Autumn Leaves ... again ... and again ... and again

goldtop

A question for the songwriters and theory wizards: ideas of how to break out of the inexorable pull of this pesky thing? There's some sort of harmonic gravity that seems to make it hard to escape once you've started. 

Even progressions which aren't strictly the same (e.g. adding a relative major/minor for the obvious chord) sound derivative.

(I blame Gary Moore as my gateway into this chord progression.)

guitars4you

Eric Clapton does a nice cover of Autumn Leaves  - I find if I jam along with it, either just a back track, or playing along with EC, but playing my ideas, it is hard to not drop into G Moore mode

I think many classics follow such a chord sequence inc Fly me to the moon  

merlin

3 6 2 5 1
 makes for lots of fun.

That's why. 

Brad

What exactly do you mean to “break out” of it?

Is it that you find yourself always playing this chord progression? Learn different chord progressions. 

Is it that you’re bored with this progression and want to spice things up? Check out reharms and chord subs

You’re correct about the sense of harmonic gravity. It might just have something to do with 3rds and 7ths…

viz

It's called back-cycling. It's effective because it's a series of v-1 cadences, called perfect cadences.


Other tunes you may enjoy: 

Starting on the 1:

·         Parisienne Walkways

·         Blue Bossa

·         I Will Survive

·         Burn (the middle 8)

·         Fly me to the Moon

·         Lou Reed - Perfect Day

·         Mike Mullen’s Space Overture

·         Yngwie Malmsteen - Rising Force

·         Pink Panther moat scene (theme 1)

·         Britten’s Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra

·         All the Things You Are

Starting on the 4 (like Autumn Leaves):

·         Still got the Blues

·         Emporte Moi

·         Europa

·         Nordrach

·         Y Volvere

·         the MASH theme tune

·         Brother can you Spare a Dime

·         Pink Panther moat scene (theme 2)

·         Hello (Lionel Ritchie)

Brad

Hmmm, I’m gonna have to disagree with how you’re looking at it. 

Rather than looking at is as perfect cadences (of which there are two, although the root movement can suggest that throughout I guess) I see it as back-cycling diatonically in 4ths. 

I’d watch out for ATTYA too, not really sure how that starts on iv… ditto Autumn Leaves ( I can understand the argument mind…) although that’s a topic of debate for another time

roberty

I only write in a linear way about half of the time. The rest of the time I'm sticking already written ideas together to see how they fit, maybe bridging them with something new

I will sometimes write backwards, in other words if I know I want two bits of song together but there needs to be some bridging piece I'll start at the end point and go backwards in order to get the right cadence

Other times I zoom out and look at the song as of a series of keys like a big chord progression. Then within each key you can write little chord progressions

TL;DR

1. Stick random ideas together and see how they sound
2. Write bridging song sections backwards
3. Zoom out and look at the big harmonic picture, fill in the details from there

viz

Brad said:

Hmmm, I’m gonna have to disagree with how you’re looking at it. 

Rather than looking at is as perfect cadences (of which there are two, although the root movement can suggest that throughout I guess) I see it as back-cycling diatonically in 4ths. 

I’d watch out for ATTYA too, not really sure how that starts on iv… ditto Autumn Leaves ( I can understand the argument mind…) although that’s a topic of debate for another time

Yep I said it was back-cycling. You can definitely think of them as 5-1 cadences, even if the 5, or the 1 are minor chords, OK they're not strictly speaking perfect cadences, but it's still the reason why they sound so consonant, because all those back-cycles are all momentary 5-1s. 

You're right about All the THings - I've gone and put it in the wrong list! I've moved it. THanks!  (Autumn Leaves deffo starts on the 4. By which I mean, the 4 chord corresponds with the downbeat of the bar. Clearly there are some up-beat notes before the main bar starts)

Brad

viz said:

Yep I said it was back-cycling. You can definitely think of them as 5-1 cadences, even if the 5, or the 1 are minor chords, OK they're not strictly speaking perfect cadences, but it's still the reason why they sound so consonant, because all those back-cycles are all momentary 5-1s. 

