lol i really don't believe that Jon plays E/G cause that would sound like shit. Sure you don't mean Em/G - which is also called G6. That would make more sense tbh :P
Just finished one book on Steely Dan ("Major Dudes") and now into my second ("Steely Dan: Reelin' In The Years"). Needless to say, I'm a fan. Love all their work, and although I listen to all their albums, 'Aja' is probably my most listened-to. But, wow, what they did over the years. Just incredible.
Time to brush up on mu chords, which Steely Dan used a ton. Add the 2 to a major triad (add9). Often moved the 3rd to the bass and used a ton of sus2 chords. By far one of my favorite bands of all time. Brilliant writing, performing and engineering. The Royal Scam is in my top 10 albums of all time.
A “mu” chord is simply an inversion of an add9 chord in which the 9 is voiced between the root and the 3rd. In even simpler terms, if one thinks of it as an add2 chord, it eliminates the inversion/voicing part of the previous explanation. Never understood why such a big deal was made over a common, four note chord voicing 🤷🏼♂️ I honestly think it just makes non-musician fans of Steely Dan feel like they are hip to something no one else understands, and so they shoehorn the damn “mu” chord into any conversation they have with musicians when Steely Dan is mentioned🤦🏼♂️
Right on! My dad’s favorite, and we saw them together at the Greek in Berkeley. The Nightfly and Aja were played constantly in our house while growing up. Hope you have a great time!
Nicely explained, Michael! Steely Dan uses the most dense progressions in pop/rock, which is only one of the reasons that I think of them as the American version of the Beatles for their songwriting. Great to hear you, as always!
15 thousand views in 11 hours and only four hundred likes???? Come on peoples...just hit that like please. Mike's not just working for it, he deserves it. P.s. hope you enjoyed the show:)
Steely Dan is one of my favourite bands ever!! It takes a lot of courage and nerve to disect any steely dan song live without previous preparation. I enjoyed your video very much!!
Mike, you might look into "The Dukes of September" tour from a couple years ago. It's all over youtube. It consisted of Donald Fagen, Michael McDonald, and Boz Skaggs doing some of their greatest hits. AND Jon Herington doing all the lead guitar solos.
Nice one Michael.. I've played in a SD "tribute band", (Nearly Dan) in the UK for over 20years. So many great songs & sophisticated chord progressions. Enjoy the show..
Saw you at The Stables in 2018, then the next week flew to New York to see Nightfly live at the Beacon Theatre. Both shows were fab! Look forward to seeing both again soon!
We've sure come a long way from picking up the arm and hoping to put the needle back on the record correctly without damaging it. Really enjoyed this clip.
Dude..!!! You definitely got dem chops..!! I kinda use the same method as you to figure out tunes .. BUT.. it’s like you’re strolling in the park.. and I’m crawling uphill through broken glass on my belly..😳..!!! But it’s a ton of fun..!!
Great to watch you walk through this cold. Lots of helpful tips! Been a Dan Fan from the very beginning when my brother introduced me to them. The Steely Damned down in San Diego do and incredible job on their stuff (17pc band!) and Hank Easton is a beast on all the guitar work!
One of my all time favorite bands. My dad got me into them. Lucky to have seen them play several times. Their stuff is hard. Too hard for me, wild ass jazz chords and quick changes. Damn brilliant tho.
I seen SD at the Woodland pavilion in Houston a couple years ago and was awesome. The funny thing i will never forget is my manager wife also went to the show to see Elvis Costello but did not stay for SD, she said they were not relevant any more 😂😂😂😂 oh and EC was still relevant.. lol
This is so much like me every week preparing for gigs. I do weddings and each week I get and email with a list of songs and if I don't know any, I have to learn them. Then I have to show up at the gig ready to play it with zero rehearsal.
You almost got it at the end at 20:00, the E note stays on the top of the chorus chords. A G6 F#7 Ebm7(okay no E on that one) A/D A/B. Play those with the E note on top, except the Ebm7 (or is it an Em11? x6667x) has the Gb on top. Those horn stabs try a D xx777x chord which makes the E7 an E11. Some Steely Dan Voicings D/A x57655 Aadd9 x02420 with the whole tone rub between the 9 and 3rd, B7#5 7x788, Bm7b13 7x778, A/B 7x765. Love their chord progressions, still trying to figure it out after all these years. And I'm Reeling in the Years
I suggest hearing Larry Carlton on Steely Dan's "Third World Man". John Harrington the guitarist who tours with the band said it is his favorite Steely Dan song to play.
