What Key is Hey Joe in?

It's A Joe…

Bro made a video 60 times shorter

Or maybe they were all on drugs and didn't care?

It is simple, it’s a quadruple plagal move. C is IV of IV of IV of IV… finally IV - I

Learning the blues as someone who's quite knowledgable on music theory (*coughs* I mean 18th century european harmonic analysis) is really liberating in the sense that I kinda automatically tend to default to ditching all my previous knowledge of music theory because the blues doesn't really care about any of that. I'm not even thinking about the specific notes I play most of the time. I just tune my gutar to an open G tuning and start rocking or I suppose bluesing. The high B and E strings get tuned to a minor third so I just pick a fret and play. Of course you're mostly gonna default to frets that correspond to the G minor penatonic scale but there's no real logic behind those choices other than that they just sound good. Especially with a slide you can just feel your way to whatever sounds nice. Blues really is all about feeling 😂

Adam went straight through the bell curve of music theory knowledge, crossing from "knows just enough to be cool" to "knows way too much, is now an insufferable snob" to the uncharted territory of "please for the love of all that is good and holy don't stop talking about music, I need more of your secret knowledge, magic music man."

I clicked on this and I was like how on earth with this be a 17 minute topic? But I loved all of it.

Thank you for your video. I'll share it in my music theory classes in Belgium (Europe).

I know this probably won’t be seen or answered….
What kind of desk is that? I really need one

i mean this probably sounds like bullshit but my first instinct was literally: "wait isnt that just a blues in E?"

You make your coffee seem so yummy you should get a coffee sponsor. You could sell a lot of coffee.

...or, it's just extended 4 of 4 of 4 of 4, back-cycling to One.

It's a variation that begins in E, goes to C, then D, only to wind up in E. The solo is in E, until it modulates to A and C. Even then, the vocals are still in E. The ending is in E. Hey Joe is played predominately in the key of E major.

It just sounds good. But E major seems the chord it wants to land on, so I'd say it's in E. But, you know, who cares?

You almost mentioned „the Jimi chord“, bravo!

Cool video

Doesn't it depend on what the artist thinks they were doing the song in?

brabo

I'm glad you mentioned the IV-I thing because to me gospel music is the only thing that matters when discussing this song. IV-I is the foundation of gospel music, with "secondary IV chords" being more common than secondary dominants. Blues and then rock borrowed this and "IV ofs" became the foundation of rock progressions. This song takes that sound and builds a perfectly satisfying amount of tension towards the ultimate tonic, E. So the only reasonable way to see these chords is IV of IV of IV of IV of I. Also, I agree with your point about "E blues" being a key. Very important concept to understand blues, gospel, and rock music. You have to throw out your theory and hear what lines people would sing to get the notes you play.

What a beautiful video ❤

Calling the blues a key is so useful. Major/minor labels can only incompletely describe a blues

loads of bs , forget your keyboard and try guitar.

Dock of the Bay by Otis Redding sounds like an impressionist painting. It's all major triads, despite being a 5 chord progression. I've never had a clue what key it's in But maybe that's the whole point of it.

Okay. Now do Dock of the Bay by Otis Redding?

It’s in C metalydian (#4 #8)

I have no educatin in theory and knowing what key a song is in is still easy for me
You feel how it "lands home" on the E

i love you adam

Remember folks.. Jimi couldnt tell the difference between major and minor chords.. and he cant solo in major keys.

Its E major. He plays an E7 (not an Em7) Every chord in that awful song is a major chord. Sophisticated harmony???? Lololol he didnt even understand the difference between major and minor chords. Its the opposite of sophistication.

At least you got this one right. Unlike your Sweet Home Alabama nonsense.

I think this is a brilliant analysis of Hey Joe and, in general, the contrast between Western harmony and blues harmony. I’m a rank amateur guitar player and a professional scientist who uses applied mathematics and physics. However, I certainly don’t approach or appreciate music as an exercise in mathematics or physics. I just dig rock, folk, country and blues music. I’m drawn to music theory as a way to possibly facilitate my ability to learn tunes faster. For example, if I’m trying to figure out the chords to a tune I’m listening to and find G, C, and D, I know from the harmonized diatonic scale to be looking for Am, Bm and Em as possible other chords. So its true for me that “a little bit of music theory knowledge can be a dangerous thing”.

