Songs that teach an essential musical concept

What songs do you think demonstrate a specific musical concept so well that they should be used in conjunction with teaching that concept? (a song which really features a particular chord progression or turn around, or a song which really demonstrates a certain type of song writing format)

For example: The jazz standard, "All The Things You are" prominantly features the (vi - ii - V - I - IV ) chord progression throughout the song. The song also features a common jazz turn around (I - ii - iii - vi7) toward the end of the song which I've seen in many other songs.

Autumn leaves is a great example of major shifting tonality to the relative minor.

Perdido- 2 5 1 concepts

So What- modal music

'so what' shows modal improvising

try "west coast blues" by wes montgomery, it's has a good example of chordal modulation over a standard 12 bar blues, to improvise over this you can't use the minor blues but rather chordal tones from each individual chord.

Originally posted by trebledamage
What songs do you think demonstrate a specific musical concept so well that they should be used in conjunction with teaching that concept? (a song which really features a particular chord progression or turn around, or a song which really demonstrates a certain type of song writing format)

For example: The jazz standard, "All The Things You are" prominantly features the (vi - ii - V - I - IV ) chord progression throughout the song. The song also features a common jazz turn around (I - ii - iii - vi7) toward the end of the song which I've seen in many other songs.

Bela Bartok
"Microcosmos"

what is that song and what concept does it demonstrate?

Originally posted by Azrael
Bela Bartok
"Microcosmos"

Isn't it a symphony??? Bela BARTOK popularized pitch axis (used by Satriani) But I'm not familiar with this particular work...

Béla Bartók (1881-1945) essentially influcenced the evolution of modern classic in the beginning of the past century. He succeded in merging impressions from his homeland (hungary and from the balkans) with intonations of the radical modern age (Strawinsky and Schönberg).
You can get a survey of his musical/artistic works in the 153 pieces (sorted by difficulty from easiest to hardest) for piano - the so called "Mikrokosmos"