Thanks Michael, this is excellent. Enjoy the show tonight. 13 piece band that absolutely swings. I'll be at the MAYO in Morristown NJ on 11/4/21 for Gaucho + hits night.
12:20 often easiest solution is the realest one 1 more half step down so there’s 3 half step stairs in a row (d#, d, c#) keeping the sus and same shape when your pinning just moving the bass note down along the a if you wanna keep the b in the bass on the e string by all means. 20:00 sounded pretty close 👏👍🤘
Michael, Don't be surprised when one of these iconic groups calls you up and says "we would like to talk with you".... perhaps uts already happened? Love your channel!
Thanks for the breakdown! I wonder how you would approach Steely Dan’s “Black Cow” off of the Aja album. Tons of changes and really cool inversions. A daunting song for sure!! Thanks again Michael!!
I had the great fortune to attend two Steely Dan concerts when Walter Becker was alive = mind blowing. Black Friday is certainly a familiar Bluesy shuffle, but those expanded choruses and swells are quite another story!
Thank you, Michael! Great educational video. I just don't understand this small number of viewers ... A must "lesson" for a little more experienced beginner (minor/major, 1 and 3, G/Em, etc.). It is always interesting (in my opinion) to be able to see when someone else experiences the music of others. Especially like this in "real-time" with instructions and explanations. Music is such a subjective thing but at the same time lives on clearly determined rules that make the process of creating/learning so interesting. It is always a combination of "those 8(12) notes" that become something else in our hands ...
Well done! Not the SD song I’d suggest for the crazy chords; maybe the simplest one but hey, you did a great job. Try “Your Gold Teeth 2” or anything off the Aja album. You really hit on a SD idiom when you found A/B.
Read an interview back in the early 80s Rolling Stone... Steely Dan said they didn't like tours as they were both sound engineers and perfectionists...
It is not a shuffle in E. It is a vamp. The chords are E, F sharp, G. And back. He’s playing just the one and the five of the chord. They are power chords. After that it goes from A to G to F sharp to G, then to E flat minor 7, then to D major seven then to B seven.
I swear that's Paul Schaefer on the B3 and keys on the left in front of the horn section. There's also a lot going on in the harmonic interaction between Fagen's vocal line and the harmony from the backup singers. That layering is not your typical blues vocal line it's much "jazzier". Those vocal harmonies all give the song that musically dense Steely Dan signature sound. It's almost like Fagen is using his vocals like a solo instrument would be used in a jazz quartet. Like the vocals aren't just there to convey the lyrics and melody but rather to add harmonic complexity. Trying to dig out the basic chord structure buried under all that complexity can be a challenge.
as capable as they are as musicians their ears were their gifts they are technicians and historians too, larry carlton was the one laying down the really absurd stuff for them in studio. Just watch any of his material from jazz fests in europe such tasteful music. He does an absurd so what blow your mind. They had the whos who of studio savants on their albums no vulfpeck without bernard purdie not to mention young jeff porcaro on some tracks. Amazing how good music maintains through the generations.
You need to check out Tanner Usrey - Josephine. I know how much you appreciate the structure of a song and how the song lyrically stands out and that’s one of those songs!
No, actually, you have it right, you did luck out, this is mostly a blues shuffle. 🙂 Fagen has talked about doing this, noting that Monk and Miles would write tunes that were blues with a couple of twists. A lot of their songs are like this -- "Pretzel Logic," "Chain Lightning," and "Bodhisattva" is basically "Rock Around the Clock."
I call them altered blueses. The Dan loves the blues, but they get a little bored with the same 12 bar progression. So they spice it up, warp it, change it, extend it, etc. It is most certainly not "basically" Rock Around The Clock. It's Rock Around The Clock thrown in a blender.
@@adamkringel7578 no, you're right, certainly not basically. 🙂 They didn't really do "basic," even when they were doing AM Osmond-pop like "Change of the Guard." "Showbiz Kids" is another bluesy one, but unusual in that they just stay on that slide-y riff, with other ornaments.
@@grannychannel Ha, that's funny you mentioned "Osmond pop 'Change of the Guard'". I get the distinct impression that they wrote that song as a satire of an Donny and Marie song, but they needed one more song for their first album so they threw it in there.
