shoutout to grandmother

this whole vid was just a buildup to that megamind reveal

I think it is because of City Pop, like Tomo Fujita said, back then jazz musicians needs to pay their bills, so they play pop at bars and stuff, but they made pop with their Jazzy knowlege, so time passes, and here we are, jpop with weird chord structures. Very nice video btw, very interesting analysis

I am a Japanese who studies chord progressions. This chord progression is called "Anime Song Progression(アニソン進行)", "Hare Hare Progression(ハレ晴レ進行)", or "Konfame Progression(コンファメ進行)" in Japan. I think the original is "There Will Never Be Another You". I am glad that this chord progression is being talked about abroad. Translated by DeepL.

Shoutout to Beethoven-appreciating grandmothers

shoutout to grandma's ringtone

GRANDMA SHOUT OUT LETSGOOOO

I think that the reason this type of chord progression sees more popularity in Japan is cultural. Japan’s cultural attitude is geared toward a relentless striving for systematic efficiency, even more so than in the United States, and I think it shows in their art. A society like theirs where individualistic emotional expression is outwardly inhibited only intensifies an inner longing for it under the surface, especially for those select few already predisposed to artistic tendencies. Anime and Japanese music are so much more emotionally vivid because they are an outlet for those feelings as the only exception to an otherwise stifling way of life. In the United States we take this kind of expression for granted and so it just doesn’t seem urgent for us to search within ourselves for the most emotionally resonant chord progressions, at least not as much as in Japan. I personally think we should adopt their artistic approach too though over our current musical complacency.

The "Pachelbel progression" is actually called the descending 5-6 sequence, and it is a well-established sequence in music theory. The progression in its entirety long predates Pachelbel himself; it can be found in music treatises as early as the 15th century. Pachelbel may have popularised the sequence to the 20th century layman, but anyone with a decent education in traditional music theory would have known the descending 5-6 sequence and its derivatives, regardless of whether or not they knew Pachelbel's Canon itself.

That 2 5 to IV is ubiquitous in Japanese music - at least what I've listened to. And it hits every single time

4:15 or so : I can't believe you've done this

I've been thinking about this concept for years, how some of the tools used in japanese pop have a very distinct sound with the progressions they choose, and you can tell when some music is inspired by j-pop by whether they use these devices. Thanks for putting some theory to this, I'm not crazy after all.

29:25 the fusion of my two absolute favourite things

For Korean RnB, there are many songs that follow the same chord progression as Zion.T's "May." To name a few, "입장정리" by Primary, "Story of someone I know" by San E, "Some" by Soyou+Junggigo. I originally thought that Korean RnB drew from American RnB, and that these songs specifically drew from "Officially Missing You" by Tamia (just my speculation); in fact there was a straight up cover of this song by a Korean group called Geeks that was quite popular. I think these kind of chord progressions are common in American RnB in the 90s/2000s(?) and still exist today to some extent, but they are extremely popular in Korean RnB recently (and K-pop more generally), and of course in Japanese media as you point out. This was a really enjoyable video. Seeing you shout out specific songs I listened to when I was younger (the examples by MCR, Khalil Fong, Super Junior, Zion.T) was kind of nostalgic because at the time I really gravitated to these more "colorful" chord progressions without understanding why. Now that I have more music theory knowledge I can better explain my younger self's tastes.

I can't accurately explain the bamboozlement I felt by clicking on a video about anime music theory and immediately being met with a google streetview of my hometown

Holy shit, I love this video! I've always thought about this progression as having a strong link to jazz and the simplified I vi IV V progression found in pop but never thought of the older sources. It's mind-blowing how you can trace musical ideas really far back. It gets more fun: Wikipedia says that "Confirmation" is actually a contrafact of a tune called "Twilight Time" which was first recorded by Les Brown in 1944 and released in Jan of 1945, the same year that Parker supposedly wrote his tune. If you take a listen to "Twilight Time" you'll hear that the A section is almost identical to "Confirmation"'s A section bar the missing related ii of the V/vi and it instead has a backdoor cadence of VI I V/ii after the IV chord. Who knows if Parker was inspired by this earlier record, but it's somewhat likely considering that the practice of writing contrafacts was so rampant during his time (the B section of "Confirmation" is not like "Twilight Time" though). It gets even more fun: there is another tune that originated a couple years earlier in 1942, "There Will Never Be Another You," that has the same progression of "Confirmation" up to the IV chord where it does a backdoor to the I and then does vi V/V ii V (which is actually what "Twilight Time" does!). All along I've been associating the Anime Canon progression with "There Will Never Be Another You" since that's one of my favorite tunes, and now thanks to you I see more links in the chain. You might find another step of the evolution of this progression if you do more digging. This stuff really goes deep!

