Help me analyzing chords in this song: This never happened before (McCartney)

Hi there,

I have purchased a Chord Wheel recently and I am trying to understand how to use it. 

It can be used to analyze chord progressions in a piece of music and I have chosen "This never happened before" for this purpose. I have learned  to play it on piano by ears and now I want to see the theory behind it.

Can you help me? You can see the chords used in the original here:
http://www.e-chords.com/c...-never-happened-before

Music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXipWDRZme0

These are my assumptions so far:

- the main key is "E", as the majority of chords fall within this key. ( on the web they say that the original key is C Major...well if that is true, I am unable to find any logic in the chords used)
- the first chord in the verse (Am) is minor IV of key E - I have read somewhere that changing IV to iv in major keys can be used
- for the chorus, there is a modulation taking place, from E to G, through V7 of G key (D7) - creating perfect cadence (?) - V - I
then back to E Major through E7 - here I am not sure about using E7, it is V7 of A Major and also can act as V7 in A minor  - maybe this is why it fits with minor IV of E Major, which is Am chord...

What do you think? Are my assumption correct?

Thank you in advance for you help.

Harmonies do not have to be analyzed in terms of key centers and modulations. There's nothing inherent in nature or the overtone series that demands organization around a tonic. As long as the harmony and the melody form an acceptable vertical sonority, it's fair game. 

The Am d7 and G progression would fit into A melodic minor as well. Looks like your song's key is indeed mostly in C. Cheers.

The relative minor IS the natural minor, AKA Aeolian. ;-)

It would fall into the descending version of A melodic minor which is A natural minor (aeolian). It is a very odd scale. Only one I know of that is different ascending and descending. I've never really liked it (or understood it fully) myself personally. From what I understand melodic minor and harmonic minor were created by composers back in the ole churchy days when anything other than Ionian and Aeolian were considered pagan so the composers came up with those two to add a little flavor. The big joke though was that just with a simple chord change you would be playing in one of the five "pagan" modes. You just couldn't SAY that was what you were playing. That could be complete bollocks but I read it in a music history book years ago. Pretty crazy if it's true.

"Beepster"
The relative minor IS the natural minor, AKA Aeolian.

Well, yes, I know that. But my point was that referring to any major key's relative minor doesn't leave any room for interpretation, whereas referring to any major key's natural minor does. In my book, it's not quite the same thing IMHO.

BTW I'm a guitar guy so I probably view theory a little differently than piano/keyboard players. The mapping is quite different and modes become particularly important when creating cages and what not.

Well I only took a quick poke at it. I'm sure if I really pulled it apart I could get at exactly what is happening when and where but it would be a bit of a chore. I might take a closer look when I have some time to kill but I've got some other things going on right now. I'm so OCD about stuff like this when I get going I could spend an entire day pinpointing every mode and key change. One thing about analyzing like this is sometimes there is more than one answer. Like when you play two guitar strings beside each other on the same fret. Is it a fourth or is it an inverted fifth? Just a matter of perspective and how it's being used. It is indeed interesting stuff and I've dedicated a large portion of my life to it. There is always more to learn though. :-)

And again I'm not saying that my assumptions are rock solid on this. I'd have to pull out the guitar and maybe some chart paper to really get to the truth. I don't want to come across as a pompous knowitall especially if I could be wrong. ;-)

I know a refrigerator repair man. His name is Ian.

I've got a second cousin. He's always got the blues.

