# A brief analyses of Tribal Tech's "The Big Wave"



## MLI (Aug 13, 2009)

I really like this tune so I figured I'd download the tab and import that into Sibelius and see what I can figure out. I got the GP tab from ultimate-guitar, and I downloaded the song...there's a version on youtube, but of course it's different because the majority is improvised.

I'm not going to go into great detail measure by measure, but I will cover some general...ingredients in each of the instruments which give it that cool fusion sound. If you have any further questions, ask me. Most of this is about harmony. This might be hard for someone who doesn't know much music theory to understand. You might want to read up on chromaticism and diatonicism, and then modes, and then pitch-axis theory.

Also, I only analyzed the guitar solo, past the head and before the bridge to the bass solo. It features all the instruments, so I figured it's as good a part as any.

Keyboard (Scott Kinsey):

During the solos, the synth part is just block chords changing every measure or two. This is where I looked to find the chord names. When it was ambiguous, I considered the bass part as well to determine the root. I'll start with the different types of individual chords, and then talk about how they move.

Keep in mind that the notes C Eb F G Bb, for example, could either be a Cm7sus4 (C minor seventh suspended 4th (though, it's not really suspended, technically, just added)) or a Ebadd9add6, or maybe even something else. But in music like this, it doesn't really matter. When it is ambiguous like this, I would consider prominent notes in the bass part to help me determine it, though it's not particularly important.

The synth part is vertically condensed, meaning that the notes are not spaced out very much at all.

Major chords: the major chords are all major 7th (the the 7th isn't always in the keyboard part). A dominant 7th chord does not sound good in semitonal music like this. You might run into some notes that could be called a dominant seventh, but they're really probably part of a minor chord that shares those notes. Also, almost all of the major chords have a sharped 4th or 11th (lydian). This is because the natural 4th (ionian) clashes badly with the major third (particularly when the 4th is above the third, creating a minor 2nd or worse, a minor 9th). Also, many of the major chords have 6ths or 9ths.

Minor chords: almost always, the minor chords have only minor 7ths, and major 6ths (like the dorian mode). The major 7th would imply harmonic minor (again, stylistically inappropriate), and the minor 6th would be aeolian, which would clash with the fifth in the _exact _same way that the natural fourth clashes with the third in major chords.

Chord movement: I could go out on a limb and say that almost every chord in The Big Wave is the same. Say you move from F-Ab-Bb-C-Eb to Ab-Cb-Db-Eb-Gb. It'd be pretty safe to say that you've gone from Fm7sus4 to Abm7sus4: the exact same chord shifted up by a minor third (I've found this to be rather common). Sure, that's easy. [Something interesting that I've observed about shifting a minor chord up a minor third, is that it's similar to playing a major then minor chord of the same root: C-Eb-G-Bb-D to Eb-Gb-Bb-Db-F is Cm7add9 to Ebm7add9, but could also be thought of as Ebmaj7add6 (with the 6th in the bottom) to Ebm7add9] But, try going from that same Abm7sus4 to G#-A-B-C#-E. Now...is that a Amaj7add9? probably. Or, it could be a F#m7add9sus4 (same as Gbm7add9sus4, by the way). So you've either gone up a half-step from a minor chord to a major chord, or you've gone down a whole-step to another, differently shaped minor chord. The thing is, I don't think it really matters. That's why I say that all the chords are basically the same. They're almost exclusively derived from the lydian or dorian modes (and the dorian is the relative minor of the lydian, so there's even more ambiguity for you.) So in summary, you can do whatever the fuck you want with harmonic intervals (intervals between separate chords), as long as you avoid using the same interval too much (like going through the circle of fourths, that's boring), and imply dorian/lydian.

Bass: The bass part during the the guitar solo could be called walking. It's fast and relatively unsyncopated. With each given chord, probably about 10% of the bass part belongs to the simple triad, maybe 70% (including that first 10%) belongs to the mode, and the rest are chromatic passing tones. Since the bass is so low and mellow, all these accidentals really just add to the harmonic passiveness, if you will, of the bass part, rather than cause dissonance. Another interesting thing: the bassist will occasionally start walking the upcoming chord a few beats before it arrives (tension and resolution).

Guitar: Most of the guitar solo is diatonic to the mode which corresponds to the chords in the synth part. Like in the bass part, there are accidentals, which usually appear between two diatonic notes in chromatic runs. Lydian over the major, and dorian over the minor. He often plays notes in the upper extensions of the chord, like the 9th, 11th and 13th. For example, at one point he slowly arpeggiates a 2nd inversion F major triad (C F A) over a Gm7sus4 (G Bb C D F)

Yeah,...this is a mess. I know. Maybe I'll go back through and clean it up. In the meantime, you can always ask me something, or certainly contribute something if you can.


----------



## Mr. Big Noodles (Aug 13, 2009)

MLI said:


> Keep in mind that the notes C Eb F G Bb, for example, could either be a Cm7sus4 (C minor seventh suspended 4th (though, it's not really suspended, technically, just added)) or a Ebadd9add6, or maybe even something else. But in music like this, it doesn't really matter. When it is ambiguous like this, I would consider prominent notes in the bass part to help me determine it, though it's not particularly important.


I think you could call that Cm7sus4 a Cm11. Alternatively, you could call it an Eb13. Of course, as you said, the name of the chord is dictated by the bass note, in this case, and these chords are more about their modal implications than that of voice leading.



