ha ha fooled ya

Man, the music got one over on me when I thought I was getting it. I posted earlier about how the rambler and I had thought we'd figured something out, theory-wise, when I played a song in A minor that he played an E minor pentatonic lead over, that also had a bass line in E minor.

Well, dip me in batter and call me corn pone, but this is the kind of thing about theory that leaves me stuttering.

There's a little trick in jamming, in playing music in general (except for classical, but I'm not sure), in that if you aren't sure what key you're playing in, the first note/chord or the last note/chord is the key. F'rinstance, if the first note/chord of a song is A minor, you could reasonably assume you will be playing in the key of A minor. Which is what we were doing, and assuming, because I'm still shaky on what notes are in what keys.

But this is where the theory monster jumped on us and ate our brains. The song we were playing was actually in G. But the first note/chord is A minor, and the last note/chord is D.

Well, of course, it's a Garcia/Hunter song, so it's all weird anyway. I should have known.

What song? "Loser". Although I don't have the Dead version, I have the Cracker version, and I love it, and have been teaching it to some people so we can play it. I love the recording of it. It's just the guys in Cracker sitting around, with the singer (whos name always escapes me) showing the rest of the band how it goes, and they all kind of jump in and DAMN it's just a fantastic example of a jam.