he's making fun of me, cos i said that

and yes, i still think Hendrix wasn't much of a blues guitarists, too much flash and too many notes

Thats where psychadelic rock comes in.

^^yep

Hendrix was the epitome of psychedelia

I dunno . . . Jimi plays some real blues right here (2nd take)

Hendrix 12 String - YouTube

Lets not forget Red House, Catfish Blues, Born Under A BAd Sign, and countless other blues songs Hendrix did or covered really well imo.

I can see what youre saying about him not being a "real" blues guitarist. He was too unique to play standard, "real" blues. He was doing his own thing. He blended blues, funk, rock and psychedelia into his own style. He was a big influence on funk greats like Bootsy Collins and Eddie Hazel. I think Red house was probably his bluesiest song, and he did a great job on it. What about the song Once I had a woman, thats one of my favorite Hendrix songs, its pretty bluesy. I think that 12 song is some real blues. But he definitely wasnt playing blues like BB King. Hendrix was something different and unique.

I agree but what exzactly is a real blues guitarist? Are we talkin how they play, or where they come from and lifestyle? I know Hendrix liked to embelish his own techniques, and playing style with your run of the mill cliche type blues. But I dont think that dismiss's him totaly as a blues player. In fact if Hendrix wanted to just simply focus on playing traditional blues, I have no doubt he would have mastered that sound much like he mastered every other sound he was aiming for.

And yes "once I had a woman" is one of favorites as well. Anything Hendrix did I like. If he wrote a song about poop I would like it.

he hasn't really mastered phrasing and the tone is too wild

i respect his contributions to every other genre, though, and i think Remember is one of the best RnB songs ever

That was his style. He went beyond the boundaries of how the guitar "should" be played. He didnt learn by the rules, he did his own thing. He had an unorthodox approach to his guitar playing. And for that, I have much respect for the man. Music should not be limited to the rules. His style was complete expression.


i can agree agree with that. Traditional blues was not the sound he was looking for. As a matter of fact, when hendrix was younger, his style was in the form of a more standard blues. In the Hendrix biography room full of mirrors, it was noted that his style was very much like that of BB king. But then he started to develop his own tone and his own sound.

Listen to the first phrases of this. The tone is less wild(I dont have a problem with his wild tone) and the style sounds more like traditional blues than most of his other stuff. I think the phrasing is just fine.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXDbSJL8ZzE

Yeah you have to excuse Duce he's a good guy but his issue he has with Hendrix is somewhat embarassing. Im glad Hendrix wasnt cliche and always trying to mix things up. What the standard is for the way a certain genre should sound, isnt the standard for everyone.

Would it be okay to solo over the chord changes in the same key as the key signature? For example, say the chord progession is in the key of A, but it goes through many different chords like C chords and F chords. Would it be okay to just solo in the key of A the entire time?

key of A should have C#m and F#m chords, not C and F, unless it's song without a tonal centre

soloing in a A scale is fine, if you're playing rock or blues

if you want to play jazz, it's better to find the relative scale

I just used that as an example. I didn't take the time to look at my key progression chart. :laughing: Don't have it memorized yet.

It doesn't have to be made up completely of diatonic chords to keep its tonal center, tonality isn't that fragile, especially in this case where we have a Parallel key.

If you take this progession

http://i44.tinypic.com/35kikw3.jpg

and elaborate it with secondary dominants

http://i43.tinypic.com/msn6hg.jpg

it changes nothing in the function of the initial triads.

Secondary Dominants function as passing chords, just like any notes other than A B C# D E F# G# would function as passing or lead tones in the key of A Major.

They still don't effect the tonal center. Calling them passing chords doesn't do them much justice since not many chords can be said to have structural significance, the first two bars are merely a prolongation of I-IV and bars 4-7 a prolongation of V, so really "passing chord" can apply to almost every chord in a piece of music.

A passing chord is a non diatonic chord that connects, or passes between, the notes of two diatonic chords. In the case of your sub dominants, they won't affect the overall tonality of the diatonic progression because they function as little cadences.

If you applied longer durations to each chord you'd find that those 'passing chords' begin to take on more weight and are no longer a part of the original tonal center.

