Tom Sawyer intro Chords

Axe_meister

Trying to work out the theory behind the Tom Sawyer intro chords.
So from a tab I downloaded the chords are
0 2 2 4 5 0   -Big E power chord root 5th Root 
0 5 7 7 7     - D/E (although another site says DSus 2
0 2 0 3 3    - Asus2b7/E
0 3 5 5 5   - C/E

So the questions is, there are a number of notes that don't fit into the E major scale, although most fit into the E mixolydian b6 scale, especially in the final C chord with it's G an C notes

Gassage

As Lerxst says, many of the tabs of his playing aren't actually what he plays.

I'm pretty sure that a lot of that will have a few more open strings than are tabbed.

Musicwolf

Skip forward to around 19:40 for the man himself to show you what he plays

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OtV_2A6fSo

Stuckfast

Without having listened to it I wouldn't have thought those four chords on their own clearly and unambiguously define a key. It's definitely not in E major, at least if we consider that part in isolation. All of those notes are in the Aeolian mode on E, so you could think of it as exploring that mode.

viz

It’s in E (you could say E mixolydian) with the borrowed C chord (b6) from E minor. A lot of rock and pop songs are in a major key with the b7 and b6 chords. 

tekbow

My guitar instructor who is valiantly trying to teach me theory summed up best when he said Lifeson regularly likes to push chord voicings to breaking point.

prowla

The 1st chord is E maj on the 7th fret.

The 2nd is D maj on the 5th, but with the top E string open.

The 3rd chord is the same as the 1st one in the riff of Spirit Of Radio.

The 4th one is the 1st in Natural Science.

...or you could watch the Alex Lifeson clip. :-)

Axe_meister

Interesting when you hear interviews with Alex. He is so humble, saying he can't read music and has no idea what the chords are he's playing

Devil#20

Axe_meister said:

Interesting when you hear interviews with Alex. He is so humble, saying he can't read music and has no idea what the chords are he's playing

Seriously? I find that really strange. He's one of the best guitarists on the planet. Hope for us all maybe! No...maybe not. 

Gassage

Axe_meister said:

Interesting when you hear interviews with Alex. He is so humble, saying he can't read music and has no idea what the chords are he's playing

There's one where he says that he often reads the incorrect tabs that others do and on a couple of occasions has thought 'Ahhhh that's better than the way I played it' and has subsequently adopted the TAB version!

JohnPerry

Musicwolf said:

Skip forward to around 19:40 for the man himself to show you what he plays

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OtV_2A6fSo

always loved this vid.

"...and you keep going until you get sick of it". 

Modellista

From the vid:

E (07999x)
E11 (077750)
A11/E (002033)
D11/E (055530)

Modellista

Cue a debate as to whether these are 11th chords or 7sus4s...