On the brilliantly bleak travelogue Maps, New York’s indie-rap maverick billy woods floats around like a ghost-from the Netherlands to a Costco in the Midwest, from the backseat of a $300 Uber ride to outside Kennedy Fried Chicken-blowing dope and waiting until it’s time for his next gig. The rapper lifestyle has rarely sounded so unglamorous. Stevens is a ruthless optimist still marveling at the opportunity to live at all diagnosed with the debilitating Guillain-Barré syndrome, he regards caregivers helping him relearn how to walk as “ love in action.” His gratitude is infectious, especially from within grief. “Now punish me.” But he won’t let the heaviness of his admissions crush him. “I’m drowning in my self-defense,” he sings. On opener “Goodbye Evergreen,” Stevens confronts the instinct to repress grief by bringing his favorite blurred line into focus-is this song about God or a queer partner? He falls to his knees from the weight of a broken heart, pleading for the solace of his past while trying to trust in what the future might bring. Dedicated to his late partner, the album is a humble maturation that pulls together Stevens’ career trademarks in one sweeping motion: the lush folk arrangements of Illinois, the heavenly vocal harmonies of All Delighted People, the electronic grandiosity of The Age of Adz. Upper structure triads can also be used to create more tension and strengthen the sense of resolution for each chord change.The specific kind of intimacy Sufjan Stevens summons on Javelin is less about big questions or small details, but rather the act of pouring your heart into a vase that’s already cracking. We can use half step chromatic approach chords in between each of the chord changed to create more harmonic impact. This harmonic and melodic situation is particularly well suited to passing chords. Passing Chords For 3625 Progressionsīars 5 to 8 of the A Section contain 2 back-to-back 3625 progressions with the chord changes on the half beat and the melody on the quarter beat. A half step above D- is Eb so we would play some kind of Eb7 chord and we now have the progression E-7b5 to A7 to Eb7 to D. This passage can be further enhanced with a chromatic dominant passing chord into the D-7. Remember that with minor 251s the ii chord is usually voices as a -7b5 chord. The A7 is functioning as the V7 chord of D- and so we can approach the A7 with E-7b5 to create a full 251 progression. The first opportunity that I spot to add a passing chord is in the second bar of the tune where we have an A7 chord for the entire bar moving to D- in bar 3.

Approaching V7 Chords with the Related ii-7 Chord The A Section of the tune repeats 3 times and so passing chords can be used to add interest and variety to otherwise identical harmonic passages. Understand that we don’t have to play passing chords but they are an option. We are now going to focus on the harmony of the tune and apply passing chords in addition to the regular chord changes. In the previous lessons we have studied the basic harmony of the tune “Georgia On My Mind” and we introduced a simple left hand stride style with right hand melodic embellishments.

In this lesson we will explore the concept of passing chords.

Georgia on my mind chords piano