4 Chord Tricks The Beatles Knew (and you should too!)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 10 ก.ค. 2023
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🔷 FREE PDF: Major and Minor Line Cliches in 2 Positions: how-to-write-songs.ck.page/dd...
George Harrison's song 'Something' contains 4 exquisite chord moves - once you know what they are and how to use them, you can use them in your own songwriting to create some of the same harmonic sophistication that characterizes so much of The Beatles' music.
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I kinda wish I had found your TH-cam videos about thirty years ago.
Right!?
Agreed, wouldn't have wore out so many turntables haa
Yeah, you and me both. But, all things being even, no one could.
About 50 years for me.
Amen to that!
another thing about line cliches that's useful is, they don't always have to happen on the minor 6. that's the most common version, like in C major, you'd do the line cliche on A minor, but another Beatles song shows a totally badass line cliche on minor THREE!
"and your bird can sing" incorporates a minor line cliche on the minor 3. This is so cool because it then has the extra result of tonicizing the 5. in other words, it momentarily makes B sound like "5," because when the line cliche resolves to the C#major, it sounds like a "2," but it's actually a major 6. This goes up to E, which is the tonic! But in this context it now sounds like 4. only after it goes up to F#m, the 2 of of the original E major, that you reorient yourself in E. "Tonicization" isn't the same as modulating. It doesn't actually change tonal center, it just makes it sound like it. Very cool trick. the Beatles do it often.
Anyway, try line cliches in unusual spots. Another example of an unorthodox on is the "james bond" line cliche where you take a minor, and climb the 5th up chromatically, to #5, then to 6, then back down to #5. In They Might Be Giants "birdhouse in your soul," their prechorus uses the james bond line cliche on the minor 6.
A 19 minute video that took me 45 minutes to watch, because it's so good that make me take notes. Best channel on youtube about songwriting! Keep the good work! :)
Just stumbled in and I agree.
45 minutes, ha. I spent 2 hours playing after just watching the first 10 minutes!
I’ve seen several, if not many, TH-cam guitar tutorials-mostly about jazz-mention secondary dominants. You’re the first person I’ve ever heard mention the relationship of the secondary dominant to the target chord. Thank you! thank you! thank you! They make so much sense now.
Excellent! Stuff I "knew" in the back of my mind but when you explain the mechanics of it, it's like "I could have had a V8!" Thank you.
I make music since more than 30 years and that was the most important lesson I ever had.
I knew the key changes of the Beatles but never realised that system with that magic chord.
Thank you so much.
20 years ago I was drafted into a band that was formed by Railroad Gin's original drummer. He'd found a girl singer and they wanted to play predominantly 70s Disco music (God help me!) and additional chick songs to fill out the repertoire. Among them was Shakira's "Underneath Your Clothes", which is a pretty complex song to figure out just by listening to it a couple of times on the CD player, but between me and our bass player, who'd worked with me for the past couple of years trying to get somewhere in the vicious cut-throat Australian Pub music scene with little success, we had two pretty adept pairs of musical ears. What I didn't know, Leon knew, and vice versa. There's a middle eight in that song that had Leon stumped . . but with my extensive Beatles influenced brain, I recognised it instantly as the "Michelle" progression, or more accurately the "My Sentimental Friend" progression from the chorus of that Herman's Hermits song which I played to death 20 years before that in the acoustic coffee shop scene.
So, thank you for filling in the blanks for me as far as the music theory behind what I've previously only known by working out songs by ear . . with hardly any music theory behind me other than knowing what sounds right and what sounds wrong.
On another occasion I worked with a girl who wanted to get somewhere in the music industry. She'd written songs simply by singing the words to her mother who used to play the organ at their church. Mum would figure out what chords kinda-sorta fit under what Angie was singing, then they'd bring those songs along to our jam sessions and kinda naively expect us musicians to instinctively know what to play. She threw to me for a guitar solo during each song and I played it safe by playing diatonicly over the chords. After her set was done Angie thanked every muso in the house band except for me, so I figured out she mustn't have appreciated what I'd done with her songs, but no. She grabbed me about ten minutes after our set was done and told me that the guitar solos were exactly what she was hearing in her head but had no way of laying that out for a musician to play, seeing as how she didn't write music. She wanted me to drop everything I was currently doing in the industry and become her full-time guitar player! But I explained to her that if she wanted to find a competent guitarist, she'd have to expect he'd be already busy. So she asked me if I could at least play on her demo, to which I said I'd do it. But first, her songs needed a little tidying up. We got together the following week at our jam sessions and went to the beer garden with my acoustic guitar. I showed her what I wanted to do, and how my tidying up would make her songs sound like John Lennon had written them and she was real happy with the results. We went to the studio the next morning with the new arrangements fresh in her mind and laid down half a dozen songs in the one session, which was all she wanted for a demo tape. I had no idea how large her personal following was until everywhere I played on my solo gigs people would come up to me and tell me how much they liked Angie's demo tape!
