lead improvisations in the right key

[beaker]

Neil, I have been playing Sugaree by the Grateful Dead. It is an excellent jam song. In the past I have played my leads in the B major pentatonic. Now I have studying chords in a key I realize the song is in E not B. so I switched and now jam in E major pentatonic. But..... when I played in B it still sounded good. Why is this? I noticed that B is the fifth note in the E major scale.

Sugaree consists of....

B...... 5th
E.......Root
A...... 4th
F#m...... 2nd
C#m...... 6th

I hope you can give me some insight.
Thanks Neil.
Beaker.

[beaker]

to expand on my own post.....
Is this a modal thing? Was I in Mixolydian mode?
I notice that the Mixolydian mode has a very similar tone-semi tone pattern to the major scale. Ionian?

Ionin mode..... tone-tone-semitone-tone-tone-tone semitone.
Mixolydian mode..... tone-tone-semitone-tone-tone-semitone-tone.

My reference book is Ralph Denyer's .. The Guitar Handbook. Page 111.
In case anyone else has it and can chime in.

thanks, Beaker.

[beaker]

It does not seem like anyone has any input on this. Neil, can you clarify?
Is this one way of looking at Modes? If you know what key you are in, can you play rooted on the 5th or 4th etc.... of the key and that way be changing Modes?
I hope you or someone can help to clarify this for me. Thanks, Beaker.

[TGMatt]

I will answer for Neil for this second, as I know what he is up to ..

You are going to love what is coming, he is heads down working on something very special , and I think if you give us a week or so, you will see some of , maybe all of your answers come to you...

Cheers

Matt

[thereshopeyet]

Thanks