> Major chords: the major chords are all major 7th (the the 7th isn't always in the keyboard part). A dominant 7th chord does not sound good in semitonal music like this. You might run into some notes that could be called a dominant seventh, but they're really probably part of a minor chord that shares those notes. Also, almost all of the major chords have a sharped 4th or 11th (lydian). This is because the natural 4th (ionian) clashes badly with the major third (particularly when the 4th is above the third, creating a minor 2nd or worse, a minor 9th). Also, many of the major chords have 6ths or 9ths.
> 
> Minor chords: almost always, the minor chords have only minor 7ths, and major 6ths (like the dorian mode). The major 7th would imply harmonic minor (again, stylistically inappropriate), and the minor 6th would be aeolian, which would clash with the fifth in the _exact _same way that the natural fourth clashes with the third in major chords.


A major sixth and minor seventh are a minor second apart, as are an augmented fourth/eleventh and a perfect fifth. I think it's less about avoiding dissonance and more about implying dorian or lydian modality within the chord, as is common in the jazz idiom. I can't find the version that you were listening to, so I don't know how to analyze this piece, but consider thirteenths.



> Chord movement: I could go out on a limb and say that almost every chord in The Big Wave is the same. Say you move from F-Ab-Bb-C-Eb to Ab-Cb-Db-Eb-Gb. It'd be pretty safe to say that you've gone from Fm7sus4 to Abm7sus4: the exact same chord shifted up by a minor third (I've found this to be rather common). Sure, that's easy. [Something interesting that I've observed about shifting a minor chord up a minor third, is that it's similar to playing a major then minor chord of the same root: C-Eb-G-Bb-D to Eb-Gb-Bb-Db-F is Cm7add9 to Ebm7add9, but could also be thought of as Ebmaj7add6 (with the 6th in the bottom) to Ebm7add9] But, try going from that same Abm7sus4 to G#-A-B-C#-E. Now...is that a Amaj7add9? probably. Or, it could be a F#m7add9sus4 (same as Gbm7add9sus4, by the way). So you've either gone up a half-step from a minor chord to a major chord, or you've gone down a whole-step to another, differently shaped minor chord. The thing is, I don't think it really matters. That's why I say that all the chords are basically the same. They're almost exclusively derived from the lydian or dorian modes (and the dorian is the relative minor of the lydian, so there's even more ambiguity for you.) So in summary, you can do whatever the fuck you want with harmonic intervals (intervals between separate chords), as long as you avoid using the same interval too much (like going through the circle of fourths, that's boring), and imply dorian/lydian.


Check out chromatic mediant relationships (chords of identical major/minor quality moving in thirds). Coltrane changes are related, too, essentially being chromatic mediants or double chromatic mediants (chords of major/minor quality moving by thirds to a chord of the opposite quality), but moving specifically by major third.



> Another interesting thing: the bassist will occasionally start walking the upcoming chord a few beats before it arrives (tension and resolution).


Perhaps an anticipation? I don't know how this would work with extended harmony, particularly involving chords such as the eleventh and thirteenth, unless the bass is anticipating the next change of mode.


----------



## MLI (Aug 13, 2009)

> A major sixth and minor seventh are a minor second apart, as are an augmented fourth/eleventh and a perfect fifth. I think it's less about avoiding dissonance and more about implying dorian or lydian modality within the chord, as is common in the jazz idiom. I can't find the version that you were listening to, so I don't know how to analyze this piece, but consider thirteenths.



Yes, there's certainly more to it than avoiding dissonance, and that's a good way of putting it.



> Check out chromatic mediant relationships (chords of identical major/minor quality moving in thirds). Coltrane changes are related, too, essentially being chromatic mediants or double chromatic mediants (chords of major/minor quality moving by thirds to a chord of the opposite quality), but moving specifically by major third.



Chromatic mediants! That's the name I've been looking for. I figured out the concept a while ago but I never knew the name.



> Perhaps an anticipation? I don't know how this would work with extended harmony, particularly involving chords such as the eleventh and thirteenth, unless the bass is anticipating the next change of mode.



Yeah, you could call it anticipation. It's just the bass playing in the new mode ahead of the other instruments.

What I'm trying to figure out right now is how to keep a composition (the chord progression, really) interesting without functional chords like dominant sevenths. There's only so much you can do with dorian/lydian.


----------



## Mr. Big Noodles (Aug 14, 2009)

A dominant seventh doesn't have to be functional; try going to a chord with a common tone or two from a V7. Sometimes, all you need to do is defy expectation. I will agree, though, that V7 has a definite dissonance, especially within a tonal context.

In the vein of doing something less tonal, I've found some good ideas in this book:
Amazon.com: Materials and Techniques of 20th Century Music (3rd Edition) (9780131930803): Stefan Kostka: Books
It's a textbook, mind you, so it's expensive, but if you look around, you can find it cheap. I scored a first edition for five bucks online.

Schoenberg wrote some crazy shit on tonal music, there's a bit written on polytonality, polymodality, pandiatonicism, and other things starting with the letter "P". Really, though, I've found some weird suggestions in books from the 40's that have long been out of print. It's also worthwhile to look at old music; check out isorhythm and mensuration canons, they almost sound like twentieth century ideas.


----------

