Hey guys!

What key is the solo in HTW?
Or, if I want to play a solo during country Honk, what key would it be?
Thanks!

Pentatonic G major? Not sure anyway.

C

Open G

For HTW it must be g-major?!
If you play slide or bottleneck play in g-major with ghe guitar tuned in open-g.

Liddas is correct. The solo is a G pentationic scale sometimes called country pentatonic but it also incorporates elements of the blues scale (flatted thirds and sevenths, I forgot the techinal name) so it is a nice mixture of both. Country Honk would be the same. Which version ofthe song are you trying to learn by the way KR?

I think Keith's HTW solo on Get Yer Ya Ya's Out is one of his low points as a lead player. On LYL the solo is on the contrary wonderfully minimalistic, as is his playing on the whole version. 1989-1990 he seemed to play more freely to the underlying solo pattern, but from VL the HTW solo has degenerated. Quite interesting development.

Thanks guys!

@ChrisM: I can play both Country Honk and Honky Tonk Woman. They are not too difficult anyway - but I'm never sure what key a song is in, so I never know how to play a suitable solo in the right key.
I'm playing Country Honk in standard tuning, because I'm not any good in soloing in open G tuning...
My guitar teacher once told me all the theorie but I was never interested in it...

The first part of the solo is played in the key of Gmajor on the third fret (shifting to A and D), then the second part (the higher part) is played in the Gpentatonic (or Aminor) scale, and the solo is ended with a lick in the Gmajor key again. Ofcourse, tune to open G. It actually is one of the simplest solos to play, it hardly involves any technique. Again a perfect example of the genius of Keith!

Mathijs

i am no too good with scale names, but i would be able to play a solo over HTW..
not note for note, am kinda not interested in that,

but for curiosity sake :
what notes are in G major( blues scale with some notes borrowed from g major scale?)
then you move the same scale to A, when the chord is A major...?

(

The G major scale is G, A, B, C, D, E, F# and the blues scale flatens the 3rd and 7th notes so B becomes Bflat and F# becomes F. Move all these notes up one step for A major. You are right about moving the scale up from G to A during that chord transition. I play it on the third fret using the blues scale for G and then move up to the 4th fret using A pentatonic. Mind you I don't have my guitar in front of me so I'm doing this from memory. It's lovely transiton that Keith came up with there!

If we use simple terminology like blues scales and country scales and stick to his live playing for the last decades, I'd say he only uses the G blues scale for the first G, C and G chords. After that he uses country scale for A and D, and the rest is country G scale, though he plays this last G scale part in a position below the 12th fret.

Mathijs Wrote:
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> The first part of the solo is played in the key of
> Gmajor on the third fret (shifting to A and D),
> then the second part (the higher part) is played
> in the Gpentatonic (or Aminor) scale, and the solo
> is ended with a lick in the Gmajor key again.
> Ofcourse, tune to open G. It actually is one of
> the simplest solos to play, it hardly involves any
> technique.

I took me forever though to realize that he moves to A during the A-chord.

- Koen.

Is it not hte horn/brass section that does the solo on the studio version? And Keith who transcribed it to guitar?

All this technical music theroy sounds like it belongs in classical or jazz genres. Real rock n' roll ain't meant to be disected and studied. I would guess if you would ask Keith what key the HTW solo was in he'd say ......it's in @#$%& G.

skippy Wrote:
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> All this technical music theroy sounds like it
> belongs in classical or jazz genres. Real rock n'
> roll ain't meant to be disected and studied. I
> would guess if you would ask Keith what key the
> HTW solo was in he'd say ......it's in @#$%& G.


Bollocks. If you want be a musician of any kind, you need to know at least the minimum of muscial theory. If you play a solo in Aminor, you need to know that F# is part of the major scale, and not the minor scale, so you must avoid the F#. Same for HTW: someone in this thread said "so I can play the blues scale", well: no. The B (G string, 4th fret) clashes with the D and F on the 5th and 6th strings.

People like Brian Jones, Ian Stewart and later Mick Taylor are true technical players, who know their share of musical theory. I am sure they instructed Keith, and he is not musically as "dumb" as he would appear. anyone can play a solor in a major key on a Berry number, but check out Keith's work on BB (Stray Cat, Parachute Women, Sympathy): he sure studied scales!

Mathijs

Mathijs is right.

People like Keith or Hendrix are often pointed out as examples of guitarists who could play some wonderful music without knowing any theory at all.
This is nonsense. Now I am quite sure that Keith never practiced scales with a metronome and that when he played something he did not refer to music books.

On the other hand his music is there to prove that he knew damn well the relations between chords and scales and whatever. This is even more evident if you listen to his outtakes, where you can hear him working on his music.

For sure you can't play music the way he does on How Can I Stop if all you know is a pentatonic minor over a blues progression.

