so let's say i asked you to harmonize this melody
chances are you wouldn't probably pick this chord to do it with
just doesn't really work it's the wrong
chord well maybe it's not the right key for such a thing what if we did
no well maybe this
none of this works and yet it does in the context of olivia rodrigo's driver's license
why so the other day i was listening to some of the new pop music and i came across this song by
olivia rodriguez i found myself really liking this song like what was it that was drawing me into it
was it the changes was it was it her voice was it the writing and it got me to thinking we started
analyzing the song and we realized that what makes a good song are a lot of the same common
musical theory threads and whether it's beethoven or bill evans or a modern day pop song by
olivia rodrigo what all great songs seem to do whether intentionally or subconsciously
is implement these really fundamentally awesome harmonic devices in an attempt to balance
ideas like tension and release or variation in repetition to make a good song so let's not only
answer our opening question as to why this wrong chord works but also take a deeper dive into other
harmonic elements that are present one of the first elements that we should probably discuss as
it relates to pop music are what are the harmonic options like what chords are we likely to see
in the context of a pop song and these are more often than not somewhat limited in other words
if we're in a certain key we tend to stay within that key and we tend to stick to certain chords
for example you're going to see the one you're going to see the 4 you're probably going to see
the 5 also all right you're also likely to see the 6 chord so there's four chords right there you
might see the three chord of the key show up maybe so what we're really talking about here
are five chords to basically pick and choose from and create your song from so what we'll do
is we'll dive into each section lay out the harmonic function of that section and then dive
into other elements that are present within that section in this song there are three sections a
b and c here are the chords for the a section the one the six the four and then back to
so our melody for the a section is primarily composed of a superset
of the pentatonic scale so a superset is basically when you add notes to an already existing
scale so our already existing scale in this case is b-flat major pentatonic
with the occasional e-flat thrown in there from time to time and later on you'll also see the a
show up and not only the e flat and the a from the b flat diatonic scale but also other notes like
the blue note d flat you're going to see and the g flat is going to show up from time to time also
so why the pentatonic scale well that's mostly because of its user-friendly nature
that is the pentatonic scale sort of automatically omits notes that might clash with some
diatonic chords it's sort of a set it and forget it sort of hack as it relates
to creating melodies or even solos in music what do i mean so if i play the b flat chord
sounds good let's go to the sixth chord of our of our section
nothing wrong there all those notes fit really nicely and then even on the four chord or e flat
so you can see how the notes in the pentatonic scale jive really really well with our diatonic
chords regardless of the function of the cord so what's also cool about this pentatonic scale
other than it offers us a cool scaffolding from which to build
our melodies from is it also opens the door for some really cool and rich cord textures because
it can introduce certain chord tensions like the add9 we see that a lot in popular music so the c
that was in our scale when i apply it to our one chord gives us a nice add nine sound right
that same exact c when i go to the sixth chord now gives us this at 11 sound let's look at the f also
in this scale when i go to our four chord this f is again going to give us a cool add nine sound
so this is also something worth noting as it relates to your scales and your chord chord
scale pairings so now that we've broken down half of the equation as it relates to the melody
that is pitch and what notes are available to us as per the pentatonic scale let's dive into the
other half of our melodic equation and that is rhythm let's take a listen to the melody used in
the a section of our song i've got my driver's license last week just like we always talked
to so did you pick up what was going on there rhythmically what's happening here is something
called a clave so a clave is basically a rhythmic pattern that repeats relative to a specific
meter so in this a section we basically have this very much syncopated rhythmic clave
and olivia uses this to inform a lot of the other rhythmic choices she makes much like a scaffolding
like we talked about before with the superset and the notes that were added to the scale to
create certain variations of an original pattern she's doing the same thing here
and again maybe not consciously maybe it's subconscious maybe it is intentional but
all that is irrelevant what matters is that it's awesome it's cool and it works
last week just like we always talked about another musical element present in the a section is the
tonic pedal point in the top note of the harmonic progression in fact this b-flat is cleverly used
to start the song transitioning from the car beeping on that same note as the song is in
the b section has the most variety as it relates to the chords being used
but they're all still exclusively diatonic most of the section is based on four to one movement
with two really cool harmonic ideas at the end a six five one three four
and a simple two five one cadence right after yes
this is actually like my favorite part of the song i love these changes here where she has the six
five one three four so cool the g minor f b flat d minor e flat so simple yet so uh
impactful for me and then right after that they do this uh this this two five one movement where we
have this c minor seven with the e flat in the bass to the five chord back to the one
something we'll talk a little bit more about later now i drive alone past your stream
in the b section we also find the first outside the norm technique which is the use of the lydian
sound on the iv chord although the iv chord naturally pairs with the lydian scale perfectly
almost all songs avoid the use of the sharp 11 in the melody or the chord voicing in our key of b
flat the iv chord is e flat and the sharp 11 is an a this sharp 11 is the characteristic note
in the lydian scale it's what makes lydian well lydian the problem with this note
is that it creates a tritone with the root of the chord a tritone that is made up of the same exact
two notes as the tritone found in the v chord this makes it sound dominant and too closely related
to the five of the key that's why songwriters tend to steer away from the sharp 11 in the iv
chord it's a tricky note to use but in this song the iv chord is used in a static manner
taking quite a few measures so the sharp 11 a is used to slowly transform the chord from a simple
triad into a sharp 11 chord this is a very nice use of the lydian color in the iv chord in my
opinion it's what sets this song apart and i know we weren't perfect but i've never felt this way
the other interesting aspect of the b section as we mentioned earlier
are the chords used to close out the b section it uses the three minor d minor
which as we also mentioned before is not very often used in pop music
this d minor is used to target the iv chord e flat even more interesting is the use of the two minor
seven in first inversion to create a two five one cadence at the end of the section you said forever
now i drive alone past your street what's cool about this is that this is more of a jazz thing
c minor seven over e flat to f very nice you said forever now i drive alone past yours are very nice
in fact a very interesting development of the song is that this b section is used again at the end of
the song and the final final phrase is repeated to end the song using a deceptive cadence to the six
chord something you'd see in bach or mozart you said forever now i drive alone past your stream
and finally let's talk about the c-section is this the chorus it only appears one time
in the song and never gets repeated but it sure feels like a chorus to me
this is where we find that wrong chord for the melody in this bar where the notes b flat and d
are harmonized using an f major triad this only works because this entire section is a
repeated melodic pattern that is used as a meta pedal point this melody is played over and over
on top of the harmonic progression six four one five g minor e flat b flat and f and r key this
is just a slightly different take on a one five six four which is a really common pop
progression in fact it's such a signature element of pop music that if you're not using it
you're doing something wrong anyways by the time we get to the f chord the melody has been repeated
so many times that it starts to be perceived as an independent layer on top of the harmony exactly
like a pedal point so the harmony works independently from the melody in this
case
many times when we write music we worry so much about
harmonizing the melody but as i just showed you there are many more aspects to consider
a pedal point or pattern can take on a life of its own freeing it from the shackles of harmonic
you consonants