A Mark In Time
Mark Knopfler Discussion => Mark Knopfler Discussion Forum => Topic started by: foma on June 25, 2011, 05:50:09 AM
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Hi all! I rarely write here, but recently I've found something interesting.
It's the statistics of almost all Mark's songs and scores keys.
Don't know when (and why lol) I've done this, probably five years ago.
So, here it is (I'm working on list constantly, so it's becomes accurately and hopefully will be spot-on):
31 in D MAJOR (D-dur): Water of Love, Wild West End, Skateaway, Les Boys, It Never Rains, Ticket To Heaven, How Long, The Rocks and the Thunder, Whistle Theme, Smooching, Going Home, Irish Love, A Secret Place Where Will You Go, Waiting For Her, Last Exit To Brooklyn, Victims, Wag The Dog, Imelda, Are We In Trouble Now, Do America, The Long Highway, Kingdom Come, Devil Baby, Coyote, Donegan's Gone, Red Staggerwing, If This Is Goodbye, Let It All Go, The Car Was The One, Miss You Blues, Go Love
24 in E MAJOR (E-Dur): Real Girl, Eastbound Train, If I Had You, So Far Away, Walk Of Life, Why Worry, The Bug, Heavy Fuel, The Way it All Starts, In The Heartland, Cannibals, The Last Laugh, Gravy Train, The Next Time I'm In Town, The Ragpicker's Dream, Everybody Pays, Our Shangri-La, Whoop De Doo, Beyond My Wildest Dreams, Heart Full Of Holes, Monteleone, Remembrance Day, I Used To Could, Today Is Okay
19 in G MAJOR (G-dur): Angel Of Mercy, Two Young Lovers, When It Comes To You, Freeway Flier, Irish Boy, The Road, Father And Son, Potato Picking, The Long Road, Annick, Metroland Instrumental Theme, Drooling National, Golden Heart, Don't You Get It, Tall Order Baby, The Other Side of the Moon, Who's Your Baby Now, Daddy's Gone To Knoxville, The Fizzy And The Still
23 in C MAJOR (C-dur): Portobello Belle, Hand In Hand, Love Over Gold, Wild Theme, Boomtown, Metroland, We're Going To War, I'm The Fool, Nobody's Got The Gun, One More Matinee, My Clame To Fame, Beachcombing, Donkey Town, All The Roadrunning, True Love Will Never Fade, Secondary Waltz, Hard Shoulder, You Can't Beat The House, Piper To The End, Haul Away, Don't Forget Your Hat, Corned Beef City, Hot or What
17 in D MINOR (D-moll): Sultans of Swing, Making Movies, Single Handed Sailor, Tunnel Of Love, Expresso Love, Telegraph Road, The Man's Too Strong, Fade To Back, Think Fast, Comfort, Joy, Silvertown Blues, Your Own Sweet Way, Why Aye Man, You Don't Know You're Born, Sucker Row, Punish The Monkey
16 in E MINOR (E-moll): News, Follow Me Home, Private Investigations, Private Dancer, Ride Across The River, One World, My Parties, A Fistful Of Ice Cream, He's the Man, Down Day, A Walk In Paris, She's Gone, El Macho, Camerado, Hill Farmer's Blues, Summer of Love
15 in A MINOR (A-moll): Six Blade Knife, Southbound Again, Once Upon A Time In The West, Where Do You Think You're Going, On Every Street, Planet Of New Orleans, An American Hero, Tralala, No Can Do, Rudiger, Speedway At Nazareth, Say Too Much, A Place Where We Used To Live, Behind With The Rent, Before Gas And TV
14 in B MINOR (B-moll): Down to the Waterline, Lions, Millonaire Blues, Iron Hand, Just Instinct, Je Suis Desole, Baloney Again, Florin Dance, Let's See You, Back To Tupelo, Don't Crash The Ambulance, I Dug Up A Diamond, We Can Get Wild, Madame Geneva's
14 in A MAJOR (A-dur): Setting me Up, Communique, Solid Rock, Industrial Disease, Twisting By The Pool, Brats, Meeting Under the Trees, A Love Idea, Working On It, Darling Pretty, Sailing To Philadelphia, Vic And Ray, A Night In Summer Long Ago, Time In The Sun
11 in F MAJOR (F-dur): Romeo And Juliet, The Ceilidh And The Northern Lights, Stargazer, Badges Posters Stickers T-Shirts, What I Have Got To Do, Quality Shoe, In The Sky, Good As Gold, Redbud Tree, Yon Two Crows, Seattle
