What key?

[Vito Corleone]

 

Here's one more bit at work. Since the thing keeps going back to D, merely not ending on D leaves it hanging.

Also analyzing the chord sequence as retrograde doesn't do anything but solve for G

 

In D with no V chord as you say, there are in fact two. (I wish you'd at least read my posts.) The C (VII) and the F (III) - both with dominant function to D.

 

The C does fill a dominant function somewhat. The F is really just a passing chord though and works in a "IV of the IV" function that is common in a lot of this sort of music. It's similar to how a suspended 4th is utilized. It's not integral to the song. It's just a minor arrangement flourish. Leave out the F chord throughout and the song remains the same.

 

And F isn't the III in the key of D anyway. F# is. So it's certainly not the dominant in this piece of music.

 

As far as reading through the posts goes, any objective reader with any understand of musical theory whatsoever would easily understand that solid theoretical arguments have been made for both keys. This was established in the first couple of pages. Since then it's been a "Key of D!" "Key of G!" debate which IS rather childish but both sides are equally guilty of that.

 

The truth IS that the key is wherever one hears the tonal center. So basically at this point we're arguing to defend why each of us hear it as we do. We'll certainly never change each other's hearing, but hopefully at this point you at least understand why people hear it in G.

 

"Merely not ending on D leaves it hanging" only is a valid argument if one believes that the 1 beat is the be-all and end-all of any tune. Which would explain why you think the song is in D to begin with. Because frankly, you haven't presented one valid reason for why you hear it in D except that the song starts on that chord. I think the argument for hearing it in G has been pretty well laid out---the musical motif and rhythmic structure of the lyrics end on the G chord. So that's why the song resolves to G. It ONLY resolves to D if you believe everything must resolve on the 1 or else it's "hanging."

 

 

 

[1001gear]

Yeah you said all that already. Meanwhile I'm calling it D dorian. The D major is a sub. There's your F# (that doesn't even go upwards let alone resolve to G and the F major is diatonic in dorian so there's your III.

VI of minorV

but who's counting.

 

The F C cadence forms an appoggiatura chord followed by an escape chord ( I'm not sure what this device is called ) outlining D major and then landing on D major.

 

To be fair, D to C is retrograde but the voice leading is clear and correct.

[JonR]

This entire discussion has been about which abstract box we can put this particular piece of music into.

 

Why can't we simply agree that some music, perhaps even this particular tune, can exist in more than one box (or perhaps even outside of all the boxes) depending on the perspective of the listener.

Quite. In fact, this tune is one of the rare examples of one that can (quite plainly) "exist in more than one box".

In 99% of tunes, I suspect most people would agree about their tonal centres. That's why the odd tune like this attracts such heated debate, because the 99% suggests that key perception is "natural" or "objective", and it isnt.

I seem to recall a story about a British music critic who "legitimized" the early Beatles music by pointing out an Aeolian cadence in one of John Lennon's songs. Lennon's reply was that "they were just chords, like any other chords".

That's right. His famous quote about the "Aeolian cadences" was: "they sound like exotic birds".

 

Of course, that doesn't make nonsense of the theory. Theory is only a system for describing and analysing music. Beatles songs may well have had Aeolian cadences, but Lennon didn't have to know or care. He would have had his own system of naming what he was doing, which probably didn't go any further than chord or key names, because it didn't need to.

(In fact, the critic William Mann didn't specify which song(s) he meant, and author Dominic Pedler had a lot of trouble tracing any Beatles song with a definite aeolian cadence. The Beatles favourite mode was actually mixolydian - and of course they wouldn't have known that either.)

 

[Vito Corleone]

Yeah you said all that already. Meanwhile I'm calling it D dorian. The D major is a sub. There's your F# (that doesn't even go upwards let alone resolve to G and the F major is diatonic in dorian so there's your III.

VI of minorV

but who's counting.

 

D dorian? Yeah, I'm no longer counting. The number of different turns you've made to continue to defend what you hear as D is astounding. No one has ever come up with D dorian. If this is in D, is mixolydian.

 

The F C cadence forms an appoggiatura chord followed by an escape chord ( I'm not sure what this device is called ) outlining D major and then landing on D major.

 

The same device works in the same manner for landing on G if you wanted to do that. In fact, I've heard a lot of band use the F C G cadence to end the tune. It's not a device that is exclusive to D. In fact, the vii-IV-I cadence is quite common with these sorts of simple blues/rock/country compositions.

