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  #1  
Old 03-21-2023, 06:55 AM
ozzman ozzman is offline
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Default Beatles key change

On "you're gonna lose that girl" the middle part changes from E to G I think? progression goes f# to D which still is key of E but then goes G-C-G-C-F back to E So where does F come from? anyone explain this in simple ish terms for a theory illiterate like me?
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Old 03-21-2023, 07:14 AM
Bob from Brooklyn Bob from Brooklyn is offline
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John Lennon was a theory illiterate too.
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Old 03-21-2023, 07:34 AM
agfsteve agfsteve is offline
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I'm no expert, but I think the F is a transition chord, from the key of G back to E, in the same way that the D is a transition chord from the key of E to G.

D (maj) is not in the key of E; I think it would have been D dim (or Dm7b5?) to be in the key of E. But it is D because it helps the transition of the key change, as does the F (not F dim) to go back to key of E.

Of course, theory is only an observation of music, not a rule.
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Old 03-21-2023, 08:12 AM
mr. beaumont mr. beaumont is offline
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We like to say John Lennon was musically illiterate, but dude knew what he was doing-- and since the Beatles played tons of music from and inspired by tin pan alley stuff, they were masters at setting up a key change.

So the D is the V of G, the key for the bridge. It's also the bVII in E, kind of a blues sound, so it still fits in E and sets up G perfectly.

The F acts as a transition back to E...tritone sub for the B7, the V of E.

Did Lennon think that? Maybe, maybe not. But he definitely played songs hundreds if not thousands of times that did stuff like this and he internalized it for sure...
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Old 03-21-2023, 08:45 AM
agfsteve agfsteve is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by agfsteve View Post
I'm no expert, but I think the F is a transition chord, from the key of G back to E, in the same way that the D is a transition chord from the key of E to G.

D (maj) is not in the key of E; I think it would have been D dim (or Dm7b5?) to be in the key of E. But it is D because it helps the transition of the key change, as does the F (not F dim) to go back to key of E.

Of course, theory is only an observation of music, not a rule.
Trying to correct myself at the risk of making a further faux pas, I think it would have to be D# dim (or D#m7b5?) to be in the key of E. Not important; I'm sure John Lennon knew that if it sounds good, it is good, LOL.
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Old 03-21-2023, 08:59 AM
mr. beaumont mr. beaumont is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by agfsteve View Post
Trying to correct myself at the risk of making a further faux pas, I think it would have to be D# dim (or D#m7b5?) to be in the key of E. Not important; I'm sure John Lennon knew that if it sounds good, it is good, LOL.
That's correct.

Really, the secret to changing keys is to get to the V of the new key. Any way you can set that up, you get to the V of the new key, and boom-- that I will sound great.
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  #7  
Old 03-21-2023, 09:47 AM
ozzman ozzman is offline
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Wow!Great lesson here for me. Thanks all
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Old 03-21-2023, 10:10 AM
JonPR JonPR is offline
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One can speak perfectly eloquently, with an enormous and sophisticated vocabulary, but still be unable to read or write or know anything about spelling.

Lennon was similarly fluent in music, having picked up the language (vocabulary, grammar, syntax) almost entirely by ear. He wasn't totally "illiterate" musically, but very nearly was. He certainly didn't care what the right academic terms were for whatever he was doing.

The academics come along later and have a lot of fun analyzing it all, in terms which would have totally bemused the composer:
https://www.icce.rug.nl/~soundscapes...P/ygtltg.shtml

My own observations (FWIW, for all you Beatles theory nerds...)...

The D major chord, although strictly chromatic to E major, is very common bVII chord in pop and rock, and it sounds like that at first. You fully expect it to go right back to E, as it normally would. In fact - as Pollack says - it "pivots" to G major. I.e., classically speaking, it's the V of the new key, but is just as familiar (to rock ears) as the bVII in E, which gives it a dual function, hence the "pivot".

The F at the end of the bridge is more unusual and intriguing in how it works. The bridge is actually 7 bars long, not 8. The E chord comes on the 8th bar, making F-E sound to me like a modulation somewhere else (bVI-V, to Am or A?). But in fact the E is the beginning of the verse sequence!. The subterfuge is cleverly underlined by the guitar solo, which sounds at first as if he is filling in with some bluesy licks before the vocal comes back - but no, it's a proper guitar solo! (Just with the vocal refrain in response.)

In fact, from the middle of the bridge back into the verse, you have a quite confusing sequence of major chords:

G - - - C - - - F - - - E - - - G# - - - ... !


