Sweet Home Alabama

[ga_edwards]

Listen to where it resolves to, man. The end of the song, when you feel "at rest" is the D.

Every studio version I've heard fades out at the end, so no resolution.

 

[Zootsuitbass]

 

[Kmonk]

I have played both of these songs. I play learn everything by ear and play exactly like the original recording without over thinking modes, melodies, etc.

 

[Zootsuitbass]

I love the connection between your response and your sig.

Art begets life begets art.

 

[Zootsuitbass]

Thread Killer.... Sorry guys.

 

[Zootsuitbass]

Nobody noticed that they resolved/ended on a G?

 

[ElectroVibe]

Nobody noticed that they resolved/ended on a G?

I already explained that earlier.

 

[Zootsuitbass]

Oh my bad I thought somebody above said something about studio takes. So I found a live thing.

I all so remember people saying that it would raise eyes to end the tune on G. Granted they set it up different than just BANG G.

 

[David Jayne]

Hard to argue convincingly either way IMO. On the one hand, it resolves to D over and over again, but sits on G the longest. And the solos revolve around the key of G, to a large extent. But the melody is in D all day long, so.....hmmmm.
You can end it on G no problem, with a ritard--it sounds fine but does sound somewhat unresolved that way.
I don't know.

 

[sammyp]

EDIT: My original question was regarding songs like those of Bad Company like "Feel Like Makin Love." I didn't know about the controversy with the Lynyrd Skynyrd song, and that is what the thread turned into a discussion of.

UPDATE 1: The song has a D tonal center (to my ears). It uses the chords D, C, G, and F. Or some variation of them.

UPDATE 2: Blues Scale in "D" sounds right.

UPDATE 3: I should have used Bad Company's "Feel Like Makin Love" as the example for the question. Neither song uses the V chord.

I've played SHA a million times as a lead guitar and bass player .....D minor pent doesn't work for me half as well as D major pent ........

this progression is actually a bit tricky to make musical as a soloist ......it very much helps me to outline chord tones for the changes ....

I use D major pent (sometimes minor pent) over the D chord and watch my chord tones over the C ....for the G i will hit G blues scale or G major pent ....both work well.

FWIW: we've been here before but i'm gonna respectfully disagree with KEY of D ......

It's a V, IV, I in G ......yes D is the tonal center....

if this tune was in D major, the D major scale would sound great but the the C# will kill ya!

The only single 7 tone scale that fits this tune is D, E, F#, G, A, B, C = D mixo from G major

The D mixolydian or G major also contains all the essential chord tones for all 3 chords! 1,3,5 for all of em.

 

[David Jayne]

I've played SHA a million times as a lead guitar and bass player .....D minor pent doesn't work for me half as well as D major pent ........


if this tune was in D major, the D major scale would sound great but the the C# will kill ya!

.

That's why the solos are pent city.
Disagree about the C#. It sounds interesting to me.

 

[ElectroVibe]

I've played SHA a million times as a lead guitar and bass player .....D minor pent doesn't work for me half as well as D major pent ........

this progression is actually a bit tricky to make musical as a soloist ......it very much helps me to outline chord tones for the changes ....

I use D major pent (sometimes minor pent) over the D chord and watch my chord tones over the C ....for the G i will hit G blues scale or G major pent ....both work well.

FWIW: we've been here before but i'm gonna respectfully disagree with KEY of D ......

It's a V, IV, I in G ......yes D is the tonal center....

if this tune was in D major, the D major scale would sound great but the the C# will kill ya!

The only single 7 tone scale that fits this tune is D, E, F#, G, A, B, C = D mixo from G major

The D mixolydian or G major also contains all the essential chord tones for all 3 chords! 1,3,5 for all of em.

That pretty much answers my original question. I was wondering if the D-Modal could be played with the notes of the G-Major scale. I guess that it can. (I understand that you would not want to play the C#).

I think the confusion started when the originally written guitar riffs were basically those three chords of G. But they were ambiguous enough that Ronnie Van Zant must have heard them as having the D-Modal sound. So he wrote his song around that. The notes in his melody technically could also fit into G-Major, but the way they were structured tends to emphasize a D center.

If Ronnie's vocals were removed and some other singer listened to the track for the first time with just the instrumentation, he might hear it as G-major. (But I doubt it because that sustained "D" note on one of the guitars tends to solidify it as "D".) No one has really stated what the other band members heard it as, only that they agreed to back up Ed King because he told them that he had heard it in a dream.

 

[morgansterne]

werewolves of london is definitely in g. Same chords.
kid rock's all summer long is definitely in g. same chords (obviously).

the guitar solos in sweet home are all G major scale it sounds like.
I think the guitar player in "all summer long" musta had the same music teacher as I did -- who told us in sixth grade that to play blues, you could only play the root, flat third, fourth, flat fifth, fifth and flat seventh of the scale. I don't think he could figure out what key the song was supposed to be in and threw a D blues scale at it. Sounds totally in the wrong key to me.

 

[ElectroVibe]

werewolves of london is definitely in g. Same chords.

That's a good example.

 

[JimmyM]

Boy oh boy...it's "Sweet Home Alabama," 3 chords. Play it in G, D, F, A, R, W...whatever.

 

[Munjibunga]

Sounds like V-IV-I to me. Since the D is the fifth of the G chord, though, I can see where someone might hear it resolving to D. You can sing (hum or whistle) D-C-D and it fits the progression.

 

[Russell L]

It's in D, ya'll. Simple. The accidentals are just that, accidentals.

 

[JimmyM]

The writer of the song says it's in G, so it's in G. Regardless, don't make so much of it and just play the chords.

 

[ElectroVibe]

The writer of the song says it's in G, so it's in G. Regardless, don't make so much of it and just play the chords.

But the writer of the melody on top (Ronnie Van Zant) of that is dead. No one ever asked him about it as far as I know.

 

[JimmyM]

Ronnie was a singer, not a musician, and sings exactly four notes the whole song. What did he know?