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Green Day and the Flat 7 Chord


DookieLukie

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It's an article about nothing. They use a flat seven chord sometimes - okay?

If you want to consider how Billie Joe's voice interacts with the guitar as opposed to separating it into melody and accompaniment you're gonna have to compare him to voice-leading greats, to which a neat chord is absolutely nothing. You'd also, then, have to consider Mike's basslines and at that point it's just embarrassingly simplistic.

Green Day isn't a voice-leading act. Talking about their "secret weapon" the flat seven chord only rises them above their pop-punk peers, not anyone who matters in that territory.

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Absolute non-article. Why not have a piece about all the other non-power chords they use? The flat 7 is nothing special, it's absolutely standard in punk at the very least. And describing the tempo change in Walking Contradiction as though it's something groundbreaking is just silly. If someone is gonna write an article about how Green Day songs aren't all as simple as they sound, there's a hell of a lot more to go at than them using a flattened 7th. Quite honestly this has just kind of annoyed me :P

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I don't understand what the flat 7 was and the article didn't help me :( Does it sound different?

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I don't understand what the flat 7 was and the article didn't help me :( Does it sound different?

Different to what?

Anyway, IDK how much music theory you know, so I'm going full basic - these are all the notes

C C# D D# E F F# G G# A A# B C

Underlined are the notes that are part of the C major scale. If you count, you'll see that B is the seventh of those. If you flatten it, or move down one, you reach A#. In the C major scale, the flat seventh is an A#. If you build a chord off of the A# you have a flat seven chord.

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Different to what?

Anyway, IDK how much music theory you know, so I'm going full basic - these are all the notes

C C# D D# E F F# G G# A A# B C

Underlined are the notes that are part of the C major scale. If you count, you'll see that B is the seventh of those. If you flatten it, or move down one, you reach A#. In the C major scale, the flat seventh is an A#. If you build a chord off of the A# you have a flat seven chord.

It's probably somewhat irrelevant to clipperqueen2020, but technically the right name for the flat 7th chord would be Bb even though it sounds the same as A#, but A# indicates the sharp 6th chord, which again is practically the same chord, but theoretically it is not.

Bonus Info: Actually, where I'm from, the flat 7th chord in C-major is just B, and the regular 7th is called H, yes - C Db D Eb E F Gb G Ab A B H C - I've heard it's because of sloppy handwriting by old german composers because b resembles h, it's so fucking stupid, and a pain in the ass for danish students

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I would also like to add that I found this article very interesting, so thank you for posting!

It qualifies no master's degree in music, but it is clearly intended for students of music theory over Green Day fans. But as both, it is just nice to have anyone write this sort of article on a band that I've long ago accepted will never be acknowledged for their chord progressions, or any of the other "sophisticated" parts of songwriting.

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I wrote the article. I appreciate all of the feedback, good and bad! I think the use of this chord is really interesting, because while lots of punk bands use it, it's not something that is really taught in music theory.

I think that some of you guys may have misunderstood what flat 7 I am talking about. It's not the flat 7 being used on a chord, like a dominant chord. It's a note that is totally outside of the key being use as the root note of a power chord. In A major, it's the G power chord. It's true that it is another power-chord, but they use it so much that it is a huge part of their sound. I wasn't trying to blow anyone's mind with anything crazy, just focus on a major ingredient in their sound.

My blog is really geared towards songwriters and giving them tools for their toolkit. This chord can really help you out if you're getting lost on something or need a spice.

Clipperqueen2020, sorry I didn't explain it well enough to understand in the post. It's a variation on the notes used in a major scale. It's a half step lower than the regular 7.

Panic Attack! - That's really interesting. I'm glad I saw that!

Thanks for sharing and reading.

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all im noticing is those dumbasses think dookie came out in 1993...

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What?

look at the actual article and get to the part where it talks about burnout (has the youtube link) says dookie was 1993

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look at the actual article and get to the part where it talks about burnout (has the youtube link) says dookie was 1993

All I'm seeing is "Let’s look at one of my favorites, “Burnout,” from 1994’s Dookie."

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look at the actual article and get to the part where it talks about burnout (has the youtube link) says dookie was 1993

>ctrl+F

>"1993"

>0 out of 0 results

lel

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dumbass

Why do you keep using that word as if you've never made a mistake in your life?

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clearly the dumbass who wrote it changed it.

You don't have to be a jerk, man.

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clearly the dumbass who wrote it changed it.

You are the only dumbass here, kid :)

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