Jeff calls the F a tritone sub (for B, V of E), but IMO that's debatable; mainly because it lacks the crucial Eb/D# (making the tritone with A that is how both chords work). To my ears it doesn't sound at all like it's resolving to E.

In fact what Lennon has done - and the way I think he would have seen it - is he has ended the bridge the same way he ended the verse before the bridge: with the bVII of the previous key. Before, it was a D in key of E, now it's F in key of G.

I get the feeling he didn't care too much about how the F led to E any more than how the D happened to lead to G. He certainly didn't exploit the full tritone sub effect.

However ... there is a precedent here. Paul has used a tritone sub on their previous album, on Things We Said Today. It resembles John's F in this song in three ways: (1) it's the final chord in the bridge, leading back to the verse by dropping by half-step; (2) the melody is the 3rd of the chord, what would have been the 7th of the V7 it's supposedly replacing (D on Bb in key of A minor in Paul's song; A on F in key of E in John's song); (3) it's a plain triad, not a 7th (no tritone in the chord).

But the differences are also significant - arguably highlighting their characteristic approaches to harmony! Paul's chord is the 8th bar of an orthodox 8-bar bridge, and follows B7 ("love is here to..."), which is a highly traditional way of setting up the E7 in bar 8 as a peak of tension to drop back to the verse in A (minor). So when the Bb hits ("...stay and that's enough..." instead of the E, it's a very obvious jazzy substitute, despite it's lack of a 7th.

But in John's song, the preceding chord is C ("what else can I...") and the following F ("do-o-o..>") is powerful but smooth, like the bVII of the previous G key - it sounds natural, not surprising. And then the E, as I say, sounds more like bar 8 of that section than bar 1 of the next.

So it's like John saying "yeah I can do what Paul did, no big deal. But I'm not gonna use that cheesy old predictable transition out of the bridge, I'm gonna chop a bar off, hehe... then George can do a solo to fool y'all properly...."
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Last edited by JonPR; 03-21-2023 at 10:17 AM.
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  #9  
Old 03-21-2023, 10:56 AM
nickv6 nickv6 is offline
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I think what's being described here is the genius of those early Beatle songwriting days. How did they get from Love Me Do to Please Please Me? There are those of us old enough to remember trying hard to deconstruct those songs to play them in our youthclub band and how impossible it seemed to get them to sound right. We didn't have internet access to chords etc. we were just doing it by ear. And it wasn't easy. They were magic. Gradually those surprises in the songs disappeared.... But those early days, second guessing John and Paul was impossible.
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Old 03-21-2023, 10:57 AM
mr. beaumont mr. beaumont is offline
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Yeah, tritone sub is a stretch...

Really what it comes down to is the half step pull...half steps resolve nicely.

And then of course there's the joy of ending a tune an unexpected half step up before resolving down to the original key...did the Beatles ever do that trick? I'm sure they did...
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Old 03-21-2023, 10:59 AM
ozzman ozzman is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JonPR View Post
One can speak perfectly eloquently, with an enormous and sophisticated vocabulary, but still be unable to read or write or know anything about spelling.

Lennon was similarly fluent in music, having picked up the language (vocabulary, grammar, syntax) almost entirely by ear. He wasn't totally "illiterate" musically, but very nearly was. He certainly didn't care what the right academic terms were for whatever he was doing.

The academics come along later and have a lot of fun analyzing it all, in terms which would have totally bemused the composer:
https://www.icce.rug.nl/~soundscapes...P/ygtltg.shtml

My own observations (FWIW, for all you Beatles theory nerds...)...

The D major chord, although strictly chromatic to E major, is very common bVII chord in pop and rock, and it sounds like that at first. You fully expect it to go right back to E, as it normally would. In fact - as Pollack says - it "pivots" to G major. I.e., classically speaking, it's the V of the new key, but is just as familiar (to rock ears) as the bVII in E, which gives it a dual function, hence the "pivot".

The F at the end of the bridge is more unusual and intriguing in how it works. The bridge is actually 7 bars long, not 8. The E chord comes on the 8th bar, making F-E sound to me like a modulation somewhere else (bVI-V, to Am or A?). But in fact the E is the beginning of the verse sequence!. The subterfuge is cleverly underlined by the guitar solo, which sounds at first as if he is filling in with some bluesy licks before the vocal comes back - but no, it's a proper guitar solo! (Just with the vocal refrain in response.)

In fact, from the middle of the bridge back into the verse, you have a quite confusing sequence of major chords:

G - - - C - - - F - - - E - - - G# - - - ... !


Jeff calls the F a tritone sub (for B, V of E), but IMO that's debatable; mainly because it lacks the crucial Eb/D# (making the tritone with A that is how both chords work). To my ears it doesn't sound at all like it's resolving to E.

