Question for our resident musicians...

[Sweet Papa Crimbo]

I read somewhere that the descending chord progression in Born Alone was a "Shepherd's progression"?

Is that correct?

If not, what is the chord progression called in a musicological sense?

[lamradio]

I read somewhere that the descending chord progression in Born Alone was a "Shepherd's progression"?

Is that correct?

If not, what is the chord progression called in a musicological sense?

 

 

I've never heard of a "Shepherd's progression". A musical term for it could just simply be a descending progression or a descending chromatic progression.

[Sweet Papa Crimbo]

 

 

I've never heard of a "Shepherd's progression". A musical term for it could just simply be a descending progression or a descending chromatic progression.

I thought it was something along those lines, but "Shepherd's progression" is a term I read somewhere.

[EitherWay]

I'm not a musician per se, but I do use Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shepard_tone

[Sweet Papa Crimbo]

I'm not a musician per se, but I do use Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia....ki/Shepard_tone

 

There we go...I knew I had read it referred to as something along those lines...

[Sweet Papa Crimbo]

 

There we go...I knew I had read it referred to as something along those lines...(I didn't get any hits because I was looking for "shepherd's progression")

[Madrone]

So I came up with the idea that we would end the song with a Shepard tone, which is a series of chords that when repeated continuously sounds like its descending or ascending. It's kind of a musical trick—it sounds like it's endlessly going deeper and deeper into the abyss.

 

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2011/09/watch-wilcos-new-born-alone-video-and-read-the-story-behind-its-lyrics/244656/

[lost highway]

The trick is to stagger people's jumps back up. As they step downward through the scale they run out of fret board, if people jump back up an octave at different times, it still sounds like its going collectively lower.