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About the song linked below, is it right to say that its key is D Mixolidyan?
Verse: D Am C G D
Chorus: D Am D Am C G D
The reason I'm asking this is note D (and D chord) has for my ears a central role in the song and therefore it seems inappropriate to me move the focus to G saying that the key is G major. But I'm just looking for confirmation
Any mode or scale can be built on any tonic.
So, yes, you can have D mixolydian... or D flat mixolydian, C mixolydian, etc. etc.
If you have analyzed the song to have a D tonic and is mixolydian in mode, then you can say it's in D mixolydian. It's good that you analyzed for what is the tonic, then the mode. That's analyzing tonality. Simply seeing all the chords fit into a key signature of one sharp... therefore it's in G major, is not the way to analyze tonality.
Keep in mind lots of music changes mode and/or changes tonic. It common for music to shift back forth between modal and tonal harmony. Greensleeves in an example where the harmony is modal in some parts Em D Em and tonal in others B7 Em. Lots of music labelled "modal" does that kind of thing. The "modal" music of the Renaissance did that kind of thing. Even if the Clapton song had a A7 D in it, you might still call it "modal" if you felt there was enough modal harmony to justify it. There is no strict cut off for what to consider modal.
Rock music is so heavily flavored with the mixolydian mode, especially from the ♭VII chord, it's hardly worth applying that modal label to most rock harmony. Rock melody is often very pentatonic and so omits certain degrees which would otherwise make specific modes clear.
This Clapton song is interesting on both points. It does have a ♭VII chord, but additionally is uses a minor v rather than a major dominant. Melodically, in the verses, it is not omitting the seventh scale degree - which happens in a lot of rock music - instead it emphasizes the ♭^7 degree. However, in the chorus, at the conclusion (cadence) of the line "let your love rain down on me," the melody does skip over the seventh degree. If one were to put a A7 D move in this song, that would have been an obvious place to put it.
Most people would probably simply say it's in D. You could make a case for calling it mixolydian. I would understand why. If you called it D major, I would say "hold on, not like Mozart D major."
D Mixolydian is a mode of the parent key G major - both contain exactly the same 7 notes. The main difference, as you say, is that a piece in key G is recognised as that, due to the home note/chord being perceived as G. This has a home of D, thus will be in D Mixolydian - or the Mixolydian mode of G. It ought to have the key signature of one sharp (F♯).
both progressions you mentioned can definitely be attributed to the Mixolydian mode:
D–Am–C–G–D or I–v–VII–IV–I
D–Am–D–Am–C–G–D or I–v–I–v–VII–IV–I
similar progressions can be found in The Doors' Hyacinth House
The song is not in mixolydian; it's D major.
The song makes use of "modal mixture", borrowing chords from D minor, which is how the C natural comes into play.
A song truly intended to be mixolydian would put much more emphasis on the sound qualities of that mode.
D major, is actually present?
Oct 5, 2021 at 16:23