Daft Punk's Voyager bassline

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Hey guys,

I really like the bassline of the track mentioned above (--> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEJpLDEOivA, starting at 00:31) but i don't know how they came up with it. Could you explain me the theoretical background?
Thanks in advance.

Best regards,
Juljan

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I believe they are just outlining the chords of the song. The chord progression seems to be Em9-->C#7sus-->Cmaj7-->D7sus. This is basically an Aeolian(natural minor mode) progression with a few jazzy things thrown in. This is basically a (i-->bVI-->bVII) progression, but they made a lot of the chords 7ths and 9ths too give them a more laid back feel. Without that this chord progression would sound like an 80s metal song. The tricky chord is the C#7sus(VI7sus). This confused me for a while and I thought it might be a tritone sub for G7, but it's not. It is actually a modal interchange chord from the E Ionian. It should probibly be notated as C#m11. It is a chord that comes from the relative major. Basically what they did was they took a super common chord progression, added some extensions to make it sound more jazzy and then added a non-traditional modal interchange chord to spice things up. I really like this song and it's a great example of how you can take an old chord progression and breath new life into it with a few tweaks.

As for the bass line, they are following the roots of the chords and playing octaves using slapping and popping. I could be wrong about that because I'm not a bass player. Anyway, between the octaves they are doing little riffs based on the E minor(Aeolian) scale.

I'll plug myself here. Below is a series of videos I did on modal harmony and how to make chord progressions like this. I plan to make more video on this and I might use this song as an example in my next video. Anyway, I hope that helped.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1eh_PQ ... bm0ykrL_M3

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Hey,

thank you very much for answering and these great videos (I already watched the general one about modes). :)

What is popping in bass style?

Which step on the scale is C#m11 ((i-->?-->bVI-->bVII)?

How to came up with the flat chords? How to came up with the change to the relative major chord?

Thanks in advance! :)

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I'm sorry I went over it a bit quickly. The full progression should be (i9-->vi11-->bVImaj7--bVII7sus). The C#m11 is the VIm11. The flat chords occur because its in a minor key(Aeolian mode). In a major key(Ionian mode) the chords are (Uppercase=major chords, lowercase=minor) I,ii,iii,IV,V,vi,viidim. In the Aeolian mode they are i,iidim,bIII,iv,v,bVI,bVII.

Voyager is in E minor, so the chords are, Em, F#dim, G, Am, Bm, C, D. Of course in Voyager they add 7ths and 9ths, or make come chords sus. Hopefully you can see where 3 of the chords came from. The one chord you can't find in E minor is C#m11. However if we look at E major we see the chords are E, F#m, G#m, A, B, C#m, D#dim. So they took one chord from the major scale and inserted it into the minor chord progression. The is known as modal interchange or mode mixture. I hope I explained that clearly.

Popping is a type of bass playing that is popular in funk music. It is often knows as slapping and popping and I believe it was invented by Larry Graham(Drake's uncle). It involves slapping the strings on the bass and pulling them really hard to make percussive sounds. It's a very recognizable sound(The Seinfeld theme). Check out the video below for an insane demonstration.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klV3WuZQyW4

I hope that helps. Let me know if there is something you don't understand.

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Thank you!
So, I think I understood nearly everything.

Two last questions about the harmonics: Why do you use the b for naming the chords?
I know this completely different: Ionian (major) - I ii iii IV V vi viidim (e.g. C Dm Em F G Am Bdim); Aeolian (natural minor) - i iidim III iv v VI VII (Am Bdim C Dm Em F G). I would use b for flat scales (FMaj for example: F Gm Am bB C Dm Edim). Do we mean the same?

How can you 'justify' the modal interchange cause the C# note(!) is obviously out of scale. Why does it sound good anyway?

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Juljan wrote:Thank you!
So, I think I understood nearly everything.

Two last questions about the harmonics: Why do you use the b for naming the chords?
I know this completely different: Ionian (major) - I ii iii IV V vi viidim (e.g. C Dm Em F G Am Bdim); Aeolian (natural minor) - i iidim III iv v VI VII (Am Bdim C Dm Em F G). I would use b for flat scales (FMaj for example: F Gm Am bB C Dm Edim). Do we mean the same?

How can you 'justify' the modal interchange cause the C# note(!) is obviously out of scale. Why does it sound good anyway?
I use the b(flat) because it shows that the chord is a step down(or up if #) compared to a normal major scale. As an example let's say we're in C major. iii is Em , but bIII is Eb. If we don't add the b(flat) it would just look like E. Another example would be II and bII. II is D (a lydian modal interchange chord), while bII is Db(a phrygian modal interchange chord). Without the b or # marks it would be confusing and someone might play D instead of Db.

In your example above for A Aeolian, I might think you meant Am, Bdim, C#, Dm, Em, F#, G#. Obviously that's wrong, but without using b or # its difficult for people to know what you mean.

The C# isn't in E minor(the key of voyager), but it is in E major. Modal interchange is when you "borrow" a chord from a paralell key. So in E minor we could borrow chords from E Ionian(E major), E Dorian, E phrygian, E lydian, E mixolydian or E Locrian. Of course some chords will sound better than others, but that is the basic theory behind it.

