OK - 'Train Kept A-Rollin' ...key?

BigBear58

Blues Newbie
So I watched that "Train Kept A-Rollin" video in the thread Heck Of A Jam - with Beck and Page et al - and I thought, never much an Aerosmith fan, but I've been a lifetime Jeff fan and I always thought this was a cool tune. The fingering on the chord riff is pretty straightforward, but what heck key is it in?

I started jamming on it last night, and kinda felt like the solo should be in Em. This morning I looked on the web...sheesh !!! Some sites say it's in B/G#m (really?), some said G/Em. One said Bm.

The home chord is G (or G7, or Gm...), so I'm inclined to think you solo in Em.

Consensus?
 

MikeS

Student Of The Blues
Staff member
Em pentatonic seems to work fine., so E or G? Just a guess...
Chords seems to be E A &G
 

PapaRaptor

Father Vyvian O'Blivion
Staff member
There are also power chords of B and F# mixed in there. Back when I was a wee lad, my old garage band used to play it all with power chords. Of course we didn't call them power chords, because we had no idea what we were doing. It was just playing everything on the E and A strings. I would have to vote for key of G, since the G major scale contains G, A, B, E and F#.
 

BigBear58

Blues Newbie
Thx all - kinda what I thought.

Incidentally, there's a great (and VERY long) video interview with The Deacon, Steve Hunter. recorded about a year ago, where he talks about how he came to do the solo on Aerosmith's cut of "Train...", here. (Dick Wagner, Bob Ezrin's other hired gun, did the other solo, the one on the "live" part.) It starts at 1:26:12....and I haven't watched the whole interview, but what I saw of it is very revealing about Steve's legendary career, including his time in the Army, relationship with Bob Ezrin, working with Lou Reed, etc. If you're like me and appreciate Steve's work (and if you have about 3 hours to kill), it's a great interview...
 

Rancid Rumpboogie

Blues Mangler
That would be this video just in case someone has no idea what is being talked about here.
Hey, it's rock 'n roll, so who cares what key the solo is in so long as it works and gets people off their rumps and out on the dance floor. :whistle::)

 
Last edited:

blackcoffeeblues

Student Of The Blues
Kind of reminded me of ZZ TOPs "La Grange"-----where the main key is "A" but the solo jumps up to a "C" . (According to the book anyway)..
Box 5: comes out of the 8th fret and played down to the 5th fret---which would make "A" the relative minor to the "C". Which should work.. You can also play box #1 off the 5th fret and it should work--a lot of country music is played out of that position--in the case you are talking about, I got to agree with those sayin Em----there are 4 steps out of E--Em-to "G" which would mean playing the relative minor of "G"--- Same as the ZZ TOP thing going from "A" to "C-Cm" . Maybe Griff will show up, and set us all straight..Later
 
Last edited:

Paleo

Student Of The Blues
They start (and end) on an E chord.

Then all "power" chord shapes (starting with open E string) for the riff:

G5-A5-G5-A5-B5-A5-G5-F#5-G5 (Open E-G5 for the E chord starts the riff)

You can play the chords of a "Blues in E" progression along with the riff.

Here they play the riff for the whole jam.

On "Having A Rave Up", the Yardbirds (w/Jeff Beck) just play the 3 chords during the "jam", without the riff.

https://youtu.be/Cd1gRHk28IE


Solo in Em or G, samo samo.:)

E F# G A B C D E



Johnny also did it in E. This is where Jeff Beck got it from.:sneaky:

https://youtu.be/VkZhJJ8sPmw


Tiny did the original in C.

https://youtu.be/ci4EQDD4CqA
 
Last edited:
Top