The Simplest Riff….With The Weirdest Theory (Black Hole Sun)

Added: 2026-05-27

[00:00:00]Look, I got a cane.

[00:00:04]Look, I got a cane. Hello everyone. Good morning. Welcome. Welcome to here. Today we're going to talk about something.

[00:00:08]Okay, look. First of all, I got a clown jump. Today we are going to analyze the theory of the black hole sun riff. Yeah, totally. We're going to see exactly how it's made, what it's made of. This way, we could have an actual understanding of how music theory works in practice.

[00:00:26]Okay. And what's interesting about this song specifically is if you've ever learned to play it, you you probably know that it's relatively simple to play. Relatively, you know, relatively.

[00:00:36]But the theory behind it, it's really quite complex. And so it's a fun one, you know. So, let me play that riff for you first and then we'll go over it.

[00:00:58]I kind of messed up there at the end.

[00:00:59]Just ignore that. All right. So, the first thing we didn't notice about this little riffy riffy guy is that we are playing all these chords as more arpeggios. Okay. We're plucking the notes individually. So, I mean, I'll call them chords, but they're really arpeggios, you know. Second of all, this so okay is in the key of G major and it's in drop D tuning, which means all the notes on that thick string there are moved down a whole step, you know, and I'll leave a video down below where I talk about drop D specifically, okay, if you want to watch that. And so the first collection of notes that we play here are the G, D, G, and C notes. And so what chord is this is that? Well, G, D, G is a G power chord, right? D being the fifth degree and the G being the first degree, right?

[00:01:42]But now, so what is the C note? What's the role of the C note? Well, the C note is the fourth degree of G major, right?

[00:01:47]And what chord is made up of a first, fifth, and fourth degree? Well, that is a sus four chord. A for you. And so this is a Gsus 4 chord played as an arpeggio.

[00:02:00]You know, the intro to the song is suspended. All right, which you know, and suspended is a weird sound. It sounds very floaty and weird. And so already off the bat, this song has has a weird start. Yeah, it already has a weird start.

[00:02:12]>> This isn't a real pocket. It's a fake pocket. This is just It's not even a real pocket. Look, you can't even put it. You can't even put little caramels.

[00:02:20]Next, we'll play that same collection of chords, but with this B flat note to start, right?

[00:02:27]And here is where the theory starts to get a little bit wonky, okay? Because B flat is not in the key of G major. B flat is in the key of G minor. And so what we're doing here is borrowing a note from G major's parallel minor key G minor. And so now what does that mean for this chord here?

[00:02:46]Okay, what does it make this chord?

[00:02:48]Well, this B flat is the flat and third degree, right? And so we have in our little collection here a first degree, a flat third, a fifth, and a fourth. Okay, and so already off the bat, we're looking at a minor chord because it has a flattened third, right? And then we add that fourth degree making it a G minor add 4. Yeah, totally. And my first instinct was to call it a G minor 11, but that doesn't work cuz it doesn't have a seventh degree, right? And so G minor add four seems to be the most accurate, you know, description of that chord. And so now on that note, see, no pun intended. Music theory can be very relative. Okay, so I call that the G minor add four, but we could also see it as a Gsus 4 over B flat, right? cuz we still have that G sus4 chord right here, right? And all we did was add that B flat in the bass. So you could call this a slash chord, right? G sus4 over B flat he. So identifying chords is kind of your call. You know, you really could kind of call them whatever you'd like to as long as the theory works. You know who speaks German? There's a bunch of German on here. And then we have this collection of notes right here.

[00:03:54]We have an F note here, a C here, F here, and another C down there, which is just an F power chord. Great. That one's simple enough. Except for the fact that this F note, right, is not in the key of G major. It's in the key of G minor. And so this song does borrow, you know, from its parallel minor key quite often.

[00:04:12]What are you going to do? And so by removing its third degree altogether, right, because in G minor, this F chord would be built as a major chord, right?

[00:04:20]But since we remove the third al together, it keeps the darkness of the song going. Okay. So all the chords are very intentional to be very dark and dissonance. Okay? And then as we go up this little thing, we add this open D note, right?

[00:04:38]And that D note acts as more of a passing tone that leads us to our next note, which would be the E note. So it gives us a kind of chromatic progression. And it's not exactly chromatic because D to E is a whole step and not a half step, but it still leads you in the direction of the next note, you know.

[00:04:55]>> Hello, good morning. Yeah, I'll transfer you.

[00:05:02]Hello, good morning. Yeah, I'll transfer you.

[00:05:07]Sorry, it's my second job. And the next collection of notes are totally and that is the E, B, E, and B notes. And again that is just a E power chord. It's an E power chord. Then we have this quick little open D string.

[00:05:22]And that acts as a pure chromatic, you know, direction tone, you know, that leads you to your next note, which is E flat, right? So D to E flat. It's purely chromatic. So it's just it's just it's just directional. It's very directional.

[00:05:35]Pushes you in the right direction. You know, >> they want to talk to each other. I don't And the next collection of notes are >> totally and those notes are E, B flat, E and A flat. And those notes make up the E flat sus four chord. E being the first degree, B flat being the fifth degree, and A flat being the fourth degree of E of E flat major. And that E flat note is not in the key of B major, but it is in the key of B minor again, right? And that suspended sound checks out because our first chord, right, in our little progression here was also a sus4 chord.

