Songs Beginning with a Half-Diminshed 7th Chord on the Flatted 5th

I know he does it on the Columbia solo piano version, which granted is from the 1960s, so he may have felt that it was part of the tune by then.

 

This makes me think of that Grace Slick line.

 

George Harrison - "I'd Have You Anytime"

 

You are right the piece has an intro setting up the key of F, but the Bm7-5 does not belong to that key, so I'd say that when that harmony comes in (and especially considering the following E major harmony) we are actually in the key of Am, so we get a II-V-I in Am: Bm7-5 / E7(#4) / Am. As I note in brackets the E has a passing augmented fourth, which does not belong in Am (or C) but does so in F, so making the overall tonal center ambigous, a very nice sophisticated sound.

 

Wasn’t something like this in the Thread Parody thread?

 

Yes, as I said earlier, the song begins in one key and ends in another. If you interpret the song as being in the key of C, based on the ending, the half-diminished chord appears on the 7th degree of the scale.

 

I'd describe this bit of music as passing through some related keys, but each momentary key follows common patterns, to the particular chord in question isn't very unusual. I only listened to the first few minutes, but what I hear is...

The introductory chord is F major, and it's designed to make you think that's the tonic, but that turns out to be a fake-out. Right after that it modulates to the key of A minor, a common progression of which is IIm7b5 -> V7 Imin, and so it is in this case: Bm7b5 -> E7 -> Am. At that point it feels resolved, but that only lasts a moment before it moves on to chords that describe the key of C major (F Dm7 G7 C)... and that's indeed where it ends up. So, it turns out that the opening F major is really the IV chord of the key of C major.

So, I say it's not a half-diminshed 7th chord on the flatted 5th, it's the II chord in the temporary key of Am. Note that A minor is the related minor of C major, which helps it all sound smooth and "of a piece". The cutest trick of the piece is starting on that F and hanging on to it so long that you're fooled into thinking it defines the prevailing key.

 

No, that was the thread about ZZ Top remasters. I think you started that thread, if I'm not mistaken.

 

You weren't.
I'm busted!

 

Which one?
Some chords make you happy
While other chords make you bawl
But the ones that are just augMENted
Don’t do anything at all?

 

No, it's the half-diminished chord on the 7th degree of C major, as I posted earlier, if you read the thread, which would not be hard to do if you skipped over all the jive-ass remarks by ZZ Top fans. The song is ultimately in C, so the opening chord, a B half-diminished, is really on the seventh degree and not the flatted fifth, as I wrote earlier.

However, in terms of functionality, it does sound like it begins on the flatted fifth - or sharped fourth - based on what the listener hears at the top of the song.

Nevertheless, it is an unusual chord to start a song on, and the few other examples cited include "Corcovado," "Sally's Tomato," "Stella," if you count the reharmonizations, and a few classical pieces.

 

I think it's the one about the tree

 

Right, but there is no E major harmony naturally in the key of C, so for at least this passage we would have to say that it is in the neighbour key of A minor (where E major is the dominant chord). The "half diminished" chord (I am Swedish, so this terminology doesn't exist for me, I call it "minor seventh minus five"), occurs naturally on the seventh degree of a major scale (as you say), or on the second degree of a minor scale, which is what I say happens here (due to the chord that follows).

I think rednoise above here is on board with my train of thought. Except, I think later in the piece it does seem to come to rest on F (as well), and there is that A# (enharmonic with Bb) that appears where it's otherwise in C/Am, to further confuse things (I think there is a chromatic line that moves through a>a#>b>c). I'd just say it moves through different keys and tonal centers during the progression, which most pieces of this caliber does.

 

Sometimes this is a really weird place

 

Just a nice little question to start the day with....

What a brain teaser.
Is it the same as what they call for example Bm7-5 chord?

 

I don't understand why some people get so squicked out by using precise terms for things that happen in music. It's not some weird, obscure, nerdy thing, any more than the "Wedding March" is obscure or nerdy.

And it's an interesting phenomenon that the OP brought up. Because of the way the circle of fifths tends to work, it's a very distinctive way of starting a song, i.e. with a chord that's about as far as you can get from the home key while still having an extremely linear/conventional/inevitable (circle of fifths) relationship to that home key.

 

Is it this chord shape?

 

It is the vii key in C major, but it doesn't function as such, so I would not call it that. It only sounds like the b5 because of the deceptive first chord. It takes only a second for its true function in A minor to be revealed. It's very common for a song to bounce back and forth between the major and its relative minor, that chord is what often connects them.

 

Yes (if you disregard the numbers by the frets, which indicate F#m7-5).

 

Ahh Right Thanks!
In that case, I know tonnes of songs that start with that.....
There's that one, and that other one, and that great one with the words and stuff.....

I've only ever played two big hit songs that I know of with those chords, but not on the intro.

 

But it's actually not "as far as you can get" if you think of it as A minor, then it's just two steps back in the circle of fifths. I think using a bit of "occam's razor" thinking is applicable here.

Try playing some older Pop standards in a minor key, and you'll get this chord a lot, or some minor blues with "jazzy" harmonies (think "Still Got The Blues" for a well known and more modern example).

 

BTW to elaborate on my earlier post, let's imagine we're in C major.

C major has five closely related keys, which happen to be the major and minor triads that appear natively in C major: D minor (ii), E minor (iii), F major (IV), G major (V), A minor (vi). Of these, the least closely related is generally considered to be E minor (iii), the mediant, which is also the key to which classical-era composers are least likely to modulate (of those five).

Now let's look at all the ii-V-I progressions in all these keys (remembering that ii7 is always half-diminished in minor):

C major: Dm7 - G7 - C
D minor: Eø7 - A7 - Dm
E minor: F#ø7 - B7 - Em
F major: Gm7 - C7 - F
G major: Am7 - D7 - G
A minor: Bø7 - E7 - Am

As you can see, the only one of those progressions that has a chord with a root outside C major (the white keys) is the one in E minor, which has the very chord we're talking about, F#ø7.

So the half-diminished seventh on #4 is pretty much the most unusual chord with which we can start a piece while still (1) working with closely related keys, (2) sticking to circle-of-fifths progressions, and (3) not throwing in chromatic chords like the Neapolitan. It's the last few miles before the border, beyond which the sign says "Now leaving the home key - entering Chromatic Land".

Thus, looking for songs that start with it isn't a silly premise -- it means that, in some sense, we're looking for songs that push the envelope of one kind of tonal function as far as it can go.

 

I absolutely love the chord!
It's in 'God Only Knows' by The Beach Boys which blows me away.
The whole chord sequence of that is astounding.
But to find it in a 70's country song was just brilliant.
Not really a chord you'd associate with a country song either.

 

This is the progression that happens, so (again) we are in A minor (at least for those three chords). E major does not belong in C major (or F major).

That is a very good example of a Pop song where the tonal center is ambigous, it can at different points be interpreted as being in three different keys. Excellent composing!

 

I agree that E major is a chord foreign to C major, in the sense that G# (the chordal third) isn't present in the key signature. But it's well known as a secondary dominant in that key, V/vi (or V7/vi if you're using the seventh), and is used in thousands of songs, pieces, etc. to momentarily tonicize vi. So I'm not sure exactly what you're saying...?