Hey there, Steve here. Hope you're doing well. Today we're going to look at what makes the intro progression to the song Never Ments by American Football so special. The progression is comprised of two guitar parts playing at the same time over a bar of 12.4 and it's the combination of these two parts together which makes it sound so special. So starting with Steve harm's iconic riff in the introduction, a huge tune to FACGCE tuning which sounds like this. It's basically tuned to an F major 9 chord and this iconic riff outlines basically a C major chord so we have this ringing C note and then we have also C and E here. And then he's playing through this riff that outlines a C major scale starting on the G note. And when we get down to the 12 fret here we complete this C major triad to give us this nice resolution. So this tension built throughout the riff. And I really want you to listen to how that sounds nice and resolved. So you get this tension that scales up for this bar of 12.4 and then at the end we have this brief resolution before the riff repeats again. So Steve's part here situates us in this C major kind of sound, the C major tonic and it has this lovely overall complete feeling to it but also it has in the background you know we need something else we need to give it some direction and that's exactly what happens when Mike Canceler comes into the song. So moving on to Mike's counterpoint melody here we're changing tuning again we're going to FCC AC F tuning which is tuned to an F major chord and we can divide this section this bar of 12 probably into four different chords giving us an overall feeling of a progression here. So here we have like a 4 5 6 5 kind of progression that Mike is outlining. So beginning with our 4 chord and we move to our 5 then now we're kind of 6 chord here and then back to the 5. So we get this kind of harmony movement in the bass. So these chords ultimately introduce some movement and they mirror Steve's part really well. Also what I think is fantastic in Mike's part here is that off beat placement of two of the chords in the melody so the second and the third chords that he plays so we have this initial F chord. This really adds to that tension that's built throughout the ascending riff which is then released on that last chord again. So at this point you might be saying well if you're ending on a 5 I know this Mike's just playing this G note here that's actually playing the full chord. You know the 5 chord is considered to be quite tense so we need to resolve that and it's actually a resolution when we consider Steve's progression and let's take a look at that now the two parts together. So if we remember back to Steve's progression he's just learning this kind of C major chord and when we consider that with Mike's part there are a few changes to this overall progression that we hear. So I'm going to try and combine the two parts here by just having this ringing kind of singing at this ringing C notes and most of the chords already contain the E from that C major chord. So the first chord we could see as being a C major chord with an F in the bass or we could see it as like an F major 7 or F major 9 or something like that but to me it makes more sense as this slash chord. And we move over to the second chord the fifth and here we've got the G A C and then we've got our last two notes here. That makes this G sus 4 chord. Then we come up to our 6 chord here so this A minor chord. This one's a bit tricky because of this F note here. That's not in an A minor chord if it was an A minor 6 chord it would sound like this. Very mysterious, right but this F makes it a bit more ambiguous so we could say that it's an F major 7 first and first and so we've got F A F G A so that third has been put into the bass. The more you linger on that chord the more tense it actually feels but in the function of the progression it's kind of being that 6 that minor 6 chord and then lastly we're going to come back down to this G note along with the C. So there we have a C major second inversion C D E F G and that gives us that nice tonic resolution so it's this rise and fall intention that I believe makes this chord progression so special and it's the establishing that part on its own and then bringing that counter melody, the counter points part that really glues this all together it gives it a sense of movement and just makes us overall wonderful pleasant experience to listen to. So there we have it a deep dive into what makes this introduction such an awesome introduction and for most of us it probably was a good introduction to Malfrock it certainly was for me if anyone ever asks like what song should I listen to to get into Malfrock I do often recommend this album because it does have all those elements of Malfrock but it's a bit more accessible. So I want to ask you what chord progression would you like to see in future episodes so leave some of those comments down below. If you're interested in getting the tab that I used in this video I made that on guitar pro so I have PDF formats and guitar pro formats for that and that's available to Patreon so there's a link for that down below in the description and if you would like to support more content like this then please just head over to Patreon and I really appreciate any support that you can give. I want to say a big thank you to the Patreon star already supporting this channel and see you in the next episode. Goodbye!