Play Less, Sound Better - With Only One Chord

What should you play when you're accompanying a vocalist/soloist and you're given the chords only?

How to create an accompaniment for your composition/song?

Answers to these questions require some experience in music, but in this article I'll give you one easy method that (60% of the time) works every time: The Sus2 Method.

Intro: Traditional Chords

Let's start with a chord progression, a very common I-V-vi-IV, which in C would be C - G - Am - F.

A beginner piano player would play it like this, using the root positions for all chords:

The beginner way of playing chords

A beginner guitarist might play this using the default shapes:

The default C - G - Am - F on guitar

These don't sound very interesting. The piano line is very mechanical and jumpy, and I'm not a big fan of the default guitar voicings for C and G.

A more advanced piano player would play something like this:

A more advanced way of playing subsequent chords

Here they are using different inversions of the chords to keep the movement minimal. They are also using symmetrical lines: as the bass goes up, the highest note goes down. This sounds more melodic and interesting than parallel movement.

This is still a bit boring, and playing like this requires experience in chord progression theory and inversions. We need something simpler!

The Sus2 Method

Take the sus2 chord of the tonic (Csus2 in this case), and play it over all the chords, moving only the bass note.

The Sus2 Method of playing C - G - Am - F

This creates new types of chords and voicings with each of the bass notes. The best thing about this method is that it works for all the scale notes, and not just the major but natural minor also!

Don't believe me? Let's check every combo.

Every note in C major/natural minor combined with a Csus2 chord

You'll get some delicious add9/add11/addWhatever sounds. For some extra flavor, try adding a B in there also. The cluster B - C - D works particularly well for the chords with an asterisk in the image above.

How about the guitar? The sus2 shape is easy on the high strings with a barre on e and b. Our C - G - Am - F would go like this:

The Sus2 Method on guitar: C - G - Am - F

As a guitarist, your life will be extra easy if you're playing in the key of A as you can use the open e and b as part of the sus2 chord. Every chord with just two fingers on frets, max!

Playing the guitar in A major. Can it be any easier?

Additional Tips

As with any tips use your own judgment when applying this method. Experiment and try what works and what doesn't. If you play the same sus2 shape all the time it will become boring. Mix it up with

• rhythmic variation: syncopate or stretch chord changes, use upbeats
• arpeggio: play notes one by one in a pattern, works especially well with guitar
• mix in traditional chords, maybe three chords with a sus2, then a "normal" chord

To finish off, see me playing a chord progression with only the The Sus2 Method:

Recreated: Justin Timberlake's Justified - 3 Loops

We're back to recreating tracks but this time it's going to be a little different. I'll recreate three tracks from Justified (2002) by Justin Timberlake.

Why three tracks and not one full track? Well, Justified is packed with great tracks because it was mainly produced by the successful hip-hop/R&B producer duo Chad Hugo & Pharrell Williams a.k.a. The Neptunes. Other tracks featured more personnel but the ones I'm focusing on were written by Timberlake with The Neptunes and produced by the latter.

A lot of the tracks on Justified are also heavily loop-based so getting the loop down gives you like 80-90% of the whole track.

1. Señorita

We'll start with the first track from the album, Señorita. As the name implies it's somewhat latin style influenced. Tempo is 98 and the key is E♭ minor.

The main loop of Señorita

Listen to my recreation:

The main element is a jazzy electric piano riff. It starts on the dominant B♭7 with a descending melody from flat 9 (C♭). It resolves on a E♭m9 but quickly transitions into A♭13 just by changing the bass note. The ending chord G♭13 features a F♭ which brings some more excitement into the harmony progression.

The bass is where this gets interesting since it flips around the whole chord analysis. It's a sub bass sine-like sound in a supporting role, but the note choices are peculiar. During the B♭ chord the bass plays D♭ to E♭ which is the tonic. During the E♭m the bass plays B♭. This is all flipped around, what the hell? Further, while the keys play the 13 chords the bass shifts these a whole tone up, B♭ and A♭.

You could analyze the chords based on the bass notes but that would be unnecessary. Let's just take it as it is because ultimately it sounds great. This is one of those examples in music where it looks weird on paper but works fine in practice. I'd wager that if you mirrored the keys exactly in the bass the loop wouldn't work as well. The end result has a forward momentum because of this intentional harmonic mismatch. You want to hear it resolve but it never gets there.