7 in C MINOR (C-moll): Prairie Wedding, Sands Of Nevada, Fare Thee Well Northumberland, Scaffolder's Wife, The Fish And The Bird, Border River, Early Bird
8 in B MAJOR (B-dur): Calling Elvis, Sons of Scotland, Four in a Row, Quiet Theme, Stand Up Guy, Get Lucky, Got To Have Something, Radio City Serenade
5 in G MINOR (G-moll): Money For Nothing, You And Your Friend, Marbletown, Boom Like That, The Trawlersman's Song
4 in G-Sharp MINOR (G#-moll): Brothers in Arms, Stretching Out, Training, Rollin' On
4 in B-Flat MINOR (Bb-moll): In the Gallery, Junkie Doll, Postcards From Paraguay, So Far From The Clyde
3 in F-Sharp MINOR (F#-moll): Wanderlust, What It Is, Two Brothers And A Stranger
8 in E-Flat MAJOR (Eb-dur): The Rocks And The Water, All That I Have in the World, 5:15 a.m., All That Matters, Privateering, Dream of The Drowned Submariner, After the Beanstalk
3 in D-Flat MAJOR (Db-dur): This Is Us, Cleaning My Gun, Pulling Down the Ride
4 in B-Flat MAJOR (Bb-dur): Done With Bonaparte, Hard Cases, Gator Blood, Blood and Water
3 in C-Sharp MINOR (C#-moll): Lady Writer, Your Latest Trick, Kingdom of Gold
2 in F-Sharp MAJOR (F#-dur): Old Pigweed, Home Boy
1 in E-Flat MINOR (Eb-moll): The New Laird, Bluebird
1 in F MINOR (F-moll): Small Potatoes
1 in A-Flat MAJOR (Ab-moll): Right Now
All 24 keys are used. Mark is like Bach :)
154 majors and 91 minors.
Hope it can be interesting for someone.
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I am not a guitar player in any ways. I have to applaude your immense effort in putting all the songs keys together. Although I don't quite understand what it all means. ??? I know in my heart that Mark is an extraordinary musician !!!! that's why I loveeeeee him soooo much !!!
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Same here! But I appreciate it very much that you also put all those little soundtrack themes and pieces into your statistics! And about Bach, isn't there this quote from Glen Worf where he said the same about Mark? Hope Glen is still a member of the current band... He always seemed to be a very important musical influence to Mark and Guy...
Impressive list of songs by the way that came together over the last three decades. Would love to see if you put the next new ones into it, too! ;)
LE
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A remarkable list! Do you mind if I copy / paste this to the MK guitar style forum? It will be useful reference.
I'm sure somebody will find a song they disagree with, but I couldn't with a cursory look! Well done.
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Great effort. The only query I would have is Donegan's Gone, isn't that D major?
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Interesting statistics :)
Tunnel of Love shouldn't be F major??
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Fletch, feel free to copy! Thank you all!
Yes, I have some arguable decisions, but I listened carefully and dead confident in >90% keys.
Although most music on "Princess Bride" OST have multiply key changes, like some Local Hero and Cal stuff as well, so I just didn't include it.
For non-musicians there are no secrets. If you listen e.g. El Macho, Camerado and Summer of Love in sequence you will hear that songs have the same root, sounds alike, but have different chords and melody of course. Not without purpose composers decide to write in particular key. Actually I've read a lot about composers and their sense of keys, each key have its own definite voice and I thought it would be cool to try to analyze Mark's music.
dustyvalentino, oh thanks. Yes, obviously Donegan is in major, why I've put it in minors... I need more sleep ;D Anyway sorry about that.
boboDS, no, Tunnel of Love is in D minor, but chorus in F, you're right, anyway verse in highter priority to mark whole song key signature.