@@adamkringel7578 yes. I'm a big fan of theirs, to the point that (in the CD age) I sought out their pre-ABC demos, which Walter Becker for one refused to acknowledge. They're all great too -- there are embryonic versions of "Parker's Band," "Caves of Altimira," and "Brooklyn" -- and at least a few passes at cheesy AM pop (since they were working songwriters) like "Undecided," which goes full Osmonds, or "Sun Mountain." They're all great despite that, my favorite of those is "Yellow Peril."
Michael, there's so much going in that band, it's difficult on one pass to pick out wth is going on. You seemed to get it pretty well. I'd have to sit over in the corner and strum some air chords.
I’m hearing the V chord is 9sus4 (A/B) as well which is common for a lot of Steely Dan. The more sophisticated guitar solos are not usually played by Walter Becker. Nothing against Walter of course, he occasionally will throw in something a bit juicier.
I usually only play guitar when I go to my neighbors house. he plays songs he like (Jazzy stoner songs mainly) and I try to improvise and play the changes. I stumble but find the key and how to play over it. great ear training - especially when I have a small audience and I have some pressure
Man, I'm learning Peg for the first time for my cover band. What sounds like a pretty simple tune is actually about 40 chords full of jazz voicings that I've never played before as a rock hack....keys...but man it's fun to try to pull off! :) Sharp 9s for a non-jazz person are like...what? Did someone mess this up?
You should cover city pop next. It has jazz chords with a funk rhythm in a pop cadence. Some have great guitar solos like Silent Screamer by Tatsuro Yamishita
This was earlier in Steely Dan’s career, and for the most part their earlier work was very blues inspired and more conventional soft rock. They didn’t start to get really experimental until around their album “The Royal Scam” which was the album before “Aja”. All of their previous albums up to that point were much less rooted in jazz.
Meh, Your Gold Teeth II is on the same album as Black Friday. That’s exceptionally jazzy. Pretzel Logic (the album before this) had East St Louis Toodle Oo. Pretty firmly rooted in jazz if you ask me. You’re generalising. Yes, this is a blues shuffle, but the chorus turnaround is pure jazz harmony.
How come when Walter Becker (and so many others) solo in Am pentatonic it sounds so great, but when I do all I can think is people saying... "Well, he's practicing his scales again." LOL. We all have the same notes to work from, right? They choose more wisely than I do.
Walter does not have Herrington, Drew Zing, Carlton, Wayne Krantz with him to play all that flashy shit that the normal band has. You have Walter and Donald backed by the Letterman band. The real Dan always has a hired gun to do the outside stuff.
Yeah, that was pretty loud and blatant. This was not their primary touring band, as much of this was a rental band for the event. The regular tour "Danettes" are always pitch perfect.
? No note of members of The World's Most Dangerous Band?? I see Will and Felicia and maybe Sid there helping to drive things... Becker never was a playing phenom, guitar slinger, but did appreciate all the lead guitarists they used!
Ballsy move Michael. Good for you. I have watched you since your conception and have the highest respect for everything you have created. Dead and Phish shit is sophomoric, these guys are geniuses, next try is Bill Frisell, Larry Carlton and Robben Ford.
Such great chords in the chorus! According to Jon Herrington, the guitarist, it’s A - E/G - F#7 - E/G - Ebm7 - A/D - A/B.
lol i really don't believe that Jon plays E/G cause that would sound like shit. Sure you don't mean Em/G - which is also called G6. That would make more sense tbh :P
@@Generalbas1972 you got it man
Em/G yep
@@Generalbas1972 or maybe G13 ?
@@andrewbroughton65 nah it's clearly Em/G
Just finished one book on Steely Dan ("Major Dudes") and now into my second ("Steely Dan: Reelin' In The Years"). Needless to say, I'm a fan. Love all their work, and although I listen to all their albums, 'Aja' is probably my most listened-to. But, wow, what they did over the years. Just incredible.
Would you recommend either book? I love reading band bios so getting a good book on Steely Dan would be awesome.
Same here,love bios.just finished jeff tweddys.was great. Would dig a dan book
Aja is by far their seminal work...
@@boogieboots reeling in the years was phenomenal
@@thatjewishkid69 right on! I’ll check it out, thanks.
I've seen them several times over the past decade - Jon Herington is a killer player!