I might be wrong but isn't this chord progressions also in 'Mr. Blue sky'? Btw great video! Great in-depth explanation.

I feel like it would be useful to give that `ii-V/vi vi bvi ii-V/IV IV` part itself a name, since this is effectively a concatenation of that with Royal Road (and its usual ii-V exit). Louie Zong even makes use of this in the "jazzy version" of his A Thing About Chords. 🙂

Reminds me of "어땠을까" by PSY and Lena Park: Eb - [Dm7(b5) G7] - Cm7 - [Bbm7 Eb7] - Ab - Eb/G - Fm7 - [Bbsus4 Bb7] (I - [viiø7 V7/vi] - vi7 - [v7 V7/IV] - IV - I6 - ii7 - [Vsus4 V7]) Also - you should have included some examples from "Love Live! School Idol Project".

Awesome Video!! I got so hyped when you mentioned Official Hige Dandism! They are my favourite band for the reasons you mentioned. "Crybaby" wowed me even before I knew it modulated 12 times! It was a quick descent into absolutely living and breathing Higedan. They have been so innovative for the J-pop scene since they got popular with "Pretender". And now, Since the release of this video, their song "Subtitle" which is another subversive "Royal road extension" song has just past Gen Hoshino's "Koi" for longest at no.1 on billboard.

I love these videos! Such great explanations 😁🥰

That was excellent. Thank you so much for this!

Thanks for the video! Super interesting as always!

Amazing video! Music theory has always been so interesting to me so this was an absolute blast to watch!

Gotta say your videos are such a blast to watch, hope you get some time to craft and upload soon- i look forward to seeing what you will put out

Just coming back to say thank you for introducing me to Higedan. They’re like my favourite band now

openly enjoying canon in d is such a power move

Genuinely outstanding video. Wow.

Camel Up! Been looking for new games and Camel up seems great! I love a colorful game with quality pieces. Congrats on the new channel off to a great start!

Great video! Shout out to grandma! Here for the maps guessing and the drawing of smol cadence!

Fantastic video! Glad I just stumbled upon your channel

4:18 . . . nice.

please keep making content hira!

Yoooo shoutout to Canon Rock! Def inspired me to pick up guitar! (Also great work on the blackadder video)

I’d like to submit something completely different, one of the most recognizable Latin American romantic ballads of the 1980’s: No te apartes de mí by Roberto Carlos. The progression runs a little slower over the course of the entire verse, but it’s almost identical to the Anime Canon, just without a few passing chords.

One of the best videos on this topic. Hi grandma!

LITERALLY LAST NIGHT I BINGED LIKE 5 VIDS THEN A NEW ONE TODAY LESS GOOOOOO

thanks grandma

canon rock was also the reason I learned guitar 15 years ago!

I always thought of Pachelbel's canon in D as the romanesca with funny little plagal to half cadence

Great video!

RIP Berklee bois. Great vid!

SHOUT OUT TO GRAMMA

per the beginning, I wouldn't really say the latter sounds particular japanese, not in comparison to the first anyways. It just sounds like jazz basically Probably a more accurate statement isn't that our harmonic language differs but rather simply that what Pop is to Japan and what Pop is to the US differs quite a lot, but that doesn't mean what is found in jpop doesn't occur in some form in US music, just perhaps not pop

Could we sum up the progression as being I} - {II - V - I} in relative minor - {II - V - I} in Main key - {Royal Road} in Main key - {II - V - But you connect the parts with secondary dom ? And you can go crazy with the substitutions as long as you keep the core VoiceLeading of all the parts intact ?

4:18 hey wait a minute i heard something...

Confirmation transposed to G just becomes "för kärlekens skull" by Ted Gärdestad

mr blue sky by elo? idk maybe it just sounds like the anime canon to me.... I don't understand music theory at all so a lot of this video went way over my head, but it was still so fun to watch!!

Good video!

as far as idol anime, i can tell you that it feels like at least half the songs from love live use this at some point, whether it be the main theme or the opening riff, and i could probably name at least a dozen off the top of my head. i was never really curious in finding an official name, i just knew that it appeared in a lot of anime music, so i always just described it as confirmation or bird blues with some fudging near the end to round it out and keep in the vicinity of japanese pop. once i got into love live with its vast catalog of music it started to feel like they really didn't try in a lof of songs, opting to just slap a generic melody on top of that progression with equally generic instrumentation. i still like it though, as someone who plays jazz piano

Dont change your ringtone Grandma‼️

Hey! Stumbled on your vids some days ago and loved your content! I just now saw, in the description, that you give composition lessons. Where can I find your email for more info?

So cool, JerryC is from Taiwan, everyone got Canon Rock in their MP3 player back in the days. And now you got a subscriber from Taiwan here TBH, every modern music is influenced by western music, especially the countries that have strong relationship with America post war like Japan and Taiwan. US troops stayed there for years ,along with their music. There are still people that are more focused on folk-music though.