The drums play a beat which accents the final G♭13 with an open hihat. There also a couple of different shakers doing 16ths and a cowbell with triangle doing straight quarters. The hand clap joins in on the quarters from time to time. The percussion emphasis on quarters contrasts nicely with the other elements which are more rhythmically diverse.

2. Rock Your Body

The sixth track on the album, Rock Your Body, was a huge hit. This disco-funk style track was originally intended for Michael Jackson (along with some other tracks on Justified) which you can imagine by listening to the chorus. Tempo is 101 and the key is E minor.

The main loop of Rock Your Body

Here's my recreation:

There's a stabbing electic guitar or clav type sound playing the main chord progression G11 (F/G) - A11 (G/A) - Em. Note again the usage of non-scale notes (F) which makes it more interesting and provides forward momentum.

Supporting the stab is a piano+synth pad combo playing a sparser version of the chords. The synth pad has a longer attack so you'll hear it fade in on the longer notes.

A bell type sound is used as a transition between the bars 1-2 and 3-4 which is a nice little hook.

The bass lick brings to mind CHIC's Good Times or Queen's Another One Bites The Dust because of the similar 3-hits-on-quarters rhythm on the first bar.

The drums are played disco style, with some open hihats on offbeats and having some snare hits with the bass drum. Otherwise the bass drum is following the rhythm motif from the bass.

When you get past the somewhat exotic 11 chords this is a fairly simple loop overall. And it works.

3. Let's Take A Ride

There are more popular tracks on Justified I could have recreated but I chose Let's Take A Ride because it's one of my favorites. This R&B track plays at 90 BPM and its key is B♭ minor, I guess.

The main loop of Let's Take A Ride. Synth and Pad play during the chorus.

Here's the verse loop:

And the chorus loop with additional elements:

The main element is an acoustic guitar pattern played over 4 chords. For each chord the root is played with the third and seventh, with the 9 thrown in there as a melodic effect. There's a two bar pattern of minor 9 chord followed by major 9 chord one semitone up. Bars 1-2 start on F and bars 3-4 start a fourth up on B♭. Note again the usage of flat second (C♭).

The guitar is sweetened up with a phaser effect and some additional effects to widen/beef the sound.

The drums play a syncopated 16th beat with claps doubling the "rimmy" snare sound. There a reverb effect on the last snare/clap hit as a fill. A couple of shakers are again added to the mix.

The bass is a sub bass type sound and it doubles some of the bass drum hits. On bar 3 there's an interesting break in the bass drum which leaves room for a nice sub bass fill. The actual notes here were quite difficult to determine, I had to resort to the spectrogram on this one.

The verse loop is simply the guitar, bass and drums. In the chorus we have two additional elements.

First we have a short synth playing mainly B♭ which creates nice harmonies with the chords. It switches to a C on the B♭m chord. I love this hook, it sounds so great.

Then we also have a vintage sounding synth pad playing longer notes, staying strongly rooted on B♭. I really like the B♭5 on C♭maj9 harmony which results in a sharp 11.

Closing words

There you have it, 3 tracks deconstructed and recreated (or at least partially). I hope you enjoyed this and let me know if you have any suggestions for future recreations.

How to analyze and transcribe a song perfectly

Transcribing a song thoroughly is hard and time-consuming. If you are only interested in the main melody and chords, the task becomes easier, but what if you need every part of the track for a perfect reconstruction?

Let's face it: most of the transcriptions out there are wrong. Take any track, look it up on a tab site and you'll find a variety of transcriptions. Some are very simple: chords only with no indication of rhythm, some are full reconstructions done with a software like Guitar Pro. The quality can be anything, and if you have any musical knowledge you'll notice who knows what they are doing and who is just guessing. (/rant)

If you're analyzing a popular song, you'll have a better chance finding a decent transcription. It's still a good idea to verify it yourself.

Here are the things that will help you analyze and listen to your track for that perfect transcription or recreation.

1. Use a good pair of speakers or headphones

Listening requires good equipment. Use high quality speakers, monitors or headphones that have a good resolution, meaning that you'll be able to distinguish between different parts in the mix better. Don't forget the rest of the chain either: you'll need a good amp or audio device also. If you're into music, you should have these things sorted out already.