Apparently she'd been peddling her material around every jam session going, trying to find people who could bring it to life. In the end we just recorded acoustically with me playing acoustic guitar using overdubs to flesh the songs out. No other instruments were needed. Unfortunately Angie was being led astray by her old boyfriend whom she bumped into right after we'd left the studio. I headed home to get ready for my gig that evening, and Angie went to the nearest pub! That guy got her hooked on hard drugs and her run at success was completely derailed, more's the pity. She showed up years later at a Blues jam that was run by a friend of mine and I got her up to sing with us. We played River Deep Mountain High, and she was as good as ever . . but when we sat down to catch up, out came the peace pipe, on the pub's front veranda and she was off with the fairies.
Wow!
The C7 is also a secondary dominant in Something. V of IV. So not only do you get the line cliche continuing into the next chord--C to B to A# to A (the third of F major), but you have a dominant cadence. All of which combines to make it a super satisfying movement
Keppie Coutts is absolutely AMAZING !!! This is the best & most helpful channel on songwriting I have found. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you for all you've done for me and soo many others! Please keep em' coming !!
🎸🎶
Great video! You are a great teacher!! I could not stop watching you. Your passion is magnetic and the information is gold. The way you explain is so simple and good. Really thank you!!
Been 'away' from the guitar for so long since my slightly older friend, and teacher [sic] and me moved on about 1976 time. He was a quick and competent learner and in turn thrived off an older family and cultural connection to many and varied instruments and how important music was. He was inspirational in the way he unlocked the inspirational - you'll know what I mean cos you do that!
You are a natural, enthusiastic teacher even surpassing my encyclopedic childhood friend-I had other goals to supersede my musical 'education' (I think even my own musical family connection thereby eschewed it me, perhaps given as they thought of its possible corrosive influence on me in that pursuit), and that full, oftentimes stressful, career in the healing profession has yet confirmed how much music feeds us and our souls.
Please keep up the inspirational work.
Yours,
A child of the music of B Wilson, Donovan, Mitchell, McCartney, Motown, Bolan, Richards, Simon, Clapton and Bowie, and many many others through to most recently (thanks to remastering) Elman (Mischa)-getting old? 😇😎
I recently found your channel and I want to say thank you for delivering gold in every video! I feel called to songwriting, and although the tips in this particular video is too complex for me to understand right now, I know I’ll circle back to it someday when being more experienced! You’re a life saver and I appreciate how you give such detailed advice 🫶
This was really insightful. Appreciate when someone pulls away the veil and let’s us all in on the trick.
I've been a songwriter for my entire life, I wrote several songs through the years, but I discovered your channel now and I learned a lot, so I just loved it. Thank you! I'll be following your channel from now on!!! Cheers!
I'm having a great time watching you here. I really like the way you speak, you seem to be excited about the subject all the time. it is the opposite of being boring!
One thing you didn't mention is that the descending chromaticism continues into the F chord. While it may not be part of the "line cliche" in the strictest sense because several other notes in the chord change, you still have a satisfying descent from the B flat of the C7 chord to the A in the F major chord. There are a few songs I can think of that even take this progression a step farther by going to the minor version of the iv chord (in this case, it would be F minor) followed by the V chord for a turnaround. In C, this would give you a descending C, B, B flat, A, A flat, G motion.
I wondered down into the comments to see if someone else was gonna mention this!
Can't Take My Eyes Off You by Frankie Valli is a good example. The line cliche in the C7 to F transition is more obvious on guitar when you play the C chords in open position instead of barred.
This! This is were the magic happens, not in the cliche lines, in the chord after!
Yes that's correct.
i have really enjoyed your "enlightening" technique to teaching musical concepts, it's broken down so well that it is neither codescending or mind bogglingly brain numbing. Thank you.
Wonderful examples and explanations. I much appreciate your enthusiasm and the joy in your own learning and involvement in music. THANKS!
Great how you explain complicated chord progressions in an understandable way.
Thank you so much!
