What do these two songs have in common? They both shift to a dramatically different key for the chorus, and both require the singer to pick a difficult note out of the air with very little preparation. Let's look at Yellow Brick Road first:
Most of the song is in F Major, but in the chorus it abruptly moves to Ab. Since most people know the song very well, it is no longer a jarring change. But I imagine someone hearing it for the first time would struck by how quickly it moves to a new key and from tenor to soprano range:
Not only is it a note in a completely different key, the leap from "the" to "blues" is an (extremely) unusual minor-9 interval. That's not easy to sing even when it fits in one key. To singers struggling with this leap, I would recommending singing the "blues" note down an octave at first, so it is only a half step, then move it up. The second pass of the chorus only jumps from E to Db, but is still a difficult note to hit with no setup.
The Whitney Houston power ballad Don't Walk Away has an almost identical structure. At the chorus it moves to a key a minor third up, starting on the IV chord, exactly like Yellow Brick Road:
This time there is some preparation, as the Bb in the pickup notes establishes the new key. It is also a comfortable whole step into the new key, and the "landing" pitch is a common note between both keys. It's still a big moment, but perhaps not as jarring and difficult to sing as Elton John's key change:
The big moment in this song comes at the end when the song moves up a half step, in one of the all-time great modulations. She sings the three pickup notes then takes the final pitch up a half step, making for an awkward augmented second leap into the new key (at 3:40 in the video):
Such an epic moment! Trying to land on the Major 7 of the chord while reaching over an augmented step feels like tossing a book onto the top shelf and hoping it lands upright. There were so many different ways they could have made this modulation happen, and I love that they chose one of the most difficult. Try singing it without accompaniment if you doubt me.
For singers struggling with landing the D#, I recommend thinking of it as "Fa" in the old key, rather than "Mi" in the new key. I'd practice without modulating, playing an Eb chord instead of the Emaj9 for a while. If there's one saving grace about the modulation it's that the top note is in both keys.
Both are great songs, and both excellent studies in modulation. I never thought I'd write about Whitney and Elton in the same post. It wasn't easy to find commonality between the two divas, but believe I found it.
If diminished chords are rare in pop music, augmented chords are doubly so. The augmented chord is a triad with the fifth step raised. (hence the name - it becomes visually bigger) It has a very open sound, and has a certain urgency to resolve somewhere, while also feeling very "floaty."
Much more common in jazz, augmented chords typically serve one of two purposes: as a moving line to lead to a 6 chord, demonstrated here in It Never Entered My Mind:
and as an enhanced V7 chord, shown here in Blue Bossa:
I was unable to think of many well-known pop tunes that contain augmented chords, but the first to pop in my head was the second chord of the Stevie Wonder version of For Once in my Life:
This serves the first purpose mentioned above, as a moving 5 part in the harmony. The Ben Folds Five does the exact same thing in their song Underground (starting at :38):
I recently played a full show of Mariah Carey songs, and I really enjoyed some of the augmented chords in Vision of Love. There is an augmented III chord in the verse that inexplicably goes back to the I chord (:32) and then to a borrowed bIII chord (:47), one in the turnaround between verses (:57), and similarly for the ending at 3:08:
If I ever do a blog post on that song, I will probably spend it all talking about how great the bass is.
Last, my favorite augmented chord in a pop song might be the intro to Billy Joel's 1986 ballad Temptation:
It does everything that I love in a chord; that is, nothing it's supposed to do. We go from the I chord to an augmented bVI chord (or whatever the heck you want to call it) then back to I, and later to the IV chord to start the verses. That last move actually makes some sense, as it is basically an inverted V/VI chord. It is the bass movement that makes it somewhat jarring, but also unique.