 

I think you may have been the first one to say "why make this more complicated than it needs to be" or something similar. You were exactly right. It's a simple I IV V song. That's all it is. All this mixolyidian modal stuff is just parlor game nonsense really.

 

To be fair, D to C is retrograde but the voice leading is clear and correct.

 

And here's the crux of it. Since the song starts on D, going to C creates a voice-leading that is clear and correct to you. Because, for whatever reason, your brain can't get past the "starts on D, must be D!" thing. Not that there's anything wrong with that---you hear what you hear.

 

You really should just understand that others who hear it differently are equally (and possibly even more) correct.

[1001gear]

Your way is V IV I, not I IV V. big difference. Also this is the second or third time you've taken to figuring ME out. The tune got you stumped?

 

[Vito Corleone]

Your way is V IV I, not I IV V. big difference. Also this is the second or third time you've taken to figuring ME out. The tune got you stumped?

 

Nothing to stump me. Simple tune. In this case, there's not a big difference between I IV V and V IV I, because it just retrograde. It's the same ol; same ol' simple blues/country/rock pattern just in reverse. Playing the chords in a different order doesn't change the key.

 

I might change how own hears it, however.

[1001gear]

And what bunch of different turns are you referring to? I been on D the whole time. Oh yeah, and i settled on Dorian a while back.

[RifferDave]

Its in G, though centered on D. As to why? It fits the singer's voice. When a singer is involved, its always what key the singer can sing in, so transpose if necessary.

[1001gear]

Huh?

 

How about this then? The first chord is the tonic chord. I've tried many ways to set G as the tonality, no dice. Even putting a D7 before the G just sounds like a V of IV. It'll go right back to D with no tension from the G.

[Vito Corleone]

 

Huh?

 

How about this then? The first chord is the tonic chord. I've tried many ways to set G as the tonality, no dice. Even putting a D7 before the G just sounds like a V of IV. It'll go right back to D with no tension from the G.

 

If that were the case, then most bands would be ending the song on D because that's what would sound most natural. Yet I don't recall ever hearing any band end the song on D, even though the song has been covered a million times. Everyone always ends the song on G, because that's where the riff resolves.

 

Sometimes it's fun to end a song on a hanging chord and not allowing it to resolve. But that's always the odd and out-of-character choice and done for a specific purpose. It's not the natural place to end a song. And not something you hear the vast majority of bands who play a song choose to do. (Unless maybe the recorded version ended that way.)

 

But you've made your point clear. You hear the first chord as the tonic chord. That's fine, and makes sense to a certain degree. I can certainly understand WHY some people would always hear the first chord of a song/riff as the tonic. Doesn't, in and of itself, make it so, however. Except for that person of course.

 

Personally, I hear the first chord as the V and the entire riff being a single progression the resolves to the I. Many others hear it the same way. They aren't wrong simply because they hear it differently from you. Simply because you are unable to set the tonality to G in your own head doesn't mean anything except that's how YOU hear it.

[1001gear]

They end on G because that's how they copped it. It does hang there and I kinda like the effect myself. Same with ending on C, F or any chord except D. As long as you you don't sing "Sweet" when you stop. Tell me why every body ends on G means it's in G ???

[Vito Corleone]

Tell me why every body ends on G means it's in G ???

I have told you a dozen times now: because that's where the riff resolves. Which, at the very least, implies the tonic.

 

But it doesn't "hang there" except for those like yourself whose brains are fixated on hearing the tonic as D.

 

But what do you mean "because that's how they copped it"? A million cover bands all "cop it' the same. Why? Because they all like the hanging effect? Obviously not. They do it because they hear that as the natural resolution of the riff.

 

V-IV-I. It doesn't get any more simple or more natural than that.

[1001gear]

LS played it that way. hence copped. And like I keep saying in toto, the prog is not V IV I. Your only support for V IV I is "all the bands end on G"

 

G is never established as the tonic while all the possible dominant functions highlight D. That includes the G as subdominant.

[Vito Corleone]

LS played it that way. hence copped.

 

Most people have never heard the live version. They just all know the fade-out version from the radio. All bands end it that way because that's where it resolves in their heads.