Time to brush up on mu chords, which Steely Dan used a ton. Add the 2 to a major triad (add9). Often moved the 3rd to the bass and used a ton of sus2 chords. By far one of my favorite bands of all time. Brilliant writing, performing and engineering. The Royal Scam is in my top 10 albums of all time.
Exactly! He should listen to Josie to hear a good example of the mu chords used a ton. The whole song is pretty much based on that theory.
A “mu” chord is simply an inversion of an add9 chord in which the 9 is voiced between the root and the 3rd. In even simpler terms, if one thinks of it as an add2 chord, it eliminates the inversion/voicing part of the previous explanation. Never understood why such a big deal was made over a common, four note chord voicing 🤷🏼♂️ I honestly think it just makes non-musician fans of Steely Dan feel like they are hip to something no one else understands, and so they shoehorn the damn “mu” chord into any conversation they have with musicians when Steely Dan is mentioned🤦🏼♂️
@@Scratch_Monsters_Golf agreed but you would still agree Fagen is a great arranger considering all the parts involved, right?
@@jamesrmore without a doubt
Right on! My dad’s favorite, and we saw them together at the Greek in Berkeley. The Nightfly and Aja were played constantly in our house while growing up. Hope you have a great time!
Nicely explained, Michael! Steely Dan uses the most dense progressions in pop/rock, which is only one of the reasons that I think of them as the American version of the Beatles for their songwriting.
Great to hear you, as always!
15 thousand views in 11 hours and only four hundred likes???? Come on peoples...just hit that like please. Mike's not just working for it, he deserves it.
P.s. hope you enjoyed the show:)
LOVED IT. Keith Carlock stole the show. I mean. Really stole the show. Mesmerized to put it lightly.
Steely Dan is one of my favourite bands ever!! It takes a lot of courage and nerve to disect any steely dan song live without previous preparation. I enjoyed your video very much!!
Frank Gambale loved their arrangements & said they were the only rock band he was interested in because of their compositions.
Mike, you might look into "The Dukes of September" tour from a couple years ago. It's all over youtube. It consisted of Donald Fagen, Michael McDonald, and Boz Skaggs doing some of their greatest hits. AND Jon Herington doing all the lead guitar solos.
I got to take my son who is a second generation Dan Fan on the last tour. He got to see Walter Becker before he passed. It was an awesome show!
I saw Becker a few times and I never left unimpressed. Love that you passed some great music to the younger folks. Hard to go wrong with Dan, man
Nice one Michael.. I've played in a SD "tribute band", (Nearly Dan) in the UK for over 20years. So many great songs & sophisticated chord progressions. Enjoy the show..
And a great job you have done too - Saw you first at the Leopard in Doncaster in 199? and probably 30 times since. Can't wait till 2022 !!!!!
And I go and see you every year in Glasgow. Damn Covid interrupted last two years. Keep the flame burning.
@@jamespconnolly3890 It's hard to believe I haven't been to a concert in 2 years.
Saw you at The Stables in 2018, then the next week flew to New York to see Nightfly live at the Beacon Theatre. Both shows were fab! Look forward to seeing both again soon!
That’s an awesome cover band name.
Home at Last is a must to analyze, that song was milleniums over his time, still a banger today.
That melodica solo just knocks me right out of my head
Saw SD at the Palms in Vegas in 2015. Walt Becker and John Herrington slayed it. RIP Walt.
We've sure come a long way from picking up the arm and hoping to put the needle back on the record correctly without damaging it. Really enjoyed this clip.
Dude..!!! You definitely got dem chops..!!
I kinda use the same method as you to figure out tunes .. BUT.. it’s like you’re strolling in the park.. and I’m crawling uphill through broken glass on my belly..😳..!!!
But it’s a ton of fun..!!
How have you not listened to Corey Huevel yet? Especially his Steely Dan cover of Do It Again... Whew. Man is immaculate on an acoustic.
The album version is crazy, he goes off on the solos.
Great to watch you walk through this cold. Lots of helpful tips! Been a Dan Fan from the very beginning when my brother introduced me to them. The Steely Damned down in San Diego do and incredible job on their stuff (17pc band!) and Hank Easton is a beast on all the guitar work!
One of my all time favorite bands. My dad got me into them. Lucky to have seen them play several times. Their stuff is hard. Too hard for me, wild ass jazz chords and quick changes. Damn brilliant tho.