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Yes, "chorus" is in F, "verses" in Dm, but why are they higher priority? What decides which parts of a song have higher priority than other parts?
(Especially when considering the chorus goes on for more than 2 minutes at the end of the song...)
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While My Guitar Gently Weeps is in A Minor, but have chorus in A Major. But you will find A Minor key in any beatle sheet-music book. Because typical structure of song is AABA, so it's one reason of higher priority
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Yeah, TOL starts off minor so should go in minor. It's a fairly standard trick, going to the relative major for an uplifting chorus.
Calling Elvis and Speedway are others that are in between, he's playing 5th chords to start off with so no major or minor to speak of.
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Yeah the quantity of verses - actually there is more chorus than verses timewise in TOL imho :)
And when a song starts with a chorus instead of verse, how can you then tell what is verse and what is chorus, when the quantity is more-or-less equal?? If TOL started with chorus and ended with chorus, would you still say it is in Dm??
And Dusty what they taught us in music school at the very beginning (15years ago) was that it didn't matter at all if it started in major or minor, the most important was the ending. But I don't think it is overly right either...
What I find odd with MK's songs is those endings. I don't get it why he ends some of the songs not on the root, but on a previous chord. E.g. Sultans on C or Telegraph Road on D (sounds alright though), On Every Street on G (this one sounds really "unfinished")...
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I am sure this would probably be interesting for Guy, or even Mark himself. I bet he never made such great effort to sort it all out. Maybe you should send it to Guy!
LE
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The trewlermans song in Gminor? for me is a Cminor thanks !
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All well over my head. :lol ???
But sure sounds fascinating!! :)
I know nothing about how music is constructed,
all I know is that I love listening to it. ;) ;D
Cheers. BBB
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LE, I will! But, certanly I don't think about any interest from Mark or Guy. On some interview Mark said something like "Down to the Waterline in B minor", so I even think he either has a list like mine or just remember key signatures of every his own songs. This is a kind of silly child's question, like "how many hamburgers I've ate in my life?" and so on.
emilianomk, maybe it's hard to belive, but however The Trawlersman's Song is in G minor. Belive me ;)
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Cool. Sometimes it is difficult to rate his attitude about these things. On the one hand Mark seems very accurate and sometimes is painstakingly a detail freak... On the other hand, he sits at promotion shows and really tries to tell us that he doesn't remember on which album Marbletown was, or even can't remember the correct names of his records... Might be his modesty or understatement. But I once read an interview (about the time of the Shangri-La release 2004). where he wasn't sure if a certain song was on the record or not, because he wouldn't care "for such things, once the album is recorded".
So maybe he cannot imagine there really is someone out there who takes the time and effort to make such a great list! :)
LE
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All well over my head. :lol ???
But sure sounds fascinating!! :)
I know nothing about how music is constructed,
all I know is that I love listening to it. ;) ;D
Cheers. BBB
same here!
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What I find odd with MK's songs is those endings. I don't get it why he ends some of the songs not on the root, but on a previous chord. E.g. Sultans on C or Telegraph Road on D (sounds alright though), On Every Street on G (this one sounds really "unfinished")...
Because it would be boring if every song ended the same. :)
What It Is is another one, and it sounds great.
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Mmm, I think with Sultans the end progression is probably in the key of Cmaj because the resolve to C is very strong. So the Dm here is the II chord which can be substituted for the V as the dominant?
Come on music theorists, is this right? I'm just thinking aloud really!
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I sent it to Guy's Forum. But right after I sent it I've found an error.
Home Boy seems like in F# Major, but I put it in Db Major...