 

But this is interesting to me from a human-brain standpoint. I can understand conceptually why you'd hear the tonal center as D. Theoretically, I suppose it's possible for people to hear ANY chord as the tonal center, much as in the same way that at a gig I can get mentally distracted and lose where the "1" is in a beat sometimes. The human brain can be tricked into hearing/seeing all sorts of things that aren't really there. And that the first chord of any song/riff is what triggers the tonal center in your brain makes sense. You hear 'D'. Let's go! Everything moves from there. It must be the ''I''. Simple. I get that.

 

Where I find it interesting though is that you don't hear the riff resolving on the G chord and that your brain needs it go back to the D to sound resolved to you. I find that interesting because it certainly seems like all rhythm and melody within that riff push everything to the stuff that is happening on the G chord---the melody line of the riff ends on the G chord. The phrasing of the lyrics all end there. Nothing comes back "around" to D except to start the regression over again.

 

No, the only support for V IV I is not that "all bands end on G". The support is everything I said above, plus the fact that I IV V is the most common chord progression in blues-based rock/country, which is all this song is. No need at all to make it more complex than a simple I IV V tune. That's all it is.

 

But because the progression is played as a regression suddenly some people's brains get turned around as well and now they 'must' hear it as I VII IV, and start coming up with all sorts of theoretical mumbo jumbo to support mixo-frickin-doria-Lydian this or that or whatever they want to call it.

 

That's cool, because, as has been stated a thousand times here--however you hear it is how you hear it. There is no absolute right or wrong in this matter. But why make it more complex than it is? V IV I. Simple. Done. Turn it up.

[1001gear]

 

Blah blah. You invent research and then side step to the fundamental irrelevance of the argument. WTF? Grow up already.

 

Anyway, It occurs to me - and I've already alluded to the wit of the writer - gotta give the guy some credit. That the G might be [G]eorgia and the tune is in trapped D headed toward G.

[Vito Corleone]

Blah blah. You invent research and then side step to the fundamental irrelevance of the argument. WTF? Grow up already.

 

Nah. Just explaining why this endless argument still holds a modicum of interest for me.

 

But I'll take the fact you're resorting to personal insults as evidence that you're at least starting to acknowledge that, if you're not completely wrong, that at the very least that those who hear the song in G aren't wrong either.

 

 

Anyway, It occurs to me - and I've already alluded to the wit of the writer - gotta give the guy some credit. That the G might be [G]eorgia and the tune is in trapped D headed toward G.

 

Yeah, no blah blah there.....

 

But again, you're wrong. Giving too much credit to the writer/original artists is the whole problem with this debate. The song isn't some grand exercise in modal theory. It's a simple blues/rock/country tune. I IV V. Or V IV I as the case may be. Lord, I'm coming home to you.

[1001gear]

You continue to blab at me like I work for you. Give it up.You aren't that interesting and almost entirely uninformative. I have though developed a casual interest in the tune and will post accordingly.

[Vito Corleone]

You continue to blab at me like I work for you. Give it up.You aren't that interesting and almost entirely uninformative. I have though developed a casual interest in the tune and will post accordingly.

 

I only appear to be "blabbing at you" because I find the mental processes of someone who is fixated on the wrong key simply because it's the first chord of the song/riff to be somewhat amusing. And the pretzel-twisting you've engaged in in order to defend this condition is somewhat amusing as well.

 

So as long as I find that to be so, I'll probably continue to post accordingly as well. Which probably won't be much longer. Insults are boring. If the purpose of you using them is to bore me away from the thread, then it will most likely work for you eventually.

[1001gear]

You're flailing again.

[JonR]

LS played it that way. hence copped. And like I keep saying in toto, the prog is not V IV I. Your only support for V IV I is "all the bands end on G"

 

G is never established as the tonic while all the possible dominant functions highlight D. That includes the G as subdominant.

 

I know I'm just joining in - again! - with the flogging of this dead horse, but if you're going to invoke "dominant function" you're on to a loser. There are no "dominant functions" in this song. Whichever way you hear the key, the cadence is subdominant. Either C-G in G, or G-D in D. Take your pick.

"Dominant functions" don't "include" subdominant ones. Using theory terms incorrectly confuses rather than clarifies.

 

Anyway, theory doesn't prove either case. There is no proof available. The "G or D" argument is pointless.

In theory, D-C-G works as a V-IV-I in G, just as well as C-G-D works as a bVII-IV-I in D mixolydian.

If one thing has been clearly established in this debate - and it's the ONLY relevant thing - it's that different people hear it differently in practice.

 

What might (just might...) be interesting would be to do a survey to find out how many are in the G camp and how many in the D. There's obviously not enough contributors here to draw any meaningful result, but there were in the 2 or 3 lengthy threads a few years back on thegearpage. If I remember rightly, just from an impression (not from counting), the D vote outweighed the G by about 60:40. (But then I think a later, smaller thread had it the other way.)

The difficulty of course is weeding out those who think it must be D because it starts on D, and those who think it must be G because the 3 chords all come from that scale. IOW, we need to exclude the spurious theoretical justifications and focus on how people hear it.

 

Of course, for some folk around here, actual evidence (as opposed to theoretical justification) is of no interest... (The evidence is not about what key it "is" in, just about the distribution of believers in either G or D. Ie, statistical evidence, not musical evidence. The musical evidence is ambiguous. CLEARLY. That cannot be denied.)

[1001gear]

Jon I know you know your :placeexpletivehere: but pay attention!.

 

C and F :

VII and III in D both sub and can even be connected to a V chord.

 

Listen to bach chorales or take a stab at the Riemenschneider collection. Many have off kilter endings BUT they contain enough legitimate voicing, VOICE LEADING, and development to be analyzed contrary to intuitive tonality.

 

Sweet Home, in a word don't.

[JonR]

Jon I know you know your :placeexpletivehere: but pay attention!.

Yes sir!

C and F :

VII and III in D both sub and can even be connected to a V chord.

Well, obviously they can be "connected to a V chord". We can connect anything we like to a V chord - or indeed to a tonic. I don't understand how C or F can "sub" for A though.

You must be using a different concept of "substitute" from the one I learned about.

Listen to bach chorales or take a stab at the Riemenschneider collection. Many have off kilter endings BUT they contain enough legitimate voicing, VOICE LEADING, and development to be analyzed contrary to intuitive tonality.

Whoah, Bach chorales, where did that come from?

Rather than me "taking a stab", perhaps you can point me to specific examples? (Notation must be online somewhere.)

In any case, although I know less about Bach than you seem to, nothing in his music could possible tell us what key Sweet Home Alabama is in, because - even if we can find similar chord moves in Bach - the question is not a theoretical one. It's an aural one.

 

You're arguing for D as keynote - which is valid - and invoking various theoretical concepts to support that. But they don't prove it. There is at least as much theoretical "proof" to support G as keynote.

 

As for this narrow point about whether C and/or F can meaningfully be described as "subs for V" (A): they can't in any musical universe I'm aware of. (Perhaps you can explain and enlighten me. And perhaps I'm misunderstanding you, which is very possible.)

Not every cadence to a tonic needs to be considered as some kind of sub for V. There are such things as plagal cadences and modal cadences (both more popular in rock than authentic ones).

I accept that, if the key centre is D, then C and F are legitimate bVII and bIII chords (doesn't matter how or if they relate to A),and can both resolve to D, individually or as a pair. Very common practice in rock.

 

However, it doesn't prove D is tonal centre, as you seem to think it does. The sequence C-F-D can occur in the key of G just as easily (or in C for that matter). The only thing that proves what the tonal centre is is the way it sounds. We all know that's D for you. You don't have to prove it. (In fact, as I say, it can't be proved, any more than G can be proved.)

Sweet Home, in a word don't.

Sorry, don't what?

 

 

[1001gear]

Home sweet don't have the harmonic integrity of Bach chorales and therefore no compelling case for G.

 

Riemenschneider is a collection of Bach chorales that is pretty much a standard in music ed. I brought it up because there are many examples of modal harmonizations and funny endings but in standard Baroque triad -ese. Don't ask me about it. I haven't cracked the book in over 30 yrs. I don't even own a copy. I think you though as professor should look into it.

 

And my analysis of SHA is just to confirm D. It already sounds as D.

The F C D doohickey form a cadence TO D and therefore an actual dominant function. Again check out Riemenschneider. Maybe take some classes or at least confer with your pals on the legit side of music. Music theory is more than chord schemes and vernacular. There's a very detailed constructive logic going on that's stood for hundreds of years.

[JonR]

Home sweet don't have the harmonic integrity of Bach chorales and therefore no compelling case for G.

"Therefore"?

Personally, I wouldn't say "the case for G is compelling". I just hear it as G, but I can understand why you hear it as D.

