Four chord question

Cafe Society
41

There is no attempt (or reason why there would be an attempt) at an exhaustive list of songs, but I once again recommend a look at Everyday Tonality II for tables of model examples of all kinds of harmonic structures. For example, page 389 lists a bunch of songs that feature shuttles to and from the seventh (I ↔ bVII, i ↔ bVII, etc.)

I also mentioned Songs With The Same Chords for a big searchable database.

42

And yet he can’t seem to be able to comb his fucking hair.

43

Sure. But if you are claiming you need only four chords to play a pop tune, namely, the I, IV, V, vi – you can do that kind of bVII to I vamp with a IV to V vamp, and the bVII to i with a V to vi vamp. It’s cheating, but you can cheat a lot of songs with these kinds of subs (which are discussed a little bit above.)

44

Can you provide an example of the cheats with actual chords? I want to make sure I’m following.

45

I’m saying, like if someone says you can play a song knowing only, say, the G chord, the C chord, the D chord, and the Em chord – with the caveat that transposition doesn’t matter (i.e. playing in a different key, which is what all these “look at all these pop songs I can play with only these four chords!” do --the key doesn’t matter), you can play a song that rocks between a bVII and a I with the C and D chords there. Or with a bVII and a i with a D and Em. So, let’s say, “A Horse with no Name”. That goes i and bVII the whole song (with some color notes in there). You can do it with a Am and G as the two chords above, transposed. Jane Says by Jane’s Addiction you can do with a C and a D there (though if that a bVII-I or IV-V progression depends on what you think the tonic is.) It will be transposed, though (I believe it’s G and A in the original recording.) I don’t have access to the book mentioned above, but any bVII-I can be duplicated with the C-D progression, as they’re both just a whole step apart. We don’t care about what key the original is in–transposition is fine. When an artist does this type of medley to show how all these songs are the same chords, they stay in the same key.

46

Thanks, I appreciate it.

47

Here is the entire table on Page 389; the paragraph is titled “Subtonic shuttles”:

48

Thanks! “Tequila” is the one that I was trying to think of. “On Broadway” also has this rocking, but you can’t do the whole song knowing only four chords, as the progression is moved up a fourth (A-G) to (D-C) and then you have (C-D-E) as a turnaround. It’s not diatonic, anyway, so it wouldn’t fit one caveat mentioned earlier. Neither is a bVII - I progression, but that one could be covered with a IV and V chord. But lots (most songs) won’t fit knowing just four chords, even with cheating some chords a bit.