Little Wing analysis

[shanecgriffo]

i dont think jimi was thinking too much about modal interchange lydian dominated melo-harmonic chromaticism when he wrote it tho'

[liqih]

i dont think jimi was thinking too much about modal interchange lydian dominated melo-harmonic chromaticism when he wrote it tho'

Does it matter? <grin>

[robogone]

i dont think jimi was thinking too much about modal interchange lydian dominated melo-harmonic chromaticism when he wrote it tho'

I'm pretty sure he would have been thinking about titties and pot.

[jancivil]

Hendrix dropped *around* a half-step often enough, to get the sound of open strings on a strat which have a certain 'action'... in a 'blues key' (ask a sax player), and he liked slacker strings for large bends anyway.
It's "E minor" to a guitar player.

BTW there is a passing Bb minor between the B minor and A minor.

About that F: notice the passing line 'A _ B A G F E...' he does on that A minor; the F down to E is kind of dramatic voice-leading. The F belongs to A minor here; he went to the iv chord and uses the scale of that chord if you have to explain it to yourself.

The chords support the melody; that's about the size of 'why F major' or any other choice here. Use your ear when you wonder why.

[ShawnG]

not sure why anyone else does it, but I always had my band tune down 1/2 step to be nice to my voice, easier to hit the high notes. I guess it was easier to bend the strings on my guitar etc... but I really didn't notice the difference too much there.

[neueliteratur]

Hi there,

for fun I made these substitutions, but no guarantee that they work,
actully I didn't play them, just wrote down by "intuitive analysis", it would be grata to hear from you when you play then if they make sense.


Substitutions for this:

| Em | G | Am | Em |
| Bm | Am C | G F | C | D |

1) This should work as jazzy turnaround:
Em Blues:

| Em | E7 | Am | Em7 |
| Bm7 Bb7sus4| Am Am7 | Em Bm5b |Am7| Bm7 |

2) This could be a way to keep a E as Drone for the whole song,
if the melody doesn't conflict too much:
Droning:

| Em9 | Em7 | Esus4 | Em7 |
| Em9 Edim| C/E | G6/E G7/E | C/E | D/E |



Cheers

Luigi

Thanks a lot.

The second one kind of works but the first one is weird. (well but then I'm not a good arranger..)

[jpiscitello]

I think of the song as in G major.

One could make the case for either E minor or G major based on the chords (they have the same key sig), but when we reach the second chord of the progression, I really feel like the harmony is "resting" there. So I hear it in G.

That makes the final cadence C -> D - > Em. Which is a deceptive cadence in G major.

The F chord is a tonicization of C major. The F chord acts as a substitute for a G7 chord which would lead to C. But this is very brief, because the major D chord at the end of the phrase takes us out of C Major. So C is briefly the tonic, but then becomes IV of G major, and then there's the deceptive cadence.

The D# - raised 7th - isn't necessary when in minor. Of course Bach would never be seen without a leading tone, but that's why he sounds like Bach and not Hendrix. I agree that the lack of the D# makes it sound less like E minor (which is part of why I hear it as being in G major).

One music teacher gave me good advice when analyzing ambiguous passages, which is to pay more attention to my ears and less to the chords and notes on the page. Where is the tone that sounds like where the music rests? That's the key. Helps me a lot.

-------

Hi folks,

I'm trying to analyse the chords to Little Wing.

| Em | G | Am | Em |
| Bm | Am C | G F | C | D |

At first I thought it was in Eminor but,

1) there's no cadence (neither plagal nor perfect) in Em. (actually there's no cadence in any key)

2) there's no D# (the sensible) in the melody or the chords.

3) I wouldn't know how to analyze the F major chord.

So now I think it's in C major but I have no proof, except that the chords are the familiar diatonic chords of the C major key...

but then there's the Bm that sticks out...

Thanks for your help.

[liqih]

1) This should work as jazzy turnaround:
Em Blues:

| Em | E7 | Am | Em7 |
| Bm7 Bb7sus4| Am Am7 | Em Bm5b |Am7| Bm7 |

Thanks a lot.

The second one kind of works but the first one is weird. (well but then I'm not a good arranger..)

That was just a theory, I didn't try with the melody or else, maybe now I do, <grin>

[neueliteratur]

1) This should work as jazzy turnaround:
Em Blues:

| Em | E7 | Am | Em7 |
| Bm7 Bb7sus4| Am Am7 | Em Bm5b |Am7| Bm7 |

Thanks a lot.

The second one kind of works but the first one is weird. (well but then I'm not a good arranger..)

That was just a theory, I didn't try with the melody or else, maybe now I do, <grin>

I know you didn't know how it was gonna sound, and you told me to tell you how it sounds with the melody, so I did.

Thanks.

[kranius]

Starts in Em and then modulates to the relative major key of G, something very common in minor tunes and then back to E minor. The only two extra chords are the bVIImaj (F), a modal interchange chord from the parallel key of G minor and the subV of IV-7, a tritone substitution of a secondary dominant.

Parenthesis chords indicates double analysis from old key to highlight the pivot chord that belongs to both keys

(Jimi is in flat tuning)

E minor -----------------

I-7 |bIIImaj|IV-7 |I-7 |

------------------ G major ----------------------------- E minor

V-7 subV/IV|IV-7 IVmaj|Imaj bVIImaj|IVmaj|Vmaj |bVIImaj|
_____________(bVImaj)_____________________(Vmaj)


I'm sure that Jimi wasn't thinking of any of this but this is how our ears "hears" these chords

Joe Kataldo

[tapper mike]

And thus we gain that theory is not always literal. When an alteration comes around there is always a new theory to support it.

People like to assume that theory is a cookie cutter or that it takes a great amound of wisdom to comprehend.

Voice leading (as pointed out above) is a perfectly valid approach to writing which can liberate one from cookie cutter writing. Jimi wasn't the only proponent of voice leading / harmonic justification.

The first guy in "popular" music to use this appraod was Irving Berlin. Berlin had a great sense of melody but couldn't form a chord to save his life. He would have his transcriber go thru every chord in the book to find the right sound to match the melody.
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/rea ... he-compose

NPR did a huge story on this many years ago sorry I couldn't find the link.

Other notaries who employ voice leading / harmonic justification include Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder