In an effort to further my knowledge I've been looking at all my favorite songs on powertab and trying to disect and see the theory behind them. I pulled up Spin Doctors' Two Princes. The score is in the key of D - F# and C#. But the solo has all the F's and some C's are natural. The F's are bent up a half step to F# - I get that. But what's the deal with the C naturals and why does it sound perfectly diatonic to me? Because I'm tone deaf/???
From your description, it sounds like the solo is using notes of the D minor scale. F would be natural as it's the minor third and C would sometimes be sharp, (sometimes not) in accordance with the harmonic/natural minor scales.
Are the chords also affected? If so then the song has probably modulated to the key of D minor for that section.
If a song is of a blues or rock style, the minor pentatonic scale is often used for soloing, even if the song is in the major key. Many reasons for this, but the main ones being that you get a flatted third and seventh, two key "blue notes," which, as you noted, are easy to bend up a half step (in the case of the third) or a whole step (in the case of the seventh) to create your resolution. So if you're playing in D, the D minor pentatonic would be D, F, G, A and C.
You don't always have to solo in the key of the song. Sometimes, again especially in the blues and a lot of rock, the minor pentatonic gives you the feelings of tension and resolution you're looking for.
Hope this helps.
Peace
Somethings are just so obvious you can't see them. Now where did I put my car keys? Honey look in the fridg...
Thanks.
umm its Fridge.
and also maybe the dude was using a different type of scale form on a different note. like a mode( aolian on D perhaps)
GIT SNAKE BIT. Cali fools. dang
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GIT SNAKE BIT!!!
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