How to solo over "endless" progression like Alice's Restaurant?
Alice's Restaurant is basically
C A D G C
With most of the chords going to a dominant 7. Is there a name for this type of progression? What is a good strategy for soloing over this type of progression? It looks like its mostly in G maj except for the A. It also seems to always be moving from a 5th to a root except for the C->A. Also, I know there are lots of other songs that use this progression but I can't remember any of them. What other songs use this type of progression?
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I've heard this called a "circle of fifths progression." There are definitely a lot of songs with this progression. "Heart and Soul" is basically the same progression but with diatonic chord flavors. The bridge of "I Got Rhythm" is another famous example.
Since the A and D chords are major or dominant here, they are called secondary dominants - A is the dominant of D, D is the dominant of G, G is the of the tonic (C). So the song is in C (not G), but for soloing you will be playing in D, G, and C successively.
For practice, you might want to work a bit on the song "Sweet Georgia Brown." The A section has a circle of fifths progression, but the chords last twice as long.
I've seen this progression sometimes called "Ragtime Progression."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ragtime_progression
That particular name also suggests a possible approach to style for improv. i.e. use ragtime elements like syncopated broken chords.
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