What are the Gloria chords?

A refugee from another thread where it was "off topic."

I hear E D A. I don't hear E Em D A. How many here can hear a minor chord? How many can't? No shame.

I've looked at a number of live performances by Van Morrison.

 

Yeah.
I hear the E minor.
It's clear as a bell.
E-Em-D-A.
That's the way the ORIGINAL goes.
Later versions and covers sometimes ignore the Em.
Those versions all go E-E-D-A.
What's the big deal?

 

I think sometimes you just hear the root/ fifth, leaving major / minor determined by surrounding voices/instruments... E A D but if you hear E minor so be it

 

I always thought there were two guitars during the first part of the song.

 

In the first seconds I hear a stuttered E chord (x4) on rhythm guitar, no minor third. There are 4 beats of the E chord, and each one is missing this aspect of the minor chord that you are hearing.

Now play the song with 2 hits on the E and two on the Em. Do you want to get up and play that?

 

According to wiki there might have been two drummers, a first for UK rock. If there was a second guitar it would have been Jimmy Page.

 

I want to get up and play (two hits EACH)
E.
Em
D
A

Nobody said you can't play the song some other way.
I just like doing it the ORIGINAL way.

 

E minor is there. Clear as day.

 

A sloppy E can turn into an E 5-note power chord which can then fool some into thinking it's minor.

No G natural, no E minor. Period.

That said, Robby Krieger plays it straight E major and that's the only version I care about, so y'all can fight about the VM version all you'd like.

 

I can hear the G# going to the G natural very clearly.

 

Even on my cheesy little Android speaker in a busy Starbucks I can hear the Em! It is clear as daylight, to me. The second pair of 8th notes ...

Not everyone hears it. Most bar bands, in fact, play it E-E-D-A, to my (useless) annoyance. I annoy other guitarists in bands I'm playing in (or messing around with) that are about to do "Gloria", instructing them to lift their fingers there.

Glad this subject came up, it's been bugging me for ages.

 

Some people have better ears than others.

 

I looked for Mae West doing it, w/no silent consonants, but alas cannot locate. I think it was mae west.

 

Laurel! Yanni!!

 

On this forum, I won't make that claim ...!

 

NO MINOR...

 

"Original" having a non standard definition here I assume. When you play the minor do the people say "Why are you playing Louie Louie?"

 

but, its a fact jack! ; )

 

Being able to tell the difference between gear does not correlate to pitch.

 

Unbelievable, you loin sumfin every day!

But the version I now here with the E minor is this, it's an 8 chord sequence, with a little sloppiness thrown in, sumfin like this:

E down stroke - E up stroke - Em down stroke - Em up stroke
D down stroke - open strings up stroke - A down stroke - open strings up stroke

It's there !!

 

True. I figure my 50+ years as a working musician generally stand me in good stead ... just not always.

 

Gloria as played by whom?

If you mean the original version posted by @Doctor Fine, I hear two guitar parts on that. One is riffing in open position and the second is chording; possibly at frets 7 and 5 but more likely in the same position as the other. The guitar that is riffing clearly plays (starting on the and of 1) G# G G# A A G# over the "E to A to D and back to E" chord change.

So it's more complicated than asking "what are the chords?" The guitarist who is chording is simply playing the E as a dyad with octaves (I refuse to use the term power chord because it's an oxymoron): E E B E (or something akin to that) and the second guitarist (the one riffing) is creating the harmony with a simple melodic line that changes the "E" from an E Major to an E minor and then back again.

 

Shadows Of Knight appear to do it E-E-D-A. I suspect that's how a lot of you heard it for the first time, on American AM radio ...?