![]() Ted explained that these are chord scales, and he used to hand-out sheets with chords to start from, and you were supposed to first work out the pattern up and down the neck, make music out of them, especially useful in improvising an intro, interlude between something, an ending, or whatever you want. I asked Ted about this passage and I phrased it something like: “How do you get that slow building effect with all those little chords that are all similar in sound, but, like, you know…different?” There are many other features of this work of art that Ted created, and I hope that some more can be explored in the future… Please also note the use of “barbershop” harmony, which Ted did like, between the B minor chord and D/A, which is a Bb7+/Ab (all implied with only 4 voices) which we agreed was easiest to name a bVI7, although it is actually (hold on to your hats…) an Augmented 6th chord, which is quite a story best left for another day, but for now, even though in actual practice they are spelled weird, they SOUND like a seventh chord on the bVI degree. ![]() Notice that the Db9 chord has an Ab in the bass, which provides a nice, smooth elision to the D/A to G/A to A7 to get back to the bridge, now in D, and the listener would indeed hardly notice! ![]() Then he showed me the passage, which I have boxed and marked in the next example, which is an excerpt from the recording. He proceeded to play a “simple” example from a Bach Chorale, something like the example. “What is that?” young grasshopper asked (stupid me), and Ted replied that it is commonly defined as a V to vi in major or V to VI in minor, so named because the ear is accustomed to hearing a I (or i ) after a V chord of some sort. AS IT SO HAPPENS…there is a common device known as a DECEPTIVE CADENCE. He had obviously modulated up a major third, (diminished 4th, if you must!) and to go back to D from Gb would have to modulate again up a minor sixth. Ted wanted to play the BRIDGE in the original key of D, so how to get back there without anyone being the wiser? Ever drawing from the Masters, he told me about the pickle he had gotten himself into, and HOW he got out of it. He played the tune in D (after tuning down a ½ step, and then dropping the 6th string in ‘Drop D’ tuning), and after some rather methodical mystical machinations, ends up modulating the tune in Gb. ![]() Ted’s marvelous arrangement of “Danny Boy” has plenty of gems to study, and I’d like to share a couple of points that Ted showed me when we were discussing this… ![]() Ted’s Arrangement with analysis by Mark Thornbury ![]()
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