RE: [Harp-L] Key of song from Guitar Chords

["Stephen Jennings" <harpfixer@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Agreed, Arthur. E.g. Dm7 G7 CMaj7 - not in Dm at all, but C. Yes, you could
probably get away with playing it in 3rd position on a C harp, but there are
other, more flexible options for those who cannot overblow reliably. Bottom
line, IMHO, is learn to read, learn as much theory as you can/need. My
recommended text for this is "The Jazz Theory Book", by Jim Levine (?),
published by Sher. Its thickness is intimidating, but you can only read one
word at a time :-). Also this increasingly wide-ranging Jamey Aebersold
books come in handy from time to time.
Agreed - with a good ear (and perfect pitch??) you can wing anything, but
you can save a heap of time with a spoonful of theory.
Agreed - SBW, LW etc didn't have an inkling about theory (in theory). In
practise, they played some awesome stuff. Question - would a bit of theory
have ruined the whole stew?
Just my two penn'orth!

Stephen Jennings

-----Original Message-----
From: harp-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx [mailto:harp-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf
Of Arthur Jennings
Sent: 17 March 2012 9:19 PM
To: Jim Rumbaugh
Cc: Bill Kumpe; harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [Harp-L] Key of song from Guitar Chords

That just proves that shortcuts cause problems. "Musicians who are not
interested in learning a lot of theory" need to develop their ears. (Okay,
everyone needs to develop their ears, but people without theory have nothing
to fall back on.)

On Sat, Mar 17, 2012 at 1:22 PM, Jim Rumbaugh
<jrumbaug@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>wrote:

> Bill asked, "Doesn't the 1-4-5 first chord key rule apply often enough 
> to be taught to beginning musicians
>
> who are not interested in learning a lot of theory?"
>
> ================
>
> I say yes.
>
> At my own club meeting, when I say the chord progression is
> 4,4,1,1
> 4,4,1,1
> 5,4,1,1
>
> The guitar players still screw it up half the time. They are so 
> ingrained in playing the 1 chord first. So the example shown prooves 
> that it is not a rule, but personal experience says a lot of people 
> want it to be. You may want to say it's a 90% rule (?)
>
> (for those interested,  those are the chord changes to "Never Been to 
> Spain" and "Going Down Slow" )
>
> Jim Rumbaugh
>
>


--
Arthur Jennings
http://www.timeistight.com