Beatlesque Style Progressions & Why They Work

[Los Boleros]

40m and I talked about making this thread and I just took the initiative.


kool chord progressions that are not completely within the scale and an explanation of why we thing that it works.


Show the chords and Tab out the melody if it is applicable.

A little MP3 sound bite would be great!

Remember that there is no wrong answer for why you think it works.

Submit anything you have a question about.

If you do not participate in sharing ideas, please do not reply. Let's keep it lean and mean.:cool:

[Los Boleros]

4/4 /Em---/F-Fm-/G---/G-Gaug-/
I believe that this prog works because the Em is closely related to CM7. You can think of it as CM7 without the root. Looking at it that way, it's a
/I---/IV-iv-/V---/V-Vaug-/
When the F becomes a Fm, this is very common for the IV chord. The melody can go from C Major scale to A Harmonic minor to follow the Fm.
The Gaug has the D# note that leads us to the E which is the third of CM7 or the tonic of Em.

[fortymile]

hey i was supposed to start this thread--just didnt get around to it yet. glad you did, as it will take some digging for me to uncover actual beatles progressions. i may be able to contribute some radiohead, who do some similar things for sure. actually thats a great band to lump in here. as they've evolved, theyve become ever-less diatonic. they're currently out in the outer space of harmony.

speaking of radiohead, they use the IV-iv transition quite a lot. it's the harmonic hook of the song 'creep,' thier best-known song.

and as far as i can tell, i completely agree with your analysis of the above progression. is this from a beatles song?

[Los Boleros]

hey i was supposed to start this thread--just didnt get around to it yet. glad you did, as it will take some digging for me to uncover actual beatles progressions. i may be able to contribute some radiohead, who do some similar things for sure. actually thats a great band to lump in here. as they've evolved, theyve become ever-less diatonic. they're currently out in the outer space of harmony.

speaking of radiohead, they use the IV-iv transition quite a lot. it's the harmonic hook of the song 'creep,' thier best-known song.

and as far as i can tell, i completely agree with your analysis of the above progression. is this from a beatles song?Let me Clarify one thing, Your examples do not have to be Beatle progressions.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++


I used that as an Adjative. I meant Beatle-like. That example was just something from the top of my head.
Here's another progression.
This one is:

/Em---/C7-B7-/Em---/C7-B7-/
in the key of Em, this is a I,VI7,V7,I (A common Turn-Around)
Althought the C chord in the E minor scale is diatonically a CM7, the C7 brings out those wonderful tritones.
It really sings out the Diminished fifth of Em and lends itself to resolving to the E note.
Scales I would use include Em, E harmonic minor, E melodic minor, E cromatic (lol) and E diminished.

[fortymile]

damn youre good at this. it really takes me a bit of thought for me to see chords in new light. it doesnt come naturally for me. like, i can't use it while writing yet.

[cardello]

|: D / / / | D7 / / / | G / / / | Bb7 / / / :|

I've always liked this one!

[UKRuss]

I have to agree 40 mi, one of the main reasons I started coming to thew boards was to glean more about theory and the why's and how's so I suspect I shall be taking more from this thread than giving.

However, I am willing to give it a try if I come acroiss something I can get my head round. It'll be a good practice.

[Los Boleros]

|: D / / / | D7 / / / | G / / / | Bb7 / / / :|

I've always liked this one!That's kool. it sounds like this common turn-around.|: D / / / | D7 / / / | G / / / | Gm / / / :| Hey how do you type the bar "|". I just copied and pasted it but I don't see it on my keyboard.

[cardello]

hey, | is just shifting the \ key

yeah, I actually arrived at the G Bb7 by initially playing with the G Gm, and substituting different chords, and i remembered reading something about the bVI (Bb) resolving to the I chord

[Los Boleros]

hey, | is just shifting the \ key

yeah, I actually arrived at the G Bb7 by initially playing with the G Gm, and substituting different chords, and i remembered reading something about the bVI (Bb) resolving to the I chordYeah, you could say that the Bb is borrowed from the Dm key.

