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Which song do you think has Brians most interesting chord changes?

For me I'd say it's a three-way tie between Girls on the Beach, Warmth of the Sun and Our Sweet Love. 

Frank Zappa once commented on Brian's chord changes in Little Deuce Coupe, of all songs. Said the 1-2-5 progression was a novel idea.

Yeah I read that too. Cool to hear a virtuoso musician diggin brians songcraft.

V-ii-V-ii-I, slightly more accurately.  I don't know, there's a lot of neat changes.  Wouldn't It Be Nice's key changes are cool and subtle.  The bridge of "Friends" is neat, how the bass climbs chromatically.  Cabinessence is an engaging sequence.

I'm not well versed on theory, but I think the chord change at the end of the chorus of "Let Him Run Wild" is great... the part just before "I guess you know I waited for you girl".  Anybody else think that? 

Yeah I like that one a lot, very tasteful. Changes from a C#7 to a C#m7.

The Warmth Of The Sun, IJWMFTT, and I Went To Sleep immediately spring to my mind . . . and also Surf's Up, etc., ad infinitum . . .

To me, the most interesting element of IJWMFTT is the melody.  The chords are great, but Brian involved more inventive changes.  The melody is just really kind of out there when you think about it, or play it on a keyboard by itself.  You could teach a class in melody writing around that melody.

True. All the pet sounds melodies are wacky. Oh and I forgot to mention the changes on Don't Talk are stunning as well.

No love for This Whole World?

My vote for most interesting chord changes would be "The Warmth of the Sun"

I would say "Wonderful." The chords are just all over the place.

I Wanna Pick You Up has some really beautiful changes, if one were to take a closer look.  I think musically it ranks up right with Warmth Of The Sun, Girls On The Beach, Surf's Up, etc. when it comes interesting chord changes, combined with melody, of course, because the greatest chord changes in the world would only be that because of how they work with the melody. 

Oh man, I totally forgot about This Whole World. Good choices guys.

Mike, I think you started a great thread and people are digging it.  See what we mean...?

 ;D

Awesome thread!  This is tough, since there are so many innovative chord changes in Brian's music.  A few songs that come to mind:

Warmth of the Sun: That E flat major comes out of nowhere but works flawlessley with the melody lines
Don't Talk: Strings during the break.  Subtle changes but very effective.  No chord repeats!
God Only Knows: you know the chords in a song are good when you can argue for more than one home key.  Is it in A?  Is it in E (most likely but who really knows?)?  And what about the vocal break?  The chord changes are fascinating, yet sound so logical with the melody.  An awesome bass line helps too.

Others off the top of my head include Wonderful, Cabinessence (especially "Grand Coulee Dam"), Caroline No, It's Over Now...I'm sure there are many others that I'm forgetting.

Can't forget a very early example: The Lonely Sea, with the single note over the changing chords, like a soul afloat tumultuous, cascading waves.

Didn't Gary Usher write most of the music for that one though?

Wasn't aware of his contribution.  Anyone else want to chime in on this?  I thought it was mostly Brian, personally.

Can't find any documentation, so it's not in a standard book (other than to say it was their first song together), but somewhere someone stated that Gary had the chord progression he showed Brian and Brian added the melody, and the two did words together.

Don't take this serious, but, somewhere, someone stated in their previous post...

 ;) ;D :D ::)

So you memorize every source of every thing you find on the web, and save every post you ever see?  I have been on the web now for ten years, and have seen countless posts from Alan Boyd, Brad Elliott, Mark Linett, AGD, and so on.  ONE of them at some point posted that.  Please forgive me if I can't remember who posted it and when, but someone did.  And I don't see you stepping up with anything different about that.  Plus, the chord progression is so different from standard Brian Wilson changes.  It is a lovely song, but it doesn't sound harmonically to me like a BW song.

Hey, that's not fair --- you took me serious!  ;)

I remember that too, Jeff.  Something to the effect that Gary began the song, played it for Brian, and then Brian finished it.

