Talk:Sultans of Swing

message: The riff uses triads, particularly second inversions. The song employs the Andalusian cadence or diatonic phrygian tetrachord. All the chords are compatible with a D natural minor scale, except for the A major triad, which suggests a D harmonic minor scale.
Thank you Captain Obvious, but there's no need to insult us by dumbing things down.  We all know Andalusian cadences and diatonic phrygian tetrachords when we hear them. Rex Seattle (talk) 06:07, 8 August 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Diatonic phrygian tetrachord 

message: Perhaps an explanation of the remark that the BBC was initially unwilling to play the song due to its "high lyrical content" would be helpful.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.79.9.15 (talk) 20:25, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lyrical Content 

message: "Sultans of Swing" is also the name of a band in which Alan Freed played for a short time.  Freed was the disc jockey who first used the term "Rock and Roll"  I'm not sure if Dire Straits intended this connection when they wrote and titled their song.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.190.26.130 (talk) 03:12, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Good question, but AllMusic lists it as a 2004 release: https://www.allmusic.com/album/sultan-of-swing-1936-53-mw0000540488 Michael B. Miller, PhD 13:45, 12 December 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Alan Freed 

message: I just made some minor edits to the section on composition of this song. I don't do much on wikipedia and probably my short comments explaining those edits were negative and incomplete. Here is an attempt at a more complete explanation.
Regarding "D harmonic minor" vs "D minor"
D minor is a key. D harmonic minor is a scale. A scale is not the same as a key. A song can't be *in* D harmonic minor like it can be *in* D minor. You might say that about a song, though, if it consistently went up and down the harmonic minor scale highlighting the augmented second. You might say Klezmer music is often "in harmonic minor" though that is a stretch. Better would be to say Klezmer music often uses a harmonic minor scale. Regarding Sultans of Swing even doing that; that's not quite what it's doing. D minor often has a C# at the cadence. It would be weird if it didn't. If a song stays on the notes of the natural minor scale the whole way through you might call it "D modal minor" because of the flat "modal" 7th in the cadences. Sultans of Swing is normal D minor so sometimes it has a C# and sometimes it has a C-natural. If you want to say for those moments it goes onto a melodic minor scale you can, but I don't think it's so relevant to a wikipedia article on the song. It's not clearly a harmonic minor scale in those moments either because the augmented second is avoided. The C# comes down from the D not up from the Bb, and in any case it would be weirder if it was in minor and had no C#s. The normal way to refer to the key of music which acts like this in English-speaking countries is simply "D minor".
Regarding the octave numbering fix
It's common practice to write male vocals up the octave in treble clef. Since there is no clef in this article it's not safe to assume the vocals should stay written up the octave. I do think the editor was looking at the musicnotes sheet which was mentioned and therefore read the vocals up the octave and didn't think to write the actual pitches.
All this information is varifiable somewhere if you get a theory textbook but I don't know where. I have a Bachelor of Music from the UW Madison School of Music with emphasis in composition.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.87.23.98 (talk) 22:56, 15 July 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  On music theory edits I just made in case someone needs clarification 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: I live on Crossfield's estate in Deptford South London where some of the band are supposed to have lived in the early 70's. I wonder if the song was written on the estate? And also whether or not it was written here what the pub was where the 'Sultans' played? There was  trad jazz pub called ' the Prince of Orange' in nearby Rotherhithe, which I always thought was the venue of the song. Anyway it doesn't matter, "South of the river you stop and you hold everything" is enough. But if anyone can answer my questions it might add sunshine to the diamond  viewed from my local angle. Thanks. 84.67.96.127 (talk) 22:52, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Where was the song composed?