[cardello]

isn't this sort of thing called modal interchange? What other chords could Bb7 resolve to that could change the mood of the song, besides dropping it back into boring D (or Dm) every time!

[Los Boleros]

isn't this sort of thing called modal interchange? What other chords could Bb7 resolve to that could change the mood of the song, besides dropping it back into boring D (or Dm) every time!A7 perhaps?

[cardello]

i was also thinking that the Bb7 could also function as the IV in F, so you could possibly go in that direction, i.e. follow it up with a C7, and resolve to F major. or maybe you could consider it to be the V7 of Eb major?

[fortymile]

in the future, would you guys mind including above the progressions that you post your best guesses as to roman numerals? i for one am totally lost without them.

[Los Boleros]

i was also thinking that the Bb7 could also function as the IV in F, so you could possibly go in that direction, i.e. follow it up with a C7, and resolve to F major. or maybe you could consider it to be the V7 of Eb major?How about this ending....

|D///|D7///|G///|Bb///|Eb///|Eb///|A///|A7///|
Now its a:
|I///|I7///|IV///|bIV///|bII///|bII///|V///|V7///|
I showed the flat nine as a bII for simplicity. The turn around at the end of this ia a bII, V, I. This is heavy man!

[cardello]

hey thats nice!

[Los Boleros]

Yeah I really llike the sound of the bII-V-I turn around. I throw that into some of our music from time to time.:D It has a way of annoying the senses.

[UKRuss]

I stuck the second Eb in as Ebm and that sounded ok too.A nice progression all in all.

[cardello]

does anybody have any examples of chord progressions that utilize putting common major and minor traids over different bass notes 'slash chords' if you will, to create interesting progressions?

[Los Boleros]

does anybody have any examples of chord progressions that utilize putting common major and minor traids over different bass notes 'slash chords' if you will, to create interesting progressions?Here's a quick one (and a very simple one) |Am---|Dm/A---|Esus/A---|E7/G#---|

[fortymile]

dont know if anyone would rightly call this beatle-esque, but i asked about this progression in another thread--one which fell down the stack before being addressed. i dont know how to interpret the main riff from the pixies song 'debaser'

I / IV / II / IV

all major chords.

why's it sound good? should that IImaj be thought of as modal interchange from lydian?

[Los Boleros]

dont know if anyone would rightly call this beatle-esque, but i asked about this progression in another thread--one which fell down the stack before being addressed. i dont know how to interpret the main riff from the pixies song 'debaser'

I / IV / II / IV

all major chords.

why's it sound good? should that IImaj be thought of as modal interchange from lydian?There are probably several ways to look at it. Here's my take on it,
The II chord brings on the sound of a key change. Kinda like it wants to be a secondary Dominant but the V chord never happens.
There is a nice cromatic melody line that starts on the 3rd of the I chord.
It go's III,IV,bV,IV.
This could be thought to be the Key of IV chord making it a V/I/VI/I.

[fortymile]

i like those first two points but dont see what you are saying in the third. (just didnt understand what you said)

(and while i know that lydian modulation doesn't *explain* why it sounds good, just to cement my understanding of what this modal modulation is i think you could say that that II maj chord is borrowed from the lydian mode, where such a chord occurs on the II. not that this describes anything in terms of why the progression works. it doesn't.)

[Los Boleros]

i like those first two points but dont see what you are saying in the third. (just didnt understand what you said)What I meant was, what if the second chord of that progression, I,IV,II,IV, was really the tonic? I mean that since this progression does not exist, diatonically speaking, any of the three chords could be treated as the tonic.
So if your second chord was the tonic, your progression would be a IV,I VI,I.
If the third chord was the Tonic then it would be a bVII,bIII,I,bIII.
That last example is theoretical but highly unlikely.:cool:

[fortymile]

wowza!

i just sprained my cortex

[Los Boleros]

wowza!

i just sprained my cortexLOL Thought process over-load?