Not to derail this thread, but it just doesn't seem like Compost without the frightening images in the avatar and sig....

Yeah, Compost, didn't recognize you at first... :)

Now, to get back on track for a sec...yes, I didn't have anything concrete to back up what I thought.  That is why I asked for others to chime in, meaning other than you, Jeff.  No offense intended by that italicization - I do do believe you!

No no prob I Dig Dig Worms...

Surfer Girl is Brian at younger best, combining the innocence of the song and subject matter with a sophisticated chord change. The verse starts off as a standard I-vi-IV-V progression, D-Bminor-G-A. Then he takes it into Brian Wilson land, going to Dmajor7 rather than the standard D major, then dropping one note to form D7, then resolving that to G major and dropping again to G minor before starting the cycle again with D.

The brilliant part of that progression is the inner chromatic voice leading heard in one line, which would be a descending line starting on the note C# (the major 7th of D), dropping to C (the flat 7th of D), then to B (the major 3rd on G), to Bb (the minor 3rd on G), finally resolving to the note A (the 5th of D). It's the stuff that all the best close jazz voicings and harmonizations are built around, and of course I'm not crediting Brian Wilson with inventing that progression, but he deserves credit for using it as a 19 or 20 year old guy writing about a surfer girl.

The younger Brian's reharmonization of the vocal break in "Why Do Fools Fall In Love" nearly brings a tear to my eye. Exhilarating three bars or so of music, that transforms an already classic tune which Frankie Lymon owned into something only Brian might think of doing.

Time for one more:
Brian was a somewhat of a genius in writing non-standard chord progressions for the choruses and main hooks of his tunes. Check out the choruses to both "California Girls" and "Good Vibrations":

The chorus chords of California Girls and Good Vibrations both move in whole steps, essentially changing keys, or creating "keys of the moment" with every change. California Girls moves down in whole steps, starting with a C to Dmin7 progression (I-ii in C major), then dropping to Bb to Cmin7 (I to ii in Bb major), then going to Ab major to Bb minor (I to ii yet again), finally resolving up a whole step to the original key of C. So that is Brian's borrowing some techniques and progressions from modal harmony and making it his own in a brilliant pop song.

Good Vibrations does the same thing, but with a twist. After the initial, and somewhat standard progression in the verse, he starts the heavier chorus section on Gb, then he moves up a whole step to Ab for the next phrases, then ends the chorus up yet another whole step to Bb, which coincidentally is the V chord which resolves perfectly to the first chord of the verse: Ebminor.   

Brian was great at creating harmonic cycles,  or forming progressions with groups of chords that relate more to an interval-based cycle than a central chord or key. It's again a bit of an old jazz composition trademark that Brian can't claim as his own, but the way he shaped and used those ideas in his music was brilliant and original. "The Little Girl I Once Knew" has a similar cycle in its chorus, as does "Cool Cool Water/Love To Say DaDa/In Blue Hawaii", as do several other BW classics.

Honorable mentions to discuss later: the opening chords of Catch A Wave; the opening chords of When I Grow Up; the chorus chords of I Get Around; the entire song Let Him Run Wild; the brilliant chorus of Time To Get Alone; the strumming/wordless vocal section of Little Pad; etc, etc, etc.

"Breakaway".

Love all the other choices here as well; glad "Girls On The Beach" is getting mentioned.

Here's a slightly later one but a worthy candidate:  Good Timin'.

Somewhat on topic: it's noteworthy how much counterpoint (contrary melodic motion in the melody vs. bass lines, or between inner harmonic lines) there is in a lot of Brian's music, but especially SMiLE.  Most obvious examples: Our Prayer, Wonderful, Cabinessence (harmonica vs. melodica), and parts of Surf's Up.  Especially noteworthy since Brian intuited all of this without any formal music theory training.  Having said that one of the regulars will no doubt recall that lots of folks did notice that quality before but I just didn't bother to read it... apologies in advance,,,

Of the ones not mentioned, these spring to mind: When I Grow Up (To Be a Man) and Dance, Dance, Dance.

