Help for Walking After Midnight chords.

[Roy McKinney]

Could anybody please provide me with a simple chord chart in the Key of C? I can play the song, but I don't know what chords I am playing.
Thanks,

[Elton Smith]

C,F G# G.Thats how I play it.Elbo

[Andy Sandoval]

How's this.

[Dan Beller-McKenna]

Andy,

That's it all right. One detail I wonder about, though. I've always heard (at least in the earlier Patsy Cline recording--the one with steel) a return to C from F7 on the last two beats of the fourth bar of the verse (i.e., at the words "to do" in the line "just like we used to do"). It's not entirely clear, but, fwiw, the melody goes to G there which is better harmonized by the I (C) chord anyway. Anyone else hear it that way? The later, Owen Brad-li-fied version does not seem to rock back to C there (the G in the melody be damned).

I could never get my last band to play this change and we always sounded wrong to me. Maybe it's just me (which would not be the first time!)

Dan

[Roy McKinney]

Thank you Andy and Dan. Those comments and information are priceless. I really do appreciate your time and effort to post this information.

[Steve Alcott]

"....return to C from F7 on the last two beats of the fourth bar of the verse...."

That's the way I like it. A lot of producers, country and otherwise, liked to "smooth out" little eccentricities like this. I guess they didn't want to offend the harmonic sensitivities of the listeners.

[Olli Haavisto]

Me, too

[Elton Smith]

I have a musical ? about this song.A flat 7 seems to be the written version,How ever we don't play an A to flatten.Would not that be a g# to G .A flat and G sharp are the same chord only we drop from G# to G.Adding the 7th?

[Chris Brooks]

Elton,

G#7 and Ab7 are the same chord.

I prefer to see it written G# because it leads into G: its a chromatic approach chord.

Chris

[Steve Alcott]

Ab7-G7 is usually considered the correct way to notate this progression; the Ab7 in the key of C is classified as a German augmented 6th chord.

http://www.ars-nova.com/Theory%20Q&A/Q38.html

[Dan Beller-McKenna]

Steve is right. In truth, that's not how a German Augmented Sixth chord tends to work in the concert repertoire that spawned it (Bach, Mozart, Schubert, etc.): those guys would usually resolve the Ab on the bottom and the F# (the augmented sixth) on top out to G, quite often as part of a C chord in second inversion. The way it's used in After Midnight seems to me to just be a blues cliche, b6-5 meant to add emphasis to the cadence.

Anywho, it should be called A-flat7 in any style because when there is root chord motion (from Ab/G#-G in this case) you want separate lettering identifying the chords to reflect the movement, the change in sound and function.

It's the same reason a G major scale goes from F-sharp to G (G-A-B-C-D-E-F#-G). Having it go from G-flat to G would confuse who's on first (that would be G) and what's on Seventh (and, as we all know, "I Don't Know" is on third ).

Dan

[Rich Peterson]

The Ab major chord is "borrowed" from the parallel minor (C minor.) But making it a dominant 7th type chord is more a blues concept. It's part of the enrichment of the musical pallette that arose from blending African sounds into European classical harmony.

As an augment sixth chord (German sixth) the interval of the augmented sixth is from Ab to F#. That's two altered tones in the key of C, and an altered tone wants to resolve in the direction of the alteration. F# rises to G; Ab drops to G, resolving to an octave. It "should" resolve to a G major, without the 7th (F.)

However, being Americans, we just play what sounds good to us (that's called freedom) and Ab7 to G7 sounds good.

I myself add a lot of additional chords to the song, but that's why I don't get a lot of gigs, I guess.

[Elton Smith]

You guys kill me .The way I see it is a g# to g major.The bridge will go to f then to f minor.Each man to his own poison.Thats just a saying around here.

[Steve Alcott]

Nobody's trying to kill anybody. A question was asked and answered using the accepted nomenclature. Music theory is a lot like knowing the names of the parts on a steel guitar. A little knowledge never hurt anyone.

[Roy McKinney]

Dang, I was just trying to learn the chord progression, but I do appreciate all of the comments that have been provided. Just wish I understood and knew music theory.

[Steve Alcott]

Roy, when I had my first music theory course (Monterey High School, Lubbock, Texas; remember when public schools had fine arts programs?), one of the first things I realized is that a lot of what I was learning was just a systematic way of naming things I already understood intuitively. Basic theory is pretty easy, especially if you can play by ear. I believe Mike Perlowin has some material on music theory for steel guitarists.

[Dan Beller-McKenna]

Steve, that's exactly the feeling I had when I started taking music theory in college. All those things I had internalized from learning songs off records for ten years now had a name to them.

I don;t have a problem with someone calling that Ab7 a G#7, just don't expect me to go from there to G; I'll always go from G#-A. Just doesn't feel like I'm "going" anywhere if I'm on something called G and move to something else called G.

:0)

Dan

[Eric LaMalfa]

I took music theory 20 years ago and have always struggled in conversations concerning this topic. Eureka! I took this PSGF thread and some healthy debate, now I get it. Im really hoping I can retain this insight long enough to put it to use the next time the band gets into the weeds. scaffolding knowledge is good.

Thank you all.

[Fred Treece]

There are some good bits in this thread.

I never thought of the turnaround Ab7-G7 as being borrowed from the Key of Cm, but dang if that doesn’t make a lot of sense. Walkin’ is basically a blues tune, so why not give it the full treatment.

I do take issue with the comment on the bridge progression going from F to Fm. If you do that, you have to change the melody note from A to Ab, because singing a major 3rd over a minor chord doesn’t sound “blue”, it just sounds bad. And changing the melody to a classic tune like that? No. Just no.

[Doug Beaumier]

...I've always heard... a return to C from F7 on the last two beats of the fourth bar of the verse (i.e., at the words "to do" in the line "just like we used to do"). It's not entirely clear, but, fwiw, the melody goes to G there which is better harmonized by the I (C) chord anyway. Anyone else hear it that way?

(Replying 14 years later!) Yes, Dan. I too have always played it that way... in bar 4, returning to C (from F7) two beats "early" to match the vocal. As you said, she sings a G note on the word "do" (...like we used to do). It sounds odd (to me) to stay on the F chord there... although the G she sings would be the 2 (or the 9th) of the F and it could work. It just sounds better IMO to go back to C at that point. There is a live clip of Patsy singing the song on YouTube where the band does return to C in that spot.

[Fred Treece]

The melody note G can also be seen as a passing tone on the F chord. But it’s in the lower range, so it doesn’t really make a great sounding 9th on an F7 chord.

The melody in the partial phrase “….do/I’m always—“ is G/G-A-C, all in the same measure of music. Obviously the A and C can be viewed as the 3 and 5 of an F chord or the 6 and 1 of a C chord. But, the G sounds like an outlier over F more so than the A does over C.

I think the ambiguity comes from the fact that the phrase “just like we used to do” sounds like a complete sentence that ends on the G note in question right smack on beat 3 of the measure. So the instinctual response of returning to the strong 5th of a C chord on a strong downbeat (even though it’s in the middle of the measure) weighs pretty heavy against the other natural instinct to not garble up the groove with an awkwardly timed chord change.

The slicked-up Owen Bradley recording with the Jordanaires on backup vox has the F to C change on beat 3 measure 4. The Patsy tribute band I played in for 15 years did it that way too. It had the added bonus of keeping bass players from walking the verses - after midnight or otherwise.