Beauty...here the two shores of the river meet; here all contradictions exist side by side.
-Dmitry Karamazov
A song's basic structure is its chord progression. The bass normally clarifies the chord progression. Listen to "Saturn Barz" - the chord progression is the 4 long notes played by the fuzzy bass starting at :24 and ending at :30. The song repeats these again and again.
The rest of the song's sounds are ornamentation on that chord structure. If a chord is a metal pipe, a melody is ivy spiraling around it. Ivy has more variation, is more interesting to look at, feels more detailed, organic and delicate than the metal pipe. But without that pipe to grow on, ivy would just be a pile of leaves on the ground. For ivy to be beautiful, it needs to follow a basic structure. Songs are the same.
Some songs make the metal pipe invisible - they wrap melodies around a chord progression that isn't played by a bass, but still made clear. Listen to the beginning of "Stairway to Heaven". No bass plays under the acoustic guitar melody, but it's not hard to feel the chord progression. Listening to the first 7 seconds, you can hear 5 descending chords very clearly. You are almost compelled to hum the bass that isn't there.
Whether the chord progression is played by a bass, or implied by the melody, almost every popular song and most of classical music use chord progressions. Almost every piece of music has a single, simple, underlying structure.
Songs like "Yellow Ledbetter" repeat one chord progression through the entire song. You can hear the bass start it at :32 and end at :45, a 4 chord progression that is repeated until the end. This makes "Yellow Ledbetter" both supremely easy to rock your head or tap your foot to, and also lends it an inflexibility that goes well with the disillusionment of the lyrics.
But in other songs, repeating one chord progression becomes tedious. These song use multiple chord progressions to provide variety.
Oasis is king of multiple chord progressions. Take "Don't Look Back in Anger".
One 8 chord progression (A) starts at :12 and ends at :24. It gets repeated, and then another 4 chord progression (B) is introduced at :35 and repeated 3 times until :53. Until :59 is a 2 chord progression (C). A transitional 8 chord progression (D) starts and goes to 1:11. Then the first 8 chord progression (A) sound again.
Then the pattern repeats.
So where "Yellow Ledbetter" is simple, "Don't Look Back In Anger" is complex. It's a progression of chord progressions. Many other songs follow this structure, chaining multiple chord progressions together.
So that's it right? If a chord progression is the basic structure of a song, you can either have songs with a single chord progression, or songs that combine multiple chord progressions.
But what if you could have two chord progressions at the same time?
Impossible! A contradiction. If a chord progression is the basic structure of a song, you can't have two basic structures. You're doing something wrong.
I suppose, you could layer two songs with different chord progressions on top of each other and play them at the same time. Then you would have two simultaneous chord progressions. But that's not really a song is it? It's a soup of sound.
Of course, I'm sure you have heard mixes of two different songs played at once, and they somehow fit together and sound harmonious. But this is often because they have the same chord progression, or at least share some characteristics in their chord progression.
What I'm looking for is the impossible - one, unified song that has two simultaneous chord progressions. That would be something magical wouldn't it? Quantum mechanical. Mystical.
I give to you: "Champagne Supernova".
This song has magic. Part of it is because it has simultaneous chord progressions.
The skeleton of this song is the acoustic guitar played from :07 to :19. At first listen, it's a simple descending chord progression: Asus2 G F# E. The guitar makes these chord shifts clear by very distinctly strumming the lowest note of each chord at the beginning of each measure.
A lesser song would strum, not just the lowest notes of these chords, but all the other notes, too. However, Oasis wanted to express a calming, meditative vibe. So while Noel hits the lowest note of each chord at the beginning of each measure, the rest of that chord's measure is filled with strumming of Asus2.
What is normally strummed:
I. Asus2 Asus2 Asus2 Asus2
II. G G G G
III. F# F# F# F#
IV. E E E E
is instead strummed (lowercase indicates the low string of the chord instead of the entire chord) :
I. asus2 Asus2 Asus2 Asus2
II. g Asus2 Asus2 Asus2
III. f# Asus2 Asus2 Asus2
IV. e Asus2 Asus2 Asus2
The guitar plays two four chord progressions simultaneously. One is the Asus2 G F# E suggested by starting each measure by hitting the lowest note of those chords. The second is Asus2 Asus2 Asus2 Asus2 suggested by strumming Asus2 at all other times.
We'll call the first chord progression (Asus2 G F# E) "Descent", since it steadily lowers in pitch. We'll call the second chord progression (Asus2 Asus2 Asus2 Asus2) "Buddha", since it focuses on one chord over and over, like a meditation.