Don’t get me wrong, we’re in agreement about the back-cycling… I guess it’s how it’s being interpreted/explained where we differ. So taking the first 8 bars of Autumn Leaves (or even the whole form actually) if just dealing with root movement only, then I get where you’re coming from, even if I find reducing everything to pairs of 5-1 a confusing way to look at it. But for me, if Cm7 to F7 can be viewed as a 5-1 cadence of some sort, then I’ve been doing music wrong all these years. 

So I’d argue they sound consonant more because it’s a diatonic chord progression moving in 4ths with natural (or even dreadful) voice leading (7ths moving to 3rds) due to the quality of the chords. Of course, keeping the root movement but changing the chord quality will give lovely results too… just maybe not with the melody of Autumn Leaves

viz said:

Autumn Leaves deffo starts on the 4. By which I mean, the 4 chord corresponds with the downbeat of the bar. Clearly there are some up-beat notes before the main bar starts

Yeah, so you're seeing that first chord as iv (Cm7) of the tonic minor i (Gm). Again, I see where you’re coming from and again, we’ll have to agree to disagree

viz

Hm. Interesting. I can’t think what else it would be. What are you seeing it as? What would you say the first Dm chord in Still Got the Blues would be?

Brad

This is where there's a bit of a grey area admittedly and in the instance you put forward (Still Got The Blues), I get onboard with seeing the first chord as iv (iv VII III VI iiø V i) as the harmonic rhythm definitely lends itself to that... to my ear at least I'm sure yours too.

Obviously both songs have the same harmonic framework (for one section anyway). However, as the OP was asking about Autumn Leaves and with said song being a jazz standard, I look at it from that perspective which is where the difference is. So a Major ii V I, IV as a pivot, to a minor iiø V I. In my head at least, it takes away the mental gymnastics when the inevitable modulations show up at some point (e.g bars 27 and 28 in Autumn Leaves). I guess many folk who relate everything to the parent major scale would say ii V I IV vii III7 vi...  

So if someone handed me those chords with no other details, then initially yeah, ii V I IV iiø V ii, but then the duality would kick in and I also see it as iv VII III VI iiø V i. The level of detail on the music and the bigger picture generally would determine how I will think/approach it, and it certainly would once the music starts happening. Autumn Leaves, even played as a ballad, still feels different in vibe to Still Got The Blues.
 
And I guess that's the "joy" of music, many ways of approaching things!

viz

^ yep, I've heard this a few times; Justin Guitar on a YouTube vid even has the whole tune described as though it's in the relative major (though he corrects himself in the comments). And it's fine with me if that's what you hear. I personally don't hear the key shifting around halfway through the verse. (as an aside, I wouldn't call it a modulation myself, because modulation implies the piece establishing itself in the new key, at least in classical music) but I don't even hear the tonic moving about temporarily; I just hear the harmony as a long arc, all in G minor.

But, like you, I'm not writing this to contradict you, just to announce to the world what my ear hears  I am not qualified to challenge your artistic interpretation!

I should admit I'm also experiencing music from my own musical upbringing, as everyone is, and mine is fully brewed, distilled and aged in the classical tradition, so I'm probably a bit inflexible. And despite 251s existing in probably every classical piece ever, I know that jazz benefits from them a lot.

roberty

Though of another trick to change keys, secondary dominants

Basically you go to the V7 chord of the new key before you land on the new key. You can literally change to any key this way and make it work

It is useful to think in terms of cadence, this way you have chords that serve a functional purpose and the music feels like it's going somewhere

goldtop

Wow - thanks chaps. Plenty for me to digest in this. @viz - I will check out those other tunes, too. It's clear that despite it being such a common pattern, maybe it's possible to decorate it so that it has some originality.

@Brad - by 'break out of it', I mean to say that if I write an 8-measure section and start with this relationship, it's as if there's a well-worn pathway in my brain that drags me along.

It really seems that this is the 8-chord version of the 4-chord song.

goldtop

roberty said:

Though of another trick to change keys, secondary dominants

Basically you go to the V7 chord of the new key before you land on the new key. You can literally change to any key this way and make it work

It is useful to think in terms of cadence, this way you have chords that serve a functional purpose and the music feels like it's going somewhere

That's true and I've seen a few Beato music theory videos where he talks about that. But to me, the V7 sometimes seems like a sledgehammer.

