My old college mates were getting together last weekend, and asked me to bring my guitar along. I have only played in front of this community and was quite apprehensive, especially when they insisted that I learn a Bollywood song rather than any of the stuff I like to play.
I decided to attempt ‘Chura liya hai tumne jo dil ko’ a popular song from the '70’s. I had dabbled with it several years back and given up since ‘just chords’ didn’t make the grade for my better half - she wanted the melody too. Much later, while messing around with blues licks in the Am pentatonic scale, I had stumbled onto the beginnings of the melody. So I figured I could learn the whole song, and I did
Things went well that evening… my mates joined me in a sing-along, and a couple people danced too! It’s amazing how music can bring back memories and move people…
I won’t share the original video for privacy reasons, but I did a ‘one-take’ version of the first couple minutes of the song before the bridge and final verse/chorus here:
I learnt a couple things along the way - if you play a very popular song, and the crowd wants to sing along, any deviations - e.g. I played the melody as a solo, tried to improvise - throws off the timing of the singers… and they remember every little interlude between verses, so you can’t just go off and play the next chord sometimes… or you have to keep strumming the chord till they are ready to start singing
Key of A minor
i chord → bVII chord → major V chord
In a minor key it is very common to play the V chord as major or dominant 7.
Dm → G
iv chord to bVII chord
Still diatonic.
Holy cow!
A MAJOR !! Where the heck did that come from?
It does surprise doesn’t it. It does give a lift to the feel. It offers our ears something to be delighted by.
You mention PMT. Well, you can never know too much …
But this musical device isn’t in PMT just now.
You’ve happened upon a tierce de Picardie - a Picardy third / Picardy cadence.
A piece or section of music that is in a minor key ends on the major of the tonic. The b3rd of the tonic is raised to major 3rd.
Thanks for sharing this! It was a surprising and welcome break for this rocker’s ears. Your discussion of how you learned it and the chord structure was very interesting too. I know next to nothing about the theory behind minor scales minor scales and now want to learn more. Out of curiosity I looked up the song on Youtube and found what looks like a 70’s- vintage video of a performance, maybe the original? Good night, that song is downright dangerous to play in mixed company! I hope the lyrics are indirect enough to keep people singing it in a group from blushing or worse. A cross-cultural observation: in the video the two singers do Hendrix moves with the guitar. At a couple points I thought to myself, “time to start playing with your teeth.” I wouldn’t recommend trying that either, but it would fit the mood. Thanks again!
Same here! It was fun stepping outside my usual blues, classic rock, folk realm!
Haha yes, back then they sang a lot more and used lots of metaphors than they showed on screen That video must be the original from the movie - most Bollywood movies are musicals, so a song + music video combo
My reaction exactly! I thought my ears had deceived me on the Am/G/Am/E bits.
Wow, interesting! I need to try this in other contexts and see when it works and doesn’t! I won’t link it here, but David Bennett has a video about this.
Oh nice!
Thank you for sharing, Ashu!
I am sure this event was great fun and thank you for sharing your experiences too!
With some songs (that had a complicated structure to me) I tended to alter them for myself a bit too, but of course, when I’ll play for others to sing along (in some future), that wouldn’t work so well
And now you reminded me this Beatles song I thought of possibly playing at the next OM and which starts with A and Am too and have both coming back alongside often.
. It definitely fits the lyrics and the vocal style at that point in the song!
and fits perfectly with the ‘summer vibes’ that we and most Europeans are experiencing now 
30c+…
