Hard to Handle is a classic Otis Redding song but it's more widely known by the version released by The Black Crowes in 1990 (Oof! Feeling old...).
I dropped a tab for the original Otis Redding version into the Resource Library (grab a copy?) and I wanted to take a quick look at somne of the music theory at play in here as there are a couple of dfferent key signatures and some sections have a "triplet/shuffle feel" applied and others don't.
Pay attention to all the staccato notes in this transcription, they're essential to the feel...
While the Black Crowes version is in B Major, the main key centre of the orinal version of the song is B♭ Major. It's a Major blues essentially but not a strict 1-4-5 blues.
The intro starts by outlining a B♭ Major arpeggio going from B♭ to D (the Major 3rd) to E♭ (the 4th) to F (the 5th) but on the way back down it applies a minor 3rd (D♭) for a little spice. This note isn't a part of the key of B♭ Major so it's an accidental in the truest sense of the term.
To have a key that encompasses B♭, E♭, D♮ and D♭ isn't possible. You've got to make a choice.
Since the overally feel of the song is Major bluesy the D♮ is the keeper and the D♭ is the outlier.
This keeps us comfortably in B♭ Major.
I'll cover the Verses a bit later as they have some things that need their own discussion.
The chorus moves to the 4 chord, F.
However, in the Choruses (and in the Horn Breaks) there's a tail end that uses an A♭ chord.
This is where things get a little interesting.
I could have left things marked up in B♭ Major and just marked the A♭ as an accidental but mechanically, it's definitely not a passing note or something transient; it's what I call a "Landmark".
It's a note or chord that is integral to the melodic and harmonic structure and feel of the piece so it's not "accidental" in the sense that it doesn't strictly belong...
Stick with me, I'll explain!
Below is the tail of the 1st Chorus:
Since this tail end riff (and the riff in the Horn Breaks) resolves to B♭, we are still firmly in a B♭ tonality so we need to find a way to include the A♭ that keeps us in the world of B♭...
Modes are an interesting area of music theory and they're often badly explained and poorly understood.
Modes come in 2 flavours: Relative and Parallel. For this purposes of this we're looking at the Relative Modes. (We absolutely could do some music theory grunt work and arrive at a suitable B♭ Parallel Mode but we don't need to if we use the easier theory of the Relative Modes)
In short, take any Major key and play all the notes of that key but move up by one note each time. In our case we're in B♭ Major so let's take a look at that.
We have the notes B♭-C-D-E♭-F-G-A to play with.
If we play all of these notes starting on C, we get the 2nd Mode of B♭ Major, C Dorian (C-D-E♭-F-G-A-B♭). Start on D and we get the 3rd Mode, D Phrygian (D-E♭-F-G-A-B♭-C). This stepwise motion up the Major key is how you get the Relative Modes of that key.
I know, sorry for the detour but hang in there!
Back to the problem at hand: we know that we have an A♭ to account for. The first step is to understand how Major keys are built and to know that you can't have a key with an A♭ in it that doesn't have a B♭ and an E♭ in it too.
That means we're hunting for a key that has the 3 flats of B♭, E♭ and A♭.
According to music theory and the circle of 5ths, flat keys go up by one flat at a time as their root note goes up in 4ths. This means we have:
From this table we can see that there is a perfect candidate in the middle there: E♭ Major.
But remember: we're not changing key center!
The song isn't changing it's tonality to E♭ Major all of a sudden; we're resolving this chunk of the riff back down to B♭ while accounting for the Landmark of A♭, so we're still up to our eyeballs in the world of B♭ tonality.
So, how does all this relate? Well, what is the relationship between E♭ and B♭?
In the key of E♭ Major, B♭ is the 5th note (it would be the note you pinky if you're making a B♭5 Powerchord).
If we look at a list of Modes for the Major scale
1st - Ionian
2nd - Dorian
3rd - Phrygian
4th - Lydian
5th - Mixolydian
6th - Aeolian
7th - Locrian
we can see that the 5th Mode is the Mixolydian mode. This means we have briefly modulated to using the B♭ Mixolydian Mode to round out the chorus before it all reverts back to B♭ Major again.
Thanks for sticking with this. Modes are slippery customers but they are interesting and worth understanding.
This song is, in addition to being a 1-4 blues, a shuffle.
Most drummers play this song straight and it definitely does work straight, but if you listen close you can hear that drummer, Al Jackson, Jnr is applying a light 16th note "push/pull" shuffle on the hi-hats. It's subtle and hard to hear in the mix but it's there.
This shuffle informs the accenting on the bass which is played by the man, the myth, the perm, Donald "Duck" Dunn. This shuffle on the hats gives the song it's swagger and bounce.
The shuffle is only applied in the Verses and the Choruses, though. It's not there in the intro and in the post Chorus Link Riff and the Horn Breaks the feel straightens up and we lose the shuffle feel.
In the image below, while listening to the audio, note the change in key signatures and the "switching on/off" of the 16th note triplet swing/shuffle feel.
Top Tip: Don't overplay this shuffle feel (GuitarPro is a little heavy handed with it's interpretation!); it's just a little flavour, a little extra something that gives the song it's more funky feel.
Here's a video of a great drummer, Richard Welsby, demonstrating the shuffle and the "straightening up" in this song. He plays on after the song has finished so you can really hear the 16th note groove on the hats. Bounce over to his channel and give him some love.
I hope all of this makes sense and helps to understand this song a bit better. There are some interesting things happening in it even though it sounds simple and while it may be a song you've had in your pocket for years you may have never thought too deeply about it.
Until the next time...
