Having just finished reading Noteboat's book, I feel inclined to use some of my newly acquired guitar theory knowledge and try to apply it to a new piece that I am learning. The piece is from the new issue of Fingerstyle Guitar and is called "Dune" by Bob Evans.
From the key signature I see only F is sharped, so I am assuming the piece is in the key of G major. However, he never uses a G chord; he uses an Em, C, D, Am, and B7.
In the A section, the progression goes:
Em-C-D-Em-C-D-Em
which I understand as:
vi-IV-V-vi-IV-V-vi
Then the B section goes:
Am-Em-Am-C-B7-Em
or:
ii-vi-ii-IV-III-vi
From the little that I know about chord progressions, this really doesn't seem to fit into any patterns I am familiar with(ex. I-IV-V, vi-ii-V7-I). The B7 throws me off as well, because I would expect it to be minor. Also, I would expect the G to come up at some point in the song, but it never does.
I guess I am wondering why this works so well. I know the song sounds really cool, but I am trying to look deeper into why it sounds really cool. Thanks, any insight would be appreciated.
In the chapter on key relationships, I talked about relative major and minor keys. One sharp is G major - but it's also Em.
Often, minor music is written using the harmonic minor scale, rather than the natural minor. The harmonic minor will take seventh note (D in the case of E minor) and raise it - that's done so the V chord becomes a dominant 7th... in Em, you'd get B-D#-F#-A for the V chord, or B7.
So if the piece is in Em, the chords Em, C, D in the A section are i, VI, VII - and in the B section, Em, Am, B7 and C are i, iv, V and VI.
A good way to determine if a piece is in major or minor is to look for a 7th chord. The V-I (or V-i) cadence is so common... you're looking for D7 in the key of G for V-I, or B7 in the key of Em for V-i.
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Thanks for the response. I should have known my mistake would lie in the first step. :lol:
