"your song sounds like this"
Time to take a look at a classic Beatles Chord progression. One of the interesting things that Lennon & McCartney did in a majority of their songs was use at least one chord that didn’t belong in the key.
The minor 4 for instance (written like this – iv).
1 Minute theory lesson
(skip it if you know what a minor 4 is)
In major key you have 3 major chords built on the 1st 4th and 5th degrees (I, IV, V) of the scale.
In C that would give you C F G.
In the key of G that would give you G C D.
These all fit together rather nicely (you could even say blandly). But what many Beatles songs do is introduce the minor 4 chord (iv) as well as the major 4 (IV) so you’d have C F G and Fm in the key of C or G C D and Cm in the key of G. These particular minor chords don’t really ‘fit’ and sound a bit ‘spicy’.
1 minute musical history lesson
The Beatles didn’t invent this. They probably stole it from the rock n’roll subgenre called doo-wop. Here’s a typical doo-wop chord sequence
G G7 C Cm
G D7 G D7
You can hear the progression from IV to iv to I in the bridge of Devil In Her Heart
C I’ll take chances
Cm for romance is
G so important to me
and it also pops up right on the end of the fade out of Chains.
A word from Macca
Paul McCartney called going from C & F to Fm “the normal thing [to do]”
(Many Years From Now p122).
So try using it this week. You don’t want your songs to be abnormal do you?
(Here’s the chord in some popular keys)
E A Am B
G C Cm D
A D Dm E
C F Fm G
D G Gm A
Read pt 2 - major 4 to minor 4
Pt 3 - minor 6 to minor 4
Pt 4 - minor 2 to minor 4
Pt 5 - 1 to minor 4
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