In a song in G major the sound F appears and sounds good. Is there a name for such a phenomenon?

Question

The song "Misty Moisty Morning" by Steeleye Span is in a major key. My knowledge of music theory is fragmentary so I may have gotten it wrong but I believe it's true. I don't remember which key it is originally, but I like to play it in G. In this key, the song uses all sounds in G major, except the sound C. (So all of these sounds are in D major too but the song ends in a strong G sound, so I think it makes it a G major). All sounds in the song are from G major too, except one: F, which ends the second line of every stanza (stanzas have four lines each).

My question is: why is it OK to use this sound and it still sounds right? I understand that this is possibly an open-ended question, so a more specific one is this: is there a name for such a usage of a sound from outside the scale?

The song is here although the quality is rather bad. The first occurence of this F is about 0:48, when she sings "leather".

I'm very sorry if what I'm saying is difficult to understand. Please point out any mistakes or vague parts of this post so I can try to correct myself.

EDIT: I knew my question would be too vague... I understand that if the musicians were playing something dissonant, it wouldn't sound right. I wanted to ask about the mere melody. Most melodies, at least Western, stick to one scale I think. Then the melody sounds pleasing. I like to play random sounds from one scale on my guitar because it always sounds good to me. When I try to add sounds from outside the scale, it usually sounds wrong. What is it that makes a sound from outside the main scale sound good in a melody?

Here's another example:

The song is in F major, yet about 0:23 the sound B provides a pleasing (at least to me) change.

Answer 1

I would call this a flat seventh note. The reason that it sounds right is that all the musicians are playing an appropriate (i.e. not dissonant) melody/harmony to support this choice of melody.

It would sound rather upsetting to have, say, the chord of D major (with triad D F# A) playing while the vocals (or other melodic instrument) are playing F natural, as the minor second interval (between the F and F#) is among the most dissonant.

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Added

The song in your edit employs secondary dominance. This is in many songs, the first one of which that comes to mind being "The Star Spangled Banner".

To answer a more general question that is related to yours (if not what you are indeed trying to ask), the way that you make a "random sound [note]" sound good is to provide it with appropriate harmony. Some tones (flat 7th, sharp 4th/tritone) are "easily accessible", while others (flat second) require a more elaborate harmonic approach.

Answer 2

I was going to answer that the flat 7th is very common in blues and rock (a blues in G starts often with G7). But then I listened to "Misty Moisty Morning", I think this is only temporarily borrowing from another scale or mode.

Even if a song goes in a given key, borrowing chords from other keys is very frequent (known as a modulation). Now I don't know if I'd call just this example a modulation (it is very short), but you get the idea.

The flat 7th that I think you are referring to sounds very much like folk music, I think this was the intended effect.

As to why it does not sound dissonent: the other musicians are aware of the F in the melody, and play a chord that works with that (a G7, for example). The whole band borrows the foreign chord.

Answer 3

I call the F note in a song in G Major a Dominant 7th, which if played with a G Major chord, makes the chord simply called G7. I don't know "Misty Moisty Morning", but I do know an older song with a similar name, and features the same concept you brought up only in a different key: "Misty Mountain Hop" by Led Zeppelin (1971). That song is in the key of A Major (A, B, C#, D, E, F#, G#, A). But throughout the whole song you hear a G note (which is A Major's Dominant 7th) and it sounds "right", or makes the song very listenable to Western ears. But I do need to hear your "Misty" song by Steeleye Span to totally understand what you're talking out.

Answer 4

Not only is there an F in the tune, there's an F in the bass too. Its use in this song sounds to me a bit like double tonic. I admit that there is not much of a flavour of double tonic, considering that the F is there for only 2 beats per verse.

Answer 5

It sounds right because - well, why WOULDN'T it sound right? Music uses chromatic notes all the time. There is no requirement to only use scale notes. The scale is a framework, not a restriction.

The ♭7 note is a very common chromaticism. It occurs in every blues-based song ever! The ♭7 triad (in G major key, thats an F major triad) is also very common in pop music.