The coolest thing about Dance Dance Dance is the sudden key change in the middle of the last verse...such a non-standard place to change keys but Brian makes it work seamlessly. 

Time To Get Alone.

Girls On The Beach

Caroline No

That's Not Me

Wake The World

...................plus about 500 others.

Does anybody know of a really informative website for which I can study theory a bit more in depth? Learning Brian's songs has taught me more in a few months than i've learnt in a good five years. I'm now interested to move a bit deeper into something.

I'd prefer if you went with a book.  I have yet to find a really good website.

I'll try and bum a ride to the library tomorrow. I've got no money to buy one.

In my years of studying music theory, I've found that the books alone don't work as well as having someone demonstrating and explaining the concepts in person, and being available to ask questions if you need further clarification.

And it helps a great deal to have specific examples to listen to as you're learning, so you can hear what the various concepts sound like with real music, and put it all together for a better understanding.

A book and CD package would be great to save up some money to buy: "Berklee Press", for one example of many, has such a book/CD devoted to teaching theory.

I'm biased - I had some wonderful teachers in high school and college who taught me not only traditional theory, but also how the modern, popular composers took those concepts and adapted them into popular styles. In other words, the very same thing as I described Brian's writing descending chromatic lines on a tune as innocent as Surfer Girl.

If you play a specific instrument, make sure to memorize all of the scales, key signatures, triads, and arpeggios on that instrument. Start with that knowledge of keys, scales, and triads, and it all flows from there.

If you have any theory-related questions, start up a thread on this board somewhere and ask those questions! We'll try to answer them, I'm sure. I teach music and would be willing to answer them as best as I can, and other members love to discuss these things as well. It's up to you. 

I just wish I hadn't wasted four years of high school not attending a Music Theory class.

I've been teaching myself through learning songs and making my own with my growing knowledge.

Don't look back at what you missed! What I'm saying is feel free to ask any questions, or set up a separate thread for a specific theory discussion and I'll discuss what I can, along with, I'm sure, other musicians here who would enjoy discussing these things as well (as shown in this thread alone).

"It's Over Now"
"Sail On Sailor"
"Pom Pom Play Girl" or at least the vocal harmonisations, I think they must be called part of the harmonic scheme
"She Knows Me Too Well"

Yeah, I'm seconding...  Despite dropping out of my Music Theory based major in college, I actually do love discussing theory (and I wish my professors did, too...) so ask away.

"Cry."

If any single song shows that Brian can still produce an amazing song from nowhere, this is the one. Shame it had to have a backing track produced by Joe Thomas, but this tune kills me.

No one's mentioned til I die?

I remember reading Brian's summation of that song and how he spent months and months working on the music for it. The work truly paid off. It's one of the most evocatively dooming peices i've ever heard.

I've just bought The Complete Idiot's Guide to Music Theory.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1592574378/102-9497219-4584163?v=glance&n=283155

You aren't a complete idiot, though.  ;)

Someone call me...?

Yes, I never even noticed that (but again, I know little about theory).

Here's a question... is it possible that little, interesting, strange things like this pop up because Brian practically writes the songs as instrumentals and then layers vocals on top?  For instance, maybe he wrote "dance dance dance" as music long before he wrote the lyrics, and basically composed a key change dead in the middle of what later became the second line of Mike's vocal?

Now that I think of it... I can so hear latter day Brian humming (in the impatient, off tempo, excited way that he has) dooom doom doom doom daa daa da... DOOM DOOM DOOM DAA DAAA DAA DAAA!!!" and instructing a key change just because he was excited about how rockin'! the song was in instrumental form.

How about Good To My Baby.... that instrumental NEEDS the vocals, but it's still amazing. It had to be planned that way.

