if you've listened to a lot of Nine Inch
Nails music then you know that Trent
resner can make a lot with very little
and that goes for his Harmony writing
too
[Music]
thank you
ah Trent resner the composer my favorite
topic many of you know that my first
video was an analysis of the frail which
is a very sparsely composed piano solo
and I was just really curious why
something that was so sparse could evoke
so much how it could paint seemingly a
full picture musically there is
something that happens when you expect
something to be there and there's
nothing there or when two notes are so
far apart that you feel their space I
think it can really enhance the emotions
that are being expressed or that you're
interpreting from the music and this
goes Way Beyond the frail this is
something that I hear in a lot of his
compositions and his collaborations
and I think some of the time what's
going on is what I would call implied
Harmony there are implied chords
it's basically when you don't have all
the pieces of the cord some of them are
missing a chord is three or more notes
and the most basic chord in western
music is a Triad it's a three note chord
and it has three parts to it the root
the third and the fifth
that's C major let me play that a little
higher if I keep going root third fifth
seventh ninth
eleventh
13th but you usually don't need all of
those notes to imply what chord is being
played you just maybe need two maybe
three for example if I play a C and an E
flat
that's enough to imply a C minor chord
root third
don't have the fifth but it's kind of
implied if I play a c and e flat and a D
that's enough to imply a C minor add 9.
the full chord would be
and there's so much Beauty in that
missing information and that ambiguity
anyway you don't need to know music
theory to understand this video okay I
promise all you need is a pair of ears
emotions and some level of discernment
about what you like what you don't like
or something is different than the other
thing but if you do write music and like
me you tend to write chord-based music
this way of sort of writing lines that
kind of happen to create Harmony or
leaving out what we would consider
crucial parts of chords can be a little
bit uncomfortable but it can also open
up new doors for your compositions it's
something I've been exploring recently
and I have been noticing some really
cool stuff happening here are some
examples from Trent resner's work this
includes Nine Inch Nails but also some
of his collaborations but it's his
thumbprint quick disclaimer I'm not
saying that Trent rezner is doing this
on porpoise I actually think based on an
interview I listened to he's kind of
talking a little bit about his
compositional process this is just sort
of naturally the way that he writes
Harmony
foreign
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how great is that I'll tell you exactly
how great that is it's very great if you
don't recognize that then get out of
here I'm kidding so this e and G implies
an E Minor triad
hear that
they fit
let me get this
there's a few different ways to to
interpret this you could interpret this
as like
that chord or
we'll put it all together at the end you
can decide
but it's just a descending line this
harmony kind of comes together there
then you get done all right we got
another one of these big spread out
uh thirds which is a tenth this is
implying C major
okay then we get these two notes and
this implies some kind of G chord you
have the root and the fifth but no third
probably G major so if we fill in the
blanks we get something like this
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and we'd get
wow that sounds really different doesn't
it definitely definitely Trent resner's
version is better no doubt about it I
did a whole video on the song by the way
a couple years back so if you want to
dig deeper check that out there's a
bubble floating above my head you can
click on that but wait don't do it yet
wait I got more songs
can you stay okay thanks another example
is ghosts 34
Roman numeral of some type
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now there are two lines that says so so
much
[Music]
hmm
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we got the third of this chord
then we got the ninth of this chord
he loves those intervals and so do I
that's how I interpret it
see how different this sounds
versus
both amazing very different
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let's try it a little higher
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the tension of this chord
just need these
right then we get
these two right
which is kind of like an everyday
exactly the same when there was that
open fifth missing the third so you're
not getting that like super emotional
gooey part of the chord
and you get this which I think implies
this chord
okay one more Nine Inch Nails example
and then I got a couple other collabs so
another version of the truth has
sometimes full chords but sometimes a
lot of sparseness so this one goes
um
[Music]
oh
okay
I love this song If you don't know this
one it's from year zero it's a it's like
a piano solo with a lot of layers of
noise and buzzing it's really really
cool and you can get the multi-tracks
and kind of pull away all the layers or
play with them it's really fun
I'm not digress just an A in the bass so
there's no chords being played
[Music]
kind of implies this
[Music]
that kind of sound all it's missing is
the third okay
you can see it takes on a completely
different flavor when I add that in it
doesn't sound as trendy anymore
and then
just a big open octave and yet this
alone implies probably
a whole G major chord just because of