I seen SD at the Woodland pavilion in Houston a couple years ago and was awesome. The funny thing i will never forget is my manager wife also went to the show to see Elvis Costello but did not stay for SD, she said they were not relevant any more 😂😂😂😂 oh and EC was still relevant.. lol
Hey Michael, We're blessed to have U. I'm having the time of My life.
This is so much like me every week preparing for gigs. I do weddings and each week I get and email with a list of songs and if I don't know any, I have to learn them. Then I have to show up at the gig ready to play it with zero rehearsal.
You almost got it at the end at 20:00, the E note stays on the top of the chorus chords. A G6 F#7 Ebm7(okay no E on that one) A/D A/B. Play those with the E note on top, except the Ebm7 (or is it an Em11? x6667x) has the Gb on top. Those horn stabs try a D xx777x chord which makes the E7 an E11. Some Steely Dan Voicings D/A x57655 Aadd9 x02420 with the whole tone rub between the 9 and 3rd, B7#5 7x788, Bm7b13 7x778, A/B 7x765. Love their chord progressions, still trying to figure it out after all these years. And I'm Reeling in the Years
I suggest hearing Larry Carlton on Steely Dan's "Third World Man". John Harrington the guitarist who tours with the band said it is his favorite Steely Dan song to play.
Thanks Michael, this is excellent. Enjoy the show tonight. 13 piece band that absolutely swings. I'll be at the MAYO in Morristown NJ on 11/4/21 for Gaucho + hits night.
12:20 often easiest solution is the realest one 1 more half step down so there’s 3 half step stairs in a row (d#, d, c#) keeping the sus and same shape when your pinning just moving the bass note down along the a if you wanna keep the b in the bass on the e string by all means. 20:00 sounded pretty close 👏👍🤘
Good work Michael,check out Peg and Caves of Altimira by these guys,great musicians!!
Michael,
Don't be surprised when one of these iconic groups calls you up and says "we would like to talk with you".... perhaps uts already happened? Love your channel!
Thanks for the breakdown! I wonder how you would approach Steely Dan’s “Black Cow” off of the Aja album. Tons of changes and really cool inversions. A daunting song for sure!! Thanks again Michael!!
So lucky to have seen them twice before the untimely passing of Walter Becker. RIP
What fun! Thank you.
I had the great fortune to attend two Steely Dan concerts when Walter Becker was alive = mind blowing. Black Friday is certainly a familiar Bluesy shuffle, but those expanded choruses and swells are quite another story!
Great breakdown on the song!
Thank you, Michael! Great educational video. I just don't understand this small number of viewers ... A must "lesson" for a little more experienced beginner (minor/major, 1 and 3, G/Em, etc.). It is always interesting (in my opinion) to be able to see when someone else experiences the music of others. Especially like this in "real-time" with instructions and explanations.
Music is such a subjective thing but at the same time lives on clearly determined rules that make the process of creating/learning so interesting. It is always a combination of "those 8(12) notes" that become something else in our hands ...
I was lucky enough to see Dan at the MANN Center in Philly in 2013 when Walter was still with us. Great show, I got rained on but had a blast.
Well done! Not the SD song I’d suggest for the crazy chords; maybe the simplest one but hey, you did a great job. Try “Your Gold Teeth 2” or anything off the Aja album. You really hit on a SD idiom when you found A/B.
Great interesting study...its how I do things,always find the bass notes first then chords after.
Steely Dan was my gateway drug into Jazz.
I learned separately. They are the best way to learn jazz. Great training wheels. They could also teach you soul too.
Don't forget a lot of the studio work on their albums was done by Larry Carlton. One of the best players to steal from!
Happy to hear Steely Dan is still touring!
A most excellent choice for a show! Just wish I could have seen them with Walter!
Love Steely Dan. Also, I just saw Marc Rebillet in Pittsburgh, it was awesome. I know you mentioned going to see him the other day!
Solid. Thank you
Went looking for a Steely Dan guitar vid, of course Michael's got one 😎
Read an interview back in the early 80s Rolling Stone... Steely Dan said they didn't like tours as they were both sound engineers and perfectionists...
Another great point! This is why I've never bothered catching a live show.
Always loved this Band better practice up on your Homework if you gonna play there stuff! They get way outside the box!
Well done!
