Emotional Chords: Creating a Satisfying Sadness Vibe

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If you are like me, you like sad song.

There's nothing bad with Major keys, happy songs, they can lift your mood, but something about sad song touches me like nothing else can.

And when I think of chord progressions to achieve that effect, there's just one chord progression that comes to mind.

It's actually dead simple!

Just a root chord, followed by a bVI chord in a minor scale.

Example: Em - C

So simple, but yet so effective.

Here's how I use these chords to create this touching kind of mood.

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[jonahlouque]

A song that I think is beautifully sad yet satisfying is “I Go Down” by “Leaves”

[octiquiroga]

The Em and C sounds like the walking theme from BULLY
1:52

[MaddSpazz]

STOP GIVING AWAY MY SECRETS.for real thought I've been writing music like this forever and it cool to see I'm not the only one who's picked up in this

[IsaacRuchalskiPlagueIncEvolved]

For people who want to know more about this technic : I think this is called Chromatic Mediants. It's a technique used a lot in movie scores and videogame composition. Let me explain;


the mediant of a note, is its third. nothing too hard, right ?


for instance, in C major, the mediant, is E . in E major, the mediant is Ab . in A minor, the mediant, is C
To some extent, you can also have a mediant BELOW the root note, it's a submediant, or the sixth of the tonic.Thus :


in C major, A is the submediant. in E major, the submediant is C#, and in A minor, it's F.


These are the DIATONIC mediants, as they are in the scale of the root note.


But, what about a chromatic mediant ?


A note's chromatic mediant, is one of the notes that are :


a major or minor third above OR below, and
a major or minor sixth above or below that note.


For instance, the chromatic mediants of C are Eb (minor third), E (major third), Ab (minor sixth), and A (major sixth). So what can you do with this info ? Make up a chord progression based on chromatic mediants.


Let's take this concept one step further, with chords. Let's start with a C major chord.


A chord progression based on chromatic mediants, is about using the first root's chromatic mediants as the next chord roots. The chords can be either major or minor, because diatonic scales don't really have a lot of importance here.

Thus, the progression C major - Ab major is totally possible, it's a I - bVI progression . You can even go further, by doing something like C major - Ab major - E minor - A minor, which would be a I-bVI-iii-vi.


We differentiate 2 kinds of chromatic mediants chords :


- Simple chromatic mediant chords, where only 1 tone is changed compared to the root chord (ex : in the progression C major-E minor, C major (C E G) and E minor (E G B) share 2 common tones, thus E is a simple chromatic mediant of C)


- Double chromatic mediant chords, where 2 or more tones are changed (ex : in the progression C major -Ab major, where only the C is shared between C major (C E G) and Ab major (Ab C Eb). Thus, Ab is a double chromatic mediant of C)


Just thought it could help someone :) It's very fun to play with such a technique, because it creates a lot of borrowed chords very fast

[blakemcnamara]

Major 7 chords are the saddest in my opinion, especially when after a third-position chord. Minor chords are usually just sombre to me.

[erikhartley]

Love this! I’m glad I’m not alone in trying to identify what it is that’s so satisfying about sad songs. I can’t explain it but you definitely seem to get it.

[MichaelFournierBeats]

this just made me want to pick up my guitar and finally start learning and practicing

[maxkelter]

Antoine, I love your teaching approach! Very easy and simple yet very effective. Qualities of a fantastic teacher in any subject your students would understand. Tnx.

[fretfingers]

Just what I needed to energize the musical musical muse. Wonderful info Antoine. Can't put my guitar down !

[BluesLicks]

I usually find the easiest way to create a satisfying sadness vibe is to let my wife know I am planning to do something fun and have to shirk my household chores for awhile.

[jeffreygrantsr]

WOW! Such ambient bliss. Simple, but so beautiful. I only need one teacher to learn all I need and it is YOU and to think this is just a taste of what you teach. People, I highly recommend getting one of the expanded classes like the masterclass as It has boosted my playing tremendously!

[lightnintrucker]

I love this. Gonna definitely implement this concept in a future post

[jewelsguitar]

I don't have words to appreciate. GOD BLESS YOU!

[davidcapon]

Super comme d’habitude!
Merci tellement beaucoup encore

[petermcgarrymusicandflying]

Thank you so much again. Going to try some loops later on this.

[mcny]

Never heard of this Picardy 3rd before, great stuff! Merci Antoine!

[softpillow]

Great demo for a really sad snowy Monday.

[jeffvanspaendonk]

Super nice solo with these chords, Antoine !

[lets_rock_it]

Iam ussually a well mood guy but for some reason i kinda tend to always go more easilly to a sad side on music when iam playing.
So this video is for me.
Thank you!

[daholyspirit]

“Built this way” and “Sugar who you get so fly” have the most emotional guitar riffs I’ve heard of