If I think of other examples I will update this post, but for now I think Billy Joel wins the Augmented Chord Award, if there were such thing. For now, the best I can do is this:
I was listening to one of my favorite lesser-known Ben Folds Five songs, Eddie Walker, and was struck by all the diminished chords in the bridge. There is a particularly epic one at the end of the bridge, in multi-part harmony, leading to the final chorus. The bridge starts around 1:43 (pardon the weird video):
The big moment is at 2:08 and it might be my favorite diminished chord ever, both for the musical power and the unusual way it is used. (diminished iv chord leading to iii)
This got me wondering why diminished chords are so uncommon in pop music, and what well-known songs have them. I racked my brain to think of some that people would know and am highlighting a few of my favorites. But first:
What is a diminished chord?
The diminished chord is one of the four major types of triads that make up most of Western music. Here they are in C:
Major and minor chords, in one shape or another, constitute most western pop music. Diminished and augmented chords are much much less common. They are the libertarian and green parties of the music world.
The diminished chord has the 3rd and 5th steps flatted, and has a "tense" sound when taken out of context:
The chord is seen prominently in classical music and in Jazz and show tunes (particularly older ones). It is hard to imagine Bach or Joplin without it. In Baroque and Classical music, as well as in old standards it is typically used as a substitute for the V chord, often as a passing chord between two adjacent chords. See, for example, the first few measures of the Rodgers/Hart classic Bewitched:
The diminished 7th chord has an extra note, the double-flatted 7 (or six), but for aural purposes is almost always interchangeable with a regular diminished chord, so for this article I'm focusing on either one. I am not including its distant cousin, the half-diminished chord, which serves a different purpose and is a topic for another day.
Example 1 - Garth Brooks, Friends in Low Places
I choose Friends in Low Places because Garth Brooks spells it out so unambiguously on the guitar, only seconds into the song. It works just like the diminished chord in the first couple measures of Bewitched above, as a bridge between the I and ii chords. I like thinking that this song probably single-handedly made thousands of amateur guitarists everywhere have to learn a new, completely different chord from the open G, C, and D they were used to.
Example 2 - Michael Jackson, Thriller
The chord is at :33, right before the whole band kicks in. I love the way it adds to the tension and gives the song a gothic feel. It is also unusual in that it is not used as a leading tone chord. The diminished chord is based on the tonic, yet somehow feels like it's leading to the tonic at the same time.
Example 3 - Plush, Stone Temple Pilots
Every kid who owned a guitar in 1992 knew how to play this song. The second chord of the intro riff is diminished. This is another unusual use of the chord, as a diminished i6, leading up to a kind of ii65 chord. With out the distorted guitars this could sound very barber shop, and might work well in a mash-up with Moonglow.
Example 4 - We Are The Champions, Queen
It's not so difficult to find diminished chords in Queen songs. Bohemian Rhapsody has many, particularly in the neo-opratic parts of the songs. Champions has some great ones in the chorus, after "til the end" and the second "we are the champions!" after that. It's easy to imagine how the song could have been written without those chords, and it wouldn't sound nearly as triumphant.
I thought of many other songs while writing this post. Here is a short list; I'm sure many more will come to me in the future, now that I am listening for them.
Benny and the Jets, Elton John - there is a diminished chord in the verse, again bridging the I and ii chords.
God Only Knows, The Beach Boys - this is one of my favorites, because of the unusual way it is approached and the melody over it.
Bridge Over Troubled Water, Simon and Garfunkel - the chorus contains a couple diminished chords, which help give it a gospel feel.
Michelle, The Beatles - with the lyric "go together" in the verse, there is an ingenious diminished chord, outlined in the melody and supported by the backup vocals.
This Love, Maroon 5 - I love this one. The fourth chord in the verse sounds very Bach-esque and does not lead you directly back to i, as you would suspect, but to a V6 chord.
If I Ain't Got You, Alicia Keys - in the second stanza of the verse, she uses a diminished chord between I and ii instead of the vi that she plays in the first stanza.
Shed a Little Light, James Taylor - the opening chord and a couple during the moving part are diminished.
She's Out of my Life, Michael Jackson - this song has a very prominent and unusual diminished I (or inverted I) chord early in each verse.
Please let me know if you think of any other good ones!
