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(Romina) #1

Page 35
The latter occurs twice in the verse of 'Help'.
The bIII is a significant blues chord; the bVI is heard in blues and pop-rock. The bVI can also be found in a non-
blues or hard rock context as in the verse of 'Hello Goodbye' or in the chorus of the 1920s pastiche 'Honey Pie'.
There's a bVI in Foo Fighters' 'For All The Cows' (v) where we find the sequence E C B (I bVI V). A common
sequence often heard at the end of a phrase is:


bVI bVII I
Ab Bb C

This is an alternative approach to I instead of via V. You can hear it in 'She's Electric' (just before the verse) and in
the verse of 'Going For The One'. There is a fine use of the bVI at the end of the chorus in Boston's 'More Than A
Feeling' – the music pauses on it before sliding by a semitone (half-step) to VI (Eb-Em in G major). The
combination of a major-minor change with the half-step is very satisfying.


A Hard Rock Formula
The chords from columns 7-9 are often mixed up with columns 1-6 in songs that have a harder edge. A formula for
writing hard rock songs in a generic Rolling Stones/Black Crowes/Bad Company style involves combining chords I,
IV and V with these three flattened chords. Here are some examples:


I bIII IV: C Eb F
'Back In The USSR', 'I Am The Walrus', 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band',
'Whippin' Piccadilly', 'One Big Family' ch, 'Life Is Sweet' v, and in reversed form as I
IV bIII in 'Connection' ch.

I bIII IV V bVII: C Eb F G Bb
'Baby You're A Rich Man', 'Knock On Wood' i, 'In The Midnight Hour' i

I bIII IV bVI bVII: C Eb F Ab Bb
'Hey Joe', 'Trampled Underfoot'

I bIII IV V bVI bVII: C Eb F G Ab Bb
'Brown Sugar'

I IV bVII: C Bb F
'Another Girl' v, 'Get Back'

I IV V bVII: C F G Bb
'A Hard Day's Night', 'Jean Genie', 'Pretty Vacant' v, 'Sunshine Of Your Love'

I V bVII: C G Bb
'I'm a Loser' v, reversed to I bVII V in 'Misty Mountain Hop'

Reverse Polarity

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