A Question About a Harmony Part

[ozboomer]

'lo folks...

I've been doing a bit of a study of the classic "Albatross" (Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac) and have come up against something of a "Wha?" moment with the harmony guitar parts that I can't understand/explain...

An extract of the relevant section:-

Please excuse the woeful notation (mainly owing to me being slacko and not cleaning-up what I recorded through the keyboard)... but the harmony part seems to always be a 3rd below the main melody... EXCEPT for the one note shown. This should be a "C#"" but to my ears, it sounds and plays best as a "B".

Now, looking at major and minor scales, the "B" doesn't seem to fit as "a 3rd below" the melody note in any of the (diatonic) scales... so what IS it? A grace note (as it's played relatively quickly)? Has the tune gone to another key for a single note? In this part of the tune, the chord is basically "E Major"... but it almost sounds like it's gone out of that "sound" for that note... but I dunno.

I'd be interested to see what thoughts *you* might have about this...

Fanx!


John

[ashcatlt]

4real could probably profess for a couple pages and explain it in excruciating detail. To me, this thing goes back and forth between E and F#m, but the rhythm changes in that third measure. The jump down that you're talking about is not a change of chord, but a change of voicing. If that lower guitar went to C#, it would imply a change to C#, which apparently is not what they wanted. Course, if there are other instruments happening here, they might help to clarify the intent.

[ijustwannastrat]

Hey, my computer remembered my password!

Look at it as a piano player. You're holding an E in your right hand. Just two notes, instead of 3+ notes. Playing the B and E combo breaks the whole thirds thing going on, but since B is the fifth of E (the chord at the time), it helps create movement to that F#m/E that the song likes to bounce to.


I'm actually really loving this composition. The whole F#m/E -> E modulating up to E/F# -> F#m is making me a little giddy.

[sumgai]

ozzy,

Even though you're well versed in piano methodology, that's not necessary here. You need only recall that just because a piece of music moves along for a bit, that doesn't mean that it must keep moving in that same manner - the word 'movement' itself implies that the changes won't always be the same amount, nor in the same direction.  Not a grace note, that implies a temporary change in timing (the grace note usually comes before the beat, and before the "main" note, not to mention that it should be written smaller, with a slide connector to that "main" note), but this is after the beat, witness the prior dotted eighth note.  Instead, this kind of accent is intended to reinforce the resolution in the following measure.  I can't think of the specific name for it just now, perhaps it'll come to me later.

 

'strat-wanter has it correct, you're in the key of E, and thus this is the 5th note of the scale... perfectly authorized.

HTH

sumgai