[00:06:09]So it keeps that suspended floaty weird sound all throughout the song, you know.

[00:06:14]And then we play our next collection of notes.

[00:06:17]Totally. So we start with a D, C, and D note, right? And that is a D power chord. C being the fifth degree of D.

[00:06:23]And then we end on this A note here.

[00:06:26]Okay. And that A note here acts as more of a passing tone again that leads you back to the start of your progression, which is the G note. So that sounds like this.

[00:06:38]Totally. And so the overall tone that drives this little riff, okay, and makes it sound so mysterious is that suspended quality and also the minor third, right?

[00:06:49]The minor the minor chords and the omission of the major thirds entirely, right, with our power chords. And so that's all really. That is it. That is the progression of Black Hole Sun by Sam Garbin. Yeah. And the theory behind it.

[00:07:03]I hope that was interesting, wasn't it?

[00:07:06]I think so. And hopefully it gave you a little bit of an insight into how music theory works in practice, you know.

[00:07:12]Yeah. Don't forget if you have a clown who wakes you up at 3 in the morning because he falls off the shelf and then starts whispering your name.

[00:07:27]Just put them back on the shelf and go back to bed. And so that's all everyone.

[00:07:30]Thanks for watching this video. Thanks for all that you do. Don't forget me.com.

[00:07:36]take out a loan and buy yourself a yacht on the Pacific Ocean. And don't forget to check out the 72 guitar ebook cuz you got two of them. We got the guitar study ebook. That is a chord, scale, and theory reference book all organized in the cage system. Okay, you never sele.

[00:07:52]It's fun to look at. You're actually going to want to study from this. Yeah, you're going to want to. And we also got the 70s then beginner guitar guide. That is a beginner guitar guide. It's going to help you on your beginner journey.

[00:08:01]Everything you need to learn at the beginning of playing guitar is all in the book in order. And it's got a practice schedule to implement all the things. Yeah. And it's got a bunch of aliens and they're trying to find out humans are real generally. And then we also have a course, the key musical course. It's a course where we go through the fundamentals of music. Okay.

[00:08:16]What the heck keys are, how we build major scales, how we build chords from those scales, and how everything is organized into keys. Okay? It's the foundation of all music theory. Listen, don't forget, get a cane.

[00:08:30]You never know when you're going to need one. Don't forget to subscribe. At 5,000 subscribers, I'm going to solve a Rubik's Cube on camera for the world to see. Yeah, I'm totally going to do that.

[00:08:38]So, you don't want to miss it. Right.

[00:08:39]Right. He's a hoot. He's a hoot, this guy. Don't forget, if ever you wanted to go away on vacation, but you don't have a luggage.

[00:08:54]Just Just put everything in your pocket.

[00:08:57]Let me tell a little story. Let me tell a little story about a man. named Baris. Baris had a little uh he had a little tiki shop on the beach.

[00:09:10]Puerto Rico. He sold little coconut figurines. Um he would sell, you know, little hats made out of straw. So great. So he loved it. He loved it. He had a tiki shop on the beach in Puerto Rico. Uh beads, bead bracelets. I forgot about the bead bracelets. Those are really popular. And so what he did I'm right here. I'm right here. He had so many tiki bracelets that he didn't know what to do with them anymore. He said, "I can't sell all these tiki bracelets.

[00:09:38]There was a hurricane that year, so there weren't that many tourists." So, he said, "Here's what I'm going to do.

[00:09:43]Okay, I'm going to take them all. I'm going to undo them, and I'm going to tie them all together into one big string."

[00:09:48]He had about 150 yards of tiki bracelet string.

[00:09:55]Is that a lot? It was either 150 yards or um or or 30,000 feet. I don't remember. He took that long string of tiki bracelets and what he did was he just brought it home. Okay. He brought it home. He he ended up having to take them apart and put them as bracelets again because what was he even going to do with a a 30,000 foot tiki bracelet yard string? What was he going to do with that? So, we took his silly old tiggy string bracelets and then he took the tiki string bracelets. He brought them home. I don't even know where I am at in the story.

[00:10:26]>> I have a confession to make. I don't remember where I'm at in the story. I don't remember where I'm at in the story.

[00:10:34]I guess that's the end. Thanks for watching. All you do, don't forget your life is precious.

[00:10:44]Okay, you don't want to go over to the other side without a sweater. This is she. Yeah.

[00:10:55]Oh, hi Baris.

[00:10:58]How are you? How's your tiki shop going?

[00:11:01]So, that's all. Thanks for watching.

[00:11:02]Thanks for watching. Don't forget everything about the airport.

[00:11:09]Got a knife. You got you got fun little chairs everywhere.

[00:11:14]You got little kiosks where you can buy caps, maps, pens, keychains, magnets.

[00:11:22]I think that's nice. Thanks for being here with me. Um, I hope you have a great day. Hope you have a great afternoon, a great evening. Don't forget your steps.

[00:11:33]Are not to be ignored.

[00:11:37]They're important.

[00:11:43]Hello.

[00:11:46]Oh, really?

[00:11:50]Okay. That was your steps. They said, "Please ignore us. We don't want to go on your walks anymore, JS.