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It's not about E major as such -- all the songs were transposed to C major/A minor scales. It's about chord III in major scale or chord V in minor scale. In cla
by rumcajz 8y ago
It's not about E major as such -- all the songs were transposed to C major/A minor scales. It's about chord III in major scale or chord V in minor scale. In classical music chord III is basically never used in compositions in major keys. In minor key music, chord V is typically altered to major as it leads to the tonic much better. Often, for instance, melody ends in G# and A. Minor V, on the other hand, is kind of ambiguous and rarely, if ever, used.
EDIT: Thinking about it, E minor is fairly common in phrygian scale (it's the tonic chord), however, phrygian, unlike dorian or myxolidian, which are used at least sometimes, is super rare -- its dominant chord, B dim, is dissonant, which kind of sucks.
- elektronaut 8y agoPhrygian is quite common in metal, along with phrygian dominant. Great scales for dissonance and tension. Functional harmony kind of goes out the window once you stray from the major/minor modes anyway. You have to lean heavily on the root to maintain the tonality, or else the perceived key center tends to shift.
- rumcajz 8y agoAh, I haven't been aware of usage of phrygian mode in metal music. Maybe that's what skews the ratio of Emaj/Emin towards the latter?
- jeeceebees 8y agoThe author notes that the analysis is based on 1300 songs from the Billboard top 100 in the last 2 years. I think it's safe to say the effect of metal songs using phrygian is negligible.
- rumcajz 8y agoAnd the phrygian used in metal has modified major third (G# instead of G) which, again, results in E major, not E minor chord.
- palimpsests 8y agoThe minor V is used a lot in reggae and modally based music