Jacob Collier – Hajanga (bridge cover)

how many chords do you want in your chord progression? "Yes."

so of course I had to learn it. I’ve learnt a few other of Jacob’s harmonically dense sections before thanks to transcribers like June Lee eg. “I saw three ships”, “Don’t you worry”, “Fascinating Rhythm”, “Pure Imagination”, “Feel”, so it’s nice to finally do something with one of them.

Would you believe that in an earlier version of my arrangement there was an implied metric modulation and a blast beat (changing the triplet pulse to groups of 4 mid bar)? Anyone who knows my penchant for prog metal is no doubt muttering “typical” under their breath right about now. I found it cool, but it kind of stole attention from the harmony which was supposed to be the focus of the video, so I ended up using a generic snake jazz beat I purchased for about tree fiddy from some online jazz drummer dude.

Notes on the harmonic analysis: The chord names I’ve come up with are my interpretation of the harmony and what I consider to be the root of the chords (surely some people may disagree with how I have chosen to name a few chords, but who doesn't love a healthy back and forth between two c̶o̶n̶s̶e̶n̶t̶i̶ pontificating individuals). I’ve found that in this section, Jacob seems to prefer “fourthsy” voicings a lot of the time, but in a generally tertian context, and at times there almost seems to be some semblance of function, but nearly always with unexpected extensions or chord qualities. I really like the G# F# B E voicing, i.e., the suspended second major chord in first inversion (particularly voicing it in fourths like this) but I wish there was a more elegant way to name it rather than Esus2/G# - it seems clunky. E2 looks sus without the sus imo.

so Cq13 = a stack of fourths going to a 13th above the root, or C F Bb Eb Ab, and I found this described the essence of the chord the best, despite there being no F in this case.

The part with the high descending chromatic line might be my favourite part, and I chose to try and describe how the chromatic notes affected the previous held chord, purely for the visual effect of having the text pop up with every note there. Instead of Esus46 to Esus4min6, maybe A/E5 to Am/E5 (horizontal slash) would be easier to parse for example.

What does one call a diminished seventh chord with a major seventh eg. A C Eb Gb G#? Adim7maj7? I just put Edimmaj7 even though the Db seems technically part of the chord. Also wasn’t sure about the chord I labelled E#9#11(no7), but I hear E as the root there.

The 2-1 under the Gmin13 chord was meant to describe the bass voice moving from A to G, with A being a suspension and G being the root.