Grateful Dead Music Forum

enardi wrote:hey bill, what scale did you use for your leads here? I saw in one of your responses that you use the d major petatonic, but I can't quite get it to sound right (or is that d scale just for the em g d section?), do you use other scales as well?

Here's how I look at this:

First off I'm always thinking and noting chord tones as I pass through a chord and head toward the next.

The Em-G-D part I'm pretty much thinking D major Pentatonic with G added - can add the C# as well and think D Ionian. I suppose I'm thinking D maj Pentatonic with a G or C# here and there. If you think D Ionian then mode wise you'd think:

All the same notes

Over the Em - E Dorian
Over the G - G Lydian
Over the D - D Ionian

The A-G-D - A Mixolydian

Or Mode wise:

Again all the same notes as above

Over the A - A Mixolydian
Over the G - G Lydian
Over the D - D Ionian

F#- F# Mixolydian

A - A Mixolydian

The F# is the only real key modulation I see in this song - as far as I can tell anyway

Let me know if this helps any.

thanks man this is great stuff. I wasnt exactly sure of the scales when I first learned it so I was just mainly playing around with the safe notes based on the chords used in the song, so this info scale wise helps alot.

hey bill you think you can tab out a little of those licks inbetween the chord changes it would be grately apprecieated

will do - gimme a bit

thanks