Radiohead's 'Creep' is actually super complex

My Instagram: @Brandondeonmusic
52 Week Guitar Player Instagram: @52WeekGuitarPlayer

I have nothing left to say.

#shorts

Except you're a bitch.

[BrandonDeon]

Problems you have as a guitar player:

1. You feel behind where you should be considering how long you’ve been playing for
2. Not knowing what to practice which results in jumping around from thing to thing and overall just wasting your time
3. You only ever learn parts of songs and struggle to actually finish one
4. You lack motivation to pick up the instrument despite feeling very excited to in the past
5. You’ve been playing the same licks/songs for years
6. You can’t play what’s in your head
7. Feeling nervous around better musicians
8. You’ve never really gotten the hang of the metronome
9. Music theory doesn’t make sense to you or feels like a massive task to learn and you don’t know where to start
10. And above all, you just sound amateur

Because I'm smart as hell and understand your problems so well, I've addressed them all in 52 Week Guitar Player.

Chances are by this point you're aware that the program is open for enrollment. We are looking to take 90 intermediate level guitar players to an advanced level within the next 12-24 months.

By advanced, I mean helping you improvise anywhere on the neck in any key, write chord progressions you never would've thought of or knew how to previously, tighten up your playing, help you feel confident around other musicians, understand music theory, etc.


This program is not cheap, but it is the best you'll find on the internet. Watch the video above if you don't believe me.

52WGP is for students who are serious about taking their musicianship to the next level.

You'll have until March 31 to enroll but fun fact about this stuff: everyone tries to enroll toward the end. People want to take time to weigh the pros and cons of joining - this is completely understandable.

But just so you know, as time passes the window of opportunity shrinks. And at the end of the day, yes the program will open again months later (this is my business and I'm not closing it). But instead of staying in the same place for months, I'm sure you could agree your time would be better spent getting a different perspective on things - not just continuing to play the same stuff you do all the time.

I do my best to help you chefs out with all of these fookin community posts all the time. For some of you, that's all you need. There's nothing wrong with that and I'm happy to be helping you out.

But for those of you that want to improve at a faster pace, I'll see you on the other side dammit.


Okay bye.

-Brandon

[subashxx]

Why does it sound good?
-It just does

[royghosn]

I feel like Brandon was supposed to be an engineer

[souhardyaroy]

I don't think Radiohead thought so much about it. I think it just happened that they came across this chord progression one day and liked it. And then made a song based on it

[ChuckDecker]

it's awesome being able to watch these videos after being at music school for 2 years and actually understand it lol

[jochem]

i feel like this is one of those instances where the theory behind it only makes it more difficult to understand

[oddthemute]

Love it when artists, I mean true artists, write something by ear, and then the theory boys come out of the woodwork to make sense of it. It's genuinely interesting to hear it broken down like that as much as it is a stark reminder to trust your ear when writing. If it sounds good to an average listener, that's what matters the most.

[averypowell]

Yeah the B to C is technically a deceptive cadence, but I don’t really hear it that way personally. Instead I think I hear both chromatic chords in relation to the chord preceding them. For C to Cm this makes intuitive sense with the shared root and single chromatic alteration in the third. For the G to B it’s a little trickier to get, but it’s a chromatic mediant relationship with stepwise chromatic alterations to the root and fifth of the G chord (G-F#, D-D#). Each of those two progressions move away from their starting chord by stepwise chromatic motion creating a really creepy sound if you will 😂

[buzzcrushtrendkill]

They took it from the Hollies "The Air I Breathe". Hence why Hammond and Hazelwood are credited on "Creep"

[coolfool]

Minor plagal cadence, one of my favorite sounds

[skay]

When a major goes to a minor then resolves on the root, it's the juiciest

[saymyname]

So many good songs have been written with great crazy chord sequence. That is a very pleasant sound right there, nice.

[JVR]

Also, the major III and minor iv have a shared note, but written differently, as D# and Eb are enharmonic to each other. This also helps connect all four chords as there’s a line moving in half steps, with D in the G chord, D# in the B chord, E in the C chord, and Eb in the C minor chord, which has this rising and falling effect.

[CSound]

Excellent explanation!!! Well done bro! Greetings from France

[unkindguy]

as a beginner i can confirm I did not understand any of what he said, it's really complex

[sethcamargo]

Playing B and C with your pinky was the most shocking part of the video for me

[tristan_]

Even their "simple" songs are complex. Damn...

[mroc]

IV-iv-I is often called the romantic cadence. Even though B-C is a deceptive cadence in the relative minor. You can't really call it a cadence since it's not ending the phrase it's not a cadence at all. The motion still works based on the stepwise relationship between all the chord tones

[apoorv_sharan]

the thing about parallel minors is that I learned that they were substitutes to the 4 chord which is major in a major key such as G, i learned that by flipping the 4 chord into a minor chord, i was able to create a lot of tension in the phrase. And thats what we call negative chords too, I love negative chords.

[charlieleffler]

Please do more of this! Really interesting