What The Heck Is Neo-Riemannian Analysis? 

Klang Klang Klang went the trolley 🎵 Ring Ring Ring went the bell 🎵

Heh, yeah, I often get the two confused...

lol i got convinced bernard was actually called hugo x]

All the coolest people are called Riemann!

i love you all :P

actually, the riemann zeta function does show up when you're working with TOP tunings, and thus equal temperaments also :) xenharmonic.wikispaces.com/The+Riemann+Zeta+Function+and+Tuning

Heh. Ok, it's still pretty mathy, but it's just three transformations!

I laughed when you said simple after seeing the further transformation at 2:10....Is there anyway you could explain the part where you get the D major? How is that a Lead Tone Transformation? Confused

@@Chilajuana From F#min to Dmaj F# == F# C# -> D A == A Relative to D Major this motion "C# -> D" is a leading tone resolution iirc

Thanks!

Yeah, it's a little out there but it's super interesting and, if you're doing post-tonal stuff, pretty useful too!

Thanks!

I totally get that feeling. It can be hard to pick things back up because you feel like you've fallen so far from where you were, but trust me, it'll be fun to get back up on that horse! Maybe start with something you never really studied before so you'd be starting from scratch anyway, then work your way back to the review stuff?

12tone I may try that. Thanks.

The best thing about re-learning something is that you get to come at it with a whole new set of life experience in which to frame it. Go for it!

@@12tone I kept watching more videos about music theory, and now I'm more into it than I have ever been. I'm actually working on a studio album now.

Which song you had in mind?

Nvm. I figured it out. The thing is you move the 5th up a whole tone when moving from major to minor and the fundamental a whole tone down when moving from minor to major, when you are using the relative transformation.

I have that book too! Absolute gold, that book!

@@stephjohnsons Yes I loved that book read it the whole summer of 2021!

Power towers model for 7th chords

Thanks for the suggestion! At this point, though, we receive so many song requests that we can really only focus on the ones from our Patreon patrons. We just don't have the time to look at every song that comes in, unfortunately. There's a link to our Patreon in the video description if you're interested, though!

The mind blower is Allan Holdsworth's concept

I think that makes sense: You're saying that the further down the tree you go, the more work has to go into justifying the move? That seems pretty reasonable, assuming I'm interpreting you correctly. They're more distant chords, so it's less likely you'll have a straightforward reason to do it. Thanks for sharing!

@@12tone What about A Major to D/F# (I - IV), G minor (V -i), E/G# to A Major (V-I)?

Use another harmonic theory I think Jazz would be better there.

I know Take A Bow uses this, is it the only one?

Yeah, when you look at it like that, it becomes pretty clear just how much distance there is between them...

Actually I think that augmented chords are a part of it. Check out hexatonic cycles and Weitzmann regions!

Try the chord system of Pat Martino changing augmented chords to minor and major. And try dim7 to dom7 and m7b5.

+Audio Anomaly That's a great question! In figured bass, if you're using a chord that has a chromatically altered tone, all you have to do is put the appropriate accidental next to the altered tone's number in the figuration. For instance, if you're playing in E major and you want to play an A minor, you'd write your bass note A, then in the figuration you'd write b3. (Some people would use a natural sign, since the actual note is C natural, but I prefer to always use the accidental for clarity.) If it's in an inversion, of course, you would apply it to the appropriate note in that inversion's figure. For instance, if in the above example we wanted that A minor to be in second inversion, we would write the bass note E, then write b6/4. This applies to any non-diatonic chord. Secondary dominants, diminished 7ths, augmented 6ths, and other chromatic features all use the same technique. If you modulate, you can also use it, or you can change key signatures mid-piece if you don't want to write all the accidentals in the figuration. Whether that's worthwhile probably depends on how long you're modulating for.

Alright, thank you! That's actually simpler than I thought it would be.

Power towers model for 7th chords

Simply it connects musical events rather than labeling chord by chord!

Circle of fifths is a different theory and equally good!

Power towers model for 7th chords

I actually just watched that earlier today! It was really interesting to hear his thoughts, they're very different from how I tend to approach theory but clearly he has a deep understanding of the field. I think there's some relation to Neo-Riemannian theory, in that he seemed much more focused on voice-leading than on chord functions, but it felt sort of different too. He seemed very focused on chord voicings and the roles of individual chord tones within the larger whole, which isn't really what Neo-Riemannian theory is about. It seemed like a compatible but not identical philosophy, if that makes sense.

eden rubin this reminds me a bit of E minor Nocturne by Chopin, even it's using triads not allowed here and using some whole steps.

A lot of music from 19th century Romanticism utilize these moves to some degree or another. By the Late Romantic these moves form a large part of the music. Wagner, Verdi, and Chopin are great examples. (I noticed another reply mentioning Chopin's Nocturne in E Minor, which I think is the perfect example.) That said, these kind of techniques apply to a lot of music. Works by Steve Reich use these moves as well as jazz improvisers like Miles Davis and Bill Evans, although in more complicated ways than discussed in this video. My personal favorite example of Neo-Riemannian moves is Arvo Part's The Beatitudes. (I wrote a paper demonstrating the various ways Neo-Riemannian analysis applies to the structure of that composition, so I'm quite biased here.) Further Reading: Audacious Euphony by Richard Cohn A Geometry of Music by Dmitri Tymoczko tl;dr Wagner, Chopin, Miles Davis, and Steve Reich

I realise I said nocturne in e minor, but I meant Chopin's prelude in e minor

check out some Opeth songs, some of the chord progressions they use (especially in their "softer" songs) use this sort of harmonic structure

+eden rubin Some of Prokofiev's progressions were explained to me by my music professor using this analysis. The only one I can remember being parts of his Cantata for the 20th Anniversary of the October Revolution, which is an incredible piece of music.

It's something that this channel does for some reason. I don't understand why he chooses to make his videos so damn fast

being*

Maybe I phrased it poorly, but that was actually my point as well! I wasn't trying to imply that C minor was close to A major (As you say, it's clearly not!) but that, in standard functional harmony, B minor is effectively a lot closer, despite being the same number of transformations away, and that therefore in a "regular" progression, strict Neo-Riemmannian analysis may not always be the best tool for understanding chord relationships. Sorry if that wasn't clear!

Could be! It was meant to be 4/4, but it sounds worse with an accent on the downbeat of the first bar, so maybe it's a 5/4 pickup?

12tone maybe it's 3 measures of 1/4 and then 1 measure of 2/4?

I'd heard it as one measure of 4/4 with one attack on each pulse, then another measure of 4/4 with an attack only on the first pulse.

I'm very hesitant of any claim that starts with the idea that artistic perception can be scientifically proven or disproven. I think you're right that the physical phenomena aren't there, but that doesn't mean people can't still hear it that way. Musical experience is too subjective to be rigorously falsifiable.

12tone Yes, that's why in France the analysis theory taught is heterodox. And that's another reason to be very careful with neo-riemannian theory : it represent itself as a analysis theory which can be used to explain every harmonic movement from Monteverdi to Stockhausen. Historically, it's not possible.

You can slow the speed down

wow, what a brilliant idea.and so obvious. genius.

I guess some people are just naturally slow, eh?

@@kalleklopsklopsmann1891 This video was so easy to understand. If you want examples worked out, work them out yourself, right?. You're just slow.