Heres another little diddy:|Gm/C7/|F/D/|Eb/Eb7|D7///|Cm///|Gm///|A7/D7/|Gm///|
So it's the key of Gm but the C7 throws in the G minor dorian feel, (C Mixolidian mode during that moment). The Eb7 has the heavy feel of the G diminished. D7 is the home for G harmonic minor. The A7-D7 turn around at the end give it that II7-V7 set up for the full authentic cadence.

[jade_bodhi]

Fellow by name of Alan Pollack has provided a discussion of Beatle songs comprising a book length study on their style and method of composing. It focuses on structure of the songs rather than analyzing melody, and he treats each song individually, usually in about a 3-4 page discussion. It is very useful and interesting. Check it out.

http://www.icce.rug.nl/~soundscapes/DATABASES/AWP/awp-notes_on.html

[sixstrings121]

Hey why does this progression work, it sounds very nice.

Dmaj///|Emaj///|Gmaj///|Dmaj///|

in roman numerals this would be I II IV I, correct?

[Los Boleros]

Hey why does this progression work, it sounds very nice.

Dmaj///|Emaj///|Gmaj///|Dmaj///|

in roman numerals this would be I II IV I, correct?Yeah, that is a nice progression.

The II is a very pronounced statement, anytime you use it. There are couple of ways to deal with this chord.

It could be a key change to E major,
or it could be a change to E7 which would be a key change to E mixolidian.
A harmonic minor would work over E7.
You could play with Ddim7 arps.
or even E diminished scale, (H-W)scale.

The IV-I at the end is a Plagel cadence, also known as a Church Cadence or Amen Cadence.

[sixstrings121]

Yeah but how does the II lead to the IV? Like I know how lol cause you do it but why doesnt it sound bad?

[cardello]

I hear two things going on. Say you are playing it like this:

------------------3------------------------------------------
---7-------5------3--------7-------------------------------------
---7-------7------4--------7-------------------------------------
---7-------6------5--------7------------------------------------
---5-------7------5--------5-------------------------------------
------------------3-------------------------------------------

So, notice that on the B string, we see the note sequence F#-->E-->D-->F#
Thats one line I hear.

Then I also hear the descending line on the D string, A>G#>G>A

You can hear it if you play some double stops:

-------------------------------------------------------------
--------7------5-------3----------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------------
--------7------6-------5----------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------------

I think the voice leading is what makes it sound so nice.

Also notice the high G note on the E string resolves to F# on the B string when you go from G back to D.

[sixstrings121]

Hmm interesting. Another thing I was looking at...You could create a chromatic line with the chords. Heres how Im voicing it

Dmaj Emaj Gmaj Dmaj
ADF#A G#BEG# GBDG F#ADF#

You get the chromatic movement A-->G#-->G-->F#

It sounds pretty nice.

[jade_bodhi]

I wrote a song that someone recently described as Beatle-esque. The verse has the following chord changes with a descending bass line beginning with Dm and resolving to the A. It may be chromatic. My apologies if my notations are not conventional...

Dm | Dm/C# | Dm/C | Dadd9/B | weird chord, not sure what it is: (A#, D, E) | A

PreChorus: Bb | F | Bb | A

Chorus: Gm | A | Gm | A | D

I don't know anything about which scales go with certain chords. I do know a little about which chords go together generally (basic circle of fifths knowledge). Why is this a tune? What principles should I keep in mind as I create a solo over it? All suggestions much appreciated. thanks.

JB

[leppard81]

I know its an old thread, but:

Anybody knows why this is working?
Intro:
A D A E

Verse:
A C#7 D B7

Chorus:
A F#7 B7 E7
A D A E

Bridge:

D E7 A F#m

D E7 A A

C#7 F#m7 B7 E E/D/C#m/Bm

Its the Sam Cooke songe "Nothing can change this love", which is written in A, allthough each minor degree is a dom7 chord. In the chorus there´s a B7, which is the secondary dom. chord leading to the diatonic V (E7).

But what about the other dom7 chords? I really havent got any clue. Any ideas, what do you think? It really drives me mad, since i cant find an answer to it.

thanks