Blue Sky The Allman Brothers Band vs Pink Floyd Comfortably Numb theory
When I break down these two songs they are very very different. First blue sky by the allman brothers there is a chord progression of e b a e with choirs b a e a. This song is in the key of e. Everything dane is playing is just e major, the solo, the noodling, all the guitar parts everything is in the e major scale. When I look at Comfortably Numb by Pink floyd which is in D major, Gilmore is not just playing in D major, he is following the chords and seams to be playing in the relative major or minor scale the bar is currently in. What is the difference between these two? And how can you determine the modes relative to chords currently being played, 1 vs many?
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The Allmans are tending to use the pentatonic major notes for the solo - not exclusively, but mainly. This makes life a lot easier, particularly with something as basic as a 3-chord song - I IV V. The propensity to play a 'bad note' - sometimes referred to as an 'avoid note' is very low.
The same could have happened in Floyd's, as the verse (in Bm) and the rest (in D) can, with the possible exception of the C bars, but Gilmour tends to target chord tones from each bar. I don't think he's looking at a bar of D and thinking 'relative minor Bm, I'll play that'. It's more 'I know the notes in a D chord, I'll use those mainly.' There's still a lot of pent. playing that Gilmour uses - after all, out of the five notes over a particular chord, three of them are those chord tones.
What he's doing is more 'playing the changes', where even if there was no guitar/keyboard playing chords, we would still be able to recognise where chords changed - and what they changed to. Just playing E major pent. notes over all three chords (Allman) doesn't achieve that as well.
Modulation, for me, doesn't really feature in either songs, and modes aren't helpful here either. If one wanted to play D Ionian over the D bars, A Mixolydian over the A bars, and so on, one ends up playing the same set of notes anyway, only maybe targetting the 'roots' - but Gilmour is doing that anyway, as any good, thinking soloist ought to!
I have not analyzed these songs as deeply as you have. But I can say that whether or not you stay in key or move with the chords to change key is a matter of taste. Both approaches are valid. Key modulation is a common way to add movement to a song going back 100's of years or more. That is not to say that the Allman brothers are less musical when they do not modulate (they do in some songs, and Gilmore sometimes stays in key). It's a matter of whether or not you want to hear modulation. One indicator of whether or not the song is meant to change key is to look at the vocals and other melodic cues. If the vocals modulate then it may make sense for the solo sections to follow that trend. But again, you are free to be creative. I think with only the progression you cannot determine exactly what is or is not allowed. You have freedom to go down many paths. Since each song is famous I'd want to respect the original intent of the composer and use the modes they were using.
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