I have never written my own Songs… but after discovering this outstanding teacher/ site, I must give a try!
I came across this because I was delving into George Harrison‘s music… He is one of my all-time favorites, and this lesson not only explains how to write songs in a beautiful manner, it helps me to understand the songs I love so much, and therefore helps me to understand how to play Guitar with more FEEL!
Thank you for this great look at song writing and theory!
Really daring, really brilliant lesson. Keep this stuff up. It’s so juicy. Well done.
You’re such a loving and caring teacher! Thank you! I’m a fan.
Thank you so much for putting all this on TH-cam. I've been watching hours of your very helpful info over the last week or so! I'm so glad you came into my algorithm! :)
This is so good. I've been writing songs for a long time and I learned a lot just from these simple tricks. You are really good at explaining.
What a tremendously useful video. Very articulate and easy to follow. This one is definitely getting bookmarked and it’s concepts applied to my own compositions. Thank you for sharing
Just fantastic information, thank you. Enough information right here to keep one busy for months trying new things. You also sing wonderfully I love your tone. Cheers.
What a great lesson. I'm not at all interested in writing music... But I'm absolutely interested in understanding music. These lessons work just as well for me. Love your enthusiasm, clear and concise examples... and, I love your voice. Thanks so much.
You Girl are absolutely Awesome. I am 56 and dove back in to theory about 7 years ago when I started playing again. I cant tell you how your channel helps. Just Fantastic!!!
Great episode, I’ve been doing most of these without knowing what I was doing, especially the major cliche, and recently I’ve been playing Gmaj key a lot and have been dropping in the Fmajor… that I can now call the magic chord, awesome! many thanks it’s enlightening!
She's taken my songwriting to the next level. Thank you so much!
This is absolutely brilliant Keppie. Loved it. So well put together!
You’re amazing! Thank you for all these videos, and your personality in presenting 💙
Thank you for making understanding these concepts easy! Wonderful!
I have been writing songs for many years and trying to understand the process to improve my tunes. There is always more to learn, and this is a great place for it. Cheers!
Wow!!! That's how to create an instructional video and make it so easy to understand and so super-inspirational too! Thank you so much for sharing.
Great compositional ideas. The 2 chord secondary dominant has a lot of sauce in it when moving to the tonic dominant. It has the 4th and the 5th and that nice little leading tone.
My favourite line cliche that got me into it was "If" by Bread. It's a beautiful sequence throughout the entire verse structure. I took that lesson and wrote a song of my own actually two.... and it's been valuable!
Thanks for the music lesson. Just deep enough to tap creativity without paralysis from analysis.
Great walkthrough. Probably the cleanest explanation of how to change keys that I’ve heard
I believe music theory and over analyzing it interferes with emotional creativity. Thanks for sharing!
The two together complement one another. I found good things 'accidentally' but now gain from learning what I was doing and how I can use them better/differently.
True inspiration, born of a musical gift, is where great songs come from. This and this only. There are no 'tricks'.
Amazing! Thank you, subscribed! It's great! All of it - the info, the presentation, the way you play it on the guitar, the choice of songs and the group! I love it all!
I wrote a song that had that magic chord but I didn't know why it sounded so good until this video. Thanks to your explanation, I will hopefully be able to summon that magic whenever needed.
I watch a lot of guitar instruction but this lesson is so very good. Thank you!!!
Just some super chord structure ideas here! I have found gold here before as well. Thanks for a great channel! Also, I really love your voice, it's really cool and gutsy! ☺️
Superb lesson! I’m going back to some of my songs that aren’t quite “doing it” for me, and try these ideas. Thank you so much, you have a great channel.
This is fantastic, thanks for your time doing the video, wonderful!
Love your style. Thank you for making life a little easier.
One of the most interesting and unusual songs using descending chromatic notes, is "Magdelena" by Danny O'Keefe (1973) it starts on Gmaj7 , G7 ,G6 , Gaug 5th. I havent yet seen that chord run anywhere else. It's a Brilliant song too! Another interesting song using chromatic Scales is "This Summer" by Squeeze (1995) . Thankyou for this interesting post, Gary. 👦👍🎶
This is so good. Absolutely brilliant, very clear and concise.
Great video. I love watching breakdowns of chord progressions, I wish more youtuber did this
I’ve just found your channel and although I don’t intend to write any songs I am a George Harrison fan and do play the guitar some. What I enjoyed most is the sound of your singing voice.
