Sambora Dead or Alive how does the intro work?

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Question sparked by the recent thread pn Richie Sambora.
The cool intro to Wanted Dead or Alive is a classic, but I wondered if anyone knows the theory of how it works?
The open D note stays constant throughout as you travel up the neck but how does that work, is each position its own chord?
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  • BlueStrat said:
    Question sparked by the recent thread pn Richie Sambora.
    The cool intro to Wanted Dead or Alive is a classic, but I wondered if anyone knows the theory of how it works?
    The open D note stays constant throughout as you travel up the neck but how does that work, is each position its own chord?
    Essentially yes. 

    It's all in D minor, so that informs the notes you're using as it descends. They aren't full chords, as they only have 3 notes and one is always D, but it implies chords as it goes: 


    DAF - D minor 
    DGE - I hear this as C over D, even though it has no C in it...
    DFD - D minor again
    DEC - A minor over D (poss Am7)
    DCA - F major over D
    DBG - G major
    DAF - D minor to finish

    You can add in notes on the B string to flesh out these chords to help see/hear what's happening

    x x 0 14 15 13 - DADF
    x x 0 12 13 12 - D G C E 
    x x 0 10 10 10 - D F A D
    x x 0 9 8 8 - D E G C 
    x x 0 5 6 5 - D C F A
    x x 0 4 3 3 - D B D G
    x x 0 2 3 1 - D A D F

    A couple of these are questionable because there's nothing else going on to imply specifically what the underlying chord is (e.g. in the 4th one, you could play either a G or A on that B string and both sound ok)
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  • thanks @stickyfiddle Wiz well deserved for this!
    I need to brush up on theory to understand at least a little more than my complete ignorance :)
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  • No worries - it's an interesting little exercise as you can "hear" (ie imagine!) different things under each of those, especially if you're playing just the guitar part on your own. This is a big part of how I play when I'm not covering an existing part - lots of drones alongside partial chords and inversions. 

    It works really nicely in open tunings as well; I use similar patterns of using 2 fingers on non-adjacent strings very often. 
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  • sev112sev112 Frets: 2739
    Or a more Xmas relevant similar example, into to Greg Lake’s “I believe in Father Xmas”, also in D but major if I recall correctly 
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  • sev112 said:
    Or a more Xmas relevant similar example, into to Greg Lake’s “I believe in Father Xmas”, also in D but major if I recall correctly 
    Yep, very similar and my favourite little bit of christmas guitar. The Manic Street Preachers' This is Yesterday does similar in the choruses but it's in Open G using the D and B strings so a little less obvious 
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  • CaseOfAceCaseOfAce Frets: 1304
    Isn't Sambora just using major and minor sixths against a droning D string.
    That's how I see it and I'd bet you that's how Sambora came up with the part.
    He certainly wasn't thinking of the underlying harmony when he wrote it. He just thought hey that sounds cool... 
    ...she's got Dickie Davies eyes...
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  • CaseOfAce said:
    Isn't Sambora just using major and minor sixths against a droning D string.
    That's how I see it and I'd bet you that's how Sambora came up with the part.
    He certainly wasn't thinking of the underlying harmony when he wrote it. He just thought hey that sounds cool... 
    Yes definitely. He was probably just noodling and came up with something neat, rather than sitting and thinking, right I'm in D and I want to imply a bunch of chords and tonalities and working it out on paper first. That's rarely how composition works. I doubt he was thinking "hmm, combinations of 6ths" as well - more likely just moving shapes up and down to find something that works. That's what I do! 

    You only have to watch bits of the Beatles' Get Back doc to see that even they were all about finding something that sounded good and not worry about the theory unless they were explaining it to someone else.
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