During my gap year last year, I spent a fair amount of time playing different chord progressions in my own time, but I never thought to look at why certain progressions work in the abstract, or maybe I’d notice certain progressions re-occuring but not understand why. However, Robyn’s lecture7 showed me how much easier it is to process why certain progressions work by looking at chords with numerical analysis and seeing things as I – V – vi – IV instead of D – A – Bm – G. I was also able to build on the concept of unstable and stable melodic tones by learning about unstable and stable chords and how naturally a chord made up of multiple unstable notes will also sound unstable.
7 Habel, Robyn. “Harmony – Part 1”. Lecture presented at the course Song Writing and Performance 1A, University of Adelaide, April 29, 2019.
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