Rolling Music Theory Thread

Sweet home Alabama is in d. It never really rests on g. The song is always itching to get back to d when it's on the g.

y'all are nuts!!

That book none of you will ever read discusses this very problem here: http://books.google.com/books?id=K69vQY3RnZUC&pg=PA32&lpg=PA32&dq=%22jeff+brent%22+%22care+must+be+taken%22&source=bl&ots=NwbysDLMA5&sig=E0jVYJ-NZSB833IxWsoGJzjh_iM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=XZhQU6iNMaKT0QGW-IDQBA&ved=0CCQQ6AEwAA

That book is my version of hell. Serious: jot down the melody and tell me how it behaves even remotely like it's in G-major

Find an example of a song with a V-VI-I progression where the melody begins on the VII and always falls

xp that is true. I'll concede that the melody sounds good over IV-V-I on D.

Going to admit that I'm really exhausted and stressed tonight so may have been saying something knee-jerk. Should probably listen and think at a more lucid time.

We have a winner.

lol

So now trying to think up other tunes that do this to firm up my feeble understanding. Let's turn to Revolver, aka The Mixolydian Album. Anything similar? First thing that comes to mind is "Taxman" which seems to be in the same key of D7 and have the same progression on the chorus.

Guess the I chord is the, um, Hendrix chord, which might confuse a bit.

I think "Sweet Home Alabama" trips me up because it's in the same key as "Werewolves of London" which is definitely V-IV-I on G. But "Sweet Home Alabama" is just your standard blues I-IV embellished by a bVII, I guess? I've definitely learned something important from this - thanks!!

Yeah, thanks.

Trying to read that paper. She calls these changes or this cadence the "double-plagal progression" and gives lots of examples, including "Taxman" and "Sympathy For The Devil." Also refers to ideas in this paper http://www.mtosmt.org/issues/mto.04.10.4/mto.04.10.4.w_everett.html

Don't worry, Owen, we won't make you read any papers, just show us the light when we make a mistake.

Don't be shitty about it. I was not aware of Walter Everett's classifications but note that girl is referring to all the same examples I referred to off the top of my head upthread (Phrygian + "Army Of Me", Lydian + "Pretty Ballerina") but when she starts talking using phrases like "low-scoring" with regards to Beck songs I am thinking I am glad I don't write papers

Sorry, I was trying to be nice. I should have put a smiley or something.

Interesting that her other example of double-plagal is the outro to "Hey Jude" which, like "Sweet Home Alabama"-- if we are considering it as being in D-mixo-- has the vocal parts singing the tonic over the bVII and IV

real-naming reads as passive-aggressive, just saying :) real :) this is a good convo

Sorry, I actually felt bad about real name usage but have trouble remembering your screenname and hard to see on iPhone through zing touch.

What about the Birmingham "boo boo boo" line - F and C there. Not making it easier to classify the song as either in G or D though.

Got home finally and was able to relisten to "Sweet Home Alabama" AND: on the first chorus-first stanza there's an explosive C! chord there leading back to D, but more importantly is the secondary plagal cadence F-C-D (guitar line A-G-F#!) into the guitar solo which so decisively and obviously establishes D as the primary key centre-- this is your "boo boo boo", too, but F-E-D in the vocals--

But yeah, that second guitar solo is so clearly performed by somebody who is feeling G as the key centre that yeah my ears are confused, but at least the first guitarist and pianist are in accord

Also there's no A chord in the song - another bit of evidence for G

that second guitar solo is so clearly performed by somebody who is feeling G as the key centre

So I still don't think that it is a black/white, right/wrong situation. Even 'that girl' (who chairs the music theory area at what might be the country's top music school and edits theory journals) refers to it as an "ambiguous". I think there are elements that suggest a D centre and elements that suggest a G centre. In fact, the ambiguity is part of what makes the song interesting. When I said that musicians aren't always good analysts of their own work, I meant that they're not always good at describing or explaining it. I don't think you can really say, however, that the lead guitarist was wrong here or that the band was wrong in how they ended the song live. (I really don't think they were going for a cliffhanger 'half cadence' ending there.)

The vocal melody does point to D as a centre. However, I don't really agree that the riff in itself clearly suggests a different tonal centre than the "Werewolves of London" riff, even with a D suspended over the C. (It's not like most modern artists follow CPP voice-leading principles.) I think a lot of the lead guitar licks throughout the song are based on a G maj pentatonic scale. If I make an effort, I can hear it Hurting 2's way but my intuitive response to the guitars is to hear G as the resting place. The way the vocal line pulls away from this (imo) creates a kind of tension that makes this song interesting to me. It's a duck/rabbit thing: I don't think either view is wrong.

I was not aware of Walter Everett's classifications but note that girl is referring to all the same examples I referred to off the top of my head upthread (Phrygian + "Army Of Me", Lydian + "Pretty Ballerina")

In conclusion, Skynyrd = Bartok.

