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Sweet Home Alabama

#61
FretlessMainly said:
Since 1975. Of course I've heard of it and used it 1,000s of times. Now, what does "it's in D" mean to you?
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I hear "D" as the central tone. I have tried playing D (blues scale) over this song and it sounds right at home. I tried doing the same with the G blues scale and it doesn't sound right at all.

I don't think anyone could play a basic blues scale other than D on this song and feel right.
 
#62
OK, now we're getting somewhere. D blues meaning D F G G# A C D? That works, but you really need to make that F# show up somwhere. But when you say D blues scale, you are also alluding to D7 which can either be interpreted as D Mixolydian or G Major. It all depends on where you hear "home." But when I think D7 and blues scale, I immediately think D7 (#9 #11) which is basically D blues scale plus the natural 3rd and natural 6th. Basically a V chord of GMajor plus the F and the G#. Standard stuff.

I hear home as GMajor, as I demonstrated on the previous page. You hear it as D blues. At the end of the day, the point of all this is to play the right notes. I think we both might, no matter how we think about it. The main point is that some poor guy who wants to figure out how to analyze tunes comes along in 6 months, sees this thread and says: HUH?
 
#63
FretlessMainly said:
OK, now we're getting somewhere. D blues meaning D F G G# A C D? That works, but you really need to make that F# show up somwhere. But when you say D blues scale, you are also alluding to D7 which can either be interpreted as D Mixolydian or G Major. It all depends on where you hear "home." But when I think D7 and blues scale, I immediately think D7 (#9 #11) which is basically D blues scale plus the natural 3rd and natural 6th. Basically a V chord of GMajor plus the F and the G#. Standard stuff.

I hear home as GMajor, as I demonstrated on the previous page. You hear it as D blues. At the end of the day, the point of all this is to play the right notes. I think we both might, no matter how we think about it. The main point is that some poor guy who wants to figure out how to analyze tunes comes along in 6 months, sees this thread and says: HUH?
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Sounds good. I already see the F# in there as part of the chord. And it sounds good just to throw it into the blues scale too.

Now it seems like the scales of G-major and D-whatever-mode are actually using the same exact notes. And people might hear the dominant tone differently. But I don't see how because I think that the blues scale should fit with the dominant tone for any standard rock song. And I think that this is a standard rock song.
 
#65
ElectroVibe said:
Now it seems like the scales of G-major and D-whatever-mode are actually using the same exact notes. And people might hear the dominant tone differently. But I don't see how because I think that the blues scale should fit with the dominant tone for any standard rock song. And I think that this is a standard rock song.
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I hate to get into a discussion of modes, mainly because at least 90% of bassists who discuss modes never actually play truly modal music (my estimate; it's probably higher). Well, let me clarify. All music is modal. You have Ionian mode, which is simply the major mode. You also have the natural minor mode which is Aeolian.

Where modes really come into play is when the tonal center is based on a note or chord from which you do not play that corresponding major or minor scale.

Beyond that, "I think that the blues scale should fit with the dominant tone for any standard rock song" is somewhat on the mark and somewhat missing it. In many cases, you can fit the "non-diatonic" notes from a blues scale into a standard rock song, but not always. It really depends on how the melody reflects the chord function and how the chord function is structured.

Sweet Home Alabama is actually fairly notorius for bringing out opinions on how it is structured. (Witness Al Kooper's take vs. Ed King's take - they were there).
 
#67
FretlessMainly said:
Beyond that, "I think that the blues scale should fit with the dominant tone for any standard rock song" is somewhat on the mark and somewhat missing it. In many cases, you can fit the "non-diatonic" notes from a blues scale into a standard rock song, but not always. It really depends on how the melody reflects the chord function and how the chord function is structured.
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My original question no longer applies because I think I have figured it out. I wish I had used a different example for a song, because this one had its own confusion already. I could have picked several by Bad Company. I think many of their songs used the flat7 chord instead of the 5 chord (or maybe in addition to it). But I think their music is "standard rock."

"Feel Like Makin Love" uses D, C and G. But wouldn't you call D the dominant chord? I would not call their music complex or modal or anything like that. They are usually described as straightforward rock and roll.
 
#69
ElectroVibe said:
"Feel Like Makin Love" uses D, C and G. But wouldn't you call D the dominant chord? I would not call their music complex or modal or anything like that. They are usually described as straightforward rock and roll.
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Same chords as Sweet Home Alabama, but different kettle of fish entirely. Yes the tonal center of Feel Like Makin Love is clearly "D." The difference between the two is where the resting point is interpreted to lie and how the vocal line stresses the chord changes.

I interpret Sweet Home Alabama to rest on G (and therefore it is in G Major), while I interpret Feel Like Makin Love to be in a tonal center of D. I would use the D blues scale more prediminantly over Feel Like Makin Love than I would Sweet Home Alabama.

Same tune; different interpretation. Play the correct notes.
 
#71
FretlessMainly said:
Same chords as Sweet Home Alabama, but different kettle of fish entirely. Yes the tonal center of Feel Like Makin Love is clearly "D." The difference between the two is where the resting point is interpreted to lie and how the vocal line stresses the chord changes.

I interpret Sweet Home Alabama to rest on G (and therefore it is in G Major), while I interpret Feel Like Makin Love to be in a tonal center of D. I would use the D blues scale more prediminantly over Feel Like Makin Love than I would Sweet Home Alabama.

Same tune; different interpretation. Play the correct notes.
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That's the answer I was looking for. I knew I had made a mistake with my original song choice.

Some of the other people's answers for choosing G (for Sweet Home) had used reasoning that wasn't very solid. And it seems like they might choose G for the BadCo song for the same reasons.
 
#74
I just listened to Feel Like making.

Intro Three triads with Sus4's Home is clearly D

Verse I,IV in D for the verse. No Mixo there.

All right that Chorus there's our I/bVII Mixo Cliche' (carlos santana chord secret progression) With a Blues lick tag.
 
#78
Ed King remembers:

"Kooper simply didn't like the solo because it wasn't in the key of D. He probably would've loved Steve Gaines' solo on the live album. As great as Gaines was, I was always surprised that he couldn't "hear" the real key. And to compound Kooper's error, he played the song for Mike Bloomfield and Bloomfield laughed when he heard it. "That guy played the solo in the wrong key!"

In my defense...both guitar solos came to me in a dream. Note for note. I just played it as I saw it. The tune was recorded at Studio One, Doraville, GA. NOT L.A. I believe I did the solo in 2 takes. (I've had other song ideas come to me right before drifting off to sleep. But I never actually SAW a solo like the two I saw in SHA.)

I have heard stories that Kooper wanted to redo the solo with either Collins or Rossington and they couldn't come up with anything that fit -- I have heard that story but I have never asked either one of them about it. The guys actually stuck up for me. They said that since I had saw it in a dream then that is the way it was going to be. I didn't just hear it in a dream, I actually saw it. When Billy [Powell] plays his piano solo, he plays it in the key of G.

My crazy logic always told me that the song is actually in G...NOT D. The song RESOLVES in G....listen to Billy's piano solo at the end...it's in G. In 1989, Wolf Marshall did a transcription of my guitar solo for Guitar For The Practicing Musician. He indicated ONE SHARP...which IS the key of G. I rest my case."

Read more: http://edking.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=music&action=display&thread=87#ixzz2N2vPKEx3
 
#79
I guess you can't argue with the guy who wrote the original instrumental in "G" even if most of the band (other than the pianist) and the producers heard it as "D." I'm just happy that he wrote the song.
 

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