Steely Dan's Harmonic Genius 

Where would the world be without Fender Rhodes piano sounds?

How they managed to make something so complex so poppy/catchy is absolutely amazing. I try to put stuff like this into tunes but it never feels right.

As someone who turned 18 in 1977, the Aja album was simply incredible. I played it hundreds of times in my car.

AJA is STILL the modern gold standard for both pop and jazz albums EVER recorded in America.

Former band director here. I graduated from high school in 1977. Been a fan of Steely Dan since high school. Never tire of this sound. It's a very elegant sound in my opinion.

I’ve been a performing, recording musician since 1989. Signed to a major label in 1999. I do solo gigs at least 4 nights a week and jingle work as vocalist since 2002. By LEAPS AND BOUNDS, no music both challenges and delights me like Steely Dan. I do the entire AJA album at least twice a month. It is like taking multi vitamins and stem cells to my soul, I retrack everything in my studio and use my backing tracks. It gives me a sense of pride and simultaneous a huge sense of Awe at just how incredible steely Dan was and stillbis(god rest Walter) Donald Fagan is without a doubt the most inimitable musician of the last 100 years.

The "mu" chord. Great breakdown...favorite album of all time.

You can’t do enough Harmonic Danalysis. Love this stuff, totally appreciate it.

1950s Brazilian Bossa Nova is replete with this technique. Consider Jobim's "One Note Samba" (Samba de Uma Nota So).

Here's what Donald Fagen told me about that chromatic descending motif when I interviewed him for my 33⅓ book about Aja: “I had always thought chords going down in half-steps were corny sounding, but I think I just decided I was going to do it anyway. The way I was using it I kind of liked, and I realized the reason I liked it was it reminded me of that old swing tune ‘Whispering.’ And ‘Groovin’ High’ has that downward chromatic progression. So that’s similar to the introductions to ‘Peg’ and ‘Deacon Blues.’”

This my favorite album of all time….I was 21 at the time… living in Los Angeles as a working drummer…. What great times..!!! And Gadd on this album was just incredible….He was the main man at the time… I heard he did this in one or 2 takes… and soloing over the vamp.. with that Latin feel… Just never to be forgotten…

And Donald did it again over and over, such as "Babylon Sister" and "The Goodbye Look". Brilliant! The Deacon Blues changes also hark back to Giant Steps. Thanks for the vid!

Ah yes, Steely Dan ... some of the best music ever made ...they "turned it on the world" and most people weren't even aware of what they were doing!

It's great voice leading. They took the rules of the common practice period and did their own thing with them. 🔥😏

This would never happen today, but it was much easier when the palette of the world was based solely on FM radio. They existed at the perfect time for their sound. A time long since gone and sadly so. Thanks for the great video!

I was so relieved when you called that chord Gadd9/B.

I remember doing stuff like this before I felt confident in my ability to create structure in more complex chords and relationships thereof... It felt like cheating, but for a few years now I've realized the potential that's there. A really cool trick to break it up is to continue a pattern but choose the bass notes and voicings in order to make it less obvious. Those in and of themselves can also follow another clear pattern, which is a cool effect for sure. The biggest trick up my sleeve is to take any full mode, say Dorian, and transpose that down an interval several times for maybe like 4 scales total, then choose bass notes and voicings, maybe a melody comes to mind before that. Maybe ommit intervals that aren't important (Depending on the context), bang, each chord in a new key. My favorite is descending in 4ths cause it's got the orderly aspect of 5ths with plenty of common tones but generally sounds cooler imo, but try all of them. A cool trick then is to imply yet another scale by carefully weaving it through the available notes across the scales over time, a blues scale can sound unusually stable over harmony when holding notes, for example. You can justify spicy scales very well this way for a climax in a solo etc., you can weave very simple scales throughout it that same way to ease people into the intervales the scales don't have in common, and most comfortably, you can lean on the more common tones to smooth it out further. That's not to mention slowly revealing your cards, or changing them out. Like with the descending 4ths example, if you strip away the notes these scales don't have in common, you can get some very nice diatonic stuff going, all in one key. Keep the chords minimal so they fit in either of these, and the freedom becomes crazy, this is then just yet another trick to go ''outside'' that applies.

I love this video, no gimmicks no bullshit. Just straight up to the point and giving us a clear info how to practice. Perfect format

This is EXACTLY the kind of video I love! Love Steely Dan, love Aja, and love exploring their harmony. Thanks so much and keep them coming!

If my wheelhouse had a wheelhouse, and the inner wheelhouse had yet another, tiny wheelhouse, this video would be the micro wheelhouse inside the tiny wheelhouse. More Steely Dan stuff, please.

I love Steely Dan's harmonies and this is the kind of thing I've been hoping to see from Open Studio for a while. Thanks so much for doing this!

After being a Steely Dan addict for nearly forty four years I noticed that kind of chord sequence from Peg can be found in the bridge of a tune called Merry go Round, just before Joe Sample takes his piano solo on the Crusaders album Images, check it out and you will hear it, after hearing Steely Dan I just got more and more addicted to Jazz and wanted to know where things came from, anyhow enjoying watching the video, great stuff big time Gracias and thank you amigo.

