Sweet Home Alabama...Key? (Page 2 of 3)

Dmix and Gmaj are the same scale, but to me, the solo resolves to the G (which is what the producer complained about) while the song is in D. Also, to my ear, the song resolves to a D, and I do hear some tension when the song ends on the G. Again, I didn't realize this until I actually played the chord progression myself... Of course, there is no right or wrong, just some fun discussion...
and if I played that great solo in one take and the producer told me to play it again because it was in the wrong key, he would have been walking out of that studio funny with a guitar sticking out of his a$$.

THAT"S HILARIOUS!  Not your LP?  you got a Squire somewhere?  oooooh he be walking funny...hold on to yo lugnuts...Al Kooper had issues anyway.  Genius but issues.

You're right,  There's a lot of songs that start and end on some modality that is not the root of the key signature.  And there are songs that change keys cause they're composed from some cliche in some modality.  I don't know it all.

You wanna start a fight, ask what key Van Morrisson's Moondance is in.  Ellington's Satin Dolls?  Eleanor Rigby? 

It really comes down to communicating with your bandmates.  I would say we play this tune in D-C-G and let my deaf drummer count it off. 

justshutupbigjeff
you'reboringpeople
ok I'm gwineter go drool jus a bit  ise tide.

It's not the concept I don't agree with, it's the phrasing. It doesn't sound right to me to say "The song is in E Lydian." E Lydian is just what you would play over the chord progression if said chord progression had a #4. You can write a song so you can play whatever mode you want over the chord progression, I agree, but you would USE E Lydian, and just call it in the key of E, if E was the tonal center of the song. You could say the key signature indicates E Lydian, but E Lydian isn't the key signature.

I'm kinna goin' around in circles here...

Interesting thread. I'm no music theory expert, always played by ear. I don't know how this relates to the discussion at hand, but I know you use a G blues harp when a song is in the key of D...

Hey I surrender guys. I've never heard of a mode (other than ionian or aolean) being called the "key" of any song. So I guess I'll just hang my head,throw in the towel,call it a day,give it up, take one long last look, and wonder...what if modes were key signatures?

Awfuhgetaboudit!!!!
Music rules
RocknRoll Forever
Jack

He is super bad, Jack.  I like his style.

Thanks Dude,
BJJ

Ken you see this guy fuzzy wuzzy put up?

I've had the pleasure of recording with Ed King in the late 90s at my dinky home studio. Ed lives here in Nashville these days.

He certianly thinks of the song in "G" and not "D". Steve Gaines played his solo in "D"...they both sound great to me. However....it should be noted that Skynyrd ALWAYS ended the song live on the G chord.....with the ol' F, C Gggggggggggggg

Every band in Gnashville ends it on the D....which drives my ears crazy for some reason...that and the fact that most of them also play the sig lick lazily without the pulloffs. I think I'm the only guy in N-ville who actually plays Rossington's rhythm part...which was actually the first part of the song written....Ed came up with the sig lick to work against what Rossington was doing.

The song is cliche' to many pickers today but I remember sitting in my brother's car in the summer of '74 when that solo came over the radio and it changed the way I looked at guitar playing...just the sheer agression of it. When I got Second Helping and heard Ed's solo on Workin' For MCA is was officially "over"...guitar nirvana.