The main chorus progression to my Do What You Do To Me is shown below. In this progression, I used the borrowed “bVII” and “bIII”
chords to give the chorus a classic rock sound a la Robert Palmer in contrast to the riff oriented verse. “And just do what you do to me, and just do what you do to me.” is the opening chorus lyric and hook.
Everyday
The twelve-bar progression to my Everyday is shown below. In this pro-gression, I used the borrowed “bIII” and “bVI” chords that, in this case, with the other chord qualities created a light jazzy feel. The lyric goes “Everyday I want you, everyday I need you, everyday the sun shines, every night my heart cries for you.”
Bb / Eb / C / / / Bb / Eb / C / / /
Cmaj7 / / / Eb13 / / / Abmaj7 / / / C#maj7 / Do7 /
Em7 / / / A7b9 / / / Dm7 / / / G7b9 / / /
Cmaj7 / / / Eb13 / / / Cmaj7 / / / Eb13 / / /
Y OUR A SSIGNMENT
We’ve only scratched the surface of what can be built with these bor-rowed chords. For example, if you add the three borbor-rowed chords (“Bb,” “Eb,” and “Ab”), discussed in this chapter, to the three primary chords (“C,” “F,” and “G”) you can create 720 possible displaced pro-gressions before you get into applying chord substitutions. Adding these three borrowed chords to four chord sequences such as the “C-Am-Dm-G7” standard progression can create 5,040 possible displaced progressions, again before applying substitutions. Here’s the math: 1 x 2 x 3 x 4 x 5 x 6 x 7 = 5,040. This is clearly fertile ground to mine for fresh progressions for your new songs.
The other two available borrowed chords are the “bII” (“Db”) and
“bV” (“Gb”) chords. These chords have typically been used as chro-matic passing chords (i.e., “C-Dbo7-Dm7” and “F-Gbo7-G7”) and as tritone substitutions (i.e., “Db7” for “G7” and “Gb7” for “C7”) Exam-ples of songs that use these two chords include the main “C-Db7”
vamp in Luck Be A Lady (from “Guys And Dolls”—1950), the opening
“Cmaj7-Gb7” verse progression to One (from “A Chorus Line”—1975), and in the minor quality to create the “C-Gbm7-Fmaj7-Dm7-G11” chorus progression to Sir Duke (Stevie Won-der—1977). You will want to try substituting these borrowed chords in common progression typess such as the “C7-F7” basic creating the
“C7-Gb7-F7” sequence and the “C-G7” folk turnaround creating the
“Cmaj7-Db7b5” substitution.
Now that you have seen how some of the world’s best songwriters have used borrowed chords to create classic rock progressions to write hit songs, your assignment will be to work through several exercises to get you started building your own classic rock progressions.
(1) Transform the classic rock progression shown below into an ascending “C-D-F-G” bass line progression using inversions.
C / / / Bb / / / F / / / G / / /
Here’s how I did it.
(2) Transform the classic rock progression shown below into a descending chromatic “C-B-Bb-A” bass line progression using inver-sions.
Here is how the Commodores did it to create the main chorus pro-gression to their 1978 hit Three Times A Lady. For more information on this type of progression, see the separate “Descending Bass Lines”
chapter in this book.
(3) Transform the classic rock progression shown below into a tonic pedal point progression using inversions. (Hint: Make “C” the bass note of each chord.)
Here is how the Guess Who did it to create the main chorus pro-gression to their 1970 hit No Time. For more information on this type of progression, see the separate “Pedal Points” chapter of this book.
(4) Try substituting the “C-Bb/C” pedal point for the “C-Bb/G”
vamp in a song such as Uptight (Everything’s Alright) verse (Stevie Won-der—1966) as shown below.
C / / / Bb/D / / / F / / / G / / /
C / G / Bb / F /
C / G/B / Bb / F/A /
C / / / Eb / / / F / / / C / / /
C / / / Ebmaj7/C / / / F/C / / / C / / /
Original Progression
Substitute Progression (Pedal Point)
(5) Try replacing the “Gm7” for the “Bb” chord (relative minor/
major substitution) in the “C-Bb-F” classic rock progression in a song such as Magic Bus verse (Who—1968) as shown below.
Original Progression
Substitute Progression (Relative Minor)
(6) Try substituting the “C-Bb” vamp and the “C-Bb-F” classic rock progression for four bars of “C” in a song such as Proud Mary verse (Creedence Clearwater Revival—1969) as shown below.
Original Progressions
Substitute Progression #1 (C-Bb Vamp)
Substitute Progression #2 (Classic Rock Progression)
(7) Try substituting the “C-C11” pedal point for the “C-Bb-F” clas-sic rock progression in a song such as Don’t Stop verse (Fleetwood Mac—1976) as shown below.
