[somedirection]

Here's a cool FOTM detail.

We all know the the sung chorus line is "Fire...Fire on the Mountain..."

At the end of the sung chorus line, the band is playing a 2 beats of A after singing "Mountain" (which is completing a 4 beat measure of A as I count it).

On Good Ol Grateful Deadcast latest episode (dead scholars)...they note that in later versions of FOTM chorus, the second beat of A is a C#m chord. Jerry's adding interest to the chorus (much needed). Someone else on the podcast speculates it's an A7.

I grabbed a guitar when I got home from a walk listening to the podcast. I tried C#m7 which sounds great and Amaj7 which sounds great too. Highly related chords. The key is the G# note to my ears. Definitely not an A7. Phil could play an A or C# in the bass...but the G#, C# and E notes are key here I think.

Anyway - curious if anyone else every caught this (and what you think the chord is). I always assumed it was just an Asus4 or Asus9 at end of chorus, but this is more melodically interesting.

[wabisabied]

Not something I’d ever really studied before, but you’re right, the G# sounds great and I recognize it now as a subtlety I hadn’t previously paid much mind. Just grabbing my acoustic, my ears like the Amaj7 voicing better, as it’s a bit subtler in its subtlety ( ) but I reckon one could alternately use the C#m, or inversions of both chords, to mix it up a bit in a jam. Thanks for pointing it out!

Oh, and A7 doesn’t sound right to my ears, at all.

[strumminsix]

I'm gonna delve down an area where I'll encourage others to google and learn as my understanding isn't much deeper than below.

I hear this song as an A to B with riffs and solos following the changes. Technically E (mixo) but think that does it a disservice, ymmv.

The OP talks about the money note being the Ab and I very much agree with that.

Let's next examine notes by chord:
A = A C#m E
C#m = C#m E Ab
Amaj7 = A C#m E Ab

Because of those things, I see this chord being an Amaj7. As we hear a C#m it's cuz it's there and members are only playing part of the STACKED chord. And the reason why I'm saying it's an Amaj7 is we often hear Jerry running descending lines starting from running up the A triad, hit a high A and down to a Ab and then resolving down the A triad.

[somedirection]

great - I thought I was the only one missing this one!

...it is subtle but makes things flow better in the chorus. I think it's 'cause you're going from the A chord after the line "Fire...Fire on the Mountain" back to the B chord which starts that line...... and putting the G# or Ab into the last A chord at end (creating the Amaj7 chord) creates melodic movement from A note (A major chord) to G#/Ab note (A maj7 chord) to F# note (3rd of B chord).

Agree it's technically an Amaj7 chord as opposed to a C#m chord (though try a C#m7..or add a B to the Amaj7 chord while dropping the root note to the bass player..having that B in the chord is interesting and it signals the movement to the B chord at beginning of the next line of the chorus. Might not be what Jerry did per se but it's own interesting twist)

I think this is a great example of making a simple song more interesting with a subtle chord substitution. There is a lifetime of these things to unlock in the Dead's songbook...probably one of the reasons we all keep coming back to these tunes.

[Jon S.]

C#m has always worked for me. Admittedly, though, copying Jerry or Bobby exactly is probably less important to me than to some others. Sounding good is always important, though, and in my experience, there's generally more than one way in many melodic or harmonic situations to get there. This being said, I'd never tried an Amaj7 before and now that I have, it sounds awesome, too - thanks for the tip!

[wabisabied]

Since we’re nerding out on theory now, I guess I can get a little pedantic:

I hear this song as an A to B with riffs and solos following the changes. Technically E (mixo) but think that does it a disservice, ymmv.

The OP talks about the money note being the Ab and I very much agree with that.

I believe it’s B mixo, same notes as E Major, including the G# (3rd note of E major, 7th note of A, and 6th note of B) and F# (2nd note of E major, 6th note of A, and 5th note of B.) E mixo lacks the F# and has an F natural, which is not found in either A or B chords, nor the Amaj7 (or C#m). All of the chord tones are in B mixo, so we can stay in that mode and still play the changes. That’s not to say an F natural will never sound good anywhere in the song/jam, it’s just not part of the foundation from which to build and fall back on.
And I spell it G#, rather than Ab, because that’s the spelling in the E Major diatonic scale. Same tone, I know, but again I am being a pedant.

