They don’t teach you this stuff in music school. You learn it “on the playground,” so to speak. Someone you know shows you a few chords, and teaches you the wicked A -> Amaj7 to A7 chromatic dropdown that is the secret to a half dozen George Harrison songs. Or you’re rocking away in E and someone throws in a C major/G, and you can’t believe how good it sounds. Hey, isn’t that the hook in Lithium?
All the little tricks of pop/rock music theory are yours for the taking, in Alan Pollack’s analyses of every song in the Beatles canon. What a piece of work.. 10 years or so of study.
I think I’ve learned more about songwriting, particularly harmonic and melodic development and arrangement techniques, from his work than any other reference. I go back to this again and again… if I could buy it in print, I would, in a second.
But I can’t, and you can’t either. You can only read it for free.
A few of my favorites…
http://www.icce.rug.nl/~soundscapes/DATABASES/AWP/aditl.shtml
http://www.icce.rug.nl/~soundscapes/DATABASES/AWP/dp.shtml
And the main index…
http://www.icce.rug.nl/~soundscapes/DATABASES/AWP/awp-alphabet.shtml