First time coming across your channel. Goes without saying, but you're good!
Dude , I saw them in 2010, I’d only heard them on the radio. That concert made me a die hard fan.
Few bands can stand with Steely Dan AMAZING STUFF !!! BRAIN TAP SCHUFLE BABY ! OR THE GUITAR INTRO INTO DONT TAKE ME ALIVE !!
It is not a shuffle in E. It is a vamp. The chords are E, F sharp, G. And back. He’s playing just the one and the five of the chord. They are power chords. After that it goes from A to G to F sharp to G, then to E flat minor 7, then to D major seven then to B seven.
2:32 🗣AAAAAHAHAHAHA AAAAAAHAHAHA AAAAAAAHAHAHA AAAAAHAHAHA 🗣THE LOOK ON HIS FACE!!🗣AAAAAAHAHAHA AAAAAAAHAHAHA AAAAAHAHAHA
Blessings From Texas🤠
Have you ever thought about learning a Frank Zappa tune, or even something by Ween ?
I swear that's Paul Schaefer on the B3 and keys on the left in front of the horn section. There's also a lot going on in the harmonic interaction between Fagen's vocal line and the harmony from the backup singers. That layering is not your typical blues vocal line it's much "jazzier". Those vocal harmonies all give the song that musically dense Steely Dan signature sound. It's almost like Fagen is using his vocals like a solo instrument would be used in a jazz quartet. Like the vocals aren't just there to convey the lyrics and melody but rather to add harmonic complexity. Trying to dig out the basic chord structure buried under all that complexity can be a challenge.
I really enjoyed that. The way you broke the chords down. Thanks.
as capable as they are as musicians their ears were their gifts they are technicians and historians too, larry carlton was the one laying down the really absurd stuff for them in studio. Just watch any of his material from jazz fests in europe such tasteful music. He does an absurd so what blow your mind. They had the whos who of studio savants on their albums no vulfpeck without bernard purdie not to mention young jeff porcaro on some tracks. Amazing how good music maintains through the generations.
Cool ! Gotta get yourself a Vidami TH-cam transport controller footswitch for this type vid... you'll love it!
I would love to hear the "Don't Take Me Alive" solo intro ^^'
You need to check out Tanner Usrey - Josephine. I know how much you appreciate the structure of a song and how the song lyrically stands out and that’s one of those songs!
No, actually, you have it right, you did luck out, this is mostly a blues shuffle. 🙂 Fagen has talked about doing this, noting that Monk and Miles would write tunes that were blues with a couple of twists. A lot of their songs are like this -- "Pretzel Logic," "Chain Lightning," and "Bodhisattva" is basically "Rock Around the Clock."
I call them altered blueses. The Dan loves the blues, but they get a little bored with the same 12 bar progression. So they spice it up, warp it, change it, extend it, etc. It is most certainly not "basically" Rock Around The Clock. It's Rock Around The Clock thrown in a blender.
@@adamkringel7578 no, you're right, certainly not basically. 🙂 They didn't really do "basic," even when they were doing AM Osmond-pop like "Change of the Guard." "Showbiz Kids" is another bluesy one, but unusual in that they just stay on that slide-y riff, with other ornaments.
@@grannychannel Ha, that's funny you mentioned "Osmond pop 'Change of the Guard'". I get the distinct impression that they wrote that song as a satire of an Donny and Marie song, but they needed one more song for their first album so they threw it in there.
@@adamkringel7578 yes. I'm a big fan of theirs, to the point that (in the CD age) I sought out their pre-ABC demos, which Walter Becker for one refused to acknowledge. They're all great too -- there are embryonic versions of "Parker's Band," "Caves of Altimira," and "Brooklyn" -- and at least a few passes at cheesy AM pop (since they were working songwriters) like "Undecided," which goes full Osmonds, or "Sun Mountain." They're all great despite that, my favorite of those is "Yellow Peril."
And btw those bird fret guitars are beautiful and sound amazing. Im starting to see them everywhere.
PRS guitars, they make some great stuff! :)
Michael, there's so much going in that band, it's difficult on one pass to pick out wth is going on. You seemed to get it pretty well. I'd have to sit over in the corner and strum some air chords.
Becker played bass on most of the Dan tunes.. guest guitarist were the stars
Love these videos my dude
Love to see this process! I think you were spot on with the chords. That Dmaj7 I usually play as A/D (just lifting the pinky on the Maj7 chord)
Yup!
