AK wrote:widdly wrote:Some of the chords they use in bossa nova are pretty cool. The progressions and substitutions are often pretty far out but they come off as really chilled and smooth.
I not ashamed to admit that I'm a big fan of Mahavishnu Orchestra. In between the self indulgent epic solos and cheesy jan hammer moog lines there are some awesome chilled out bits, not to mention the crazy chord progressions and time signatures. Some of it is so way out in terms of time signature and harmony but you don't really notice because it grooves so nicely.
Yeah, some of the bossa nova stuff is harmonically complex over simplistic rhythms. It's inherently jazz but often you'll find it less swung. Hardly any triad chords here, like jazz you will find the smallest chords contain 7ths. I prefer the stuff that doesnt try to resolve itself in conventional ways. We are so acoustically tuned to cadencies that when we hear dissonance or a dominant chord, we are subconsciously expecting it to resolve to the tonic chord or something concordant. Clever music can lead to unexpected changes which challenge the brain and unprogram it from preconcieved expectations. This is the kind of mental separation that a lot of western ears need. We are so accustomed to an overused harmonic structure that anything outside of this can alienate the average listener. And that's a shame because there's some wonderful music out there that is seriously inspiring.
bit OT, but thats my feelings on music exactly bro.
the first thing i threw out was chords, they are too recognizable and westernised.
tuning and balancing various oscillator waveforms is where its at for me in techno.
playing with the harmonic relationships between them. you can make sounds that sound like chords but dont invoke the regular feelings we get from classic chords, and they can morph into other sounds without cheesey cadences, and resolutions.
there should be a theory of techno, its deffo coming from a different place to classic theory.
