This is a real digression from my usual blog topics, and given my readership (limited, I believe, to various friends and relatives countable on fingers and toes) I'm unlikely to get any useful new info, but hey...
I love playing around with music. I've even written a song or two. And yes, most popular music is very limited in chord structure. (Have I scared you with the words "chord structure"? It will get more technical. Perhaps now is the time to bail out.) Most songs use the same three or four chords in any of the dozen different major keys. Being a keyboardist first and foremost, I tend to think of them in the key of C: C, F, G, maybe some Am or Em action, D7 if you want some variety... but you can get a lot of mileage out of just C, F, and G if you can get the song in that key.
Despite the fact that there are only a few chords, however, the potential variety of chord progressions is pretty good. "Rock Around The Clock" has F C G and a final resolve to C on its famous chorus (averaging to one chord per line - and yes, I transposed it), while "Blowin' In The Wind" just repeats CFGCFGCFG on its verses... I'm sure that there's a technical term in music theory for these patterns, but the point is, same chords do not equal same chord structure. Same chord structure is much rarer.
I don't know when I first noticed the magic chord progression, but it was some time before I wrote my first proper song. In Roman numeral notation, it goes vi-IV-I-V - in the key of C, it comes out A minor - F major - C major - G major. And it's my theory that songs with this progression are inclined to Awesome.
It's in the chorus of "All You Wanted". It's in the whole dang song "Save Tonight". It's in the verse of "Lord Have Mercy". It's in the chorus of "My Savior My God" and "Defying Gravity". It's in the chorus of "Our God" and "Better Than A Hallelujah" and "One Of Us".
The feeling is just one of moving from smallness to greatness, wavering between pain and indescribable joy. And I love it.
So, if I have any readers with whom I have not discussed this ad nauseum in real life: can you think of any others? And can you think of any which somehow fail the Awesome criterion (except possibly on the basis of lyrics)?
ETA: How could I have forgotten "Save Tonight"???
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That's also the final chord progression on the final "Hallelujah" of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah." But keep it quiet. It's a secret chord that David played and it pleased the Lord. But you don't really care for Cohen, do ya?
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