Greetings dear reader!
The other day I was fiddling around on the acoustic and found myself strumming out Chris Issak’s somber croon fest “Wicked Game”. To those who are unfamiliar, this was a quite popular tune released back in 1989 and is easily one of, if not the most instantly recognizable songs from Issak's catalog. The song was a massive hit that was propagated through the airwaves for almost too long and was immortalized by a cinematic black and white video.
Have a look here to get acquainted.
As you can hear, (or remember if you're as old as I am) the song is very somber, very melancholy, and with this undertone of yearning throughout. Initially, I thought this song was in the key of B minor but upon further inspection, I've discovered some clever songwriting moves from Issak that I felt was worth sharing.
@# A# eo#A li#Ao#Aoi
So there I was. Sitting on my balcony with my guitar just taking a break from the overabundance of screen time with my laptop. My retinas were dried up like raisins as they usually get at this point in the day (around 2:00). It was time to give my peepers a rest and get some sunlight on my flesh. I don't really know why I started playing this song. It kind of showed up out of nowhere and....I don't know, it was very random but somehow, I got the idea to see if I could make this song sound happy.
What wound up happening was I transposed it from B dorian to E Mixolydian just by changing one chord in the progression.
"Wait wait wait! B dorian?"
Yes! After analyzing "Wicked Game" I was really excited to find out that the song used what's known as a "modal progression".
"What's a modal progression?"
Right, okay. So if you have a basic understanding of how chord progressions work then you already know there is a chord that's considered "home base" in a progression.
Let's take a 1-4-5 in C Major
"Great Aaron but what does this have to do with a modal progression?"
So the quick answer is that a modal progression takes a different chord from it's parent key and makes that the tonal center of the progression.
Lets try this out with the 1-4-5 shown above
Currently, the 1-4-5 in C major sounds very happy, very safe, and well...Very vanilla.
Notice the amount of tension that builds from the 1 to the 4 to the 5? It's almost like you're starting at home (1) you see the guys who come by to pick up your recycling, (4) but they're about to pass your house so you run outside to meet them (5). You just barely catch them and then finally return home (1)
Progressions can tell a quick story like that.
Anyway, what if we swapped out the 1 chord for the 6 chord? (Am)
Let's have a listen.
Much more sad right? We have just changed the focal point of the progression. In other words, we've now changed the tonal center of this group of chords.
As a result, this chord progression can be looked at as in the key of A Aeolian. A modal chord progression!
Make sense?
Okay. Now finally we're going to talk about "Wicked Game".
If we take a look at the chords used in the song, we will discover that the same 3 chords are used throughout. These are B minor (Bm) A major (A) and E major (E) as shown here.
As you can hear, the B minor chord is the focal point of this progression. After some reverse engineering of these chords, you will find that they occur naturally in the key of A major which are build from the notes of the A major scale itself.
From this, we get our progression found in "Wicked Game".
Seeing as B minor is the first chord in the progression the inclusion of the E major chord at the end has a slight tension that points back to B minor as "home base". In other words, the E major chord resolves down back to Bm. Thus making this a progression in B Dorian.
Let's just hear it again to refresh out memory.
By the way, here's the dorian mode in B
Make sense?
Okay now let's make the song sound happier.
So by swapping out the Bm chord for a D chord, the progression shifts drastically. Initially, I thought D would be a good alternative to try out seeing as both D and Bm share two notes. Namely, D and F#. What I didn't realize is that by making this change, the progression's modality changes from B dorian to E mixolydian. In other words, the E major chord is now the tonal center of the progression.
Still with me?
So if you've made it this far, I commend you on your curiosity. If by chance you're lost on any of this, I have a quick video summing this up.
If you still find yourself with questions, book a private lesson with me and I'll explain it in a way that best fits your preferred learning style.
Thanks for reading!
-Aaron-
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