I'm not making a case for G anyway. What I'm making a case for is its ambiguity.

I certainly agree that the harmony is of a very different nature from Bach chorales, although I'm not sure "integrity" is the right word for what SHA lacks.

Riemenschneider is a collection of Bach chorales that is pretty much a standard in music ed. I brought it up because there are many examples of modal harmonizations and funny endings but in standard Baroque triad -ese. Don't ask me about it. I haven't cracked the book in over 30 yrs. I don't even own a copy. I think you though as professor should look into it.

Professor? Me???

Maybe if I ever decide to apply for such a post, I'll look into Riemenschneider. Thanks for the tip.

And my analysis of SHA is just to confirm D. It already sounds as D.

The F C D doohickey form a cadence TO D and therefore an actual dominant function.

Again check out Riemenschneider. Maybe take some classes or at least confer with your pals on the legit side of music.

Well I'm no professor, but I know what "dominant" means. It means the 5th degree of a scale, and by extension a chord built on that step (V).

More broadly it can refer to a chord having a similar function to V - which is only viidim, AFAIK.

(All the books I've read, and authorities I've consulted over the years - some of them professors - agree on that. That's what I call "legit".)

And just because a chord leads to a tonic - whether you call it "resolution" or not - doesn't make it "dominant".

F C D is more like a modal cadence (if the D was Dm it would be an aeolian cadence). Neither F nor C are "dominant" in relation to D. They are mediant and subtonic respectively. (More legit terms.)

 

And - just to repeat - even if C (or F-C together) can be defined as a dominant function relative to D, that doesn't make D the tonic!.. Surely you've heard of secondary dominants....

The decision about the key comes back to how one hears it. If one hears G as tonic, then D is dominant, and chords "resolving" to D have a secondary function. (In fact I don't believe they do. With G as tonic, F is a common borrowed chord, and C is of course IV. They don't have any kind of dominant function relative to D.)

IOW, you can claim, quite properly, that D is the tonic (because that's how you hear it), but spurious claims about the function of F and C are quite unnecessary.

You might well feel that the reason you hear it as D is down to that chord sequence. (Same as I feel the reason I hear it as G is down to D-C sounding like V-IV.) But that's not objective proof.

I can't claim the key is G because D-C-G is V-IV-I. It's the other way round: IF the key is G, THEN D-C-G is V-IV.

IF the key is D, THEN D-C-G is I-bVII-IV.

IOW, the analysis comes after we decide (by ear) what the key is. It's not evidence for the key.

I've heard F-C-D cadences in rock songs in D before. F-C resolve very well to D. That isn't the issue. To my ears (and many others) it's not enough to draw the ear away from what we hear as a V-IV-I cadence to G elsewhere. I just hear F-C as bVII-IV going to the V (D).

Again, I'm not saying that's "right", and certainly not that that analysis "proves" the key is G. It doesn't, any more than your analysis proves it's D.

 

IOW, this theoretical debate is all very well (and occasionally interesting in its own right), but it has nothing to do with what the key of SHA is. For any theory you can construct supporting D, I can construct one supporting G. That's what theory is for: to describe what we hear. The hearing comes first.

 

The essential point about this tune - which I'm still waiting for you to acknowledge - is that it's almost uniquely ambiguous in how its key centre is perceived. No other tune I'm aware of has attracted this degree of argument. We wouldn't be having this debate about any other rock tune I know of, because we'd be agreeing on its key. For at least 99% of tunes, at least 99% of people will agree on what the keynote is. It's then just a theoretical question how we label and analyse the other chords.

What I can't understand is why you keep insisting this tune is "in D", as if that controversy did not exist - as if this tune is like countless other rock tunes. I know the ambiguity doesn't exist in your head, but there's a whole world out there.

Music theory is more than chord schemes and vernacular. There's a very detailed constructive logic going on that's stood for hundreds of years.

True. But it still doesn't tell us what the key of SHA is!

 

 

[1001gear]

Still rhetoric and incomplete at that. I nor you need not be told what key it is. The discrepancy and legalese have all been hashed out. So has right and wrong. The bad guys still beg to differ.

 

FCD is not a secondary function because SHA is in D.

 

V IV I in G occurs but G has not been previously established nor does the harmonic scheme provide any linear (voice leading) support.

 

As presented in SHA DCG is just vernacular with the grammar of the lyric providing the only resolution on the G.