Musically-inclined Dopers, can you identify this chord progression?

Cafe Society
1

I’ve always loved a particular chord progression in a sample used in a rap song from a few years back, but I’ve never been able to figure out what it is. It sounds like two minor or perhaps diminished chords, but my musical theory craps out right about there.

I’m going to post two short clips of the progression - the first sample is just the loop playing out before the beat comes in, and the second is two different chords with what sounds like an english horn playing a little melodic line between them. Maybe the notes in the melodic line are a clue to what the chords are?

I bet there someone out there that can nail these chords in one listen, so please help me out!

Note to mods: I looked over the rules, and like posting just a sample of a lyric rather than a whole song, I’m assuming that these two 10-second sound clips are totally kosher.

Here’s the first clip - the first just sounds like a minor chord, but the second one is the real enigma - I love it! What is it?

And here’s the second one. What chords are they? Sorry about the intrusive vocals, but this sample does not play at any point in the song without vocals over it.

For the curious, the song is “Breaks em down” by Peanut Butter Wolf and Kazi, off of his excellent but out-of-print My vinyl weighs a ton.

2

Far as I can tell, the first clip is just Em, played a little higher the second time. It does sound like it changes somehow, I think it must be the B on the high end that does it? The second clip seems to go Gm - Cm. Unless there’s some subtleties I’m missing, I think that’s all there is to it.

3

In the first clip, I just heard Dm -> Bm.

Second one, I apologize, couldn’t quite tell what I was listening for.

4

The first clip uses the chords A minor and F# minor.

The second clip alternates between G minor and C minor. But at the very end an F major chord is heard for a second.

5

That note at the end of the second clip is a return to the first chord in the first loop, which you identified as Am.

Thanks for the attempts, so far!

6

The first one sounds like Dm (D-F-A, from bottom to top) to F#m (A-C#-F#, from bottom to top). I think it’s just the instrument that’s making it sound weird.

The melody in the second one is D, Eb, D, C, Bb, C, D, Bb, C. I must admit it’s hard to hear the chords over the vocals, but I think it’s going back and forth between a Cdim chord (C-Eb-Gb, bottom to top) and a Cm (C-Eb-G).

7

Clip1: Am, F#m–a very Pink Floydish change.
Clip2: Gm, Cm with a change at the end, but it’s not F, sounds like D over F# to me. It’s pretty indistinct and doesn’t hang on long enough for me, with my tin ear, to be sure. Fer shur it’s not Am.

8

The last bit of chord, if only two notes were heard, A and C, produces ambiguity. Those two notes could form either an A minor or an F major harmony. As Leonard Bernstein said in The Unanswered Question, ambiguity in music is the source of beauty.

9

After listening to the clips a little bit more, I’ll recant my Dm assertion for the first chord and agree with Johanna that it’s Am. And that is the same Am at the end of the second clip, IMO.

However, I don’t agree that the two alternating chords in the second one are just Gm and Cm. That first one sounds way too dissonant to be plain ol’ Gm. Of course, part of the problem here is the lack of volume and quality of sound in the recording, but I still say the first chord is Cdim (C-Eb-Gb), and then Cm (C-Eb-G).

My two cents…

10

The dissonance over the G minor harmony comes from the top note, which is A. It makes a major-seventh dissonance with the B-flat in the chord under it.

I didn’t feel inclined to analyze the harmony as a G-minor ninth chord. Rather, it sounded to me like basic G minor with a series of pulsating passing tones on top.