2. Use your DAW/audio editor

Import the track in your DAW or use an audio editor (e.g. Audacity) where you can easily skip around, start and stop repeatedly, loop parts and apply effects.

You can analyze a song from your music player also but you'll get frustrated pretty fast if there are difficult parts that you need to listen over and over again.

3. Use a similar sound when transcribing a part

It makes sense to use the same instrument when you are figuring out a part in the song. If there's a piano, use a piano sound to play along. You could also try to tweak your sound to match the original with EQ and effects.

If you're working in a DAW, record or manually program your best guess of the part and start A/B comparing it with the original via muting and soloing. If your sound is similar to the original, you can hear the differences easily and iterate your guess.

If your goal is to recreate the whole track, transcribing and recreating can be done in this same step. You just need to figure out the tempo of the original to perfectly align with your DAW grid.

4. Use EQ/filters

If you're analyzing the bass, apply a low-pass filter. If you're analyzing the hihat, apply a high-pass filter. If you're analyzing the vocals, apply a band-pass filter or an EQ boost in the mid frequencies. Focus on the stuff you are listening to and try to filter out the other things.

Sometimes you'll need very sharp filters. One example is to isolate the bass drum from the snare drum. They can share a lot of frequencies so it might be difficult to tell if there is a bass drum under a certain snare hit or not. In this case, take a very sharp (high Q or resonance) filter and focus on the boom of the bass drum.

In iZotope's Ozone you can sweep frequencies with a narrow band easily by pressing down Alt while using mouse.

5. Use mid/side channels

Using different channels might work if you have hard panned elements. Listen to left and right separately. One extra trick is to use mid/side processing.

Middle and side channels are just a different way of encoding the usual two channels: left and right. The mid channel is the sum (L + R) and the side channel is the difference (L - R). If you think about this for a while, you'll notice that the mid channel amplifies sounds that are common between left and right (i.e. centered things) and the side channel amplifies sounds that are different (hard panned or stereo-effected things).

Fun fact: simple vocal removers (that usually don't work) use mid/side processing by reducing the middle channel. This works on the assumption that the vocals are centered, but is also reduces any other centered material in the mix.

Some parts that are difficult to analyze in the original mix might be very audible in the side channel.

In Ozone you can solo the mid/side channels separately

6. Use time stretching

If you have fast or difficult parts, slowing the whole thing down might make it easier to analyze. Be sure to use time stretching (which retains pitch but changes speed), not resampling (which alters both).

For a good result, you may need to tweak the time stretching parameters or the algorithm used. For example Ableton Live has different algorithms for drums (better transients), tones and complex material.

7. Use a spectrogram

Instead of using your ears it's sometimes better to use your eyes. If you struggle with identifying note pitches or the number of rhythmic hits, use a visual analyzer.

In a spectrogram (like Sonogram SG-1 here) you may see things like drum hits and melody lines more easily.

A spectrogram visualizes the frequency changes over time, so you might see things like melodies and drum rhythms more easily. Analyzing the picture requires a keen eye though: because most of the sounds have a timbre that spans a lot of ground frequency-wise (i.e. they are not composed of a single frequency component like a sine wave), you won't see a single line but many repeated lines.

A spectrogram may be useful where you need to compare relative pitches a few hits or bars apart. If they occupy the same horizontal line in the graph, they are the same note.

8. Apply your knowledge of music theory and different instruments

If you know at least something about music theory, analyzing songs becomes so much easier. Knowing basic things like keys (circle of fifths), chords, scales, common chord progressions (I - IV - V) etc. will help you immensely. Know the difference between a G sharp and an A flat.

With your musical knowledge you'll be able to "fill in the blanks" without analyzing every single note. You'll recognize some chords and melodies immediately. Transcribing becomes faster.

If you know how to play a specific instrument, you'll be better at analyzing it. Learn about different instruments: how they are usually played, what kind of sound do they produce, what is their range etc. Learning to play more than one instrument is never a bad idea.

Transcribing a song is a skill that improves by doing and practicing (no surprise). If you are a beginner, learn some theory basics and start with a simple song. Study the transcriptions made by others (remember that most of them are wrong, find the errors). Listen, sing along, play.