C / / / Bb/G / / /
C / / / Bb/C / / /
C / / / Bb / F /
C / / / Gm7 / F /
C / / / / / / / C / / / / / / /
C / / / Bb / / / C / / / Bb / / /
C / / / Bb / F / C / / / Bb / F /
Original Progressions
Substitute Progression (Pedal Point)
(8) Try substituting the “C-G-F-G” rock and roll displacement for the classic rock progression in a song such as Last Time verse (Rolling Stones—1965) as shown below.
Original Progression
Substitute Progression (Rock And Roll Displacement)
(9) Try substituting the “C-Cm7-F-C” progression for the classic rock progression in a song such as After Midnight verse (Eric Clap-ton—1970) as shown below. Notice that the “Cm7” and the “Eb/C”
are the same chords.
Original Progression
Substitute Progression
Now, try substituting the “C-Cm7-F-C” progression for the basic progression in a song such as Get Back verse (Beatles—1969) as shown below.
Original Progression
C / Bb / F / / /
C / / / C11 / / /
C / / / Bb / F /
C / / / G / F /
C / / / Eb / F /
C / / / Cm7 / F /
C / / / / / / / F / / / C / / /
Substitute Progression
(10) Try building an eight-bar verse or chorus for a new song using the “C-Bb” classic rock vamp.
Here is how Burton Lane did it to create the A section progression to his 1946 Old Devil Moon from “Finian’s Rainbow.”
Here is how the Beatles did it to create the verse progression to their 1966 hit We Can Work It Out.
(11) Try building an eight-bar verse or chorus for a new song using the “C-Bb-F-C” classic rock progression.
Here is how the Who did it to create the verse progression to their 1965 I Can’t Explain.
C / / / Cm7 / / / F / / / C / / /
Cmaj7 / / / Bbmaj7 / / / Cmaj7 / / / Bbmaj7 / / /
Cmaj7 / / / Bbmaj7 / / / Cmaj7 / / / Gm7 / C7 /
C / Csus4 C / / Csus4 / Bbadd9 / C / C / Csus4 C
C / Csus4 / Bbadd9 / C / F / C / F / G7 /
C / Bb / F / C / C / Bb / F / C /
C / Bb / F / C / C / Bb / G / / /
Here is how Bachman-Turner Overdrive did it to create the main verse progression to their 1974 hit Takin’ Care Of Business.
Here is how Fleetwood Mac did it to create the verse/chorus pro-gression to their 1977 hit Don’t Stop. Notice the use of the “G” (“V”) chord in this and the I Can’t Explain example to transition out of the repeated “I-bVII-IV” classic rock sequences.
Here is how Robert Palmer did it to create the verse/chorus progres-sion to his 1986 hit Addicted To Love. Notice how Palmer spreads the progression out over the eight bars instead of quickly repeating the pro-gression to fill the space.
(12) Try building an eight-bar verse or chorus for a new song using the “C-Bb-F-Bb” classic rock variation.
Here is how Sister Sledge did it to create the chorus progression to their 1979 hit We Are Family.
C / / / Bb / / / F / / / C / / /
C / / / Bb / / / F / / / C / / /
C / Bb / F / / / C / Bb / F / / /
C / Bb / F/ / / / G7 / / / / / / /
C5 / / / / / / / Bb5 / / / / / / /
F5 / / / / / / / C5 / / / / / / /
C7 / / / Bbadd9 / / / F / / / Bb11 / / /
C7 / / / Bbadd9 / / / F / / / Bb11 / / /
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The Coltrane changes are named after the jazz saxophonist/composer John Coltrane (1926-1967) and refer to the harmonic approach he used on his landmark 1959 Giant Steps album. Tunes from this album such as Giant Steps and Countdown used symmetric chord progressions that consisted of “V-I” cadences that moved in a cycle of descending major thirds (two whole steps).
If you begin on any note and descend in intervals of a major third, you will cycle back to the beginning note essentially dividing the octave into three equal parts as shown in the box below. This is also referred to as an augmented cycle as the notes in our example enharmonically form the “C” augmented chord (C-G#-E).
If you make these notes the roots of major seventh chords, you cre-ate the progression shown in the box below.
Then, if you precede each of the chords above with their respective
“V” chords (backcycle), you build “V-I” cycles (“Eb7-Abmaj7,” “B7-Emaj7,” and “G7-Cmaj7”) as shown below that are referred to as Col-trane changes.
In this chapter, you will look at several songs that feature Coltrane changes. Then, your assignment will be to work through several exer-cises to get you started using Coltrane changes.
C B Bb A Ab G Gb F E Eb D Db C
Cmaj7 / / / Abmaj7 / / / Emaj7 / / / Cmaj7 / / /
Cmaj7 / Eb7 / Abmaj7 / B7 / Emaj7 / G7 / Cmaj7 / / /