Background of the House/Post-/Nu-disco Chord?

[tristancalvaire]

Hello all!

I'm curious as to any background information on what I refer to as the 'house' or 'disco' chord. It's gotten some popularity recently with the much overplayed LMFAO track, 'Party Rock Anthem'.

The chord consists of the root, its minor third, its augmented fifth (or diminished sixth?) and then the perfect fourth down an octave below. It sounds like this:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1715217/housechords.m4a

Is there a name for this chord? What's the background on it- how did it become popular, starting in what musical genres, etc.? Any particular reason why it was used?

In my trials with my Korg R3, I set up 4 oscillators all tuned to the proper harmonies, and realized something- it's near impossible to hit a bad chord with this. It seems that no matter what root note you jump to, it always sounds good. Perhaps it was used as DJs of old weren't always all that well trained in musical harmonies– and therefore easily mixable dissonance was a necessity?

Thank you for your input!

[Eriksimon]

"A" Chord? I hear at least three different minor 7 chords in a familiar 1-4-5 formation. But when the bass comes in, something is terribly off somehow.

But purely from your verbal description I'ld have to say it is a "whatever"minor7 chord in quint position.

The chords are basically Fm7 - Bbm7/Cm7.
The Bass plays G# - C#/D#. That is a minor third above the roots.

And that does not sound good to me. Sorry.

the root, its minor third, its augmented fifth (or diminished sixth?) and then the perfect fourth down an octave below.

Ok, can't figure that one out. So, if, say your root note is G#3, what then would be the fourth note you mention? Or better, why don't you just list the four notes (low to high).

There's no such thing as a diminished sixth. But it isn't an augmented fifth either - It is in fact the root.

[tristancalvaire]

Ah, you're right- the root note is definitely the F.

Alright, so here's an example of what that first chord (disregarding the rest) consists of, from left to right–

F - C - D# - G#

Which upon further inspection, is just a rearranged Fm7 from F - G# - C - D#

There are indeed three chords- I referred to them in the singular referencing the type of chord rather than the chords themselves.

What I'm curious about is how this bizarre inversion came about- transposing the minor third up an octave. It seems a very popular thing to do for some older house and disco-related music.

[Eriksimon]

What I'm curious about is how this bizarre inversion came about- transposing the minor third up an octave. It seems a very popular thing to do for some older house and disco-related music.

Well, I don't think it is that bizarre, even if the minor 3rd note is played an octave higher. It still is (are) minor7 chords, not really so very acutely special, even with the "octaved" minor third... it just becomes a bit "wider", more "consonant".
The intervals in the inverted chord(s) are: 5th, minor 3rd and 4th. Two "perfect consonant" intervals and one "imperfect consonant".
However, m7 chords in the basic ("prime") position have the intervals minor 3rd, major 3rd, minor 3rd; so it has two imperfect consonants and only one perfect consonant.

[David]

What I'm curious about is how this bizarre inversion came about- transposing the minor third up an octave.

Nothing bizarre, and no inversion: when playing a chord, you can voice the chord however you want, and even centuries ago composers knew that spacing out the notes within a chord by transposing some of the notes one or several octaves up.

An inversion is when you change the bottom note, and it's no longer the root note.

This may help: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voicing_(music)

[tristancalvaire]

Alright. So, putting the actual structure of it aside- it's a fairly common technique to take a four oscillator synth and individually pitch each oscillator into this minor seventh arrangement, with the third voiced up an octave. I've seen a few sampler instruments that feature this voicing as a 'house hit' or 'chord hit', and heard quite a bit of disco-influenced EDM consisting only of alternating between these minor seventh hits.

Is there a history on the popularity of this?

[Eriksimon]

I think many of those patches are in fact (descendant from) dual layered or - oscillatored sounds, a perfect fifth apart, so that just playing the two notes of a minor third together actually produces a minor seventh chord, a major nthird produces a maj7 chord.
It cuts the workload of the keyboardist in half - and/or you need only half the skill and practice and number of fingers...

[demonjohn]

IMO, (long time house and disco head) this all comes back to the early sampler days in the 80s. They (dj/producer types) would sample a chord from a record and spread it across an octave.

That's where the stab sound that is common today came from. I think sometimes it worked better than others purely because of the nature of the chord that was sampled to begin with. I am not to sure why because I am not musically adept.

So consider me in the same boat as some of the early guys who didn't have musical backgrounds, which is a bit of a myth because plenty of the pioneering house producers had proper training or at least skills with instruments.

I sample my myself playing random chords on my synths into maschine all the time. Works for me.

[hungrydave]

What you're describing can also be thought of as a drop 2 chord.

Essentially you've got an Fm7 chord in 2nd inversion C-Eb-F-Ab where the '2' (2nd note from the top (F)) has been 'dropped' an octave.

This is a classic arranging tool for horns and keyboard instruments.

If you like the sound of it, try it with some other chords. Basically take any close position chord and drop the 2 down an octave.

It works especially well if the top note is the melody note. Then you can get into combining drop2 with diminished chords, but i digress.

As others have pointed out. Much early house music was sample based. Just speading a chord across the keyboard then playing it. That creates a parallel harmony effect