In fact what Lennon has done - and the way I think he would have seen it - is he has ended the bridge the same way he ended the verse before the bridge: with the bVII of the previous key. Before, it was a D in key of E, now it's F in key of G.

I get the feeling he didn't care too much about how the F led to E any more than how the D happened to lead to G. He certainly didn't exploit the full tritone sub effect.

However ... there is a precedent here. Paul has used a tritone sub on their previous album, on Things We Said Today. It resembles John's F in this song in three ways: (1) it's the final chord in the bridge, leading back to the verse by dropping by half-step; (2) the melody is the 3rd of the chord, what would have been the 7th of the V7 it's supposedly replacing (D on Bb in key of A minor in Paul's song; A on F in key of E in John's song); (3) it's a plain triad, not a 7th (no tritone in the chord).

But the differences are also significant - arguably highlighting their characteristic approaches to harmony! Paul's chord is the 8th bar of an orthodox 8-bar bridge, and follows B7 ("love is here to..."), which is a highly traditional way of setting up the E7 in bar 8 as a peak of tension to drop back to the verse in A (minor). So when the Bb hits ("...stay and that's enough..." instead of the E, it's a very obvious jazzy substitute, despite it's lack of a 7th.

But in John's song, the preceding chord is C ("what else can I...") and the following F ("do-o-o..>") is powerful but smooth, like the bVII of the previous G key - it sounds natural, not surprising. And then the E, as I say, sounds more like bar 8 of that section than bar 1 of the next.

So it's like John saying "yeah I can do what Paul did, no big deal. But I'm not gonna use that cheesy old predictable transition out of the bridge, I'm gonna chop a bar off, hehe... then George can do a solo to fool y'all properly...."
Great post!I find this theory stuff interesting.But whats great is,I don't have to know it to play it.but these quirky changes are part of what set the Beatles apart from most of the rock-roll of the fifties they grew up on.
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  #12  
Old 03-22-2023, 07:25 AM
Andyrondack Andyrondack is offline
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The F chord is a semitone above E so it's just being used to lead back to E, it's like using neighbour tones when improvising melodically except in this example it's being used in the chord progression.
I don't think it works as well as using circle of 5ths but it's another way of doing it.
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Old 03-22-2023, 09:37 AM
JonPR JonPR is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mr. beaumont View Post
Yeah, tritone sub is a stretch...

Really what it comes down to is the half step pull...half steps resolve nicely.
Exactly. It's always the half-steps... the "voice-leading". The rest is academic banter.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mr. beaumont View Post
And then of course there's the joy of ending a tune an unexpected half step up before resolving down to the original key...did the Beatles ever do that trick? I'm sure they did...
Good question - I can't think of any examples offhand.
That's a jazz cliche, and my feeling is that - for them (even for Paul!) it would have been step too far towards cheese, towards being clever for the sake of it. Or perhaps it simply never occurred to them.

I.e., they did enjoy the odd unabashed bit of cheese. Like ending She Loves You on the major 6th vocal harmony, making George Martin wince: he thought it sounded like "The Andrews Sisters", and that "the boys" should be a lot cooler than that. But of course, it was their sarcastic sense of humour.
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Old 03-22-2023, 09:58 AM
FrankHudson FrankHudson is offline
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I'm an eclectic when composing. I start and use all sorts of things to make another piece. Starting with theory or even "What if we bend the theory's rules or use a more advanced scheme?" ideas are sometimes the genesis of things I do. If nothing else it can help break you out of ruts by showing you a pattern you're stuck in and giving you recipes to try as alternatives.

Of course, another common compositional starting point is copying something else, perhaps with some modifications. We have IP concerns these days about that -- something that George Harrison and John Lennon helped pioneer with "She's So Fine"/"My Sweet Lord" and "Come Together" and Chuck Berry cases. But of course composers have always done this.

For the best of the Beatles though I suspect the method was more at I don't know the rules or the theories, but I've just been shown a new chord, or found one fooling around on an instrument. How does it sound after this other chord? Or before it? Hey, that sounds cool, now what's next? I particularly think that's the case with John Lennon who breaks rules and expectations fairly often.

We can use theory to explain why it works. Or we can listen and enjoy.
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Old 03-22-2023, 11:06 AM
agfsteve agfsteve is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mr. beaumont View Post
Yeah, tritone sub is a stretch...

Really what it comes down to is the half step pull...half steps resolve nicely.

And then of course there's the joy of ending a tune an unexpected half step up before resolving down to the original key...did the Beatles ever do that trick? I'm sure they did...
Yes, on Oh! Darling, Bb7 to A7.
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