Chords in a progression - how often strictly from the key?

pgibbons welcome to Chordie I listenend to the song first its a quarter tone out of 440 (standard pitch) and second the key is Amin the notes your hearing are not chord changes but notes played within the A minor chord (d c a g c a) I do not hear any chord changes I believe that this is concidered modal as I was able to  play an Ami chord thruout the melody (but I have been known to be wrong on occasions)

Theory is not so strict as we all might think. It is simply a way to describe what we are doing musically in a common language.

How do we get away from a "strict" key? You can modulate (essentially changing keys) within a song, and you can also borrow related chords into your progression.

In the Beatles' I Feel Fine (key of G), The chorus runs G - Bm - C - D on the first line, and G-Bm - Am - D on the second. Since the Am is the relative minor of C, we say the chord is borrowed.

In Cry Baby Cry, the verse runs down as Em - EmM7 - Em7 - Em6 and lands on C7. That C7 (which we have all head a million times) will never sound so "twangy" to your ear as it does coming at the end of that Em run, falling off the C# in the Em6. (Try substituting a C#°7 for the Em6... same notes: E-G-B-C#. )

pgibbons8

how often are chords taken from the key ?

well, that depends on your music taste

if you have a pop sensibility then most songs are going to stick fairly rigorously to the  expected chords

blues and blues rock have there own variations (eg dominant sevenths and a couple of others)  but don't otherwise depart much from the formulas

however Jazz and many 'experimental'  musicians tend to play fast  and loose with the rules (sometimes in the pursuit of what is a fairly atonal noise).

usually when I mess around with chord progressions I stick to the key. i have sometimes  thought of adding non key chords however in my experience theres plenty of scope for tunesmithing within the key.

j

I think this is a modal piece.

Most early Irish music is modal, in other words the tune is all. What is important is what you hear, not what you believe you should be playing.

The accompaniment that is played is played as the tune decrees, and the tune will often trip through chords rapidly as though they were melody notes. This example feels a bit like that.

Russell, modal music can include chord changes. We tend to focus on the chords and the note is less important. For instance in bluegrass and blues the chord pattern is all - you can almost smell where the tune is going to end up. This wouldn't be the case with modal forms. It's a key reason why Irish music sounds Irish.

There are interminable debates over how to accompany Irish music - check this one out about the problems of playing guitar in Irish trad music http://www.thesession.org/discussions/d … mment84638 .