But those diatonic notes have no real bearing on the tonality as they aren't structural, if you follow the bass it makes a clear step wise decent towards the sub dominant then wraps itself around the dominant before leaping back to the tonic. The diatonic chords are passing between these structural points just as much as the non diatonic ones, calling it a passing chord with no context is just bad terminology.


not necessarily no, it would have moved away from the tonal center but cannot abandon it without establishing a new center or using multiple non functioning chords, you could even write a few measures in a different region without losing the initial tonal center.

So, if you were to write a melody in A Major over your progression nothing would sound out of key? I think it would because of the secondary dominants you've placed in between the diatonic progression. Unless of course you adjust the melody to follow the chords, but that would be straying from the tonal center.

There would be a high risk of running into cross relations but yes you could. I detest any attempt at separating melody and harmony anyway, both should be considered simultaneously.

you must hate my stuff then . . . LOL!
I compose polytonal and polyharmonic pieces and then work a melody into this chaotic soup using unequal tempered scales that move in & out of all the mayhem.

If it sounds good it sounds good, I just don't like the practice of "soloing" over stuff, half the music becomes an afterthought and it nearly always sounds crudely slapped together, plus most of the time people oversimplify everything to give the melody more leeway, effectively restricting themselves to gain more freedom. As a means of pure experimentation by all means go for it, but as a method of composing music I don't give it much credit.

I didn't understand a word of what y'all were saying. :laughing:

huh? it's the crux of all improvisation

stuff that is composed with all the rules that you speak of lack that spontaneity

of course, you have to adhere to certain rules, when improvising over a chord structure, but it's mostly free-form

and the "passing chords" you mentioned, feel more like sub-dominants to me, the anchoring chords are still the diatonics

Did ya'll go to a music school or did you teach yourself?

half-half

blues and rock are self-taught

i took jazz lessons, in improvisation and theory (never had a classical backing, though, i can only understand jazz theory)

it could be called a "turnaround" in blues, your ears will still focus on the diatonics

I'm 51 I've studied with loads of people including advanced theory and composition.

he was a sideman to R n B acts

although Howlin' Wolf wanted to hire him and he said (quote) - "you guys play the real thing" - meaning he wasn't really into "authentic" blues

I didn't say anything about following rules to compose music. There are far better ways of using spontaneity in your works, if you have the ear and you can play directly from what's in your head why not compose melody and harmony as one single unit? if you can't then you're fumbling blindly at a few scales to play within a safe boundary of an already set harmonic progression.

I did say they were secondary dominants, I was against the idea of calling them passing chords.

You're not taking into account the voice leading, dissecting a phrase into separate parts and explaining them as if they exist in a vacuum goes against the idea of music analysis, it's listened to as an organic whole so why shouldn't it be analysed as an organic whole? Every chord even the diatonic ones are deviations from the tonic, a vi in A major could just as likely be a iii in D major applying functions to them is useless without looking at their place within the phrase.

It's good to know a little bit about scales and keys. Knowing modes can help you to solo in a more interesting manner, but once you learn these you should just learn improvisation. It's also a good idea to play other songs by other guitarists that you like so that you can emulate them in your solos after developing somewhat of a muscle memory attuned to your instrument.

isn't just having a chord sequence based on its root chord, with the scalar elements of each key, say - I major, II minor, III minor, IV major, V major, VI minor and VII minor, the most widely-used tonality in most modern songs? - it's because they appeal most to the untrained ears

if you're gonna subsume it and lead it to another key/root chord, the tonality isn't really that appealing, at least to somebody who's already used to the "normal" tonality

not really, a lot of music makes use of elements from closely related keys and the relative minor that the untrained ear has no problem with. The more distant regions may leave the average listener a little stumped but sacrificing creativity for a wider audience isn't always a good thing.

So if the chord progression is fast, it works fine to just solo in the key of the chord progression. But if the chord progression is slow and you have plenty of time to change it up over each chord, it sounds better if you do so. If I play a phrase over chord 1, I can end it with a chord tone of chord 2 as chord 2 comes up in the progression. So it's like my phrases are resolving on key with each chord change. I'm not sure but I think that's one way to go about it.

Are the videos on the TaRkHeM link in your sig an example of this?