Songs that use the Something chord progression

this video is sponsored by the new BBC Symphony Orchestra piano virtual instrument [Music] a few weeks ago I got an email from Mark Johnson asking about this chord progression here that I'm playing right now the progression from something by the Beatles and it was his first four chords of the progression that he was most interested in where we start from C major and then we get C Major seven and then C dominant seven or what you could just call to C7 and then f it has this really satisfying sort of stepping down sound where we move just one semitone down with the top note of each chord [Music] now one of the things that Mark was asking about this chord progression is is there any other songs that use this progression and there certainly is [Music] you think uh [Music] too much baby [Music] I'm not easy to hold [Music] it's so sad sin your face you're ready to blame the first guy in line to catch the train a song that I'm pretty sure was directly inspired by the chord progression in something is the song something more by the band's train because then not only do they use the same chord progression in the exact same key but the song in general has very Beatles sound to it [Music] [Applause] all the way [Music] George Harrison himself who of course wrote something by The Beatles also has used this chord progression again most notably in give me love give me peace on Earth but in this example he adds a dominant seven to the IV chord [Applause] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] a song that gets a lot of mileage out of this chord progression is Kiss Me by Sixpence None the Richer and the reason I say it gets a lot of mileage out of it is that it keeps teasing us so rather than going to the IV chord at first all it does is comes down and starts on the tonic chord of E flat E flat major seven E flat seven and then rather than giving us the satisfaction of going to a flat it climbs back up again so it gets E flat E flat major seven E flat seven E flat major seven [Music] and then eventually later on it does give us the reward of the four chord just before we go into the chorus [Music] [Music] [Music] so of course in something by The Beatles although we get this chord progression to start with in the first section after the F it doesn't just loop again it then goes somewhere else we go to D and then we go to G so different songs will have a different way of moving on from that initial descending line and another really common thing to do is once you hit the four chord f is to then go to F minor that lovely melancholic sound and then quite possibly resolve back to the one chord and then go somewhere else it's a really common way to extend that descending line because if we look at the notes and the chords here C major and C Major seven is that top note comes down by semitone C7 top note once again is coming down by semitone then F we've come down once again by semitone and then by going to F minor we continue that semitone run and then by going to C major the tonic chord we have also extended that semitone run so it's this really satisfying chromatic line at the top of the chord progression [Music] keep the Love Alone [Music] [Music] Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You you'll be like heaven to touch I wanna hold you so much everyone as love has arrived and I thank God I'm alive we are a rock revolving around a Golden Sun we are a billion trolled into one so when I hear about the bubble in the sky they set together in the park as the evening Sky Go dark she looked at him and he fell to spawn s it was that he felt alone and wished if a picture paints a thousand words then why can't I paint you the words will never show ever since I was a kid in school I messed around I apologize then realize [Music] throughout this video the piano sound you've been hearing me play with is the new BBC Symphony Orchestra piano plugin by Spitfire audio this is a pristine sounding virtual instrument sampled from the Steinway Model D grand piano in the BBC's famous Maid of Ale studio in London this Universal classic piano sound perfectly complements the Fantastic bbcso Orchestra plugin which I myself used before in my a day in the life and I Am The Walrus Recreation videos as you can hear though this piano plugin also works beautifully as a standalone instrument for solo piano work the library opens in the existing bbcso plugin allowing for seamless integration with the rest of the bbcso line and comes in three editions discover core and professional the library I've used in this video is the core Edition but if you want to try out the BBC Symphony Orchestra piano before you buy or you want something a bit smaller in size try out the Discover Edition follow the links in the description to find out more [Music] so let's take a closer look now at why this chord progression works the way it does why it sounds so satisfying of course as we do with many chord progressions this chord progression starts on the tonic chord on the one chord so C major in the key of C then we move to C Major seven now C Major seven is the diatonic seven chord we can have on the tonic chord so in the key of C major for example if we want to add a seventh degree to the tonic chord it's naturally going to be the major seven so that's not particularly unusual all it does is it adds a bit of color and there's slight bit of tension to the tonic chord but then the interesting bit is then when we get the C dominant seven or what we can just call C7 this chord is of course not technically in the key because we've got this B flat now we're in the key of C major so we shouldn't have a black note but what's going on here is this is a secondary dominant chord it is the five chord of the fourth chord in the key the five of four in other words it's the fifth chord of F major so we get this sort of temporary kind of key change but not actually a key change it's not elaborate enough to be a key change it's just a brief moment where we point ourselves instead to F rather than c as a sort of point of rest and that's why it's so satisfying when the C7 chord moves to F because that tension there wants us to move there it's the five chord the dominant chord dominant chords want to resolve to the chord that's a fifth away that's what they do the other thing happening here in this chord progression is what we call a line cliche now the line cliche is that element where there's that semitone line moving down at the top of the chord progression foreign cliche the line we're talking about is that semitone line that chromatic line that links the chords together now technically speaking for a line cliche in the purest sense everything else about the chord has to stay exactly the same apart from the line the line cliche that's moving so it's only actually the first three chords in this progression which count as a line cliche in the typical sense because they're all basically a C major chord but with a line climbing down at the top and although that semitone line then does continue into the F chord because another element of the chord down below has changed the E is moved up to F it no longer counts as a line cliche in the sort of strictest sense of the word but this is an example of a line cliche where the progression the lines at the top of the chord [Music] you could have a line cliche where the line was at the bottom of the chord instead and in fact we could use this exact same chord progression to do that so if if instead the C B and B flat that move down at the top move down at the bottom we still have the same chords foreign at the bottom instead [Applause] it takes on a different quality which basically inverted it but it's the same essential chord progression it functions in the same way now an interesting thing about something is Paul McCartney's bass playing something is widely regarded as one of Paul McCartney's greatest and most creative bass lines in the Beatles song and it's an incredibly melodic and explorationary bass line it keeps moving around it doesn't necessarily play the tonic note of the chord so what that actually means is that from if we're talking strictly about the inversions here it means that the major seven chord the second chord in the progression is actually a second inversion chord because Paul McCartney moves up to the G at that point [Music] and then he moves back down to C for the C7 so technically the second chord in the progression in something is a second version It's C Major seven over G so that is the something called progression if you can think of any other songs that use this progression then do leave them in the comments down below foreign and if you can think of another interesting chord progression that you think could make for a good video like this then do suggest that as well because I think it's often you guys that come up with the best ideas for these videos thank you [Music]

Channel: David Bennett Piano

Views: 230,733

Keywords: something, chord progression, major 7, beatles, music theory, explained, other songs, examples, line cliche, c cmaj7, george harrison

Id: AmqiQFyCAGY

Length: 13min 47sec (827 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 29 2023