Yell at me to go mark some exams if you see me on here again today.

I think the fact that they end this song in G on that live recording with a big G-establishing "yeaaaahhhhhhH!!!!!" says more about band dynamics than it does about the song's tonal centre.

Amazing thread

flam otm

I think it's more that they end it in an unusual place. You're not used to hearing G occur at bar one (if you're counting it as four bars). Bar three, where it usually occurs, is a weaker place to end it, but there's a live Zevon youtube video where he ends "Werewolves" there.

(Or sorry flam, not that it's "more" about that, but that it's ALSO about that.)

Isn't this D5 (arpeggiated) - C5 (arpeggiated) - octaves on G - A-B-D-E-D-B-G?

That last lick seems like a really obvious G pentatonic line to me.

By starting on A, I hear it as an anticipation of the D chord.

big wheels keep on turning

Believe I just heard a Phrygian tune, although a bit older than what was cited above.

Although there is a more modern tune with the same melody.

Assuming that the drummer was playing a standard backbeat with a snare hit on 2 and 4, I really think SHA should be counted as 2 beats of D, 2 of C, and 1 bar of G. This is also in keeping with the count-in on the recording. Only saying this to explain where I'm coming from with my bar/beat references:

By starting on A, I hear it as an anticipation of the D chord.

It really seems like an accented passing note to me. A is a 16th note between two members of the G triad. (There's actually a G on the previous 16th note, the "a" of 2.) Every other accented pitch in that bar is a member of the G major triad. I don't see a suggestion that A has a stronger function in that bar.

I think the fact that they end this song in G on that live recording with a big G-establishing "yeaaaahhhhhhH!!!!!" says more about band dynamics than it does about the song's tonal centre.

What does it say? I looked at two other live clips from the 70s, both of which ended the same way. Why did they choose that chord?

To piss off Al Kooper?

And Hurting and flam?

Phrygian tune was "O Sacred Heart Surrounded" aka "O Sacred Heart Now Wounded." Modern reuse of melody is Paul Simon's "American Tune."

At this point I think I understand the arguments for D-Mixolydian and will cede that the original D-Mixolydian crowd has much better ears than I do (no sarcasm intended). But I think I agree with what Sund4r is trying to say, it is kind of ambiguous on some level. The circular chord progression is coming from inside the thread!

It's much easier to hear, say, "Taxman," as in D because, for one thing, it stays on D for so long, and for another, the C and G come in a place where structurally one would expect a turnaround.

In any case, apparently you can't be a real music board without having a thread about this topic, it's some kind of law of the internet. http://www.thegearpage.net/board/showthread.php?t=407446&highlight=sweet+home+alabama

http://www2.gibson.com/News-Lifestyle/Features/en-us/Lynyrd-Skynyrds-Ed-King-913.aspx

No, that was the only solo I ever saw in a dream. And I saw both of ’em. And I pretty much play them note for note, even today, except one part I change. But I remember when I recorded that in Atlanta, like we recorded that song four days after we wrote it. And we were thinking about putting it on the first album because our first album wasn't even out yet, but Al Kooper wanted to save it for the second album. But Kooper argued with me the whole time I was there, saying "You're playing the solo in the wrong key." Because it starts on a D chord but it really resolves in G. It's really in the key of G. And he says "The solo should be in D." And he, unbeknownst to me, was telling the rest of the guys, "Look, we can't have this guy do the solo on the record."

You should also google Al Kooper's version in his memoir.

In any case we've come a long way from when we argued over the modality of "Greensleeves." Or have we.

Forgot that I heard really old Phrygian tune the night before- "Pange Lingua."

From "Surviving Ellington" in Francis Davis's Jazz And Its Discontents

...he was musically self-taught with an autodidact's scorn for formal education. Yet he saw to it that Mercer studied music at Juilliard, Columbia, and New York University. “I think it was his way of keeping up with advancements in music theory through me," Mercer speculates. "I remember one day he handed me two huge volumes and said 'Read these and tell me about them.' It was the Schillinger system and it took me three years to digest it. When I started to explain it to him, he cut me off. 'Oh, yeah, I was doing that back in 1928.' And truthfully, he had."

.he was musically self-taught

If this is about Duke Ellington, I'm pretty sure this is false. Grove, Starr/Waterman, and this page from GWU all say that he received formal training on piano from approx the age of 7. The latter page also states that he took private lessons in harmony.

Was wondering about that. Assumed it was a bit of an exaggeration. Basically read it as " did not attend conservatory." It's kind of the flip side of "classically trained" meaning "took one lesson from a Russian lady."

But those private lessons he took were from a high school music teacher, not one of those tenure track positions you mentioned on the other thread.

On one of those old Phrygian tunes there is some discussion of the melody being clearly Phrygian but was it also harmonized in a Phrygian arrangement. Was hoping flam could elucidate. (Also if you don't like the name flam, we can try something different. )