Epic Chord Progression Hack - Chromatic Mediant Motion 

I’ve always loved chromatic mediant harmony and it was a great revelation when I learned about Neo-Riemannian theory. An exercise I do with my students (and that I do myself) is to choose a starting point on the Tonnetz and follow various paths from chord to chord - which is essentially what you did in this video. Learning chromatic mediant harmony is liberating but it also reminds us of all kinds of common-tone relationships that exist in traditional functional harmony. Because these harmonies are, on one hand, unmoored, and on the other, the most familiar and stable harmonies - simple triads - they make the familiar strange and the strange familiar. In order to preserve that effect, added extensions can’t create dominants - no tritones. And that’s what you did with your beautiful minor chords with extensions. They’re especially evocative - like distant bells full of dark portent. As always, thank you you for continuing to open doors and windows. Cheers!

always appreciate your insight Chris, thanks for continually posting great videos like this over the years.

The melody is like a painting, and its frame is like the chord progression and canvass that you paint over with color-tones. Re-harming a song is like re-framing a painting.😊

Great video. The sound of these chromatic mediants is indeed evocative or climatic.

Would ❤ a better understanding of NEO-RIEMANNIAN theory via your beautiful, calming style

I've been hugely influenced by neo-reimannian theory ever since I read the book "Hollywood Harmonies." I'm interested in bringing these kinds of epic changes into a more pop setting. You do hear a few examples in pop music (e.g., in Stevie Wonder's "Sir Duke", the chord change for "you can feel it all over." That sixth, which diatonically would normally be minor, is unexpectedly major, which brings a bright ray of sunshine into the chorus.) Exciting stuff!

Hey Chris loved the video and little exploration of chromatic mediants! One topic I'd love for you to cover are chord progressions and ideas used a lot in the 80's as I personally think a lot or artists and bands used really beautiful wide,rich chords and harmony with major and minor 9, 11, 6ths chords aswell as add 9,sus 2, sus 4 and inversions. Tips and hints on how to make our own and get that beautiful rich 80's atmosphere would be awesome,Thanks 🙂

Pure Platinum. Thanks Again.

More creative provocations ...Many thanks once again for all the excellent & well thought-out work !

Just stumbled onto your channel. Great presentation here: clear, concise explanations. Thank you, looking forward to checking out more of your material !

Fantastic

Your voicings are the secret sauce...🙌🏾🙌🏾🙌🏾

Great! I was looking for a way to make non boring progressions and this fit the bill.

this is wonderful, thank you!

Chris, you are such a pleasant and sympathetic explainer. Always very interesting topics and information. Super well presented. Best regards from Switzerland.

I am working with a Eurorack modular sequencer "Tetrachords" by Cycle Instruments. It is a chord and arpeggio sequencer. And it has a feature called "pivot modulation" that uses this technique. Your video provides valuable background to help me understand it.

Great stuff, very inspiring. Thank you! I’m a big fan of Radiohead and their various side projects. They often use ideas like these to create epic chord progressions.

I would love a link to the poster at the beginning of this video… visuals are always helpful. Great video! Cheers!

Awesome

Wonderful. Am off to try that now.

Just splendid

Cool stuff! Notation please.

Great work again, i compose meditation and hypnosis music and sounds and struggle with making pieces long enough and also stay low information or movements. Is there a trick to elongating ideas without being repetitive?

I just got back from The Art Of Noise exhibit at SF MOMA. If memory serves, you’re a Bay Area person, yes? If so, I recommend checking it out.

This was pretty cool. Your videos are really informative. Do you happen to have your own compositions that you've completed?

The first example is Thanos's theme from Avengers Endgame, isn't it?

I’ve seen the chart you’ve posted on this video somewhere before. What is it called and is there a download available? Thanks. Love the tutorial, Gianni❤

outer worlds - that's yours? noice

If there’s chromatic mediants, is there such a thing as chromatic sub dominants? Or chromatic dominants? There may be an obvious answer but I’m just curious as to why chromatic mediants stand out

Great to hear the different genre settings Towards the end you mentioned some names and showed an esoteric-looking chart....? A web of intervals?

Merci !