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Mississippi Delta Blues

Robert Johnson Born: May 8, 1911 in Hazlehurst MS Died: August 16, 1938 in Greenwood MS Even casual blues fans know the name of Robert Johnson, and thanks to the re-retelling of the story over the course of decades, many know the tale of Johnson allegedly making a deal with the devil at the crossroads [...]

The schematic shifts of Beatles’ chords

Every typical Beatles’ song has at least one rather unconventional chord progression. Often there are more and sometimes the chord sequences even come close to endangering the songs’ musical comprehensibility. There is, however, some kind of harmonic structure beneath these remarkable chord progressions, preventing this to happen. In the Beatles’ songs each of the basic [...]

Middle eight

In music theory, middle 8 refers to the section of a song which has a significantly different melody from the rest of the song, usually after the second chorus in a song (typically, a song consists of first verse, bridge, chorus, second verse, bridge, chorus, middle eight, chorus). Such sections often consist of new chords, [...]

Thirty-two-bar form

The thirty-two-bar form, often called AABA from the musical form or order in which its melodies occur, also ballad form, is common in Tin Pan Alley songs and later popular music including rock, pop and jazz. Though it resembles the ternary form of the operatic da capo aria its popularity declined and “there were few [...]

Song structure (popular music)

The foundation of popular music is the “verse” and “chorus”. Both are essential elements with the verse usually played first. Exceptions abound with She Loves You by The Beatles being an early example in the Rock N Roll genre. Each verse usually employs the same melody (possibly with some slight modifications), while the lyrics usually [...]

‘God Only Knows’ by Brian Wilson

It begins with an instrumental overture of the chorus’ chord structure, a descending progression from A to F#min through E/G#. The instrumental melody here is almost Baroque, evoking a graduation chamber quartet on a Georgian lawn. The classical feel is reinforced by a D# passing tone over the A chord. The tonal ambiguity of the [...]