Bought and Sold
Here's what you need to buy into for this riff:
 | diatonic sixths in E Mixolydian
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| shuffle groove |
and very important...
| attitude |
That's right. Attitude...
It needs to sound raw and energetic.
Fortunately, this riff isn't too difficult to play from a technical standpoint. Once you have the 2 required 6th shapes under your fingers you can focus on just letting it flow and groove
Extremely common 6th shapes...
First, here's the two 6th shapes. They are very common and extremely useful. They sound good and that particular stringset automatically puts them in a good register.
Well worth to be able to play those shapes in your sleep.
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major 6th - minor 6th click to enlarge |
Onward to the groove...
This riff needs to be played shuffle style.
Shuffle means that the notated 8th notes are NOT played straight, evenly dividing the beat. No, instead the first 8th of the beat is twice as long as the second 8th note.
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click to enlarge |
Mixolydian madness
In case you don't know what E Mixolydian is...
Take a look at the key signature. 3 sharps tell you that we are in the key of A major.
But notice how dominating the E chord is! Additionally, the low E string is ringing throughout to keep E as a reference note planted in our ears all the time.
So, E seems to be important, functioning as a kind of tonal center.
How come the song then simply isn't notated in E major with 4 sharps?
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Good and valid question.
Because the sound and feel would change completely.
Using the notes from A major with the emphasis put on E gives us the advantage of a built in b7 adding a Blues flavor to it, which is what Rory apparently wanted for this riff.
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E Major vs. E Mixolydian click to enlarge |
A theoretical term for this is Mixolydian - anytime you are playing over the V chord of a key (staying diatonic to the original key) you in effect are using the Mixolydian mode.
But don't worry...
We'll cover the theory of modes and how to learn and master them as effortlessly as possible at another time.
For now, enjoy playing this riff!
