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Day One Hundred Fourteen

It's funny how the smallest moments have a tendency to teach a bigger lesson. Tonight, as I sat down to page through the latest issue of Guitar World, I found myself thumbing to the tab for "Maybe I'm Amazed," arguably the greatest solo song Paul McCartney ever wrote... and on his first record by himself, no less.

What was the lesson? The importance of an intro.

The song proper starts with a Bb chord, going from there to F, then C, and G. I started there, only to find that the verses didn't feel "right." On having this realization, I went back to the intro, which begins with A major before going through D major, D minor, and E minor before returning to A. Following that progression, the verse made perfect sense in my head. It sounded right, and felt right all across the board. In that instance, the intro made all the difference in taking an otherwise pedestrian progression, and turning it into something classic. In some songs, the intro flows nicely into the verse, and in a song like "Maybe I'm Amazed," the intro doesn't just flow into the verse, it creates the flow in the first place.

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