I watched this movie just when it got released as a DVD during 2008 or 09 just then i noticed the similarity of the emotion it creates over a number of film scores, i cannot describe the feeling exactly but it brings up some kind a nostalgia. Then i forgot about it or thought it would be silly, untill now when i rewatched the movie like 14 yrs later, thought i should ask.
The Part from 3:36 - 4:27 Espescially from 4:30 to 5:30 Mins (sorry i coudnt find just that scene clip)

And why does it feel so similar to this, skip to 5:18 - 6:00 mins because both are flying

They both have some similarity (atleast to me), these chords have been used in countless movies but at the moment i can only bring this as an example, as Im not a trained musician or have an degre in music theory, i cant figure it out. I mean i could with melodyne and scaler. But it wont be as accurate and wanted to leave it to the experts here..

 

First video is blocked in my country lol. Second one... nothing really fancy, just playing with secondary harmonic relationships such as secondary dominants, subdominants and other functions as well as the minor subdominant.

 

Last edited: Jun 12, 2022

Crap that sucks, the first video is movie called Shortcut to Happiness the one with Alec Baldwin and Jennifer Love. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0263265/
U can use Touch vpn for firefox and chrome its free.

 

The chord pair is:

(Aug 6, V)

 

Total tosh.
The two videos have different chord progressions and neither of them is even remotely close to being (Aug 6, V)
Please show us the notes to support that pretentious nonsense - preferably tattooed on the side of a unicorn.

Edit: meanwhile, @justsomerandomdude - see PM for reference.

 

Last edited: Jun 12, 2022

A quick listen - In the first Video, after the words "then Johnny let go" - it's an E major (with a 2nd or 9th?) - going to an Eb7, back to the E major then to an F# major. with likely a 6 and/or 9 - the nuance tones are nicely orchestrated - I'd have to listen closer.
@Ad Heesive is correct it is definitely not Aug 6 / V? Not even close. If 'Sani' said Lydian IV as a starting point, that's a tad closer but even then, I'd have to hear the entire piece as it could well be a pivotal tonic starting point or a base the Orchestrator moved from...

It is possible the modal implications are more like Ellingtons 'Caravan' or Gillespie's 'Night in Tunisia' with the chordal semi-tones - though definitely not the same, yet having that sound that makes you think you've heard it before because of the chromatic chordal movement.

The second video is different again. Movement is intones not a semi-tone.
Fmajor to Eb major to F Major then to Gmajor.
Different sound. Then changes again.

If you mean the sound of "returning to the starting chord" - That is where the similarity lays.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Jun 12, 2022

This stuff is easy with just a little theory and ear training. The chords are F+13sus2sus4(b9), Gmaj9add4add6(b13)(b5).

 

It's so obvious..

 

Hi @justsomerandomdude

I'd like to do some repair work now.
I'll refer to both what I sent you in my PM and what @BaSsDuDe wrote above.

For the first video.
What I said was (summarised as below)
- It's in B Major
- Chords are E Major, D# minor, E Major, F# Major
- So the chords are IV, iii, IV, V
Which means I got an important part of that wrong! (the second chord)
So see @BaSsDuDe instead E major (with a 2nd or 9th?) - going to an Eb7, back to the E major then to an F# major

Notice the (big) difference. I left that D# iii chord as a (phrygian) minor chord D#m
@BaSsDuDe correctly heard it as a phrygian dominant instead. So it is Eb7 as @BaSsDuDe said and not the D#m that I said.
(now I can't believe I heard it so wrong - but that was my botch)
A phrygian minor would be diatonically correct, but changing it to a phrygian dominant is probably one of the most common alterations of all time, so mega-stupid of me to mis-hear that.
Aside: notice how the E Major being regarded as Lydian is also correct. @BaSsDuDe and me both knew it was the IV chord.

For the second video.
Differences between my version and @BaSsDuDe's version must be as confusing as hell.
Here's why. You gave us time period 5:18 - 6:00
@BaSsDuDe described a four bar section from about 5:20 - 5:30
I described a 6 bar section from about 5:48 - 6:02
Those sections are very different

@BaSsDuDe's four bars Fmajor to Eb major to F Major then to Gmajor.
I'll query that - I hear that fourth chord as D Major not G Major

The bit just after that seems to be F,C,G,G
So the full 8 bars (5:20 - 5:38) would be F,Eb,F,D,F,C,G,G (I hope )

Then my last 6 bars (which for some reason was all I focussed on the first time around )
is (I hope) still as I described in my PM.
Which was... G, Dm, G, Dm, BbMaj7, G and that was nice to analyse a bit.
(but I haven't re-checked this so botches could be everywhere)