Everything that happens within those songs was planned by Brian in advance...like in "Dance Dance Dance", he clearly starts out the last verse exactly the same as the previous two, but throws in the key change out of left field.  A more conventional place to do it would have been during the instrumental break, or perhaps at the end of a chorus.  But Brian was never really one to obey rules like that anyways.  But what made it all possible was the advanced planning...lyrics weren't really much of a concern for Brian it doesn't seem, at least not above the music, melody and harmonies.

I have a quick question to which their might be no definate answer.

How long did Brian usually take between getting initial idea for a song and having it completed and in the stages of recording?

He and Van Dyke apparently wrote songs together quickly but I've always assumed it was the sections they wrote and not full songs at once. Brian said that by Friends he was an experienced songwriter and those songs came easy and quickly to him. Does anyone have a rough estimate on the amount of time he spent in writing a song?

There's no definite answer as you say, I'm sure it varied...  However, I will say that at times it would not take Brian very long.  God Only Knows famously took just a few minutes.

Don't know if anyone's mentioned "It's Over Now". Those chords are pretty strange.
Assuming it's in G. The verse goes:
Gmaj7, then Gb5b7 repeated (whatever that is) - Interesting thing. The melody line is F E D C#, with the F note being sung over the Gmaj7 chord. Should be totally dischordant. But it's not. It's Brian Wilson.
Cmaj, Bmin7, E7, Amin7, Cminb8(Is there such a thing???), G/D, B/Eb, Emin7
Then it goes:
A/E, B/Eb, G/D, A/Db - A kind of take on the chromatic descending minor chord progression found in such songs as Looking at Tomorrow and others (Lady O a bit, can't think of any others)
Then C then Eb or something, never worked out that chord.

Anyhoo. Complicated song, or it seems so on the guitar, probably not so on the piano. You could never write a Brian Wilson song on the guitar.

I love the role guitar took in Brian Wilson productions from ASL - Smile.  After that it started getting a little typical.  I think every beginning guitarist should be played Pet Sounds.  We might just get rid of new albums with wall-to-wall power chords just yet.

Do you mean C minor with a major 7th? (That's what I assume b8 means to you.) If so, yes, there is such a thing used in jazz.


Except Girl Don't Tell Me and I'd Love Just Once To See You.

Ooh, the ultra-rare flat 8th.  I suppose you'd need one of those if you required both the subtonic and leading tones played in a chord simultaneously?


Not to mention spy movies and Portishead albums.

What's with this kind of music anyway?

It amazes me that people are content with such simple stuff. The people in my "band" would prefer the same old thing to musical progress.

It's attractive to the guitar player because power chords ar easy to play, and it's attractive to the player and the listener because power chords are, well, powerful.  They have their place.

Exactly. Great post, Aeij.

This a fascinating discussion. I often hear people say Brian's brilliance lies in the chords, but it means a lot to me to hear why and how.

I admit to having a rudimentary knowledge of chord theory. That is, I played around with the guitar when I was a kid and gained some understanding of how chords work there, but never developed an ear for which chord is which. I also sang (and sometimes still sing) madrigals with an amateur chorus, but my experience is mostly in developing an ear for singing the right note in the harmony.

So, this is a question for those more knowledgable than I on chords and their theory. I have heard that Carl and Dennis also used unusual chordings in their compositions (surely an influence from their big brother and maybe also all being siblings) -- can anyone confirm? TIA.  ::)

Carl and Dennis did use some different chords in their music. Al used them sometimes too. Bruce's music is FULL of them.

Carl was probably the most influenced by Brian. Certainly, Carl could convincingly ape Brian's arranging and production style (Carl,  the original Darian Sahanaja?)

So, if all the BBs are getting into unusual chording, is this something that arose from the serendipity of working together? Of working under Brian's tutelage/influence? Which leads back to the layman's question of how are Brian's chordings so different, unique, special, and influential?

That's an interesting thought about Darian and Jeff taking on Carl's role nowadays, which I think is the case.

