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.

Hi Marek, Basically correct the way I look at it. Verses in E-Major, with the substitution of the minor iv chord, which sounds really good, actually, and the Beatles did it all the time... I would say that the modulation to G occurs as a pivot around the Am chord, which is the natural ii minor in G. The D7-G is probably not intended as a "perfect" cadence in this case, there's probably something in the melody or chord voicings that makes it sound a little more ambiguous... E7 can perfectly resolve to Am, which leads back to the verse with a nice chromatic move... Andrew

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. 

I just poked at it a bit. If those chords are correct this song moves through different keys. It is more like a jazz or orchestral score in how it flows as opposed to say a country or pop song that might stay in one key through the whole thing. However the Am to E theme is actually A melodic minor. That is why the one resource you looked at said the key was in C because A minor is the natural minor of the key of C and when using melodic minor it is considered the VI just as the natural minor would be. Those G#m7 and C#m7 chords are part of B Major from a quick look (I may be doing my math wrong though as I just woke up) and they certainly don't fit into melodic minor so definite key change there. I may poke at it a bit more later as that's just the first couple of sections. Hopefully it will help you see the way the keys and chords are moving a little better though. Cheers.

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.

"Beepster"

because A minor is the natural minor of the key of C

Did you mean to call it a "relative" minor instead of natural? Natural, is a reference to the mode as in "a natural minor key or aeolian".  

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

  I don't understand how the G chord fits into the scale A melodic minor: A, B, C, D, E, F#, G#, A...

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.

and yes, I am a modal theory nerd.