For 30 yrs I have played "something" in C Major open position --Then C7 etc --did not know the 3 rd fret C /C7/CMaj 7 -----sounded so good -thankyou
I learned more here than I have in years. Thanks for the breakdown. Your awesome.
You know you're the first person on line I've seen who knows your stuff, says it straight and you're fun!!!
Great presentation and you have a BEAUTIFUL voice.
This is an awesome video. (like all your videos) I have always knows these tricks and have taught them in songwriting, and now I know what to call them!!
Very helpful tutorial and excellent video production , articulate and with a very solid understanding of harmony. Great work!
You should have more subs! Probably the most useful and digestable info I've ever found crammed into such a short space of time! Thanks very much for your work here.
I agree with others who have posted.This is one of the best channels on youtube. The material you post and the way you articulate it is fantastic.
fantastic. This is incredibly insightful. Thank you!
I have played that in first position since the 70's. Cool falling down concept
Wonderful lesson and how it was presented in this video is top notch!
Wonderful expression of theories ! Thanks alot! ( Beautiful voice as well 😊)
That "magic chord" belongs to the minor movement. We make the key minor for a moment. It happens in blues that's why it sounded bluesy. That concept of mixing minor and major for blues. The minor key has that b7 chord. Hope this help you guys analysing and applying this move.
See, this is why I love chords. I know that for most people, it's all about lead playing, but honestly, I'm rubbish at it, and it doesn't inspire me. Chords do. And I'm fine with that. Great video❤
Fantastic, Thanks for sharing them.
Only one of them, I had kind of noticed the pattern ( the first technique of ascending/descending semitones, also used later by Sid Barret & fella). But the two others were new and I need time to digest. Thanks for sharing them.
this was fabulous and the best explanation ive heard on you tube!
Really brilliantly articulated. Thank you!
Beautiful voice and interpretation singing Something
I've started 5 different songs and I'm stuck in various places in every single one. I'm going to try to use the concepts in this video to complete all of them this week! Thank you!!!!
A really fun thing to do when I get stuck is to literally take the exact progression of a song to make a new one (or section). I like to challenge myself to see how far from the original I can go -- changing key, time signature, and using more complex chords.
This is great, it helps me understand so much!
Brilliant. Would send my kids to you STRAIGHT, if they really wanted to learn something about music that stays with you for a lifetime! Bless you 💞
Great voice and clear lesson. Thx
This is awesome! Go figure ive been doing this for years without knowing what i was doing technically. Fun to learn how my ear has been driving the bus for so long!❤ ty for an excellent breakdown!
Great vid, one thing i thought was going to be at least mentioned is the intro/transition of F/Eb G/C. I know it doesnt fit into secondary or backdoor dominants, but the ascending chromatic line is nice leading to the tonic, especially as the verse uses descending chromatics. Thank you for the video, loved your explanation!
Wonderful & your performance was outstanding. Thank you
4:12 is how "everybody's talkin at me" starts. great song.
Great lesson, and very interesting...thank you!!!!
Another newbie to your channel. Besides your expertise in music theory etc., you have an awesome voice.
Amazing explanations!
You are so good appreciate every minute thank you and Merry Christmas
I think you’re absolutely wonderful, and brilliant as well. A great teacher, funny too!
Thank you 😊 love your work ♥️ and a beautiful voice 🌟
This is great info! I've been thinking about making a mind-map of all these various ways to step out of diatonic-land. I would like a handy tool to keep around when writing musical parts... whenever I want to deepen a simple chord progression a bit. It's hard to memorize so many and use them as a bag of tricks.
gold for this self taught musician 😊
Thanks & regards
This is the first video I've seen of yours and it was wonderful. The information and delivery gave me a skylight from my underground theory bunker... Yes, Here comes the Sun... 🌞
You explained this so well. Thx!
Excellent teaching, thanks.
your channel is absolute gold!
You are something else. Thank you. ❤
Great lesson. Absolutely love this.
great video! Definitely going to use these
Happy Heart and Can’t take my eyes off you - good examples of line cliches as well.
Thank you for the lesson! I'm a bass player and have been noodling about with cord progressions lately. I'm trying to learn jazz but its really outside my abilities. So songwriting is getting my attention.
Get the basics down before fiddling with jazz. What do they say, "Know the rules before you break them?"
Great tips! Thanks very much Keppie.
Excellent, many thanks!
Thank you for this excellent lesson!
Great information! Thanks sooo much for sharing this!
Great channel guys, learn loads