Gary Ewer
Author: Gary Ewer
There’s a theory that not a lot has changed since the early days of what we call “Classical music” (i.e. the year 1600 through to the present). In fact, you’d be fairly safe in estimating that at least 90% of the difference between J. S. Bach and Bob Dylan really amounts to differences in performance style, not compositional style.
Though the sound of today’s pop music is radically different from the sound of a Beethoven symphony, the compositional structure, the “rebar”, if you will, is very much the same. The constructional elements you find in the music of Bach, Beethoven and Brahms are pretty much the same elements you’ll find in the music of Dylan, Bowie and Springsteen. And beyond.
In particular, you’ll find almost no difference in the way chord progressions work when you compare the music of the 18th century (Bach, Handel, Haydn and Mozart, etc.) and the 20th-21st century (Lennon/McCartney, Neil Young, Leonard Cohen, and others too numerous to mention).
Chord progressions work the same, because the rules of harmony haven’t changed. Though some composers of the Classical genre have made it their life’s work to be as innovative as possible with their concept of harmony, the basic “rules” of traditional harmony haven’t been altered, and they’ve remained so for more than 400 years. Dominant chords still want to resolve to tonic chords.
It may surprise you (maybe even disappoint you?) to know that Classical composers were not usually very innovative with their choice of chords. In fact, if you strip Bach’s counterpoint down to its basic chord structures, you’re looking at something that might be considered downright dull: lots of I-chords and V-chords, with ii-chords and IV-chords thrown in for good measure. What complicated things harmonically was that he visited many keys within the same work.
Classical progressions were simple because Classical composers knew that most of their innovation had to happen in other elements within their compositions. If they innovated too much with regard to the way their chord progressions worked, the music would come crashing down.
It was later on, during the later Romantic era (mid-1800s through to the 20th century) that composers started to elongate and expand their chord progressions, and take listeners on longer “musical journeys.” But even in those musically complicated days of composers like Richard Strauss and Claude Debussy, their chord progressions still worked, just with more twists and turns that made journey more interesting.
So that should mean that if you take a Classical era symphony and condense it to its basic chord progressions, those same progressions should work in pop music, right? Yes!
And in fact, you can take the entire work, put a modern-day beat to it, and you’ve got something that could have been written yesterday, and I mean literally yesterday.
A good example would be “A Lover’s Concerto”, sung by 60s pop group The Toys. The writers, Sandy Linzer and Denny Randell, simply took Bach’s “Minuet in G”, changed the time signature, and of course the performance style, and delivered a song that was not only something that sounded original, but reached No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1965.
But what about taking original chord progressions from Classical works and constructing entirely new songs? It’s easy to do; simply analyze those original works, and you’ll discover how beautifully they’ll accompany anything you’re writing today in the 21st century.
Here are a few progressions to get you started. A simple YouTube search of the original Classical work will show you how the composer used the progression:
Pachelbel: Canon in D:
D A Bm F#m G D G A D
Mozart: “Laudate Dominum:
E F#m7 E/G# Aadd9 B/A E/G# B7 Esus4 E
Vivaldi: Concerto for 2 Cellos in G minor:
Gm Cm Gm Cm D D/C Gm/Bb A Dm
Beethoven: Symphony No. 7: ii. Allegretto:
Am E/G# E Am (Am) C/G G C
C B Bm [A Am] Am [E/G# Am] E Am
Brahms: Hungarian Dance No. 7:
F Gm C7 F Gm/Bb C F
G C G C G C G C (return to beginning)
Mozart: Piano Sonata No. 1:
C G C F C G C
And here’s a sample of the complicated way Russian composer Igor Stravinsky used harmonic progression:
Stravinsky: Le Baiser de la Fée: Scene III.1
Am F7 F#dim F Fdim Amaj7 F#m
And one other technique for borrowing from the classics is a bit like “modified stealing.” The story goes that Adler and Ross, who wrote the musical “Pajama Game”, took the opening bars of Mozart’s Sonata in C (K.545), slowed the tempo massively, and turned it into the blockbuster ballad, “Hey There.”
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Gary Ewer is a senior instructor in the Dept. of Music, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia. He is the author of several e-books for songwriters, including “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting.”
Visit his website: http://www.secretsofsongwriting.com/
Nice post! I compiled a giant chart of pop chord progressions last month. I’m still expanding it with hundreds more songs, and it’s amazing to see it all coming directly from classical theory.
rock fits with classical like a glove
I’ve been looking for a website/article about classical progressions for a while. Thanks.
Thanks, interesting piece. I’m eager to try out the ideas you offered.
Brilliant article, as usuual Gary gives so much information
to Song Writers through his excellent blogs, it should encourage those who dont read music to learn, after all we’ve learned to speak English, in comparison the rudiments of music are quite simple and
an asset to both lyric writers and those trying to be melody composers.
Yes we know some can do it without, but thats no excuse for not trying.