separating the VI and VII degree of the new scale, and this time they raised the VI degree, ending with what is known as the melodic minor scale.

One of the few reasons they did this, was to avoid the tritone interval, and to understand this better we’ll have to get deeper in to the intervals theory and that’s not the case here. By understanding this you get a wider spectrum of the minor scale and the music really gets versatile at this point.

So that’s why I disagree with Light, is nothing personal.

Except that you just made my point for me. Those scales were created to explain the fact that Bach and others of his era had already made those changes to the notes they were using, because it sounded right. ALL traditional harmony was codified (during the romantic period) to explain things which had already been done by musicians in the Baroque and Classical periods. That is history, not an opinion. Yes, all the things you say are what those scales were created for, but the music never came out of the theory. The theory came as a way of understanding music which already existed. If you think it goes the other way, you are in grave danger of treating theory like rules, which it most defiantly is not.

Oh yeah, avoiding the tritone belongs to the renaissance and before. The tritone, and its resolution, is central to all tonal harmony. If you don't have the tritone, you don't have a dominant seventh chord, which is central to the tonal cadence.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi

 

[Emperor !!!]

I think we're complementing each other opinions here.

Just like you said, if we don't have a dominant seventh chord we don't have a resolution to the root from the V degree, and that's why back in the time they altered the natural minor, not to explain things that had already been done by the musicians of that era, that history part just came along with it.
You can't resolve from a minor chord to another minor chord, everybody needs that semitone.

When I play music I don't care about the rules, I just play what I hear in my head.

Thanks Light, remember how I started this reply!!

 

[crazydoc]

It's a D9 with the third in the bass and no root. D9 over F#.

The high 'E' is the ninth of the chord, therefore D9/F#

It's a beautiful thing.

Yeah, it has a nice sound.
But what of the C (2nd string, 1st fret)? This is the 7th in a D chord, so wouldn't this be a D7-9/F# or some such?

 

[Gidge]

I have a song in E......a section of the song goes A-E-G-D-F-C-B.......sometimes theory goes out the window........

 

[dirtythermos]

I have a song in E......a section of the song goes A-E-G-D-F-C-B.......sometimes theory goes out the window........

The A, E and final B are from the key of E, the key of your song.

The G, D, and C are "borrowed chords" from the key of Em.

F after D works because of the interval between them.

 

[foo]

Yeah, it has a nice sound.
But what of the C (2nd string, 1st fret)? This is the 7th in a D chord, so wouldn't this be a D7-9/F# or some such?

Yep - but it's generally accepted that you only include the furthest-out non-chord tone in a dominant chord - it's pretty much open season on what else you want to include.

So an F 13 can include the 7th and the 9th if you like even tho it doesn't specifically say it's in there. Be careful of adding too many alterations tho - if you add two which are a tri-tone apart (6 frets or a flat fifth interval) you match the major third, dominant seven interval and that can confuse your ears into thinking it's a different dominant chord.