Songs with the "mixolydian" chord progression

Back to bed before you get too awake ;-)

 

For chords, 50-50. For solos, rarely.

 

Weering totally OT here. It has always fascinated me how Blues can make all kinds of harmonic approaches possible. Just the fact that John Fogerty played an E minor pentatonic on Suzie Q when the rhythm guitar so clearly played a E7, absolutely blew my mind when i was 10. I remember enthusiating about that to my guitar teacher. But he was classical mostly and didn’t see my point lol.

 

As we’ve discussed, blues is both major and minor at the same time. The vast majority of blues is in a major key but yes, flirting with the flat 3rd is an important part of the sound.

 

Getting back to Crosby for a second, what about the Byrds "Mind Gardens"? (everyone's favorite Byrds song haha but I think from the description this might fit?

 

Last Train to Clarksville - Monkees

Seems like a mixolydian melody to me (you've got the melody using the flat 7 and major 3rd)

 

The chords used are the same, but the construct of the phrasing (this includes consideration of the vocal lines) are different. Sweet Home Alabama contains two bars of what I'm calling the I chord (G) at the end of a phrase: | D | C | G | G |. The end of a phrase marks a temporary resting point, so there's an emphasis on G being that resting point. And no chord is more restful than the I.

Can't You See contains a bar of what I'm calling the I7 chord (even though it's voiced as an ordinary D chord) at the beginning and the end of a phrase: | D | C | G | D |. That the phrase begins and ends on D certainly does not refute that the piece has a tonal center of D and in this particular case, D would appear to be the logical choice as the tonal center. The question becomes whether it's in D Major or is modally-derived from G Major. Confounding the issue of "is it mixolydian or not?" is the concept of the leading tone. In this case, the leading tone to the D chord is c#. Leading tones can be used often, even over a Dom7 chord, thus clouding the issue as to whether it's D Major or what is ordinarily a V chord being used as the I chord. And you aren't the only one who feels this way about Sweet Home. I hesitated to bring it up because I know that it can be like poking the wasp's nest. But ultimately, Sweet Home Alabama and Can't You See are two relatively well-known and contrasting harmonic uses of the same chords.

 

Well, now you are providing more information about the context than just that there are those three chords as a deteched section floating around. If it was just that chord sequence in a loop and that was all there was to it then yes, I probably would feel C as the tonal centre. But since I am a Blues-rock type of guitar player, if it was in a band setting with a rockish groove then I would probably solo on C minor pentatonic, so not any of the modes we discussed. See how it works with popular music, once the influence of Blues comes into the picture! But I could imagine doing what Ed King does in "Alabama" and solo on F major pentatonic. Another probable scenario is that I would solo more based on continually incorporating the notes of the chords as they go by, in which case what I would be playing wouldn't really tell anyone what the root of the whole thing was, it would sound more "floating" and never coming to rest. One could also imagine soling using a different scale for each chord, since there are no upper extensions I could decide to for example view all three chords as dominant chords and play the mixolydian scale of each chord. I could do any number of things, but to meet you half way, C mixolydian would be one of the most obvious things to go for.

This underlined part is essential to me, because it is the vocal melody line that tells me what the tonal center is. The melody of "Alabama" is the same all through the song and uses the notes (decending) F#, E, D and B, this is also the order in which they appear in the melody, the first and third lines go down to B, the second and fourth land on D. This is a D major pentatonic scale (although there is never any A) and the way the melody is constructed the target note is very much D, the note around which everything gravitates and the note on which the melody comes to rest. There is also never a G sung (except in the harmony vocals of course). This is why when the vocal melody lands on D, with a G chord underneath it, I always want there to be a final D chord, so that we can "come home". Ed King's solo sounds strange to me because he uses the G major pentatonic instead, so repurposes the chord progression. Like I mentioned above you can play many different scales over the same chords, making them "mean" different things.

I refreshed my memory on the Marshall Tucker song, and that melody uses pretty much the same notes (major pentatonic scale, but it is a little bit wider in range) and with a melody that moves in a very similar way, so to me these to songs are exactly the same thing.

I missed a word, I meant to say "I am obviously not the only one who feels this way".

I've discussed the song on here before.

 

Yes i’d for sure mix some minor pentatonic in there too. That’s the beauty of Blues. Being able to do that, having the choice of “bluesing it up”.

 

The vast majority of blues may be in a major key, but the melody and soloing is mostly minor pentatonic. I'm thinking BB King, for example.

 

Funk #49

 

Mind Gardens is in A Mixolydian. Good catch.
David's melodies establish that.

 

Back in his younger days, BB played more like Lonnie J. and T. Bone instead of the BB Box. He added in 6th and 9ths. However, the minor pent is what we mostly heard from him over the past 30 years.

 

Interesting example is Reelin' in the Years with its shifting G-to-A triads, but there's a lot more going on in it.

 

I have to wonder if most of the musicians playing these songs are aware of that whole music theory thing, or they just play what sounds good to them.

 

Almost seems to be his signature sound

 

He does the Kinks at 03.10

 

Some are, some aren’t. And if it speaks to your heart, it doesn’t even matter.