First, a little about the character of each chord progression. "Descent" is gentle but inevitable. It's gentle in that each chord drops only a little in pitch. It's inevitable in that the chords always go downward.
"Buddha" is simple and meditative. It focuses on one chord over and over again. Even that one chord, Asus2, has a simple, pared down quality. A normal A chord forces you to hold three frets, Asus2 only requires 2. More strings are open in Asus2 than A; more strings are in their natural state.
Perhaps you have a different idea of what these chord progressions feel like. Great. The point is that they are different, and therefore give off different vibes. They suggest different mind-states. You feel one way listening to one and another way listening to the other. When they play simultaneously, you have a foot in two worlds.
We have said that most sounds in a song are ornamentations of chord progressions. Let's apply that idea to these two chord progressions. Which musical elements of "Champagne Supernova" wrap around the "Descent" chord progression, and which ones wrap around "Buddha"?
From the beginning of the song is a drone which does not shift chord. "Drone" belongs to "Buddha".
At :13 is a chime, which repeats at :16, :19 and :22. It's a single repeated note. "Chime" also goes to "Buddha".
At :33, Liam Gallagher's vocals kick in. They conform to a descending chord structure. "Vocals" to "Descent".
At :35 is a dial tone that lasts through the first verse. "Tone" goes to "Buddha".
At :35 you can also hear a gentle, echoing chord that does not shift. "Echo" goes to "Buddha".
At :58 the bass finally kicks in, following the descending chord structure. "Bass" goes to "Descent".
Also at :58, Liam's chorus vocals follow the descent. "Chorus" to "Descent".
At 1:24 the harmonica comes in, hovering over one chord. "Harmonica" to "Buddha".
At 1:59 the chorus amplified electric guitar slides down the scale. "Amp" goes to "Descent".
2:26 to 2:52 is a bridge, which introduces another chord progression. We'll skip it.
2:55 introduces a two note electric guitar part we'll call the "Nod", which doesn't change chords. "Nod" goes to "Buddha".
3:06 introduces another electric guitar melody. We'll call it "Sincere" since it sounds that way to me. Technically, it has its own 2 chord progression, but it fits these two chords into one chord of the base chord progression, then repeats itself over the remaining chords. "Sincere" to "Buddha".
4:08 to 4:33 is another bridge.
4:35 starts the first guitar solo. "Solo 1" follows "Descent".
4:48 starts "Solo 2" which also makes a "Descent".
Classification of these musical elements leaves us with:
DESCENT BUDDHA
Vocals Drone
Bass Chime
Chorus Tone
Amp Echo
Solo 1 Harmonica
Solo 2 Nod
Sincere
6 musical elements follow the "Descent" progression, 7 elements follow the "Buddha" progression. The song's elements are split between almost evenly between the two chord progressions.
"Champagne Supernova" occupies two states in more ways. The nonsensical lyric "caught beneath the landslide / in a Champagne Supernova in the sky" suggests simultaneous existence in two disparate states - deep under ground in the mud, but also high in the sky in blinding cosmic light. The song is also notable for its layering of two different guitar solos at 4:47 - we become immersed in two different guitars at once.
I don't know if these touches were intentional; it's more likely they are an unconscious product of the song's organizing principal, its simultaneous chord progression.
This is what makes music magical, when it pulls off something impossible, using simple structures to express two mind states at once.
Isn't that more true? Portraying two simultaneous mind-states instead of one? We don't experience emotions as a sequence of single, Platonic forms. In grief there is some humor, in awkwardness certain confidences, in calm an inkling of dread, in sadness happiness. To hear a song that feels two things at once - Красота!
PS
Oasis's "Wonderwall" does a scaled back version of simultaneous chords. On all the chords of the main acoustic guitar, Noel holds the fifth and six strings on the third fret, giving every chord both that chord's nature, and the nature of a G chord.
Two more deft touches on "Champagne Supernova". One: the drum roll leading into the chorus, especially at 3:42. It's one of many indications that the song is going to ramp up. The first is the heavy snares at 3:39. The next is the electric guitar kicking in at 3:40. Another are the vocals "Someday you will find me" - which actually start before the first chorus chord (anacrusis). Finally, the drum roll kicks in at 3:42. Combined they turn the last chord of the verse into an expectation for the chorus.
Second is the melody of the vocal "caught beneath the landslide". We expect the chorus to descend like the rest of the vocals, but with "caught beneath the landslide"'s raise in pitch the song temporarily defies this expectation. It makes the moment unexpected and imbues it with meaning; with the singer pushing back on the inevitably of "Descent".
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