I bought the Aja album when it came out in the late 70s. I was 13 yrs old. I loved it then and it never gets old. Timeless music.

Adam, if you really wanna breakdown some incredible jazz chords from the genius that is Donald Fagen, please do a practice video of his song 'Maxine' from his 1982 debut solo album, 'The Nightfly'. Some of the most incredible complex jazz harmonies I've ever heard.

Great video,thank you.The Add2 (Mu) chord is indeed vital to their sound but altered chord chromaticism and tension/release parallelism are equally important-a real jazz technique/sensibility.As any long term students of Steely will know tho the hardest part is memorising the chords ;-)

Adam this is incredible! Do more of this!!!

I didn't just click the like button, I smashed it. One of my favorite bands and very hard for me to grasp how they do their harmony as beginner. Thanks for breaking this down!

Thank you, Adam! Love it!

About two years ago was trying to figure out how play "PEG". Thanks Adam for the tutorial. Its not really all that complicated, especially I understand what's going on. I believe I have it in me to be a good jazz piano/keyboard player. Your tutorials are helping me get there. Thank you for your help. You're and Peter are good teachers🎹🎶🎹🎶🎹🎶😀👏👏👏

I love this channel! Thanks for making great videos

Thanks so much for the great music and everything else.

Just bought a keyboard and this is the video I needed. I’ve been a steely Dan fan since I was 12. Greatest band ever

Brilliant! It's like I just found the holy grail of Dan. Thank you!

I never tire of Aja, one of my all-time favorites!

I love what you are teaching! Steely Dan is one of my favorite bands simply because of their harmonic structures. Those chord structures sound somewhat like some of Moe Koffman’s progressions! Awesome!!!

I got the sheet music for Peg ages ago, never could quite figure it out. It always seemed so difficult for me to go through those chord changes. You broke it down brilliantly, much thanks!

hey man, thank you so much for this video. I love the album and it's really nice to be able to practise these changes in this fashion with you. Thanks and have a great day :)

Thank you for making this!

thank you for making this and putting in the time. aja and royal scam are both insane masterpieces

Tremendous stuff indeed!

You know, when someone asks you what your “stranded on a desert island” album would be, it’s too hard, so many (single) albums, but if you asked me what groups anthology I’d want on that island, I could definitely stay happy with Steely Dan.

In the style of slow, explained step by step repetition with patience, you show your kind of „genius“ too ❤ After about half of the video I can feel something‘s changed. The notes start to sing. Our hearts start to sing along after some relaxed but concentrated curious repetitions. After playing the same scale in most of the whole songs😢, I‘d like to find out how other ‚colours‘ integrate into the composition. ❤❤❤❤❤

nice breakdown of the SD genius - I still can't fathom how virtually every song they composed and produced were such classics. They were the most intriguing band in rock history, and they weren't even a rock band.

Masterful! RIP Walter, carry on Donald!!!

This was great! Would love a follow up video featuring examples from all their other albums.

Thank you, this is really great stuff! If we can make requests I’d love to see your analysis of Maxine from Donald Fagen’s Nightfly album.

Thanks...this type of content is great!

Yes. I’m really digging it. Best piano channel on RU-vid. “Happy Practicing”

Great content this is my favorite album of all time!!!

Fitting title. Outstanding analysis. Superb material for this exercise! Absolute mastery!

One of the greatest albums of all time…I’ve watched the documentary about the making of this album so many times

I bought the record when it came out and was immediately mezmorized. I noticed "the spaces between the notes" right away. This was keyboard based music and not full of distortion guitar like Kiss and the rest. The album caught many by surprise but I had already been hearing The Royal Scam blasting out of my step brothers bedroom and I was asking "What the heck is that?!"

Really good stuff man. ty...

So, I was 20 years old when this was released. And yes...I was appropriately blown away. ✌ Still am.

Such great practice session ideas. I recommend your cast to my intermediate piano enthusiasts associates. Great organized influencing powers! keep it up!

I first heard their technique of leaving the top voice the same in “Caves of Altamira” from the Royal Scam. This is the song that made me a Steely Dan fanatic.

EXCELLENT!! Just what I'm looking for! I work from stacked 4ths. Leaving those 3rds behind! I will CONSUME that pdf!

Yeah I've been constantly listening to that in my headphones around the house for the last three weeks so I'm ready

Love this so much - thanks!

I think the analysis of this just being a series of plagal cadences works best. I see the first measure as a C to a G. IV to I in the key of G. Instead of a minor with a sharp five, think of it as being the tonic of the measure with the third in the bass. Fagen does this all of the time.

They really valued voice leading

Love that Peg progression. On top of the root, 3rd, and 5th going down a half step each time and the top note going down a whole step every other chord (going from natural 9 to #9), the second note from the top is also moving a whole step every other chord (going from Major 7 to minor 7) on the chord the top note doesn't move. I feel like that makes the transition from the 7#9 chords to the Maj7 chords just a little bit more slick. The Deacon Blues progression has the same thing going on (except when the bassline jumps up a 4th). In Practice Set #1 the 7th is in the left hand, which buries the pitch a little to my ear (which is awful at hearing distinct middle voices) but still adds that same smoothness to the overall quality.

