Music Progression Into Rock

To demonstrate music progression into a complex rock song I've chosen our own Canadian Sarah McLachlan's "Building A Mystery."

Progression into a complex rock song

Repetition, some musicologists tell us, lies at the heart of rock music. To prove this, they not only point at the rhythms, but also at the harmonic structures of rock music. Indeed, in many rock songs almost identical patterns of chord material recur over and over again. Sometimes even a whole song is built on the repeated sequence of just the same few chords. Sarah McLachlan's beautiful song "Building A Mystery" offers a perfect example of precisely such a song. It is based on the chord progression: Bm -» G -» D -» A. Almost instantly the song opens with this sequence and then it keeps going on till the end. Still, as a whole the song doesn't sound monotonous or boring. Not without reason: a swift modulation or key shift keeps changing the semantic meaning of the chords.

For the chords of the song, check HERE.
* Caution: Video contains language.