Major when you would expect minor

digitalkettle

sev112 said:

I'm guessing that this all splits into people who deliberately did something contrary to theory, and 50% who just played what they thought sounded nice without knowing the conflict with common theory

It's all theory (within reason)...this is just stuff that doesn't immediately fit into the diatonic harmony of the natural major scale.

JonnyBgoode

sev112 said:

I'm guessing that this all splits into people who deliberately did something contrary to theory, and 50% who just played what they thought sounded nice without knowing the conflict with common theory

Theory is just giving context or  proving a framework to 'explain what is happening'. I'd say for the vast majority of guitarists its about playing what sounds good - I doubt there are many guitarists who deliberately go out of their way to try and do something contrary, certainly not The The.

In any case just because the chords on The OP's example are not diatonic, doesn't mean the progression can't be explained/put into context by theory, it *has* above :-)

roberty

Thought I had another [ I / II maj / IV / I ] here but it's a [ I / II maj / IV min / I ]



So they went for the double switch-a-too

There might be another way to analyse this but to me the tonality is established clearly by the two opening melody notes, a major third followed by the root 

Interesting that it's a 60s pastiche @Blueingreen given your comment earlier. Well observed

roberty

*switch-a-roo thanks autocorrect 

GuyBoden

I'd look into relative and secondary relative minors. Very handy for improv solos. 

CMaj is C-E-G

Amin is A-C-E Relative minor

Emin is E-G-B secondary relative minor

guitarjack66

I saw a Youtube video recently where the maker spoke about 'Beatle-ifying' your chord progressions by turning your 4th chord (a major chord usually) into a minor chord instead and it does make you hear a progression that would not be out of place in a Beatles tune. Surely scales are just a framework to give you some structure before you play Jenga by using your own ideas?

HenryHill

guitarjack66 said:

I saw a Youtube video recently where the maker spoke about 'Beatle-ifying' your chord progressions by turning your 4th chord (a major chord usually) into a minor chord instead and it does make you hear a progression that would not be out of place in a Beatles tune. Surely scales are just a framework to give you some structure before you play Jenga by using your own ideas?

seen something similar actually (may have been James Hargreaves on youtube) about The Beatles borrowing chords. It was either using a major instead of the minor in the key, or using another 'out of key' chord based on something else

Basher

guitarjack66 said:

I saw a Youtube video recently where the maker spoke about 'Beatle-ifying' your chord progressions by turning your 4th chord (a major chord usually) into a minor chord instead and it does make you hear a progression that would not be out of place in a Beatles tune. Surely scales are just a framework to give you some structure before you play Jenga by using your own ideas?

I think I have a book by Ricky Rooksby somewhere and he describes this switching a single major chord to a minor, or vice versa as "changing polarity", which is a term I rather like in this context.

I've been watching a lot of piano videos recently and they call them "borrowed chords", usually from the parallel major or minor key. A *very* common example in pop and rock is using the major key root chord with the minor key seventh degree chord (e.g. C major to Bb major).

roberty said:

*switch-a-roo thanks autocorrect 

Well, they did switch-a-two (II) and then switch-a-four (IV) so maybe the auto correct is almost there, and possibly cleverer than we think?