But notice, too, that when bands cover Brian's songs one of the first things they're likely to do is remove the subtle stuff.  Pull out Caroline Now! or GUESS I'M DUMB or SMiLEs, ViBES, & HARMONY and it seems like most of the interesting chords we all love so much are just flattened out, simplified, and just dumbed down.  As with most pop music, the focus often shifts to striking a pose over the song rather than melody or arrangement.

I've always thought that the stuff we love the most in Brian's (and other artists') work is stuff very few people hear.  Most people just skate over the surface of things, and that's why most of popular culture is what it is.

Dennis clearly was listening to Brian in the realm of the Pedal Bass and related to that unusual chord inversions.  Dennis almost overdid it, actually.

A pedal tone is, basically and for our purposes here, a bass note that continues across several chords.  So, take a look at "Slip On Through."

The chords for the  verse are e minor and A major, I believe.  However, the bassline underneath is emphasizing an E note under both chords.  E is the root of the first chord, the e minor, but it is the fifth of the A major chord, putting that chord in second inversion.  The chorus then does much the same thing, D major to G Major keeping the D in the bass across the changes.

In Brian's work, that kind of thing is all over, but whereas Dennis favoured simple chord changes over a pedal tone, Brian tended to be switching bass notes more, but often in very unusual ways.  Holidays for instance has a  two chord vamp for I guess the "chorus" where the chords are Cmaj7 to a minor 7, but the bass is playing B over the first chord.  B is the major seventh of the Cmaj7 chord, putting that chord in what amounts to a third inversion.

Another favorite trick of Brian's is the minor 7th chord with the 5th in the bass (Surf's Up, begins with one such chord) as well as a IV chord with the V in the bass.

I also wonder if how each chord is voiced was influenced by his constant listening to the 4 Freshmen who used complex harmonies that had notes that were "spread out" more.

This is fascinating stuff.

I wanted to ask you brilliant people about one of Brian's songs.  Again, excuse my lack of theory.  Isn't the 'shuffle' in California Girls upside down?  You know what I'm talking about? Instead of going, ergh, something like e, f, g, f he goes something like b, down to f, g, f (I'm guessing on how it sounds on a guitar, I'm probably way off).  It sounds like a traditional kind of blues riff but really it starts high and goes back down instead of building up.   I'm talking about the notes on the bassline, I guess.  Do lots of people do that, or did I find something interesting?

Notice that I mentioned several times in my posts that Brian Wilson cannot be credited with the harmonic structures being analyzed in this thread. If you want to know where Carl and Dennis got their ideas for pedal bass and all of that, look first and foremost to Brian - period. All those years of watching and hearing him play those same structures, and then being asked to sing them in harmony, was easily their biggest influence.

But if you want to know where Brian got those thick voicings, like starting a minor 7th stacked harmony with the 5th in the bass, it's jazz pure and simple. Jazz of the variety Duke Ellington was writing for his bands in the 20's, jazz of the variety Fletcher Henderson was writing for horn sections in the 30's, and jazz of the variety popular music used to accept as standard practice for the hits of the day, at least until the later 50's when audiences turned away from it, leaving the sophistication to more"adult" styles of music. In Brian's day, the Four Freshmen were "popular music", and it would be like us today turning on the radio and hearing Weezer doing "Beverly Hills". It was Brian's popular music. Imagine a song like "Mona Lisa", with Nelson Riddle's arrangement, being considered a jukebox hit of its time - compared to nearly anything heard as a hit today, Mona Lisa sounds like it came from Mars...and debate on your own whether that's a good or bad thing. But listeners of popular music were accustomed to hearing more advanced harmonies and arrangements in music back in that day, and back in that day was also when Brian was coming of age and learning how to play and write music on his own. That can't be stressed enough - that was his popular music, and the context of having his jazzy sophistication next to Carl and Mike's heavier rhythm and blues, well...

