Rare opportunity to catch me at this time. Come on by and say hi!

So last time we talked about the Chorus. Sometimes songs use a bridge to insert more interest or flavor to the song. A bridge itself can be a very good songwriting tool or technique. It often fits with the song but its comprised of a different progression from that key. Lets look at one of the things that are going on with this bridge. Em - D : The first thing that stands out to Me, is chords are now coming faster, 2 chords are sharing a single bar, so that contrast from the long meandering (predictable) strumming in the rest of the song, just added interest, because chords are coming faster now. The bridge also starts on a minor chord, which is different than the verse and chorus, again it suggests emotional contrasts, a wistful longing for home. Make no mistake. The construction of these things, are intentional. This is bread and butter songwriting. So lets put the whole thing down in Nashville Numbering. 6m 5 1 4 1 5 6m b7 4 1 5 5/7 So it begins on the 6m and you know that the 6m (if you went though Theory Bites, and Mastered G major) shares 2 notes with the 1 chord. 6 then goes to 5 which we expect to pull to…? Thats right, the 1! Authentic cadence. And sure enough, it does! But then the 1 goes to… the 4 The 4 goes to the 1 next. Thats our 4-1 move, the Plagal cadence. See, this stuff really happens! Its not all just randomness and throwing chords out everywhere. This stuff happens all day long right under our noses. Our next chord after that is 5, but does it go to the 1 again? Nope it goes to the 6m. A deceptive cadence! Heres something new (but if you followed Theory Bites to the end, youre not lost). a b7! @Robbie Gonzalez has referred to this chord as a “backdoor dominant”. I told you its a common way we dont play the typical diminished chord in music and this b7 is a very common departure. In this case the b7 instantly adds a slightly outside sounding chord, that has not come up one time in this tune, to this point. Why is it here now? One word - interest. Its literally ear candy, and perks the ears up “oh what was that?”. Songwriters LOVE a different, unpredictable chord, even once! Piano players make their money on crazy off sounding chords because its easier to do for their instrument. We try it like they do, and a couple fingers might snap off!

Part 1 Verse Good morning! So, if you’ve been following our theory bites, you should now know the chords in the key of G Knowing the chords, and the triads and their spelling and all of those things, will make this much easier to follow. Analysis tries to figure out what is going on with a song, and highlight things like cool changes that work, song construction, and cadences. Verse G - Em - D - C back to G This is a I vi V IV to I. In Nashville terms its 1 6m 5 4 1 Today we will do this in Nashville Numbering System (NNS) but commonly, analysis is done with Roman Numerals. G goes to the relative minor Em then as you recall a 5 wants to pull to the 1 and in this case, with D it does not go straight to the 1 but takes a path towards the 1 by first going to the 4 which is C, then to the 1, our G. This is VERY common in music, and still gives a nice resolution. This is solid but effective songwriting. By the way, a 4-1 by itself is an effective cadence, called a Plagal cadence. It’s very common, and does not require a 5 for it to feel resolved. Its not as powerful, but its still in a solid 2nd place as runner up,for how well it works. So how does this analysis help us? Well it teaches us very common ways that a song can be built and most especially demonstrates ways that it can resolve back, and feel “home” again! Tomorrow we will look at the chorus!

@Zeph C. What a cool guy! Met him through @Elliott H and got to hang out with him last weekend at my studio! Great player, knows a lot about music and theory, and just instantly can see, hes one of us! I think he’s going to be one of my future in-person students. We just really all hit it off. Great to have you! @Jordan Howes Welcome to the community. You just joined, and I see you play guitar. We look forward to getting to know more about you! Great having you! Please join me in making our new members feel welcome!

Was on about 2 hours today.