Welcome to one of the most active flamenco sites on the Internet. Guests can read most posts but if you want to participate click here to register.
This site is dedicated to the memory of Paco de Lucía, Ron Mitchell, Guy Williams, Linda Elvira, Philip John Lee, Craig Eros, Ben Woods, David Serva and Tom Blackshear who went ahead of us.
We receive 12,200 visitors a month from 200 countries and 1.7 million page impressions a year. To advertise on this site please contact us.
One of my fellow guitar instructors on the Arabic guitar lessons website I recently became a part of, www.darsguitar.net , posted this lesson. I know that "Mary" is misspelled as Marry, but that is not the biggest issue to tackle.
He does NOT have a great music theory background, nor do I. However, he is being "brave" and posting lessons that involve having backing tracks with chords being played to accompany the melody. He did that once a week ago, and I listened to the result which was 100% wrong, and he removed the lesson. I don't know really where he's getting the backing tracks from (i.e. the chords he has above the melody, like G and Am in this case), but that issue needs to be sorted.
The question I have is as follows:
This piece ends on a G. I've learned in a basic music theory class about 5 years ago that a piece usually ends on the tonic. Being G in this case, I would say this piece is in the key of G. Therefore, I think the first mistake is that the key signature (he uses no sharps or flats - therefore, C major or A minor) does NOT reflect the key of G. It should have a sharp on F to be correct in my opinion. Am I right?
Secondly: the chords he has as backing chords - if you play them along with the melody, they don't sound like 100% crap. However, my ear tells me that the Am chord he has needs to be replaced with a D major to sound more "correct." If I were to analyze this, it seems more logical to have a G and D as chords to accompany this melody which is in the key of G, considering you'll end up with the I and V chords - this makes more sense to me than if you were to use what he did (I don't know what key he was thinking this was in, C major perhaps? I don't know if he even knows this concept to begin with), which would make the chords being used, if we think of the melody being in G major, as the I and ii chords, and I don't think that makes much sense as accompaniment chords, right?
It would be normal to write it with one sharp, certainly, but since the tune is pentatonic, not major (doesn't contain any Cs or Fs) it's not actually wrong.
It would be normal to write it with one sharp, certainly, but since the tune is pentatonic, not major (doesn't contain any Cs or Fs) it's not actually wrong.
Hmmm... That's interesting. Thank you Paul! Your input came right on time as I was about to tell him the key signature is wrong.
The question I just thought of though, is this:
Why does the Am chord sound wrong to my ear? And why does the D major chord sound correct to my ear? And how do we determine what chord needs to be played to back that specific set of notes?
I can answer these questions by just following my ear, but it would be great to actually know the science behind it.
In other words: Considering this tune is in the key of G major (is it? I mean, Paul says it's "pentatonic-" does that qualify as a key? I mean, can we say it's in G pentatonic?), why does the accompaniment of I-V sound better to my ear than does that of I-ii?
Yes the Dmaj chord would be right, THe 7th in this case is not really nessacary. it's just going to the 5th (V) chord and back to the root. You will many nursery rhyme type tunes with this I -V - I chords and many others with a that may have a I - IV - V - I On a simple tune like this it is not always written with a key signature, and as you do not come across an F in the melody anyway........... However if you did it would be an F#
Why does the Am chord sound wrong to my ear? And why does the D major chord sound correct to my ear? And how do we determine what chord needs to be played to back that specific set of notes?
Short answer: you can't really say a chord’s right or wrong, just that some sound wrong, some better than others; or, both OK but different.
You see this in Folk Music; if you listening to the Bothy Band, for example, you’ll find they harmonise a song one way at the beginning, and then change after a few verses for contrast. This is even more pronounced in Jazz, where substitute chords are a whole domain of expertise, the subject of instructional DVDs by (for example) Joe Pass.
For diatonic tunes harmonised with triads, the melody note will often be found found in the chord, which gives limits the possibilities. But there are plenty of tunes this isn’t true of: a prime example is Yesterday, which has all sorts of passing notes.
Yes the Dmaj chord would be right, THe 7th in this case is not really nessacary. it's just going to the 5th (V) chord and back to the root. You will many nursery rhyme type tunes with this I -V - I chords and many others with a that may have a I - IV - V - I On a simple tune like this it is not always written with a key signature, and as you do not come across an F in the melody anyway........... However if you did it would be an F#
Agreed - it's actually the chords that would make the G major key signature 'necessary'.
Thanks everyone for the input. Clearly, I need to get my mind straight that even though music is governed by theory, it will remain an art, and not a science - which means, "right" and "wrong" are hard to pin down (nowadays, even in science).
Printable Version
) 
New Messages
No New Messages
Hot Topic w/ New Messages
Hot Topic w/o New Messages
Locked w/ New Messages
Locked w/o New Messages
Post New Thread