convention
so
right sounds right doesn't it then we
get
uh what was it uh okay so here we've
actually got two D's doubled up so it
doesn't really necessarily count as new
pitches just
um octave doubling which is something he
likes to do and then an F and this is
the third of a D minor chord
[Music]
okay so that implies that chord pretty
clearly it changes to the key of G
instead of the key of A and we get
nope
approximately so there are some actual
chords in here it's um this is one of
those implied G major chords we don't
have the fifth see
together
okay now this
this is also an implied chord I would
say this is a implied C Major Seventh
chord missing the Third
ending in like this kind of sixth
descending kind of
then we get
sorry
I don't know what this is but it sounds
like a chord that's missing maybe
something
[Music]
like maybe it's a B flat chord it's just
kind of
has a sixth and a ninth
then it goes to this like very open f
chord without the third but the a the
major is implied
so if we extrapolate we would get
something like
like
[Music]
then
foreign
if you've had the thought during this
video some of this kind of reminds me of
a warm place there's a reason for that a
lot of his Harmony is implied 7th 6th
and 9th chords not always but there's
there's enough of that in there that's
kind of what's going on with a warm
place you get these seventh chords and
it's very Sati and wc like has this
French impressionist sound to it so if
you flesh out Trent Reznor's Harmony I
think you'd find a lot of it would sound
like that a lot of it would also sound
like
grunge honestly because a grunge has a
lot of mode mixture and he does a lot of
that stuff too like for example
everything is exactly the same wow I
almost couldn't pronounce that
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I should use that as an example I am
such a silly silly person so this is
also another one of those implied
Harmony situations
e major chord implication
then C major chord implication
then back and forth see
foreign
G major F major but he only plays the
Third
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all right well if you're satisfied you
can leave the video now but
I have more for you I have two examples
from his recent collaboration with
Halsey I'm just gonna play the part that
he wrote don't you don't you worry your
pretty little heads if you're not a
Halsey fan okay check this out
Whispers
[Music]
that's right
that was the blues version and this is
implying some kind of F sharp minor
chord I think
[Music]
there's the minor third
and then there's like this ascending
line that you can interpret all sorts of
ways like
to a six chord to a seventh chord it
works really nicely
then we get
my favorite the flat six in this case
it's a D Major Seventh chord
then sorry
a major add nine Sound except in the
original it's just
this ninth again right
then
then it's sort of an ambiguous B chord I
don't know
give me that give me that
[Music]
but you don't need all those notes he
really got this one it's just so
that's my favorite that's my favorite
thing is when he
has just the two notes and he has the
root of the chord and then some super
tense note against it
there's another one
the ninth seventh ninth
so they did this uh song nightmare I
think they did a good job with the song
[Music]
[Applause]
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[Applause]
very spread out but let's collapse it a
bit
I'm gonna bring down the melody to here
and I'm gonna bring the bass line up to
here
[Music]
yes
these are also implied chords so
this is an implied F major chord
sorry
got the root we got the third that's all
we need then we get
and do you hear there's sort of like a
a parallel kind of motion there like
like
they move by the same amount it's
because it does then this D and F sharp
implies a D major chord
so we'd have
[Music]
then we get an A
with a B
no set G sorry G
so that just implies some kind of a
chord with a seventh on it there's so
many options it could be this or this
[Music]
I think it's probably this
we could also just leave it ambiguous we
could be like this
that's probably how I would voice it if
I fleshed out I'd leave the third out
completely because
to get um
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
and then the next one is
and to me this implies a C major chord
without the third moving up to a six
chord
foreign
[Applause]
nope
so
yeah yeah
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[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
but you don't need all that
oh
now I'm going to just go ahead and take
some chord progressions and do this to
them
okay
now
what I've got going here okay this cord
I got everything covered I got the root
I got the fifth I got the third so why
don't I take out the fifth
and the doubling octave and just go
foreign
okay so all I really did is I just
didn't use any of these fingers and just
kept the base note going
oh it sounds actually a little bit like
every day is exactly the same Baseline
that's interesting
[Music]
foreign
I mean yeah it communicates dude I would
never have done that never have done
that if I had studied Nine Inch Nails
music I would have thought this is too
simple
right it's too empty it sounds so empty
it's it's it's missing something and
it's like well that is the point my dear
thank you so much for watching if you
want to see more videos like this like
what is Trent Rosner sound like Trent
rezner I have a lot of other ideas uh
that I've collected over the years
sometimes this stuff is a lot to juggle
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till next time
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thank you