themusicman

Speed of sound

Hi DeusEx Im interestd to hear that your X & Y sheet music also said it started in the key of A..... Is this like an officially published book? Id since started to think the start is in the key of D... D makes more sense..... apart from main progression there is also the brief other part at the very start (& elsewhere) where there's piano melody too..... this is: A G F"M This chord progression wouldnt really be in the key of A& if it was it wouldnt sound like a nice natural progession downwards asit doesin the song. To answer your question: Its the best question to ask in relation to the topic... Normally in the key of A the E chord would be chord V {the A chord is chord I}..... like chord I & IV, chord V is a primary chord & therefore is major not minor. However sometimes this rule can be reversed for certain effect - but chord V & I are not usually used for this... usually chords II, III, IV or IV might be reversed...... Bottom line when determining keys - the key you are in is the one that sounds "like home" - like the other chords want to go home to that chord. So yeah I wonder if your transcription is by professional dudes? Im only an amatuer but my mom is a piano teacher & it was her that suggseted its in D and then I believed she was right . Kasey - its hard to getyour head around this chord theory stuff but its worth it. I got a book called "The Songwriting Sourcebook" by Rikky Rooksby. It took time to work through but wasnt too hard to digest. Cheers......

Hi all, hey Kacey I couldnt find you any video of you playing "Speed of Sound". ?? I was interestd to see your take on the chords in this song. I gather you have worked this one out..... Have you looked at the choice of chords and how it is that they work together ? This is interesting stuff. This is what I think..... The song starts in the key of A major and then in the chorus modulates to the key of G major and then returns to A again in the next verse & so on. This is why the change to the chorus has such a powerful effect. You can also hear a small shift when it changes back to the verse from G to A. In the verse when singing the chords are: A , Em , Em , D and then the D chord leads to the chorus which initially is: G A Bm7 ("All that noise & all that sound" . So what we have is: Chord IV in A major [ D ] acts as chord V in G major when the song changes to the chorus in G major. This is a great key change. Its unusual because its a downward key change - down from A to G. Much better than the boring up-one-tone key changes you hear at the end of songs on Australian Idol. What do you guys think ? Do you agree /disagree - do u hear a key change ? How else can u explain the unusual use of chords here & the shifts from verse to chorus and back. There are some other interesting thing- like the use of Em/M7 - but I'll leave at that for now. Cheers, the music man