Tenderness Chords

Learn how to play Tenderness!

Tenderness is a song from the studio album There Goes Rhymin’ Simon by Paul Simon.

This chordal master piece would have to be studied in detail to be fully understood.

Huge extensions, slash chords, key changes and odd time signatures make this tune a proper challenge to work out.

You might want to learn it by just copying the video before you get going on the transcription in the conspiracy.

Many are the chord tricks by Paul Simon in this composition, let’s take a look at a few Tenderness chords in more detail!

Tenderness Chord Progression Tricks

The first chord, a I9b5 is a trick!

It sounds like it’s the V chord, but it’s not, from here we move IV – IIIx – VI.

The listener think we are in the key of C, but we’re in G.

M8 Key Change

Tenderness here use the IIIx (B7) as a bridge to swap to the key of E, making the IIIx act as V in the key of E.

As we move out of the M8, the bIIIx in E, is the same as the Ix in G. We’re back pointing towards the IV chord in the original key!

Looks like Paul Simon has picked up a thing or two since his days in Simon & Garfunkel!