C

That also shows on Waiting on a friend, Rock and a hard place, Paint it black and ruby tuesday (live). There he uses spanish, caribbean and gypsy-like scales. A mish-mash, of course - but the man knows his stuff, he just has to dig it up more often IMHO.

Mathijs I think you can play with your ear and not know or need to know a thing about scales. You play what sounds correct. Can you play a lead without knowing at the exact moment what note your about to hit. I doubt Robert Johnson knew a lot of theroy either.

I highly doubt anyone can play a real good solo without knowing some basic scales, skippy. Even if you are highly talented your playing will be very limited if you don't know some theory.

This leads us to a good story:

Django Reinhardt was invited to play with Duke Ellington on a gig. They didn't have time to rehearse, so Duke only went through a couple of songs orally. Duke said: "The first one starts in G, Django". Django answers:"uh G - what is that?"

Don't know if it's true, but if there was to be a self-taught guitar player who didn't know the theory stuff, and still could play amazing thing, there would be Django.

What is a scale except a group of notes that sound correct together. If you pick up a guitar and noodle it for 30 minutes you know what sounds right without out knowing that this note is a flat or the next is sharp. You fart around long enough and it becomes common place, you hit this string on this fret then you hit the same string two frets up the neck. You do it because you know its going to sound right not because you know the first note was a G and the next was an A.

When I play a chord I play what gives me the sound I want I don't have to know what its called. Its not like I couldn't play it if I didn't know it was called an A minor 7th or what ever.

Actually Keith studied Brian at irst ( who tought him the tunigs), practiced with Brian (and he knew his theory just read the article in Guitar player), later with Ry and so on. And of course you listen to records and learn the scales and tricks etc.

The music exists without the theory, that's for sure. The theory is a tool to talk about the music, which of course is helpful in a band. If a friend tells me how to play a blues scale he doesn't teach me theory, he teaches me music. If he then tells me that it is the scale in A minor, he teaches me theory.

True, and, talking about theory doesnt make a song. Either you got it or you don't.

I think Mathijs points towards something really interesting about Keith Richards - the guitarist. His image and playing style indicates pure instinct, but of course it is based on practice, rehearsals and experience. His organic and ever changing patterns should not hide the fact that through the years Mr. Richards has learned a lot and knows a lot about scales and music theory, even though he would never write or talk about it. Talk is Cheap &Action speaks louder than words...

Cheers,
Gunnar

Duh....just realized what year it is.

Sometime this summer it will be 50 years since my old man first stuck an archtop Harmony in my hands and said this is a C chord, this is an F and this is a G. (thumb wraped over the top of course) With those chords you can play along with all the Hank Williams 78's.

Well first it took shreading my fingers and playing Froggy Went a Courting about 100 times before learning a D chord so I could play You are my Sunshine about 200 times. By then I'd said the heck with this I'm going to play baseball. But as the weather turned colder it was back to the guitar. He taught me all the first position major chords and one day while goofing I discovered my first minor. I showed him and he looked at me like I was some kind of nut and a smart ass and started playing his mandolin. I wonder where that old Harmony ended up?

skippy Wrote:
> and said this is a C chord, this is an F and this
> is a G. (thumb wraped over the top of course) With

> guitar. He taught me all the first position major
> first minor.

Wel, there you have it: this is the theory I am talking about that every musician ought to know in order to communicate, and in order to avoid mistakes. Every guitarist should know the difference between major and minor and should know the major and pentatonic scales, should know how the make a 7th etc. This is not rocket science: this can all be learned within a day. Of course when playing you don't think about it: you play whatever comes up, but you CAN play this because you have some basic knowledge on theory. I am quite sure keith doesn't know the aeolian-scale, but he knows his jazz fingering and scales -just listen to All About You and How Can I Stop.

Mathijs

Well hot damn I'm a @#$%& theoroligist and didn't even know it. Back when us old guys learned to play we just called it playing by ear. Never sat down and played a scale in 50 years. Soon as I play that pentatonic scale a time or two I bet I can play the shit out of Froggy Went a Courting.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2005-01-06 17:07 by skippy.

skippy Wrote:
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>Back when us old guys learned

well, that's why 90% of all the amateur guitar players I see playing live on stage suck bigtime. They all think they have the talent they can play by ear, so they turn there Marshall's 12 and keep wacking major scales of minor parts.

By they way, I have never played a scale in my life, but I do know the notes in the various most used scales. If you want to play Taylor's lead on Sway and Time Waits for No One it helps to know about minor pentatonic scales....

Mathijs

I never wanted to play a Taylor lead. He just didn't fit the feel of the original Stones. You should have been alive back then so you could understand.

Maybe if you practice your scales instead of going out to watch old amateur Dutchmen whacking their guitars, It could lead to a professional gig so you wouldn't have to send your days playing with gasoline.

BTW do you know about the 61 Les Paul question I asked on the Satanic Majesity thread?