Roads Untraveled: Linkin Park Chord Progression

 

Am           C       F        

Weep not for roads untraveled 

Am           C           G 

Weep not for paths left alone 

                                                                            

        F          Am        E             Am

Cause beyond every bend is a long blinding end 

         Am            E         Am 

It's the worst kind of pain I've known 

Am           C          F        

Give up your heart left broken. 

    Am         C          G 

And let that mistake pass on 

                     

          F             Am          E             Am

Cause the love that you lost wasn't worth what it cost 

       Am             E         Am 

And in time you'll be glad it's gone. 

Am - C - F - Am - C - G - F - Am - E - Am - E - Am  (x2) (same rhythm as above)

Woahoowoah...

Am           C       F        

Weep not for roads untraveled 

Am           C        G

Weep not for sights unseen 

                     

         F          Am         E          Am

May your love never end and if you need a friend, 

          Am          E        Am   

There's a seat here along side me. 

Wooooohooowooo.. Am - C - F - Am - C - G - F - Am - E - Am - E - Am  (x2)

https://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/l/linkin_park/roads_untraveled_ver3_crd.htm

The song that I chose to analyze for this blog post about chord progressions is Roads Untraveled by Linkin Park. As I'm quite familiar with the song, I already knew that it had a minor tonality, and I figured out that the tonic must be A minor because almost all of the phrases begin and/or end with the Am chord. I determined the roman numeral namesfrom there. 

Am: i (tonic)
C: III (pre-dominant)
F: VI (pre-dominant)
G: VII (pre-dominant)
E: V (dominant)

Each verse follows this chord progression:
i, III, VI, i, III, VII, VI, i, V, i, i, V, i
Tonic, pre-dominant, pre-dominant (period 1), tonic, pre-dominant, pre-dominant (period 2), pre-dominant, tonic, dominant, tonic (period 3), tonic, dominant, tonic (period 4).

Each chorus follows this chord progression:
i, III, VI, i, III, VII, VI, i, V, i, V, i. 
Tonic, pre-dominant, pre-dominant, tonic, pre-dominant, pre-dominant, pre-dominant, tonic, dominant, tonic, dominant, tonic.

The entire song is in Am, and each chord progression follows the expected pattern of minor chords. Even the V chord is major, meaning that the seventh note in the scale, G, was raised (to create E major).

Nutcracker Mvt. 10: Box 4

This is the recording of box 4 taken in class:
(For some reason this isn't uploading to Blogger...)

This recording does not sound super good, as we all need to practice this part. A video of me practicing the part is provided below:

It's not perfect yet, I still mess up some of the trills (because of the awkward positions) and the sixteenth notes at the end. I established a good fingering for the entire passage though, so hopefully it will sound better when I play it in class :)

Nutcracker Mvt. 8: 87-90

Like I was "technically" supposed to do for my last blog, I have practiced the section 87-90 of the eighth Nutcracker movement. A video of me playing it should be available below: 

To play this well, I focused on bow division, specifically giving each of the slurred quarter notes an equal portion of the bow (to maintain a constant volume - fortissimo!). I also focused on the rhythms of the harder sections, such as the group of sixteenth note triplets + quintuplet before box 88, and the hemiola right before box 90.