How was the show? Fantastic, I bet!!!
"slides onto the D and B"
I’m hearing the V chord is 9sus4 (A/B) as well which is common for a lot of Steely Dan. The more sophisticated guitar solos are not usually played by Walter Becker. Nothing against Walter of course, he occasionally will throw in something a bit juicier.
Fagan was famous for the Mu chord or 1-2-3-5. To play a dominant 7th he'd just drop the 1 down to the b7. Easier to finger on piano then guitar.
Paul Reed Smith guitars are so good lookin.
That was good. You got right on that bus.
I usually only play guitar when I go to my neighbors house. he plays songs he like (Jazzy stoner songs mainly) and I try to improvise and play the changes. I stumble but find the key and how to play over it. great ear training - especially when I have a small audience and I have some pressure
He stayed inside that em panatonic because he's not Larry Carlton lol
Man, I'm learning Peg for the first time for my cover band. What sounds like a pretty simple tune is actually about 40 chords full of jazz voicings that I've never played before as a rock hack....keys...but man it's fun to try to pull off! :) Sharp 9s for a non-jazz person are like...what? Did someone mess this up?
Junior Brown, have you ever heard of him and his steel-git? Maybe do a video on one of his songs. Like sugar foot rag or highway patrol
Great band. Do you know where they got their name from?
It's hilarious!
You should cover city pop next. It has jazz chords with a funk rhythm in a pop cadence. Some have great guitar solos like Silent Screamer by Tatsuro Yamishita
Great ear Michael
Omg do you do private lessons? I’m in Baltimore! Geez I hope you say yes. I didn’t see it on your website. BTW Steely Dan is one of my fav bands.
This was earlier in Steely Dan’s career, and for the most part their earlier work was very blues inspired and more conventional soft rock. They didn’t start to get really experimental until around their album “The Royal Scam” which was the album before “Aja”. All of their previous albums up to that point were much less rooted in jazz.
Great point!
Meh, Your Gold Teeth II is on the same album as Black Friday. That’s exceptionally jazzy. Pretzel Logic (the album before this) had East St Louis Toodle Oo. Pretty firmly rooted in jazz if you ask me. You’re generalising. Yes, this is a blues shuffle, but the chorus turnaround is pure jazz harmony.
@@BassManDan1018 Totally right here.👍
watch the guy playing the strat behind don
“Super Sus”. Love it! Thanks Michael. From a theory nerd 🤓 in Lancaster county
Boom!
I saw Steely dan one year 3 x within a month back after the Jack of speed album. I would take their music if i were stranded on an island (Hawaii)
Some of those progressions reminded me of “Peg”?!
How come when Walter Becker (and so many others) solo in Am pentatonic it sounds so great, but when I do all I can think is people saying... "Well, he's practicing his scales again." LOL. We all have the same notes to work from, right? They choose more wisely than I do.
Walter does not have Herrington, Drew Zing, Carlton, Wayne Krantz with him to play all that flashy shit that the normal band has. You have Walter and Donald backed by the Letterman band. The real Dan always has a hired gun to do the outside stuff.
Radical Face - Dead Ends
One of the backup singers sounds like they’re not quite hitting the note during the chorus
Yeah, that was pretty loud and blatant. This was not their primary touring band, as much of this was a rental band for the event. The regular tour "Danettes" are always pitch perfect.
I think at 15:12 your solution is, you found the MU chord.
Props to Bawlmer, hon.
Killer, Michael. What are you playing through?
Mike's rewinding steely Dan and I'm rewinding mike rewinding steely Dan
Good one buddy
HEY can you please clip every intro lick or even make a top ten intro lick video!!!
I didn't watch the whole vid, but this one of their easier songs for a ' rocker'
? No note of members of The World's Most Dangerous Band?? I see Will and Felicia and maybe Sid there helping to drive things... Becker never was a playing phenom, guitar slinger, but did appreciate all the lead guitarists they used!
Butt.kicked unrehearsed! You got me bro!
Ok maybe Michael has addressed this already but how many different places does this guy record???
Ballsy move Michael. Good for you. I have watched you since your conception and have the highest respect for everything you have created. Dead and Phish shit is sophomoric, these guys are geniuses, next try is Bill Frisell, Larry Carlton and Robben Ford.