Steely Dan's Harmonic Genius

Adam Maness gets into the masterful uniqueness of Steely Dan.

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[donbreithaupt]

Here's what Donald Fagen told me about that chromatic descending motif when I interviewed him for my 33⅓ book about Aja: “I had always thought chords going down in half-steps were corny sounding, but I think I just decided I was going to do it anyway. The way I was using it I kind of liked, and I realized the reason I liked it was it reminded me of that old swing tune ‘Whispering.’ And ‘Groovin’ High’ has that downward chromatic progression. So that’s similar to the introductions to ‘Peg’ and ‘Deacon Blues.’”

[wallacegrommet]

As someone who turned 18 in 1977, the Aja album was simply incredible. I played it hundreds of times in my car.

[xxczerxx]

How they managed to make something so complex so poppy/catchy is absolutely amazing. I try to put stuff like this into tunes but it never feels right.

[briansherling]

I’ve been a performing, recording musician since 1989. Signed to a major label in 1999.
I do solo gigs at least 4 nights a week and jingle work as vocalist since 2002. By LEAPS AND BOUNDS, no music both challenges and delights me like Steely Dan. I do the entire AJA album at least twice a month. It is like taking multi vitamins and stem cells to my soul, I retrack everything in my studio and use my backing tracks. It gives me a sense of pride and simultaneous a huge sense of Awe at just how incredible steely Dan was and stillbis(god rest Walter)
Donald Fagan is without a doubt the most inimitable musician of the last 100 years.

[grantholland]

1950s Brazilian Bossa Nova is replete with this technique. Consider Jobim's "One Note Samba" (Samba de Uma Nota So).

[nickdryad]

Where would the world be without Fender Rhodes piano sounds?

[craft-o-matic]

Former band director here. I graduated from high school in 1977. Been a fan of Steely Dan since high school. Never tire of this sound. It's a very elegant sound in my opinion.

[johnnytoobad]

AJA is STILL the modern gold standard for both pop and jazz albums EVER recorded in America.

[winddealer]

The "mu" chord. Great breakdown...favorite album of all time.

[ChrisHaas]

And Donald did it again over and over, such as "Babylon Sister" and "The Goodbye Look". Brilliant! The Deacon Blues changes also hark back to Giant Steps. Thanks for the vid!

[cliffbacken]

This my favorite album of all time….I was 21 at the time… living in Los Angeles as a working drummer….
What great times..!!!
And Gadd on this album was just incredible….He was the main man at the time… I heard he did this in one or 2 takes… and soloing over the vamp.. with that Latin feel…
Just never to be forgotten…

[Jackson-mszs]

You can’t do enough Harmonic Danalysis. Love this stuff, totally appreciate it.

[dylansmith]

Adam, if you really wanna breakdown some incredible jazz chords from the genius that is Donald Fagen, please do a practice video of his song 'Maxine' from his 1982 debut solo album, 'The Nightfly'. Some of the most incredible complex jazz harmonies I've ever heard.

[bradgoffmusic]

I was so relieved when you called that chord Gadd9/B.

[iamdrumgod]

This would never happen today, but it was much easier when the palette of the world was based solely on FM radio. They existed at the perfect time for their sound. A time long since gone and sadly so. Thanks for the great video!

[Gnurklesquimp]

I remember doing stuff like this before I felt confident in my ability to create structure in more complex chords and relationships thereof...
It felt like cheating, but for a few years now I've realized the potential that's there.
A really cool trick to break it up is to continue a pattern but choose the bass notes and voicings in order to make it less obvious. Those in and of themselves can also follow another clear pattern, which is a cool effect for sure.

The biggest trick up my sleeve is to take any full mode, say Dorian, and transpose that down an interval several times for maybe like 4 scales total, then choose bass notes and voicings, maybe a melody comes to mind before that. Maybe ommit intervals that aren't important (Depending on the context), bang, each chord in a new key. My favorite is descending in 4ths cause it's got the orderly aspect of 5ths with plenty of common tones but generally sounds cooler imo, but try all of them. A cool trick then is to imply yet another scale by carefully weaving it through the available notes across the scales over time, a blues scale can sound unusually stable over harmony when holding notes, for example.

You can justify spicy scales very well this way for a climax in a solo etc., you can weave very simple scales throughout it that same way to ease people into the intervales the scales don't have in common, and most comfortably, you can lean on the more common tones to smooth it out further.

That's not to mention slowly revealing your cards, or changing them out. Like with the descending 4ths example, if you strip away the notes these scales don't have in common, you can get some very nice diatonic stuff going, all in one key. Keep the chords minimal so they fit in either of these, and the freedom becomes crazy, this is then just yet another trick to go ''outside'' that applies.

[leissMusic]

I love Steely Dan's harmonies and this is the kind of thing I've been hoping to see from Open Studio for a while. Thanks so much for doing this!

[ephraimpinckney]

It's great voice leading. They took the rules of the common practice period and did their own thing with them. 🔥😏

[dannuttle]

If my wheelhouse had a wheelhouse, and the inner wheelhouse had yet another, tiny wheelhouse, this video would be the micro wheelhouse inside the tiny wheelhouse.

More Steely Dan stuff, please.

[JoseGarcia-yhtu]

I love this video, no gimmicks no bullshit. Just straight up to the point and giving us a clear info how to practice. Perfect format