When it comes to the point raised at 27:50, I think it's important to consider other musical elements than just the chords. What if you made an instrumental track that used the Axis progression instead, but kept all of the other elements similar (rhythms, instrumentation, overall arrangement) - would it still sound Japanese? (I assume it would.) And what if you took an Anime tune and arranged it in a different way, and only kept the original melody and chords - would it still sound recognizably Japanese? My point is, there are other things that make a song sound like "Anime music", and I think Anime music is a recognizable style of music even without progressions like Canon, circle of 5ths or Royal Road (even though those progressions do contribute to the "Anime sound").

Great geo guesser gameplay, thanks Grandma!

Shoutout to grandma and her ringtone

Wish I had found your channel sooner, hope you haven't retired

YEEEAAAAAA GRANDMAAAAAA!!!!

You should listen to the Mao Mao: Heroes of Pure heart theme song. It uses this chord progression exactly. It's also a good show

Haven't finished, but I can tell it's gonna be a banger

5:02 LET'S GO GRANDMA

I think the jazz standard I'll Close My Eyes follow the anime canon to some degree.

Definitely check out Butterfly by Wada Kouji aka the Digimon Adventure OP.

>occasionally turned dorian during christmas time alol

I was about to go search for if anyone had put black parade vocals over those chords and you immediately delivered, thank you.

I've had this chord progression in my mind for years, and I always associated it with Hare Hare Yukai (and I should add I never truly paid attention to what happens after the I - viidim - III7 - vi - v - I7 - IV beginning). Anyway, some examples of the chord progression in the Latin America pop sphere: Moral Distraida - Recreo Ricardo Montaner - Yo puedo hacer

the intro song for Mao Mao: Heroes of Pure Heart

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO now everytime I hear a song there is a chance I get Pachelbel's Canoned

I loved the random Google Maps.

アニソンのコード進行はジャズ由来だったんですね〜

Shout out to nanna..❤ Your grandkid rocks~ 🔥

Nice outro

shoutouts to grandma

Never thought there'd ever be a video about "the most iconic anime progression" that would actually showcase the right prog lol Seems I was wrong

i’ve been both an idolmaster fan (& general idol fan) and an mcr fan for a long time and seeing star from cinderella girls and black parade get compared here was super surprising LOL i guess i just like this chord progression a lot

I would watch a video on the anecdotes

can someone make a playlist of songs with the anime canon in them?

Please listen to the「hana wa odore ya irohaniho」composed by Hidekazu Tanaka.

I feel like Mousou Express is a dark reflection or a shadow of this chord progression...

When I saw "Japanese chord progression" in the title, I thought of IV V iii vi (which David Bennett says is like their version of the initial chord progression he plays here).

before i learned confirmation is the origin, like here, i always called it the why cant we be friends progression, from the war song of the same name. also a western song using it

I always thought Black parade was perfect for an anime OP, but I could never understand why until now, I have been vindicated!

I beleive there is an american well known occurence dated 1980: "Just the Two of Us" by Groover Washington

Le me in the shower trying to hear baka mitai in my head together with the canon D melody lol

2:35 mexico mensionado

All Hail Grandmah!

When are you going to upload again? :(

POMPLAMOOSE MENTIONED ❤❤❤❤

I dont know shit about music theory and will keep doing everything by ear but this was a great watch.

Masayoshi Oishi's Imperfect (SSSS. Dynazenon OP) I think follows the "anime progression"

0:49 that's just Yesterday

i have heard this in japanese songs, never thought of it as japanese though, idk i also don't watch anime

I'm pretty sure "Do you want to build a snowman" from Frozen does this.

日本の音楽について少し理解するために日本で流行った歴史と理解するためになるヒントをここに書いておきます。 今の日本では過去にロックやジャズにラテンが流行っていた事でこれらの要素が多く含まれています。 1865年頃に薩摩藩軍楽隊ができた頃から西洋和声へと移行していきました。この頃から日本和声は廃れていきました。 日本国歌の君が代は日本和声のメロディと西洋和声の伴奏で作られており、演歌もこの方法で作られています。 日本和声は雅楽で使われており今の日本ではほとんど使われていません。昭和歌謡曲ではもう少しシンプルなコード進行をしていたため昭和から平成にかけて複雑なコード進行を好むようになったと思われます。

0:50 I've listened to too many Japanese music that I predicted all the chords

Shoutout to Grandma

Shout out to Gammy keepin it 100 . . . . . . . Also SWED

So have you listened to My Tam CD?

2:16 ah yes, just enjoying this documentary-type video about Japanese chord progressions- 2:26 g-greensleeves? Lol

16:24 Okay, but can this be the new Goth/Emo wedding tune?