The first time I heard Imogen Heaps hide and seek, I was driving and I literally had to pull the car over. This song is an exquisite marriage of simplicity and masterful production aesthetics, but it’s the lush, colorful harmony that I want to discuss here. The chords themselves are simple, but the density of the clusters and the choice of color tones create a lush landscape full of tension.
It’s achieved in no small part by what we call common tones. These are the notes that carry over from one chord to the next. The note stays the same, but its context changes.
It’s a compelling device and one of the standout examples is here, over this 5 chord with the addition of a 4th. It’s like a suspended chord with a 3rd, a voicing that has real teeth. Out of context, it can sound pretty abrasive, but as the A natural is the tonic, we heard it in the previous chord, and it creates a droning quality that reinforces the key while adding a beautiful tension to this passage.
We see lots of notes sustaining from chord to chord. Repeat offenders include the major 7, which becomes the 9 of this minor chord. But the 1, 2, and 5 also appear frequently on top of chords to which they don’t necessarily belong.
The common tones add thickness and color to these densely voiced chords without making them sound jazzy. So if you’re looking to add new flavors to your chord voicings, this is a great song to check out. And if someone who likes talking about this stuff in the context of producing music, they might enjoy Beat Kitchen Class.
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