Hello, and welcome today. We will be looking at an example
of how chromatic mediant relationships can Sound by
creating an expected harmonies, and also some tips on things you
can do with rhythm to surprise your listeners, here is a
snippet of the example. We'll be looking at and Jump
Right In. Okay, before we go into
chromatic medians, we have to understand what a mediant is.
It is basically a third relationship above or below the
note, we are using as reference, for instance, if you are in the
c, major scale and use Z as a reference pitch, the third
above, it is an e and that is its natural mediant.
If you go the other way around, The third below C is the A and
that is the sub median of see, these relationships, occur with
peaches chords and even tonality.
He's in this case, because we are in the c, major tonality the
median of C would be an E minor and its immediate would be the a
minor chord. But if you change the chord
quality of any of these chords, for instance, if you would have
an E major instead of E minor, you would be interested.
Reducing a chromatic tone to the c, major tonality in this case,
it would be the G sharp. That is basically the reason why
it is called a chromatic median cord relationship.
You can also go from C to E flat.
Major you would still be introducing chromatic tones in
the c major tonality and maintain the third relationship
between c and e flat. Usually, the court quality is
involved in these relationships are maintained.
Meaning that if you are Are using a C major chord.
Then the following Court could be either an E major or E flat,
major and a major or a flat major.
If you want to learn more about this, please follow the links in
the description to read more about it in the blog.
Now, let me show you what I did. Using mostly chromatic media and
relationships. Throughout this music example,
I'm starting on the c major tonality and here we have the a
minor and F major chords that F would be the submit event of a
minor after that, you hear the F sharp minor which is the
chromatic sub medians of a minor.
So A little bit of back and forth between natural mediant
and chromatics of media. And in this case, there are lots
of other examples in this bit like from B flat major, to D,
major and then another chromatic.
Median between a major to see major that are basically used to
return to a minor and returned to the c major tonality.
As you can see, this is a nice way of navigating between
tonalities as an alternative for using dominant chords or Are
substitutes, here's how it sounds.
In another part of the track. I also played around with
chromatic median, quad relationships and this time you
can hear me going from C sharp to an E major and then go to a c
natural, a major, and then return to C sharp.
In the last four bars of this section, we still have chromatic
median relationships, but not always like in the case of e to
a major or in the end when we go from F sharp major to E major.
Here's how it sounds. I was a bit heavy on the
chromatic, mediant usage for the purpose of demonstrating how it
sounds but you can use this chord relationships.
Interspersed in more, common chord progressions like in a
4-5-1 where you can use a chromatic medians to add some
and predictability to harmonies like this one.
What you heard was see going to f and then a flat which is the
chromatic mediant of F that in turn resolves, half step down to
G as a tritone substitute. And finally, G goes back to see.
You are not limited to the usage of chromatic mediant
relationships, only between chords or four chord
progressions. You can also use it as a way of
establishing a relationship between tonalities as is The
case in the beginning of the initial section of this track, I
started with a minor and E minor chords and then I use a d half
diminished and the G minor 7 chord the latter, do not belong
to C major, but they do belong to E, flat, major tonality.
So there is a chromatic median relationship that was
established between c and e flat tonality.
I also use this device to return to a minor at the end of this
section, the d flat major sharp 11 court, that hints to the
lydian mode comes from the A-flat, major tonality and is a
major third apart from the c, major tonality to, which I
return to another idea for using third
interval relationships, is by applying it to court sequences.
Like in this example, where you have an, A and E flat, major
chords that are transposed a major third up, giving place to
C sharp and G major chords. Here's how it sounds in context
because I was working with chromatic medians and we have
lots of modulations going on. I thought about why Have some
type of modulation in the temple as well.
So my final tip for today is about Rhythm throughout the
track. I played around with different
measures of Divisions while maintaining the same base Tempo.
In this case, 122 BPM, to create the impression of speeding up or
slowing things down a bit. All I did was basically use a
4/4 time signature but instead of having the regular four beats
per measure, I would have five. Six or even seven beats per
measure in a 4/4 time, signature to imply a change in the tempo.
This is different from having a 44 and then switching to a 5-4
time signature because if I maintain the same tempo I will
only have an extra beat per measure without feeling any
Tempo changes. This is a nice way to surprise
your listeners and introduce some novelty.
Here are some examples in context here.
The bar is subdivided in five beats and then Goes to seven
beats per measure. Now we briefly go from Seven
beats to four beats per measure and then use six beats per
measure to introduce their triple time, filled in a 4/4
time signature. Then finally move back to a
5-bit, subdivision near the end. This is one of the ways you can
use to create. What is called the metric
modulation. There are other ways you can do
this by using polyrhythms, but we won't be covering it now.
Explore these ideas and try to incorporate them in your
songwriting. Check out the links in the
description and visit the blog for more detailed explanations
about the presented Concepts. I'll leave you with the full
track. It's all for now.
And until next time, happy composing