Toggling between chords G Major and D minor
- As though in Key C Major
- where the G is the V chord
- and the Dmin is the ii chord

Then it plays BbMaj7
- As though it's changed key to F Major
- where the BbMaj7 is the IV chord
So a very temporary key change and then it goes straight back to the G Major chord
But in all the mist, it sometimes seems to hinting at playing BbMaj7 instead of Dminor
That's ok of course because the 4 notes in BbMaj7 are Bb,D,F,A - and the upper 3 notes there are a D minor triad.
So to me it seems to be straddling two keys
- When the G Major sounds it is leaning towards Key C Major
- When the BbMaj7 sounds it is more like in Key F Major
- When playing the D minor it could be in either C Major or F Major
For those 6 bars, I thought that straggling two keys was part of its appeal.

I've spared describing this in modal terms (even though I reckon that would be better)
Oh f*#k it - just go with @Crinklebumps

 

Last edited: Jun 12, 2022

You are probably right - I was hearing as I usualy do bass up - I kept hearing the G in the bass. I am happy to be wrong sincerely. Well done with the rest!! Excellent actually

@Ad Heesive - One of the better parts of being human is our ability to communicate and reason things out. Like me hearing the G bass where the Dmaj was - We are human and none of us perfect which is a good thing.

There is one other thing I hinted at which was the composer deciding on a tonal centre... I intially thought the same thing, B major as the tonal centre which is why I alluded to the E Lydian.
It makes sense especially with the F# major as well as the A#(Bb) in the F# indicates it probably is an E Lydian. However, it is not unusual for a composer to set a starting key or a starting chord as their tonal centering. Without seeing the orchestral chart whether it has 4 sharps or 5 sharps, I cannot say - so our ideas while being sound will never be 100% sure because without the chart or the composer discussing how he composed it and why, we can only surmise based on how the harmony moves. I'd also like to hear the entire piece that would seal it.

There is one thing you might like to try - the F# - play with the 7th notes of the F#. Interesting.

Always a pleasure.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Jun 12, 2022

Thank you guys, i never thought i could get much insight on the topic. Thank you @Ad Heesive @BaSsDuDe u guys rock, and others as well.
this gave enough stuff to learn now

 

Obviously

True, I would leave German sixths and Mozart's (parallel) fifths out of this one..

After a short listen, my take on this would be something like @BaSsDuDe already wrote (after the "..Johnny let go.."):

E
D#-G-A# - its what we* call a variant chord on Lydian seventh degree (major third instead of minor), very common
E
F# - secondary dominant of E
D - secondary sub-dominant
C - variant on 6th
B - dominant of E
..and so on and so forth

here is how (roughly) the melody goes and the chords.. for orientation only:



*where I live ;)

 

I think this might be the right place, so im asking. About similarity, i have so many like these that i don't know the answers, i know i cannot ask everything but here's some thing that was bugging me for a while. (Pls Skip to 1:59 after the glissando all through the end)

felt so familiar, the tune. Watched this when was very young, I never found out if this was a real song or it was made for the show. I certainly doubt its not. But what took me back was this Justice song when i heard the very first time it was released.
(Skip to 4:09 all trough end)

Is this from a song?

 

The last example is a pretty common chord progression, here's an exemple with the same chord progression and in the same key:

 

I see it, but the last example is about the tune itself, like i have heard it before. I know justice uses samples and im not saying its a sample, the scale and rhythm are different and its too perfect to be a sample. But the movement is somewhat similar, like an old forgotten tune very well suited for an ending like in the first example "the Sunset" also very well in the second example too as its (close call) the last song in that album.

 

Last edited: Jun 12, 2022

Quick listen on this part and I cannot hear the bass notes on the 2nd and 4th chord clearly... it's like a D, to a diminished, to Em7 to a diminished again, to an F#m? to Bm the II/V back to D- something like that - I'll have a listen later when I can hear it on a better system. Several older jazz standards use this type of progression. Maybe that's why the familiarity?

 

Last edited by a moderator: Jun 12, 2022

Nice,
Would like to discuss this bit (I don't disagree at all - just worth discussing)

I hadn't heard it referred to that way before, but of course there has to be a way of labelling it from wherever you are in a diatonic space. And the labelling systems for all this kind of stuff are (inevitably) a chaotic mess.

