I heard the Derek & the Dominos cover of “Little Wing” last night and thought maybe I could learn the lead because it’s really one of my favorite performances. It sounded simple enough from a technique standpoint and I’m emboldened by my intermediate grade 6 studies and work I’ve done on the blues solo transcription course.
I got as far as realizing the song seems to be in F# but in terms of the solo, there are many notes that are not in the F# minor pentatonic or blues scale.
So this leads to my (music theory) question: what’s going on in a song like this? Was Clapton soloing across the minor pentatonic of each chord as the song goes through chord changes? Because now it’s gone from seeming achievable to seeming very, very hard. I can jam in the minor penatonic in an arbitrary key, but changing which key I’m in on the fly is too big of a shift to wrap my mind around mid-solo.
I’m laughing to myself right now because I’ve had it very much stuck in my brain that all blues soloing is based around the minor pentatonic. Based on your answer, I searched for the major pentatonic and realized there’s a whole module about using this to follow chord changes in the blues in grade 7 (which I’m super thankful now exists for when I get to it)!
Thanks a lot because now I know to put this particular mission down for a little while until I get there.
“Little Wing” contains a non-diatonic chord progression structure. As such, the solo really should reflect/ accentuate this particular underlying harmony.
Minor pentatonic on its own will ‘miss’ much of this.
It will still sound somewhat ‘OK’, but a bit lifeless and drab.
Triads and arpeggio frameworks come in to do this job, as they are highlighting the chord tones of the underlying chords, regardless of the key. This is common in many solos, whether diatonic or not.
The image of a river (key scale framework) with various boats of all types ( triads/ arpeggio frameworks) dancing across it as the current (harmony) flows is a good way to see it.
I agree with Shane’s post. If you study Hendrix’s style, you’ll see he bases a lot of his solo work around chord shapes. It is a very fruitful exercise to become very familiar with the CAGED structures and the underlying scales for each shape. You can overlay the major and minor pentatonic scales on each chord shape (well actually not just the pentatonic, but I suggest you start there). Once you can visualise the chord shape / chord tones and relevant scales, a lot of his solo (and rhythm work) falls into place - you’ll see him using it all the time.
Justin has done a whole lesson in the site on Little Wing which you would really enjoy, so do take a look.
Also if you are checking out versions and covers of this song SRV’s version is killer
Cheers
Ruaridh
Thanks for the extra replies. I was specifically interested in Clapton’s take on on the song from the Derek & the Dominos era, though I guess it still features that chord progression transposed up.