The reason it sounds good is because 1) there is a relationship between the two modes 2) The notes are either the same or move smoothly to the next chord. If we look at the notes of Em9 (E, G, B, D, F#) and C#m11 (C#, E, G#, B, F#) we see that the contain 3 of the same notes. The other 2 notes C# and G# are only a half step away from the notes in Em9, so the change doesn't seem awkward or abrupt. The next chord is Cmaj7(C,E,G,B) and the change from C#m11 also contains many of the same notes or notes that a very close to the previous ones. This is why it doesn't just sound like a random chord. The common modal interchange chords all have this property. They give you a little "spice" from the parallel mode, but they aren't crazy enough to sound like they don't belong. If you listen to the first part of voyager, the Em9 and C#m11 almost sound like the same chord. Of course you could do this would triads and they wouldn't share as many notes, but it will sound more abrupt. I hope that answers everything.

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"If you listen to the first part of voyager, the Em9 and C#m11 almost sound like the same chord. Of course you could do this would triads and they wouldn't share as many notes, but it will sound more abrupt. I hope that answers everything."
What do you mean with that?

I'm not sure if we're talking about the same thing - to make it clear:
Ionian mode of E: E, F#m, G#m, A, B, C#m, D#dim, E = I, ii, iii, IV, V, vi, viidim
Aeolian mode of E (natural): Em, F#dim, G, Am, Bm, C, D, Em = i,ii#dim, III, iv, v, VI, VII
Ionian mode of F: F, Gm, Am, Bb, C, Dm, Edim, F = I, ii, iii, IV, V, vi, viidim
Aeolian mode of F (natural): F, G, Ab, Bb, C, Db, Eb, F = i,ii#dim, III, iv, v, VI, VII
So I don't use the b and # for the steps itself. But how do you come up with the flats in this case cause neither the Aeolian mode of E natural nor the Ionian one of E has a flat sign?

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Juljan wrote:"If you listen to the first part of voyager, the Em9 and C#m11 almost sound like the same chord. Of course you could do this would triads and they wouldn't share as many notes, but it will sound more abrupt. I hope that answers everything."
What do you mean with that?

I'm not sure if we're talking about the same thing - to make it clear:
Ionian mode of E: E, F#m, G#m, A, B, C#m, D#dim, E = I, ii, iii, IV, V, vi, viidim
Aeolian mode of E (natural): Em, F#dim, G, Am, Bm, C, D, Em = i,ii#dim, III, iv, v, VI, VII
Ionian mode of F: F, Gm, Am, Bb, C, Dm, Edim, F = I, ii, iii, IV, V, vi, viidim
Aeolian mode of F (natural): F, G, Ab, Bb, C, Db, Eb, F = i,ii#dim, III, iv, v, VI, VII
So I don't use the b and # for the steps itself. But how do you come up with the flats in this case cause neither the Aeolian mode of E natural nor the Ionian one of E has a flat sign?
I'm sorry I thought you were referring to something else. Roman numerals aren't based on keys, so it doesn't matter what key the song is in. Ex. I-IV-V, C major(C-->F-->G), Eb major(Eb--Ab-->Bb) F# major(F#-->B-->C#). All of those are I-IV-V progressions, but the keys are different. The flat and sharps for the roman numerals are in reference to the major scale chords. The Ionian roman numerals you wrote above are correct, but the Aeolian isn't. I know its confusing, but doing it that way allows you to do analysis without knowing the key. It also allows you to transpose songs in your head easily. The roman numerals just let you know the function of the chord, they don't actually tell you exactly what chord it is. For example the roman numeral might be IV and the chord is Bb or the roman numeral is bIII, but the chord is D. The roman numerals don't change with the keys, they stay the same no matter what key you switch to. If you switch from major to minor or switch modes they do change however. I know this can be confusion, but I hope that clears it up a bit.

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"If you listen to the first part of voyager, the Em9 and C#m11 almost sound like the same chord. Of course you could do this would triads and they wouldn't share as many notes, but it will sound more abrupt. I hope that answers everything."
What do you mean with that?

So, to be honest I'm not sure if everything's right.
You said: "major key (Ionian mode) I,ii,iii,IV,V,vi,viidim". But why you don't use any signs in that case? I could also read that as only whole tone steps like C, Dm, Em, F#, G#, A#m, Cdim, D what is more than wrong.
For the Aeolian mode: i,iidim,bIII,iv,v,bVI,bVII = Am, Bdim, C, Dm, Em, F,Gb/G#, A --> you didn't write a half step in the last part.

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It is based around the major key so in roman numerals none of the chords will have sharps or flats. Everything else is compared to those major key chords. Let compare C major with C minor.

Major C, Dm, Em, F, G, Am, Bdim
Minor Cm, Ddim, Eb, Fm, Gm, Ab, Bb

As you can see E, A and B are all flattened. The 3rd, 6th and 7th notes. That's why you use the flats. The key doesn't matter. If you compare F# major with F# minor the 3rd, 6th and 7th notes will be flattened. It is all based on the major scale. If something differs from the major scale it gets a sharp or flat. Major scale harmony is the base so it doesn't use sharps or flats everything else does.

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Aaaaaaaaah, okay - got it! :D

Hopefully the last question (that you didn't answer): "If you listen to the first part of voyager, the Em9 and C#m11 almost sound like the same chord. Of course you could do this would triads and they wouldn't share as many notes, but it will sound more abrupt. I hope that answers everything."
What do you mean with that?

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The the fact that they share many of the same notes and the fact that in this song the highest note on both chords is F#(played on the synth). Also by using 7th chords and extentions, they allow more similar notes, so the similarities in the chords are intensified. 3 note chords(triads) have a more powerful direct sound, that would make this progression sound different. I prefer the more laid back jazzy feel of the chords in this song.

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Okay, great, thanks a lot for your help. :)

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Subscribed!
Very good explanation. Thank you.

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Here is a video I made explaining the concept of modal interchange. I actually used this thread as an example.

https://youtu.be/BH8M4cmupwM

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