I’ve been noticing a trend on Hookpad recently that’s been bugging me, and I’d like to put this out there to hopefully spark some discussion:
So, if you couldn’t already tell by looking through my tab history, I’ve been doing a lot of videogame songs. And a lot of videogame songs like to borrow chords like the bVI, bVII, the minor iv, etc. (Fun Fact: The bVI - bVII - I progression is actually so ubiquitous in games it’s been given the nickname “the Mario cadence”!). Naturally, the bVII has come up quite a bit in my tabs.
But quite a few people on here seem to think that if there is a bVII included anywhere in the song, that means it’s automatically in Mixolydian; and so they’ve changed quite a few of my tabs from Major to Mixolydian. The reason this bugs me is that I’ve always thought that these chords were simply borrowed from minor/mixo, and that any “true” cases of Mixolydian were few and far between. In other words, borrowing the bVII (or the bVI, etc.) is just another tool a composer can use to spice up their Major progressions.
Is this something you guys agree with? Or have I just gone completely mad?
Some examples of tabs that got changed to Mixo for reference:
https://www.hooktheory.com/theorytab/view/nobuo-uematsu/final-fantasy---victory
https://www.hooktheory.com/theorytab/view/junichi-masuda/trainer-battle---pokemon-diamond-and-pearl
https://www.hooktheory.com/theorytab/view/junichi-masuda/title-screen---pokemon-gold-and-silver-versions
And here’s one that I actually believe deserves to be in Mixo:
https://www.hooktheory.com/theorytab/view/jun-ishikawa/kirby-super-star---cocoa-cave