So in this comment...
(1) some discussion that explains what we're talking about here
(2) just checking, that we're discussing the exact same notes (I hope)
(hence a specific question for @RobertoCavally at the end)

The oldest classic example (context) that I first remember making sense to me was simple blues...
Contrived example:- take an ultra-vanilla minor 12-bar blues, say in key of A minor. (A natural minor - A Aeolian)
So we're trying (not very musically) to deliberately use only the white notes on a piano.
4 bars of Am (Aeolian minor)
2 bars of Dm (Dorian minor)
2 bars of Am (Aeolian minor)
1 bar of Em (Phrygian minor)
1 bar of Dm (Dorian minor)
1 bar of Am (Aeolian minor)
1 bar of (DAMN!)
that last bar of (should have been) Em just refuses to sound right as E minor
and we're all gagging to hear it altered to a Dominant 7 chord instead
We crave the Dominant 7 (V->i) resolution, so we alter the (phrygian) E minor chord to a phrygian-dominant E7 chord
In that alteration, the actual note difference is only that we change the G to a G# (minor 3rd to Major 3rd)
(E,G,B) becomes (E,G#,B) - or more elaborately as sevenths (E,G,B,D) becomes (E,G#,B,D)
Everything else is still the white notes from our original diatonic space.

Now, how do we choose to see, and label, that one note alteration - from a variety of perspectives.
An obvious first perspective is to see it from the the classical A natural minor perspective. i.e., from the key we're playing in.
By altering G to G#, we just changed our A natural minor scale to A harmonic minor scale. (very traditional)

Then we can explore this Harmonic minor scale in the traditional way and ask what modes does it have?.
and then we have to find funny quirky (rarely useful?) names for each of the 7 modes of that harmonic minor scale. e.g.,
Root mode (start on the A) - Harmonic Minor Scale
2nd mode (start on the B) - called "Locrian Natural 6"
3rd mode (start on the C) - called "Major Augmented"
4th mode (start on the D) - called "Lydian Diminished"
5th mode (start on the E) - called "Phrygian Dominant" (** See discussion above **)
6th mode (start on the F) - called "Aeolian Harmonic"
7th mode (start on the G#) - called "Ultralocrian"

NOTE: these are not the only names used for these modes, the names breed like rabbits
e.g.,(a small subset)
Lydian Diminished is also known as Ukranian Dorian
Ultralocrian also known as Superlocrian or Altered Diminished
Aeolican Harmonic also known as Lydian #2
etc, etc, etc
You can see how all these names derive from just whatever perspective someone had while looking at the scale.

--

Back to the question part of this comment...

The chord that @RobertoCavally (correctly) referred to as
"a variant chord on Lydian seventh degree (major third instead of minor), very common"
That looks to me like you're describing it from another very nice perspective
(i.e., if you're anchored to Lydian as root and then describing the seventh degree - have you got a label though? )

Can you confirm that my assumption is correct...?
i.e., the scale underpinning that chord is exactly the same notes as in the stuff described above,
most commonly referred to as the 5th mode of the harmonic minor scale - and hence most often called Phrygian-Dominant

IF that's NOT true then I will be on the receiving end of some very nice new information.

Cheers

 

Last edited: Jun 13, 2022

@Ad Heesive Dude i said it b4 i say it again, the effort u put to explain things is amazing. 10 or 20 years later, posts like these will become a treasure trove to someone like me.
I understand this is for the first post/example, but can u look into the second one too, the once which @Djord Emer replied to and tell me if u have heard that anywhere b4, is that from a real song or its made for the the show?
Thanks Again

 

@Ad Heesive, as usual very informative and very well put.

AFAIK, absolutely correct - a major chord for the V-i resolution. Also, the rest seems totally ok to me.

-----

To (try to) answer this question and check that we are on the same page - what would be the root of the Phrygian-Dominant mode (or the root of that harmonic minor, on which it's built on) in the concrete example (1st vid, 3:36-) for that backward (A#-G-(D#))?

-----

Discussion, well hell yeah! But I don't have any problems with disagreement either.

In fact I thought we had a deal you'd clean up the mess..

 

I always find questions like this interesting. It truly does depend on the composer's intent. In pure form it is the bass note - That said - I mentioned a few times about seeing the original chart - I know myself, I have written tunes with a bass pedal - This changes the entire theory altogether - Does the root become the pedal?, or in your case in the Phrygian-Dominant the bass note or the root of the scale? or the tonal starting point of the whole tune? or the core root of the original starting scale? Truthfully - depending on intent it could be anything - often composers use the bass to say "This is the root" and often they also do not. John Coltrane on his tune "Spiral" pedals the bass note and the chords descend chromatically in major triads - Is the bass note the root or the chords? or where the tune goes after that? He's not alive so I cannot ask him. Stevie wonder did a similar approach in his tune "Too High" except the bass note moves.
The application of it I have started to think is more important than what something might be or is supposed to be.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Jun 14, 2022