“Yesterday” by The Beatles is a classic Pop song in F Major maintaining a 2/2 time signature. The song changes the chords frequently to create a rich harmonic texture, and is known for its iconic descending guitar melody.
“Rocky Raccoon” by The Beatles incorporates chords commonly associated with the genre of folk or country music. It is primarily built on a repetitive chord progression which consists of Am7, D7sus4, D7, G7, C, and C/B. There’s also a use of plenty of sevenths and suspensions to create a slightly jazzy feel. It’s also worth noting The Beatles’ penchant for chords that provide a mix of major and minor tonalities.
“Within You Without You” from The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album, composed by George Harrison, is a unique song in the Beatles’ discography. Musically, it truly merges the essence of Indian classical music with traditional Western music techniques. The chord progression is minimal and largely stays around the key of C major, which enhances the song’s drone-like effect, typical in traditional Indian music.
“Glory Box” by Portishead is a Trip Hop masterpiece which blends elements of blues, rock, soul, and electronic music together in an innovative and influential way. The song’s chord progression, as illustrated by the verse, is D minor, D minor with C in the bass (notated as Dm/C), B minor 7 flat 5, and B flat major 7. This particular chord progression gives an overall melancholy and haunting feeling throughout the song and sets the tone for the track.
The song “The Outsider” by A Perfect Circle frequently uses the chord progression [‘B’, ‘B’, ‘A’, ‘E’] in the key of E major. When viewing the chords through the lens of E major we can identify the chord progression as ii, ii, V, I. Furthermore, It shows some interesting harmonic decisions throughout. Most notably, the band makes use of borrowed chords which are chords taken from the parallel minor (in this case E minor). Here, the borrowed chords include A major and C major.
**
“Girl” is a song by The Beatles from their 1965 album “Rubber Soul”. The song is written in the key of E minor and it showcases the band’s ability to incorporate non-diatsubject resorting to non-diatonic progressions and utilizes various seventh chords to establish a more sophisticated and jazzy soundid progression. It’s important to note their use of the Dorian mode, which adds to the melodic and harmonic sophistication of the song. Moreover, the song exhibits the lyrical and songwriting depth of The Beatles.
**
“Girl” by The Beatles is a classic example of their use of chromatic harmony and modal interchange. The chord progression shows complexity in both its chord choices and structure, a distinguishing feature in much of their music. By closely examining this piece, we can better understand The Beatles’ harmonic technique where they blend the techniques of classical music (like chromaticism and harmonic diversity) with pop songwriting.
Copyright 2024 ©