So I've been experimenting with ø7 chords, which are just one semitone away from a Dom7 chord. This video by Jake Lizzo was an ear opener:

viz

goldtop said:

Wow - thanks chaps. Plenty for me to digest in this. @viz - I will check out those other tunes, too. It's clear that despite it being such a common pattern, maybe it's possible to decorate it so that it has some originality.

@Brad - by 'break out of it', I mean to say that if I write an 8-measure section and start with this relationship, it's as if there's a well-worn pathway in my brain that drags me along.

It really seems that this is the 8-chord version of the 4-chord song.

Yep, infinite embellishments are possible; they tend to have one feature in common though, the choon is stated over the first 2 chords, then repeated twice, each time a tone lower. Obvs the reason for that is that these mini cadences are themselves repeated twice, a tone lower each time, so it’s natural for the tune on top to do so too. 

Brad

viz said:

^ yep, I've heard this a few times; Justin Guitar on a YouTube vid even has the whole tune described as though it's in the relative major (though he corrects himself in the comments). And it's fine with me if that's what you hear. I personally don't hear the key shifting around halfway through the verse. (as an aside, I wouldn't call it a modulation myself, because modulation implies the piece establishing itself in the new key, at least in classical music) but I don't even hear the tonic moving about temporarily; I just hear the harmony as a long arc, all in G minor.

But, like you, I'm not writing this to contradict you, just to announce to the world what my ear hears  I am not qualified to challenge your artistic interpretation!

I should admit I'm also experiencing music from my own musical upbringing, as everyone is, and mine is fully brewed, distilled and aged in the classical tradition, so I'm probably a bit inflexible. And despite 251s existing in probably every classical piece ever, I know that jazz benefits from them a lot.

Well, to possibly contradict myself here, from an analytical perspective it may appear I'm dividing those 8 bars from major to minor in an aural sense. When actually, like you I do hear it as G minor, (but I definitely hear/feel a heavy shift from bar 5). My point about modulation is regarding the bigger picture, not the 8 bars were talking about. Autumn Leaves is strictly diatonic save for two fleeting bars (even though we can get away using one scale over the whole form), so how would we describe those two bars in relation to our starting point? That then has implications where tunes do have modulations, ATTYA being a great example. That where I'm coming from I guess.

goldtop said:

@Brad - by 'break out of it', I mean to say that if I write an 8-measure section and start with this relationship, it's as if there's a well-worn pathway in my brain that drags me along.

It really seems that this is the 8-chord version of the 4-chord song.

Haha indeed.

Try this - take the first chord of this 8 section and throw away the other seven (for now). Whatever the top voice is in the 1st chord you're playing, find another chord that also has that note in it. You'll hopefully get some interesting results you might not have thought of.

I don't know the key you're playing in, but to keep things (relatively) simple, say your first chord is Am, and your inclination is to go to D7 and then carry on following the pattern that you're fed up with. If our starting Am7 is here 
5x555x the note E (fret 5 B string) is the top voice. I'll try and find as many chords as possible that have THAT note as a top note, to start with at least.  

Oh and D9 doesn't count

Doing this with a different top note in your 1st chord will yield different results.

  

viz

Brad said:

My point about modulation is regarding the bigger picture, not the 8 bars were talking about. Aut


  

ah, got u, cheers.

roberty

goldtop said: 

roberty said:

Though of another trick to change keys, secondary dominants

Basically you go to the V7 chord of the new key before you land on the new key. You can literally change to any key this way and make it work

It is useful to think in terms of cadence, this way you have chords that serve a functional purpose and the music feels like it's going somewhere

That's true and I've seen a few Beato music theory videos where he talks about that. But to me, the V7 sometimes seems like a sledgehammer.

So I've been experimenting with ø7 chords, which are just one semitone away from a Dom7 chord. This video by Jake Lizzo was an ear opener:

That's a good tip. V7 is a good starting point in any case, season to taste :-) 

viz

or combine the two - a Dom 7 with a b9 on top. I like that.