A Player's Guide to Chords and Harmony (34 page)

In songs of this type, the verse, chorus, and bridge can be of any length. Eightbar and 16-bar phrases are very common, but you might easily run into a song with 32-bar verses and an eight-bar chorus, or vice-versa.

In addition, many songs contain an intro, the opening section that precedes the first verse (or, in a jazz chart, the first chorus). The chord progression of the intro may be different from anything else in the arrangement, or it may be drawn from the verse, chorus, or bridge. The part of the song that comes at the very end, after the last chorus, may be called the outro, the tag the ending or the coda. ("Coda" is a classical music term. It's the Italian word for "tail") If the last chorus has some special features that lead to the ending, it may be referred to as the "out chorus"

It's generally left up to the performers to devise a suitable tag for a tune. (On the record, the song is likely to fade out.) Often, though not invariably, a short, interesting portion of the chord progression from somewhere near the end of the chorus is repeated two or three times. This is easy for the musicians to remember, and it serves to alert the audience to the fact that the final cadence is only a few bars away.

BASIC POP PROGRESSIONS

At the risk of looking like a complete idiot, I need to say a few words about the kinds of progressions you're likely to encounter in pop songs. I'm sure I'll leave out dozens of important progressions, so feel free to email me and remind me of your favorites. If or when this book goes into a second edition, I plan to expand this chapter a bit. Looking at unusual progressions found in specific tunes would be useful as well, but instead let's look at ideas that you'll run into again and again.

To begin with, glance at the progression in Figure 8-4. You might hear this type of riff in a hard rock or heavy metal tune, where the open 5ths would be played by a distorted guitar. Clearly, there's a chord progression here. The roots are C and B6. But are the chords major or minor? The other instruments may fill in the harmony, or they may not. Based on the musical style, it would be reasonable to interpret this as a C minor chord followed by a B6 major. In other words, the whole progression would be in C Dorian or Aeolian. A progression that moves from C major to B6 minor would be interesting, but it's a lot less likely in a hard rock style.

Hard rock tends to favor minor keys. Even when the tonic is major, you'll hear other chords drawn from the diatonic minor scale (6VI, 6111, etc.). The progression in Figure 8-5 might be considered prototypical. Although three of the chords are major, the riff is clearly in C minor.

Figure 8-4. In hard rock, a progression such as this riff may be ambiguous with respect to the major or minor quality of the chords.

Figure 8-5. Rock progressions sometimes use chords drawn from the diatonic natural minor. Unlike the V-1 root movement typical of jazz, this progression includes two IV-1 root movements (from A6 to E6, and again from E6 to 86).

Progressions in the rock tradition, especially those that are aiming for a serious sound, often avoid or downplay the dominant. Possibly the dominant is felt to be too square or happy-sounding. Try replacing the B6 chord at the end of Figure 8-5 with a G major chord and you'll hear what I mean. This same trend can be heard in more modern rock styles. The riff in Figure 8-6, which is my own creation, not borrowed from any song in particular, uses the diatonic III chord in place of the V chord one might expect at this point in the riff. If you try replacing the III (A minor) with a V (C) you'll hear how much less satisfying the latter chord would be. After repeating this riff for a total of six bars, I rounded out the eightbar progression with a V chord - but here again, moving from the V directly back to the I would be unbearably square. A deceptive cadence in which the V is followed by a minor II is more satisfying.

At the other extreme, much of the pop music in the Mexican tradition relies heavily on tonic-dominant progressions. The simplified example in Figure 8-7 may be as offensively inauthentic to Mexican musicians as Figure 8-6 is to grunge rockers, but it illustrates the idea. Some tunes use this I-V-V-I progression throughout, relying on changes in the melody to provide structure and contrast.

Various genres develop their own preferred progressions. Reggae, for example, relies heavily on I-IV riffs, with an occasional V thrown in. Country music is dependent on I, IV, and V as well, due primarily to its origins in bluegrass. More modern country songs sometimes borrow from pop and rock to the extent of throwing in the odd diatonic minor (II, III, or VI), but more adventurous progressions are still fairly rare in country, presumably because the intended audience would reject them as too sophisticated or "slick"

Figure 8-6. A more modern rock progression, which avoids the V-I relationship. The 111-1 progression at the repeat feels fresher.

Figure 8-7. Some forms of ethnic music rely heavily on V-1 progressions. This riff, which makes extensive use of parallel 3rds in the melody, is vaguely Mexican.

Figure 8-8. A progression can be outlined simply by moving the bass while keeping the other notes almost static.

Figure 8-9. You've heard this generic pop ballad progression on the radio. It has been used in hundreds of tunes.

Figure 8-10. To do something fresh with the progression in Figure 8-9, you might try something like this.

Individual arrangers find their own ways of imparting a personal stamp to standard progressions. No discussion of pop chord riffs would be complete (not that the present discussion aims at completeness - anything but) without a sidelong glance at Randy Newman's ability to outline a chord progression by moving nothing but the bass note, while the right-hand piano part remains almost completely static. The riff in Figure 8-8, which is similar to the riff in Newman's hit "Short People," illustrates the idea. The progression, which is basically I-VI-IV-V, is ancient, but this treatment gives it considerable power.

The progression in Figure 8-9 has been used in so many pop ballads that it has acquired generic status. It's not hard to see why: The descending bass line, which you've already met in Figure 7-8, is very natural, and pretty much defines the progression. If you're planning to use this progression in one of your own songs, you may want to consider spicing it up somehow. I've attempted this in Figure 8-10. The chromatic bass movement and altered chords I chose may or may not suit you; the point of this illustration is to suggest that there are ways to work with familiar progressions to make them fresh.

MODULATION

The chord progressions shown so far in this book all have one thing in common: They're in the same key from beginning to end. While the same observation could be made about much of the music written using chords, it's by no means a universal rule. Many pieces change key during the course of the piece. Some pieces start in one key and end in another; others start and end in the same key, but wander off into a different key for a while in the middle. Sometimes the key change is indicated by a change in key signature in the written score, but if the key change is temporary, the composer may elect to keep the existing key signature and simply add accidentals where necessary.