...it is subtle but makes things flow better in the chorus. I think it's 'cause you're going from the A chord after the line "Fire...Fire on the Mountain" back to the B chord which starts that line...... and putting the G# or Ab into the last A chord at end (creating the Amaj7 chord) creates melodic movement from A note (A major chord) to G#/Ab note (A maj7 chord) to F# note (3rd of B chord).

I agree with this, and everything else you wrote, but, on account of my being a pedant, I have to point out that the F# note is the 5th of the B chord, not the 3rd. The 3rd is the D#.

Yay, music theory is fun!

[strumminsix]

Good call. Meant to type B Mixo. Sadly, my mistype of E had me thinking of A and hence Ab vs the B scale relation of G#.

[somedirection]

The OP (me) called it a G#....I just rolled with Ab when it came into the thread as I didn't know how one would make the distinction of the choosing the right note label in this context. When do you go with G# vs when you go with Ab.

Thank you wabisabied for the explanation!...B mixo is same as E major scale...and as it's a G# note in E major scale (not an Ab) , so it's the same in B mixo, a G# note.

And also thanks for catching my error...you are correct - F# is indeed the 5th of B major chord not the 3rd as I said. My bad.
A question - you say the 3rd of B major chord is D#....isn't it Eb in this context since we're talking about B mixo, E major scale context (where the note is Eb, right?). Or am I missing something. I always think of a B major chord triad as B, Eb, F#

[wabisabied]

A question - you say the 3rd of B major chord is D#....isn't it Eb in this context since we're talking about B mixo, E major scale context (where the note is Eb, right?). Or am I missing something. I always think of a B major chord triad as B, Eb, F#

I’m going to start by saying that I’m not an expert or particularly well studied when it come to music theory. I started to learn guitar “playing by ear” several years ago, and more recently got to learning a bit of theory to help better understand what I was doing. I still have a lot to learn, and your question made me check my own assumptions.

To answer your question, I will preface that I don’t think the key signature defines the spelling of a note in a chord. I *think* the 3rd note of any chord is always the same spelling, derived from the chord’s own intervals, not those of the key signature it’s used in.

So I looked up the B Major scale and consistently found the 3rd note spelled as a D#, like here:


But let’s just say I’m wrong, which wouldn’t generally be a poor wager. What if the spelling actually does depend on the key signature? Even in this case, deriving the spelling from the key of E Major, the third note of B Major chord is still called D#.


My understanding, and please someone who might know better tell me so, is that no key signature repeats a letter in its spelling of the notes. They all use a sequence of “ABCDEFG", with sharps and flats added where relevant. A look at similar diagrams for other key signatures appears to support this.

So in the case of B Major, where the 4th note is E, the third note does not create a repetitive “E" in its spelling as Eb, but rather calls the note D# and maintains the “ABCDEFG” sequence, as shown in diagram above.

Same with the key of E Major; since the 1st note is E, the 7th is spelled D#.

Whew. Got a smoke?

[tdcrjeff]

A question - you say the 3rd of B major chord is D#....isn't it Eb in this context since we're talking about B mixo, E major scale context (where the note is Eb, right?). Or am I missing something. I always think of a B major chord triad as B, Eb, F#

You don't mix flats and sharps in any normal major or minor key*. Key of B (major) is 5 sharps, not 4 sharps and 1 flat. E major is 4 sharps, the 7th note of that scale is also D#, not Eb. The B major chord is B-D#-F. In the B major scale E is clearly the 4, you don't have both an E and an Eb in the B scale.
B scale: B C# D# E F# G# A# B

*Exceptions would be chromatic keys and harmonic minor where you have a minor 6 and a major 7.

It's all laid out in the circle of 5ths, you add one sharp to the right each 5th up, you add a flat each 4th down to the left.

[tdcrjeff]

You beat me by 2 minutes, but we're pretty much saying the same thing.

[wabisabied]

You beat me by 2 minutes, but we're pretty much saying the same thing.

Ha ha, yep!

[TI4-1009]

There's supposed to be a chord at the end??

[somedirection]

Thanks wabisabied and tdcrjeff - great explanations. D# it is for the 3rd of a B major chord.

[caspersvapors]

Guys,

its just an A triad to an E triad.