Happy Monday Guys! Theory later this week

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#Introduction The song spotlight is a recurring topic on this subreddit, where every week we will feature a different song included in the game or its DLC and discuss things like how to play its different riffs, techniques to focus on and more casual things like some interesting trivia or the artist's other work. Finally we'll conclude with a score attack challenge, a random entrant of which will be offered to choose the next song.

The format will change depending on feedback and participation, so don't hesitate to send suggestions myself or the mods in general.

#This Week: "Peace of Mind" by Boston

Most of you know this song already. This is one of Boston best known songs off of their self titled debut album (most of their best stuff is off that album imo). It was the 3rd single and reached #38 on the billboard.

The cool thing about Boston its largely a one man band. Tom Scholz played almost all of the instruments. He basically didn't sing or drum. Everything else is him. He also wrote and produced every song on the album (except 1).

"Peace of Mind" In-game

There is a lot to this song. The rhythm is easy to hear but is quick and very distinct for most of the song. So you have to be pretty on point with it. The lead is a bit quick and will utilize all your fingers but isn't too bad. The verse is a bit tricky though, its a blend of lead and rhythm playing that goes pretty quick. It flows very smoothly though, so if you can work it out it's not as hard as it first seems. The solo isn't the hardest but it won't be easy either. There is a bit of speed but the faster bits are mostly legato (hammer on/pull offs) so that will ease things a bit.

As far as bass, Boston is usually pretty quick. He tends to play follow the chords and melody at the same time with some scale runs thrown in. This won't be your 1 note basslines.

Theory Breakdown

Key of E major! ###Intro Intro has that classic chord progression. Musically it isn't too interesting though just catchy and very singable. The rhythm plays a vi/IV/I/V (C#m/A/E/B ). So I learned some new chord theory stuff this week which I'm gonna try to implement here so this may be a bit rough. Usually a lot of chord progressions start and end on what is called the Tonic (which is the I/iii/vi chords) but this progression has tonics at the start and middle of the progression and ends on a Dominant chord (V & VII). Tonic chords feel stable and resolve nicely while dominant chords want to be resolve and create tension. So that is kind of what gives this progression such a nice looping feel. Ending on that hanging V chord makes you want to go back to the tonic at the start. It also explains the held E which the chorus ends on.

For the lead side of things, we start off with a quick descending run to bring us to the C# which is our first chord. The riff will come back to this exact C# every time the chord progression resets. The other important part in my opinion is the E chord. When the chords transition to the E the lead also times it to play an E along with or play a G# (the III in the chord). Similarly the rest of the notes follow the chords pretty closely but there are some general riffs in the 4th position E major scale that go outside of the chord tones but these mostly are during the A and B chords (our sub-dom and dominant chords). Note: you could very well argue it is a C# minor scale. Same notes just with different emphasis but I think its the E major scale from what I described above. I'd be glad to be proven wrong though!

###Verse The verse quickly alternates between the E and A chords (I and IV/Tonic to Sub-Dom, nothing too interesting here. Classic chord progression see the 60's.) The little fill that happens before it switches to the D chord is something that's pretty common in Hendrix's playing (see also Frusciante, Mayer and of course SRV for similar licks) and it just playing off of the E chord. A D/A/E are played as a turnaround of sorts. Flat 7th chord is used but that is the only unusual thing here and as we have seen is quit common. The verse ends with a B chord (which as we learned earlier is a Dominant chord and builds tension). The addition of the shuffle pattern helps add to the tension before we resolve back into the chorus.

###Chorus See Intro!

###Take a look ahead part! This is actually musically kind of cool. So you start hitting hard on the B, then do a quick walkup to the A chord, followed by C# and E while droning the A note inbetween. Guess what you just did an A arpeggio. Just with a power chord instead and ending on that E which is also the V in the A chord resolves things nicely since it is our tonic.

###Solo The chords under the solo are similar to the verse. We are looping a D/A/E pattern. Now this tonally changes the scale slightly. If you look at the notes in those 3 chords, our E major scale still works except there is now a D instead of a D#. Now we have two options, we can shift to A major (which fits these chords, IV/I/V) or we can modify our major scale to have a b7 (which is know as the mixolydian mode, note this is a super simplified explanation of a mode but its enough for this write up). Now since the rhythm is putting the most emphasis on the E chord (it gets a full measure and is the 1st chord) we are obviously not switching to A major, so we are going to use E Mixolydian! Yay modes (honestly figuring stuff like this out is why I'm doing this, that and finding arpeggios in things)!

There is not a ton of note selection done for this solo. A lot of the riffs revolve around the E with a heavy focus on the B as the rhythm section switches to the intro chords.

The solo ends with a harmonized section which is similar to the intro lead. This time there is a harmony going on and its a pretty simple one. One guitar plays the original line and the other plays the same thing moved up 2 tones in the scale.

###Bass I'm not going to go into super detail here since a lot of this applies to the bass as well. For the most part, the bass follows along with the Rhythm Guitar. The main exception being the intro rhythm riff. When that is played the bass follows something more akin to the lead. There are a few less notes and has more of rhythmic feel to it than the lead (go figure) but a lot of the notes are the same. This same bass part is played during the chorus. The verse follows along with the chords with some walking basslines thrown in along with an occasional arpeggio. Most of these are done to smoothly transition between chord tones and add a bit of depth to the song.

#Score Attack Challenge Submit your score attack results by sending Stevexc a message including your score and a screenshot of the results screen you see after your playthrough. A readable photo of your screen is fine too.

Scores will be included at the bottom of next week's spotlight divided based on the difficulty level (you can play any difficulty you'd like) and are tracked separately for lead, rhythm and bass.

A random entrant will get to pick next week's song!

Scores can be submitted until Sunday, September 4th, 17:00 UTC.

Last Week's Scores: "Just" by Radiohead

User	Lead (Easy)	Lead (Medium)	Lead (Hard)	Lead (Master)
u/brtd90			315,769

User	Rhythm (Easy)	Rhythm (Medium)	Rhythm (Hard)	Rhythm (Master)

User	Bass (Easy)	Bass (Medium)	Bass (Hard)	Bass (Master)
u/OccasionalGoldfish			1,533,247
u/Ignore_User_Name			1,164,556
u/Plammi			1,068,012