Hotel california chords11/8/2022 ![]() But the song makes a point about other aspects of American culture, using those musical factors to express the sense of unease in the narrative.)ĮDIT In terms of the "meaning" of the sequence, notice how the chorus introduces the relative major to brighten the whole thing - "Welcome to the Hotel California!" (IV-I in D major, with a little triumphant fanfare on the guitar!) - before immediately descending back to minor to illustrate the irony in the phrase "such a lovely place". (Of course, in pop/rock culture we love those influences. the American "lovely place" subverted by invasive third world neighbours who actually keep the machine operating. ![]() The "Spanish" chord sequence, the "Caribbean" bass line. ![]() And even the pseudo-reggae bass line is a stroke of intuitive genius. But even that is appropriate, because it's a narrative, a tale, more than a "song". The cleverness of the sequence makes up for the wholly perfunctory melody, which acts more like a recitative. It's one of the all-time great pop/rock chord progressions. (At the end of that six-chord descent, they turn it around with Em-F#7 to return to Bm.) They're just inserting passing chords between each of those to get the chromatic line descent.Ī third observation is that it's a sequence of descending I-V pairs: Bm-F#, A-E, G-D. So the song is also employing another very common practice, although one that is cleverly concealed: an "Andalusian cadence": Bm-A-G-F# (so-called because of its flamenco sound, of course, but common in pop music too). Each note is harmonized differently, the B, A and G as chord roots, the A# and G# as the 3rds of major chords. In this case, the song is using an extremely common practice known as a "line cliche": a chromatic descending line in a minor key, using both 7ths and both 6ths. It's not three different scales (ignore the theory books that say it is), it's one scale with two variable degrees. The "B minor key" contains G and G# and A and A# at different times. That is, in this case, the "music theory practice" is "B minor key". ![]() No rules are being broken here.įor the Bm to F#7, you'd have to use the harmonic minor. And this song is - of course - following rules. When it implies "rules", those are "common practices", not fixed laws. Music theory doesn't "justify", it just "describes". Do you take the key as Bm and write them i, V7, IV ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply.AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |