The Beatles Chord Sequences: Understanding How They Wrote Songs

The Beatles' influence on popular music is hard to overstate - but how did they go about putting their songs together? In this video from the course Deconstructing The Beatles 101: Chords And Progressions, Beatles expert Scott Freiman explores the band's use of the "plagal cadence" - a cadence in which the chord of the subdominant immediately precedes that of the tonic.

Scott explains how one of the Beatles' favourite tricks was to swap out a minor for a major chord, or vice versa. Sometimes, as in the case of songs like Paperback Writer, the song structure is incredibly simple, just using the 1 and 4 chords. Check out the rest of the videos in this unique course to learn much more about how the Beatles went about writing songs and changed pop music for ever!

Deconstructing The Beatles 101: Chords And Progressions

Chords ARE magic. They are the foundation of every song. They provide a structure and framework that is fundamental to a song’s form. They also serve as a harmonic canvas for the creation of great melodies and lyrics, especially when used in progressions by master songwriters like The Beatles.

Chords also infuse a song with its emotional impact: Joy, sorrow, excitement, anger and, of course, feelings of love. The Beatles songwriting duo of John Lennon and Paul McCartney understood the power of chords and progressions and employed them to achieve great songwriting success. In fact, the chords that they and George Harrison employed helped sell almost a BILLION ALBUMS worldwide. That’s a lot of albums!

In this Deconstructing the Beatles - Chords and Progressions course, acclaimed Beatles expert Scott Freiman explores the Beatles’ chordal songwriting SECRETS and the music theory behind those progressions. He “deconstructs” more than fifty of their of their hit songs including Hey Jude, Day Tripper, In My Life, In My Life, She Loves You and more.

Watch these videos. Master the theory behind The Beatles Chords and Progressions. And then apply these songwriting secrets to your songs and you, too, can share some of the Lennon & McCartney magic.

So sit back “Because” “It Won’t Be Long” that you’ll have a “Ticket To Ride” and composing hit songs “Eight Days A Week”! Enjoy!!