A Green Onion After Midnight

will Change the World A Taste of

The vii-dim chord
Onion

A Green Onion After Midnight will Change the

World - the I-IIIb-IV and I-IV-IIIb progression
Play the Harmonized Shuffle slow. If you are in the key of E, then try playing the chords E
- A - G - A. It really is the harmonized shuffle. It is a I - IV - IIIb - (IV) progression. Try
playing E - A - G | G - A - E. Play it slow with the chords of the harmonized shuffle, and you
have the beginning of Eric Clapton's Change The World. I needed a label for this group of
progressions for my list of progressions, and have chosen Onion Shuffle as the name for the
group.
The following is the chord structure of the harmonized shuffle and of Change The World. But
it is the way I play the chords, and not an Eric Clapton transcription. In fact it is a
rhythmically simplified version of my playing - I did not spend the time to write the rhythm
as it actually is played. But listen to the recording. You will hear it both as written, and as I
usually play it. Click here for a standard notation/tabulature example The Changing World
lick (Finale File - click here if you need a viewer).
Try another sequence: E - G - A - the I - IIIb - IV progression. It can be used either as a
chord structure for a song, as in After The Midnight, or as some kind of a chord shuffle, as
in Steve Cropper's Green Onion. And by now you probably understand the strange title of
this lesson. Click here for a standard notation/tabulature example of With A Taste of Onion
(Finale File - click here if you need a viewer).
Click here for an MP3 recording of the lick (not active yet)
I am not really able to associate this progression with a scale or a mode. But I think of it as a
minor pentatonic progression.
Go here for more on the I-IIIb-IV and/or I-IV-IIIb progression