Well like I said I haven't completely ripped it apart yet. The whole IV being switched to a minor in a Major scale is foreign to me. It does not fit with traditional diatonic modal theory (as far as I know). The three "Major" scales of a Major key and their fourths are Ionian IV = Major, Lydian IV = diminished, Mixo-Lydian IV = Major. If you change that then you are not technically playing in those modes. That's not to say you can't mess around with things but on paper it doesn't fit and the minor third of that Am IV chord would appear as an accidental in notation (when looking at it as A melodic minor the Major III of the E chord would be written as an accidental but it is accepted because of the theory surrounding melodic minor). I'm really not sure why your chord analyzer is claiming E Major. That is the real mystery here but I think the biggest clue to solving it will be those minor 7th chords. What I think is possibly happening is that it is in a modified type scale like the Be Bop scale which would fit in with McCartney's jazzy style (as does melodic minor) but I'd have to analyze it further to be sure. In regards to HOW I do this stuff my method for solving keys, chords and scales is simply from constant repetitive practice of all 7 modes in all 7 keys. I've essentially trained myself to be a human version of your chord finder (probably not quite as versatile but I'm working on it). I look at the chords presented in a song and match it to the keys they fit into (can do this in my mind). Sometimes they will fit into more than 1 key (like when there are too few chords to make an accurate match). At that point I will usually just pick up my guitar and try the possible keys by either learning sections of the melody line or just noodling around to see which fits best. The PROPER way to solve a key though is on paper. I haven't done it for years so I forget the exact procedure but they teach it in music schools. I've got the method in one of my theory books somewhere so maybe if I get the time to truly analyze this song I'll give it a whirl. Anyway, yes this is all very interesting, at least to me it is. Many people's eyes glaze over after a few minutes of my musical ramblings... lol. Having said all that obviously rules were meant to be broken, especially in music, however the more I learn about theory the more it becomes apparent it's quite difficult to actually break any theoretical rules. With the regular modes of the Major keys a huge amount of what you would play is covered. I'd say probably 90% of all western music falls under this umbrella (I'm including songs that don't stick to a key but use modal theory to build melodies over top of the flowing chords). Then add melodic and harmonic minor and that number goes up. Beyond that there are scales like the Be Bop and Major/minor blues scales, foreign scales, symmetrical scales, etc that have all been studied, cataloged and used in songs. What's left? Probably nothing at this point. It truly has all been done before. That's a little sad to think about I guess as an artist but the consolation is we have easy access to all these ideas to mish mash together to create music much more easily than the tonal pioneers. Cheers!

Meh. I got by for many years without any real theory knowledge too and I was still considered good at what I did but my improvisational skills were rather limited to a few scales. It also kind of kept me locked into certain positions on the fretboard. If I wanted to do anything outside of those parameters I had to sit down and actually write out the solos through trial and error. Rather time consuming. In my mind I figured by not learning any theory I wouldn't be corrupting my style with the same old stuff. The funny part is when I did start learning theory I realized all the stuff I was doing DID fall under traditional theory (more or less) so I was just wasting valuable learning time. Anyway I find it interesting and I think the OP asked more out of curiosity than needing help to play it so it's just a fun mental exercise. I'm also looking to get my teaching certification at some point and you kind of need to understand this stuff for that. As far as FF goes this is the only site that has problems with it so I don't plan on switching. I usually just type in html for the breaks but I'm feeling lazy today. Cheers.

See now? Always something more to learn. I'm actually having a hard time parsing your post out but in classical theory terms I'd probably only be second or third year student (if that). I'm self taught so I have a tendency of taking things extremely literally and I really need to work on cadences. In my mind most of the song falls within A melodic minor when viewed in my rudimentary way of looking at things. In cadence theory would using A melodic minor as the IV of E Major be accepted (now that I think about it I believe I've read about stuff like this)? Because that would pretty much explain everything. And yeah... as nerdy and seemingly unnecessary as this kind of stuff may seem it's interesting and sometimes imperative. You don't need a degree in physics to boil water for your tea but the laws behind the process are very real and if you have the mind for it it's there to be learned and understood. I think that's a big part of being human.

I know this forum is more for technical type stuff but I would really love to have more discussions like this on actual music theory. It's hard to find places to really dig into the topic on the net and there are just so many talented people here that I know there could be many lively and thought provoking threads such as this. The point of all this computer crud IS supposed to be about making music so yanno... talking shop doesn't always need to be about bits and bytes and gigamawhatsits. I just love this type of convo. :-)