Aja is still one of my personal top 10 albums, thank you

From the intro, you could also be describing Queen’s News Of The World lp. 1977 was a great year in Music!

What a great video and great channel you got! Subbed!

Love Steely Dan.... Harmonic Genius.... Brilliant Stuff 🎼🎵🎶🎶🎹🎹🎹🎧

This was extremely useful!

❤❤🔥🎼🎶🎹🎸🎺🥁❤❤ an Epic group of their time!!! 🎶💕💕

The second chord of the Deacon Blue set is definitely Gmaj 9/B for me. I don’t think you can really sharpen fifths except in augmented chords. Also the relationship of the C down a fourth to G is stronger than the simple chromatic descent of the roots. I think they just don’t want to accept that inversions exist in jazz too. There are so many sheets that treat all the bass notes as roots, regardless.

Moving top note or other notes down or other single notes is something i heard mccartny say the beatles used to do wirh chords giving them as he put ot different "permutations"

Once you start playing the song I wish you would play it through. I know this is how you break a sing down but it's so grating to me to have to stop hearing the songs, which are so good!

I love all of this and the stevie episode. Can you do a lesson on “free stuff” like sunra, herbie and Keith Jarrett we’re doing with miles, Coltrane and McCoy, It’s free but there’s chromatic patterns n deep stuff actually happening I’m tryna figure out. I’m tryna play in all 12 keys at once

Does anyone else's audio cut out at 4:08?

Lots of quartal harmonies!

And this is just the harmonic genius - lyrically they are just as incredible and then there's the pioneering production techniques. All that before we even begin with the musicianship. They were/are the absolute best by a country mile.

FWIW I have absolutely seen sheet music for Deacon Blues where the second chord is spelled as a G add 9 over B.

It's probably my favourite album of all time, too. Ironically, in a fit of inverted snobbery throughout the 1970s I ignored Steely Dan because everyone else thought they were the coolest band to like. Then in late 1977, working in South Wales, UK, living in Crickhowell but based in Ebbw Vale, I went to a newsagent to buy some ciggies. There I saw a 'bargain bin' of albums, all at 50p each (that's half of £1 and about £2.57 with inflation). I looked through what was there and it was almost all shite, except for Aja and Abandoned Luncheonette. So I bought both. I suppose there was little call for sophisticated jazz/pop/jazz in Ebbw Vale, then a dying town with high unemployment after the steelworks was closed. Their loss, my gain.

Thanks

Someday listeners will have evolved and grown to love more sophisticated music. Someday.

Is it just me or does the sound cut out around 4:10?

Nice break-down. What do you make of that celeste-sounding (perhaps high-register Fender-Rhodes) arpeggio fairy-dust right @6.31 on "Deacon Blues"? The alternating maj/min walk-down fits nicely on the guitar fingerboard as well.

At nine minutes and 35 seconds you’re playing the famous ‘Mu” chord! One way I think about it is if you played a dominant seventh chord, it would have a flat 13 tension. Of course, you’re playing, in a sense, a major nine chord, with a third in the bass. Also, those downward sequences of the Mu chord followed by major seventh chord could, I think, be analyzed as a kind of constant structure, harmonic progression.

Wow this amazing 🥰👍🤩

'Aja' is my fave record, but nobody ever dissected it for me in such a helpful way (esp. not DF & WB.) I will be parsing this stuff on gtr.

My third child (last) and only daughter was born in 1985 and we named her Aja.

Steely awesomeness.

Thanks Man, groovy

cool vid!

UPTOWN BABY UPTOWN BABY FOR THE CROWN BABY WE GETS DOWN BABY…

Yes. NIGHTFLY "RUBY" and "Maxine"

4:54. I prefer to think of the chord as Eb7(#9). The flat confirms to my chord brain that we’re going down. 5:30. I prefer Gsus2/B, Fsus2/A, Asus2/C#, and back to Gsus2/B. These chord names reflect what we’re hearing. Maybe it’s just me; I’m not hearing minor #5 chords in this sequence.

Yes, I like the study and practice. Its very helpful. Thanks🎹🎶🎹🎶😀👋

Imagine the money these cords made. Amazing!

More steely dan content plzz!!!

The Dream Team. Steely Dan, John Coltrane, and Duke Ellington. Try to imagine what they could do...

This is great, Adam. I agree with you that the second chord in the Deacon Blues sequence functions as a G inversion +9. Calling it bm7#5 is unnecessarily confusing.

The BEST band ever...

When I got fed up listening to music When music became noise I c ontinued to listen to steely dan

I tend to think of the m7#5 as sus2/3. Dm7#5 = Bbsus2/D I find that thinking especially useful in terms of soloing on the changes. Edit: obviously, I commented a little too soon. Lol Hats off to Adam.

Love how Jimmy Page’s favorite solo @ da time-Reelin’ N da Years SD masters Pretzel 🥨 Logic💯my fav