A LOVE LETTER TO CHORDS
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A short love letter to chords. Not meant to be an authoritative guide, nor anything much more than inspiration to get you to put your hands on instruments, and not to be afraid to suck at it while you learn.
NOTE: I am an electronic musician, a designer, and a huge fan of synthesizers. I am not an authority, nor am I a historian. These love letters (I should think that it goes without saying) are Op Ed (opinion based editorial) and thus they are filled with hyperbole, artistic license and some degree of speaking categorically to get the point across. This is not the first word, or anywhere near the last word on the story I’m telling. It’s just a love letter.
©2019 The Urgency Of Change
Special thanks to KORG, Roland, Doepfer Musikelektronik, ISLA Instruments, Der Jim, and Les Trois Gymnopedie
39 Comments
loving this ♥ ♥
and your bedtime story voice
The Satie playing in the background is very nice. Thanks Sunshine ♥
I love when you do these
@Dave Meeker me too
I’m in love with this Mr. Jones.
I could listen to you describe anything but when its something like this.!.!.!.!.! ♥
Pure love for this video. Now off to spend some time on my chords I go.
Thank you so much for making this. : )
Love this ♥
Thank you Sunshine
Love the chords yes I do!
thank you
Man, I love that Satie piece. Nice playing.
more, more, more!! i loved this!
I love this
Another super inspiring piece, Sunshine!
Love your love letters, your passion for music and gear is inspirational ♥ Thank you
♥ ♥
that was beautiful
So much Yes in here! Thanks again Sunshine!
The single best piece of advice you EVER gave me was to get a chord chart.
What is your full chain for the audio here? Your voice sounds so crisp in this.
I really enjoy your videos and read a whole lot of your non fiction stuff on this website too. Just want to let you know that I really enjoy what you do and your videos are great, so is your writing. Your whole play live philosophy is wonderful and it’s been really inspiring. Thank you.
Love this. You are right on. I told myself for years that I “can’t play”. I still can’t but I stopped telling myself that long enough to put some time in to practicing and learning some basic theory and the impact on my production has been immense. Just knowing a few of the basic “rules” made a huge difference in my sound whether I decide to follow the rules or not.
This is great ♥
I love, love this video! Well done mate! : D
♥
So good
Just made my morning. Thank you Sunshine.
not sure why you’re displaying alphajuno’s chord memory yet there’s no sound on what alphajuno is playing. also how come chord memory is linked with disco sucks furor? confusing. those peeps certainly knew how to play chords. what? i realize you’re cutting corners and this isn’t supposed to be historically accurate or accurate in any way, but….???
@Esa – Perhaps something was lost in the translation?
My illustration of the alpha Juno chord memory was not meant to be a technical demo of how it works, but rather, visual content for while I described the concept of chord memory and how it took a while to catch on in popular music.
And I chose the disco sucks moment as a prime example of people who felt that synthesizers and sequencers were not “real music”
It is my assertion that I don’t believe that people were actually talking about song construction… but rather, at the shallow end loudly complaining about style, and at the deep end wailing about the modern world and complaining about a lack of music theory.
As I said, the argument is silly. But at that time – as 20th century electronic technology got involved in chord construction and automation people were violent about their hatred for it.
Often people who really loved decidedly untalented and rudimentary music would seek out and beat up people in bands with a drum machine or a synth.
Fear of the future. Fear of technology. Fear of music.
Not unlike some of what’s going on now in some areas of American life.
I am not cutting corners, rather, choosing to illustrate briefly and not get hung up on details or minutea (as described in my disclaimer about op ed in the post itself.)
Getting a little history across, and as much info in as short a time as possible with emotional impact is the aim.
On the chord chard –
Good job finding it. I posted a chord chart a while back that I made but that would require either some digging around here, or a trip to my web site.
The non fiction section there has many love letters and cheat cards and diagrams for you.
What an amazing video! I’m inspired. Thank you!
This is fantastic. Nice one Sunshine!
♥
Wow! Merci! ♥
The latter part of this clip is great, I have a chord chart, but not to learn, only as a reference when I want a thicker sound to a part I’m working on. We all sucked at one time. Some of us still suck less, but we have a better understanding after all these years of how things work.
Thanks for giving.
That was very beautiful and totally inspiring.
I cherish these videos… every time you post a new one I rewatch all of them. They are just fucking lovely