News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on “Silent Night” turns 200.

Re:“Silent Night” turns 200 by sgustard on Friday December 14, 2018 @11:53PM (#18687113)
Silent Night is interesting (and by that, I mean boring) in that it's your basic three-chord I/IV/V melody.

One might think this structure is only a recent invention with early blues and rock & roll. Is it unusual for a 200-year-old song to follow this pattern? How old is the three-chord musical structure?

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:“Silent Night” turns 200 by ironmagma on Saturday December 15, 2018 @02:15AM (#18687459)
It's not exactly just three chords, with the chord on the first "peace" which according to one source is called a "G# Ø half dimº" chord, followed by the suspension on "heav-" aka "G add9 flat5 6th no3" [1]. There are some really cool passing chords in Silent Night.

[1] http://www.gootar.com/piano5/piano-chord.php

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:“Silent Night” turns 200 by ianbicking on Saturday December 15, 2018 @12:11AM (#18687174)
Talking about a rock and roll structure does go nicely with the image from the article, of the debut of the song by a young priest (himself inspired by peace in the face of war) and his composer friend, accompanied by just a guitar.
[ Parent | on HN ]