Why is the scale of Hotel California B-min but not F#-phrygian?

Question

I was listening Hotel California by Eagles and decided that F# is the key/tonic for this song. Thus it has to be F#-Phrygian scale. But over the internet I see that it is B-minor. It means it has same notes but with another tonic.

Do I feel wrong key or B-min is just simpler to think of?

P.S: I am quite new to music theory and just discovered usage of key and scales.

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UPDATE. 4 months passed. Now I know that B is the key for the song. It just feels right to end musical phrase with it.

Answer 1

As @Tim commented, "Scale and key aren't necessarily the same things."

I can imagine why you feel that F# Phrygian is the "scale" since when analyzing the melody, it studiously avoids the characteristic leading tone of B-minor (which is A#), except in one place where the A# functions as a "shout": the "them" in "I thought I heard them say:". But then the melody immediately drops back down to F#, which is the "melodic center" (statistically speaking), followed by modulation to D major ("Welcome to the Hotel California") where the "melodic center" remains F# and the note A instead of A# is prominent (the "Cal" in "California"). The final verse #6 also ends in F# ("you can never leave."). So you can be forgiven for thinking the piece is in F# Phrygian since all the notes except that one A# belong to that scale.

But harmonically it is a different story. What follows is a tonal center analysis where I will argue that it is B minor.

• The starting instrumental ad lib begins squarely with B minor, as in the beginning of each of the 6 verses ("On a dark desert highway", "There she stood in the doorway", etc.). The chord progression for each verse is identical to the ad lib (which is 2 verses long). Each verse has a conventional B minor tonal center: starting with B minor, modulating twice to E then to D before going back to B minor. Although the final chord of each verse is F#7 (instead of the usual B minor), one distinctively feels it's hanging unresolved, wanting to go back to tonic (B minor) and IS resolved in the beginning of the next verse and reinforced 6 times (the form is V1 - V2 - Ref - V3 - V4 - Ref - V5 - V6).
• Similarly, the chord progression in the Refrain ("Welcome to the Hotel California"...) makes one feel that the tonal center is also B minor, although it starts with B minor's related D major key in the subdominant (G -> D), modulating back to B minor at "Such a lovely place" (F#7 -> Bm cadence), and ends with B minor's dominant chord to prepare for the verse which begins in B minor, making it a very conventional iv-V7-i cadence (Em -> F#7 -> Bm).
• The final instrumental ad lib also follows the chord progression of the verse, repeated 5 times. In the final 2 repeats the lead guitar plays broken notes of each chord in the chord progression, so completely unmoored from the melody by now. No more F# Phrygian feeling is left at this point. Finally, at the end of the 5th repeat (F#7 broken chord) the listener expects the 6th repeat of the verse which begins in B minor, but then the ad lib abruptly ends in B minor, thus leaving the final two chords to form a V7-i cadence (F#7 -> B minor), making it decisively ends in B minor.

So this piece is distinctive in that although the melodic center is definitely F# and the "scale" can be argued to be F# Phrygian (statistically), the tonal center ("key") is certainly B minor. By convention, the notation follows the tonal center, that's why although melodically it's F# Phrygian, the key signature is in B minor.

Answer 2

You're mis-hearing it. Listen to the very last note/chord of the piece — that's the most likely place to find the tonic. For example, in the recording below, the last notes are clearly B, and they sound final. There's not a feeling that we've been left hanging. This is the function of the tonic: to feel at rest.

The video is timed to the final chord. You can use a tone generator to compare the pitch if you don't have other means at hand.

Answer 3

While Bm and F♯ Phrygian both have the same set of notes (those from parent key D major), the main criterion for deciding on a key is where 'home' is. And F♯ certainly isn't it! That chord leads (usually) to B (or Bm in this song, often), and makes Bm sound like home - the place where the song could finish and and be at rest.

Interestingly, originally recorded in key Em.

EDIT - all that apart - some if not all the F♯ chords are dominant sevenths, and unless we're in Blues, a root chord won't often be a dominant seventh - those are usually the dominant chord of the key; just another consideration.

Answer 4

You said in the comments for why you chose F#:

I've noticed that almost every part of song ends with F# — this was the main reason.

That's true, but this is an important issue to beware of when using ends of phrases as an indicator of key. If the phrase feels like it "leads into" the next phrase, it probably hasn't resolved yet, and this means it's not what you want to be looking at.

Normally the last chord of a piece tells you the key, because that's the point where it normally resolves. If it didn't, it'd leave you hanging and feeling like you were waiting for more. Of course this is a problem when (as with Hotel California) the recorded version ends on a fade-out! In this case the live version gives you what you're missing, which is an actual end without a fade.

Of course there are songs or pieces which finish without resolution. Chelsea Hotel by Leonard Cohen is one I can think of immediately. The key is F but it finishes on a C chord. The effect is to leave you feeling like there's unresolved business - and that's entirely in keeping with a song about missing Janis Joplin after she'd died and wishing he'd treated her better.

Where you don't have a resolution, you need to look at whether the chords fit a key. The chords of Hotel California all match what you'd expect for Bm. They don't match F#m very well though - notably you'd expect to see C# in there, and it isn't. And the melody notes all correspond to Bm much more closely too.