So it’s fascinating that so many tunes have “out of key” chords. How does a songwriter come up with those chords once the harmonized diatonic scale is abandoned? It’s a mystery to me and I get lost in discussions of borrowed chords. And I don’t have the ability to hear those changes without searching around for the chords on my guitar, e.g., “this tune is in G but I just heard an F major chord”.

The explanation in the video that a blues key has a different “tonal logic” was a bit of a revelation and at the same time, having listened to and played some blues, in retrospect a daring glimpse of the obvious.

On top of that quality of the production is great and I appreciate his good humor. And I love it that I learned more about music using such a great tune as an example.

Reading the other comments, I noted Aimee Nolte liked it. Nolte is a fantastic jazz pianist and singer who has a great website and has posted a lot of videos that include forays into music theory.

Great video. I am binging on your past stuff as I just discovered the channel.

Additional observations: In the Hendrix version of the song he develops the chromatic riff that drives the tune in terms of energy.
That kind of thing, using chromatic gestures to link chords that are otherwise not linked in common practice tonality (18th century white guys) was used extensively in the romantic era (19th century white guys.)
As early as Carl Maria Von Weber you have the use of substitution chords for strong cadences, such as bVI -IV - I rather than I-IV-V-I
That kind of harmonic gesture is also considered plagal, and in fact most of 19th century harmonic language in Western Europe is plagal rather than Tonic/Dominant based.

By mid 19th century composers such as Wagner and Liszt were using the full chromatic scale to get from any chord to any other chord, thus making "tonality" a fully chromatic stucture, as opposed to common practice 18th century tonality.

Hendrix use of blue notes in addition to fully chromatic gestures (and the pentatonic shape as a skeleton) allows him the same freedom. He can literally get from any chord to any other chord and play any note against those chords according to his own taste, ear and inspiration. Microtonality is of course an important part of the blues language...as it is in many African and Middle Eastern musical traditions.

Dued...more Webern. He rocks....

Similar to "Hey, Hey, What Can I Do" by Led Zeppelin. Seems like these two songs do something similar in terms of the "circle of 5ths."

jimi hendrix would be baffled by this discussion

F lost capo

Is this a functional question? That is, does anything of importance (or maybe anything at all) hinge on the answer? Fred Iklé coined the term semantic infiltration although it was popularized to some degree by former, long-since deceased, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. The idea is that the when you are having an argument or discussion, getting the person on the other side of that discussion to adopt your language (i.e., by which the argument is framed) can covertly introduce certain assumptions and influence how one thinks about whatever is being discussed (well, "it's more complicated than that). This seems like a possible example. Is it even in a key at all? Does every bit of music have to have a key(s)? Despite what I just wrote, to me it sounds like it settles on E major and the initial chords are inarguably from Em, so I guess I agree with the conclusion.

what key is it ?
-It's in Guitar

Ringo's favorite key E demented

I like to imagine what Adam was like in music school.

Who seriously DIDNT know that?!?

Adam Neely is great and you know that because even though you don’t know what he’s talking about you agree

The proper way to determine the answer to the question was to first explain the rhythm structure (not a 12-bar blues, but a simple 4 bar repeating structure). Then the melody, C-B-A-G-E. The down beat chords are C-D-E-E. Basically E minor Aeolian vamp, no tonal function, however, the other chords fill in (think of them as counter voices, not chords but other sung melodies against the main one which is a simple descending scale), and the tonic E minor chord uses the Picardy third (which is an option throughout history of the minor modes/keys, but provides finality or closure each pass, and in the Renaissance would have been a requirement). If the main melody had an F# between the G and the E final, you could impose a proper cadence (B7). Skipping that note and cadence makes this thing a “vamp” or modal song rather than a tonal piece. He could have kept that book on the shelf for this. Tons of choruses use this vamp, for example Seal Kiss from A Rose, or Van Halen Unchained chorus (think of it as simplified and sped up version of Hey Joe).

Bro literally spent the whole video to say e blues