There lies Brian Wilson's main innovation, I believe. He bridged the gap between jazz and popular, and then jazz and rock-and-roll, for younger audiences who were missing one or the other. Having a band of white kids from California singing like the Four Freshmen or the Modernaires on top of driving Chuck Berry rock rhythms and surf guitar sounds was original. People who liked the power and drive of rock were hearing jazz. Vice versa, people who dug the jazzy elements were hearing rock. But that's all been said before.

People who have experience listening to and playing/writing jazz won't hear as much innovation in what Brian was *doing* with his harmonies, but rather how he was *using* those harmonies in the contexts of his songs, and more importantly, perhaps, how he managed to "sell" those sounds to the new "pop" audiences and not have them reject something outside of standard triad-based harmony. Up until, say, 1966, perhaps Bacharach and Brian were the innovators in that way, and others began to feel that similar influence and do their own versions of it - to great effect. But most of it can be traced back to big-band jazz arranging techniques, from a strictly technical perspective.

It remains innovative today in 2006 to hear even a trace of a jazz harmony voicing, or even the use of a tension like a 9 or a 13 on top of a standard chord/triad, in what we have been calling "popular" music since the 50's. The Beatles, God Bless 'Em, ended She Loves You with a simple substitution of a 6th on a major chord, and musicians still love to point that last chord out as an example of sub-genius. Well, it sounds cool and ends the tune nicely, but it's nothing more than a substitution! So hearing something with a pedal bass, or an upper-structure triad in a song written by someone named Wilson can have that same effect, because as modern listeners, those sounds may not be as common or as familiar as the more blues-based rock sounds we've grown up with. Someone who may have only listened to rock music for years, upon hearing something like Pet Sounds or Bacharach for the first time, would naturally think it was several levels above what they are familiar with and confortable with hearing from pop music. The chords are thick, the changes unexpected, the vocals doing things beyond singing 3rds and 6ths in two-part harmony on the choruses. If all of that sounds new, the instinct might be to credit the artist who is introducing those sounds to their ears as the innovator. In some ways, that is true in the context of what they're hearing, but the technical nuts-and-bolts of writing jazz harmony and using jazz harmony in popular music can be traced further back.

It's just a shame that several times on this board's previous incarnation, my and others' attempts at getting some jazz music appreciation started were met by some pretty dumb and pretty ignorant attempts to dismiss the topic. Anyone digging Brian's, and Carl's, and Dennis' harmonic structures could take away so much from a few listens to jazz...and hopefully put some of those concepts and structures to use in the next wave of original pop music.
   

Hall Of Fame post, guitarfool.  A great read: as a jazz listener I agree, and as an otherwise musically ignorant bastard, I absorb and mull with interest.

Almost from "That's All Right, Mama" forward,  Rock and Roll has suffered from artistic incest (and never moreso than today), and it's bands like the Beatles, the Beach Boys, and Dylan who brought influences from other places that breathed new life into it.

This is a fascinating post Guitarfool, thanks. I don't understand why jazz has disappeared so much from modern pop music. I think the genius of B Wilson was he managed to incorporate jazz chords in a way that sounded new and contemporary in the 60s, but no-one, to my knowledge, really took that torch from him and developed it. Now when we get modern pop music that borrows from jazz it's in some hideous homage/parody of the 40's/50s a la Jamie Cullum/Katie Mellua. (I guess this is not strictly true - jazz shows up in lots of modern creative music - DJ Shadow is someone that springs to mind) but I'd love to hear more modern music carrying on the pop/jazz legacy of people like Bacharach and Wilson.

Actually I bought an album by B.C. Camplight that potentially does this but I don't know how much longevity it has for me. The Go Team are great - that's potentially jazzy to my ears. Cetainly reminds me of John Barry. It's like a hip-hop John Barry.

Funny thing is, it's not the jazz elements that I find generally appealing about Beach Boys' music, it's the fusion with the rock'n'roll and doowop elements and THOSE voices I find most intriguing. There's something about mixing it all up artistically, where styles meet at a cultural crossroad and fascinating new things form out of the meeting. Brian synthesized a lot of what he heard from all the disparate influences around him (as did his brothers later on).