As your understanding of music deepens, one of the things that’s going to come into focus is the distinction between structure and function. Let me give you an example because this C chord is going to show up twice. And this one is totally different than this one.
So there’s our C, right? But what? While at one point that C chord seemed like a great place to start and a great place to end, there’s exactly nobody who feels like that anymore.
We centered our conception of the home key, that same C chord now means something very different. Those two chords have the same ingredients, they have the same DNA. So the question isn’t how did we make them, it’s what are they doing?
And if you’re anything like me, as your understanding of music deepens, that’s what you’re going to be listening for.