Anyway, it's rare key of Mark's music too ;D
upd: As I said, nothing new in the answer ;D
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Well, I've updated the list. What's new we have here, we have a LOT of parallel keys on the new album. But I've put this songs with major ones, since minor derived from the 6th step of the major. Anyway, the Privateering:
01. Redbud Tree - F Major / D Minor
02. Haul Away - C Major
03. Don't Forget Your Hat - C Major Blues (Same as You Can't Beat A House LOL)
04. Privateering - Eb Major / C Minor
05. Miss You Blues - D Major
06. Corned Beef City - C Major
07. Go, Love - D Major / B Minor
08. Hot or What - C Major Blues (Same C Blues again!)
09. Yon Two Crows - F Major / D Minor
10. Seattle - F Major
11. Kingdom of Gold - C# Minor
12. Got To Have Something - B Major Blues
13. Radio City Serenade - B Major (That' why it reminds me Stand Up Guy)
14. I Used To Could - E Major Blues
15. Gator Blood - Bb Major Blues
16. Bluebird - Eb Minor Blues
17. Dream of the Drowned Submariner - Eb Major / C Minor
18. Blood and Water - Bb Major / G Minor Blues
19. Today Is Okay - E Major Blues
20. After the Beanstalk - Eb Major Blues (Same as All That Matters)
Totally we have 9 blues tracks!
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*Head Explodes*
I knew I should've taken a music theory class...
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ROFL! Don't take it seriously, it's just some geek-oriented stuff. Like the list of guitars. By the way, seems like a lot of Gibson Advanced Jumbo on the album. Oh, I love that guitar!
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WOW, some of you seem to be real guitarists ! It must be great to play Marks songs by yourself. I don`t play any instruments... I remember that in Guy`s forum there was this question, if Mark can read and write music, and Guy answered that they dabble in reading music...but how can Mark write this fantastic music then ???
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Well, I play jazz a lot and Mark's music just blows my mind every time. He certainly studied a lot of music theory in the mid of 80s. He also suggested a book called "Mickey Baker' Jazz Guitar", do you see it? Hundred pages of hot and deep music theory stuff even without any TAB, only with standard notation. Mark uses Dorian Mode a lot (B Natural in Why Aye Man, G Sharp in Je Suis Desole), Mixolidian Mode (A Natural in Calling Elvis, G Natural in Vic and Ray) and so on. BUT, it's just the names for certain sounds. And most of the songs in Ionian Mode actually, which is standard Major scale. You can easily doesn't know what the hell Dorian or Mixolidian Mode is, but knows it really by heart. All those guys also known as "he was born for music and all" guys can do it that way. But anybody can learn this, anybody can improvise, anybody can write music, you just should learn how to do it properly, step by step.
And Dorian Mode is just simple minor scale with sharp 6th, I noticed certain notes from MK songs above. Music theory is really, really easy stuff once you know how basic major scale constructed. Not only easy, but very interesting. Scales, arpeggios, chords, chromatics... oh, I love all that stuff.
I really want to do some covers of MK. But actually it takes years to understand and learn how to play MK songs properly. Even be-bop is easier, not kidding.
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Interesting thing about Telegraph Road in that it constantly floats between D major and minor in the instrumental passages. Always liked that.
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Thanks for the explanations foma. So Mark knows alot of music theory, notation etc. I`ve learned about musical theory in school, but forgot really everything !!! Well, it is some time ago ;).
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Interesting thing about Telegraph Road in that it constantly floats between D major and minor in the instrumental passages. Always liked that.
If its helpful to anyone, Mark just makes sure he lands on (mostly) sweet Dmajor notes over the Dmajor chord. Of course, how he does this with sublime passages and feel/emotion is why we (budding guitarists) adore him, right?
As foma says, you can turn that fifth note of the Dmajor scale add it to Dminor and you will end up with a modal name that a technical musician can deal with. I doubt Mark thinks like that, at least not in the early days. It certainly isn't necessary to learning to play, but it isn't unhelpful either, music is a pretty deep well.
Country guitar is quite melodic, and follows the chord patterns a lot. It's a great place to start learning, once you get over the basics of chords and a fretboard.
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Thanks foma, this is a very unique and interesting thread :)
And concerning TOL: Being a guitar player myself it doesn't matter if it's F-Major or D-Minor - the scales are the same anyway and I always think in minor scales. So I don't mind - if I only could play that song properly :-[
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thanks foma, I find your list impressive even if I have no idea what all this means :lol
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Thank you foma, for this tour through the the doors of MK's music. You hold the keys! :D
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Oh, thanks, guys! You so kind I've started to cry all of a sudden ;D
Seriously, I want to do another tab book on Ultimate Guitar. My old tab books is so bad! I'll redo it all someday.