Appreciating, Playing, and
Writing Chinese Pop Music
華語流行音樂 — 欣賞、演奏與創作。
The songs you already know
Who are we?
We're juniper and pine — a musical duo based in Queens, NYC.
Why are we here?
We perform covers
And we write music, too
Pop, folk, experimental, etc... here's two songs we wrote
A quick survey
Raise a hand if this is true for you —
A quick survey
A quick survey
A quick survey
Basic song elements
Every song has four main elements.
Melody
The line you'd hum back.
Harmony
The chords underneath — our focus today.
Rhythm
How the time is divided up.
Lyrics
The words in the song.
The 12 notes
Look at a keyboard and a pattern jumps out: after 7 white keys and 5 black keys, a note name shows up again — just higher. That's an octave.
Those 12 notes, repeating up and down the whole keyboard, make up all the raw material used by Western music. Every scale, every chord, every key is just a different way of picking from this same repeating set of 12.
What is a scale?
A scale is a set of notes in order — the palette a song draws its chords and melody from. Here's the major scale, starting on C:
On the piano, that's every white key from C to C — the pattern of whole and half steps (W–W–H–W–W–W–H) is what makes it sound like home when it lands back on 1. That exact pattern is the major scale — it isn't tied to C. Start the same W–W–H–W–W–W–H shape on any of the 12 notes and you get that note's major scale: G major, F major, and every other major scale follow the identical recipe, just from a different starting point.
Major pentatonic
C D E G A — the same major scale with the 4th and 7th left out. No half-steps at all, so it's nearly impossible to hit a "wrong" note.
Harmonic minor
A B C D E F G♯ — a different W/H recipe, with a stretched step right before the final half-step home.
Building a triad
Start on any note, skip one, add one, skip one, add one. That's a triad — a chord made of a root, a third, and a fifth.
The root gives the chord its name. Whether the chord is major or minor comes down to just one thing: how far that third sits from the root.
A few worked examples — the same C major scale every time, just starting the root somewhere new:
I — C major
ii — D minor
V — G major
Major or minor? It's the third
Same root, same fifth — only the third moves, by a single half-step.
The chord scale, and your key
Build a triad on every degree of the major scale, and the key reveals its whole chord family:
I–IV–I and I–V–I
I – IV – I
I – V – I
IV–V–I and ii–V–I
IV – V – I — used for everything
ii – V – I — jazz tl;dr, we'll see this again
The four-chord song
Extend IV–V–I with one detour through the relative minor first, and you get pop music's most reused loop:
I – vi – IV – V – I
Four songs, same shape, all in C — next up.
喜歡你
Beyond
I – vi – IV – V – I (in C)
愛你
Kimberley Chen
I – vi – IV – V – I (in C)
Every Breath You Take
The Police
I – vi – IV – V – I (in C)
Baby
Justin Bieber
I – vi – IV – V – I (in C)
Using the iii chord
Use the iii (the mediant) along with the vi to linger instead of building tension. This creates a wistful, melancholic vibe within a major key.
I – iii – vi – iii – ii – V – I
把悲傷留給自己
Bobby Chen (陳昇)
Verse progression: I – iii – vi – iii – ii – vi – ii – V – I
森林
Mr. (Mr. 樂團)
Chorus progression: I – iii – vi – iii – IV – iii – vi – ♭VII – V
Voice leading & descending bass lines
A chord's notes don't have to stay in root position — any note in the chord can sit in the bass. Walk the bass down the scale, step by step, under an otherwise ordinary progression, and the harmony gets a current running underneath it.
Bass line: C–B–A–G–F–E–D walks straight down the scale, then G–C closes the cadence. The chords above are ordinary I, V, vi, I, IV, iii, ii, V, I — only the bass note per chord changes.
富士山下
Eason Chan
First loop of the first verse
流沙
David Tao (陶喆)
First loop of the first chorus
A few more to explore on your own
那些年
Hu Xia (胡夏)
K歌之王
Eason Chan (陳奕迅)
What we covered
In your handout
We covered the basics of CPOP harmony today. Your handout has more useful information in case you'd like to learn more.
Melody and lyrics
Melodies in pop songs. Tl;dr — melodies need to fit tones in Cantonese or Mandarin. Strong melodies fit the chord tones in the progression underneath. CPOP artists often use the pentatonic scale to sound more Asian.
Rhythm
Most songs are 4/4, 3/4, or 6/8.
More on harmony
A few more tricks — extended harmony and borrowed chords.
Follow along with us
More covers, more interpretations, and original music coming soon.
愛你
Kimberley Chen · played in A major
Verse — I · vi · IV · V
Chorus — vi · IV · I · V (the same four chords, reordered — very common)
海闊天空
Beyond · sounds in A major, capo 2 — shapes shown in tab are relative to the capo