Members Guitarist4life Posted September 11, 2004 Members Posted September 11, 2004 Whats the correct way to figure out what scale to use over a Bm-A-G-D chord progression?Can major scales be used over minor chords ? Whats the difference between a major scale and a minor scale?? Im very confused. thank you
Poparad Posted September 11, 2004 Posted September 11, 2004 In each key, you can build a triad off of each of the 7 scale degrees. Take the key of D major: D E F# G A B C# D If you build a triad off of each of the seven degrees, you get: D F# A E G B F# A C# G B D A C# E B D F# C# E G Those traids would be: D major E minor F# minor G major A major B minor C# diminished Looking at that, you can see that the key of D contains all 4 of the chords in your progression (D, Bm, G, and A). The way to figure out what key a progression is in, it to just memorize which chords are found in what keys, just like I did above for the key of D major. It's a bit of memorizing, but there are only 12 keys. Also, no matter what key you are in, the first chord will always be major, the second will always be minor, the third will always be minor, and so on, like in the pattern above for D major. The more familiar you are with each key's chords, the quicker you will be able to identify which key a progression is in. The name for the group of chords that fit in a key is a "Harmonized Scale." As you can see above, the key of D major contains all the notes of the chord E minor (E G B). Therefore, the scale works on that chord. All you need for a scale to work over a chord is for it to have the 3 notes of the triad. As for the difference between major and minor scales, here is D major again: D E F# G A B C# D No, assuming that the numbers 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 are for the 'default' notes of the major scale, if you lower the 3rd, 6th, and 7th, you will get D minor: D E F G A Bb C D 1 2 b3 4 5 b6 b7 1 This is the D natural minor scale. (There are two other forms of minor scales used for progressions in minor keys.) The only real difference in how a major scale works vs. how a minor scale works is that a progression in a minor key revolves around a minor chord as it's tonic, while a progression in major key revolves around a major chord as it's tonic (home chord).
Members Force Posted September 11, 2004 Members Posted September 11, 2004 You may find the attached cheat sheet helpful in remembering this stuff.
Members Guitarist4life Posted September 23, 2004 Author Members Posted September 23, 2004 Thanks for the help guys. If D major's chords are always Major, minor,minor, Major, Major,minor & diminished, does that mean that an Emajor- Amajor -Dmajor- Bmajor progression cannot be in a D major scale? even if the root notes in the progression are in Dmajor scale? thank you
Members Auggie Doggie Posted September 23, 2004 Members Posted September 23, 2004 Originally posted by Guitarist4life Thanks for the help guys.If D major's chords are always Major, minor,minor, Major, Major,minor & diminished, does that mean that an Emajor- Amajor -Dmajor- Bmajor progression cannot be in a D major scale? even if the root notes in the progression are in Dmajor scale?thank you Correct; just because a root note is in one scale does nto mean that you build major chords on them. In this case, the chord on E should be E minor, and the chord on B should be B minor, while the D and A chords are major (just as in your initial example progression). You can just use D major over the Bm, A, G, and D chords. Or, if you prefer, B minor.
Members Guitarist4life Posted September 24, 2004 Author Members Posted September 24, 2004 which key can I use with Emajor- Amajor -Dmajor- Bmajor progression? Is the minor scale a "mode" of the major scale? just like dorian and all those that exist?
Members Auggie Doggie Posted September 24, 2004 Members Posted September 24, 2004 Originally posted by Guitarist4life which key can I use with Emajor- Amajor -Dmajor- Bmajor progression?The first 3 are in the key of A; the B major is not. (B minor IS in the key of A). So, you'd have to change on that chord.Or, E, A, and B are all in the key of E, but D major is not, so you'd have to change there.Is the minor scale a "mode" of the major scale? just like dorian and all those that exist? Yes; it's the Aeolian mode...although a true 'minor key' will use the melodic and/or harmonic minor forms of the scale as well.
Members Guitarist4life Posted September 26, 2004 Author Members Posted September 26, 2004 I still cant figure out from which key this progression is from-Emajor- Amajor -Dmajor- Bmajor-Gmajor I used to think that if the root note was in the scale, then it was ok to play all chords as majors, but i was wrong. Im very confused.
Poparad Posted September 26, 2004 Posted September 26, 2004 Originally posted by Guitarist4life I still cant figure out from which key this progression is from-Emajor- Amajor -Dmajor- Bmajor-GmajorI used to think that if the root note was in the scale, then it was ok to play all chords as majors, but i was wrong. Im very confused. First, let me say a disclaimer that you can have progressions that dont' fit into one key. In fact, there are really good reasons I could give to justify the out of key chords in your progression. But, if staying in one key is what you want to do, here's how: You're right that the root note of each chord has to be in the scale. The part you're overlooking is that the rest of the notes of the chord have to be in the scale as well. There are a couple of keys I could pick here, but I'm going to go with D because it contains the most chords in the progression. D major is spelled D E F# G A B C# D. Now, compare the notes of the chords to the notes of the scale. Emajor: E G# B. Right away we see that Emajor has a G#, while the key of D has a G natural. In order to make this chord fit int the key, the G# would have to be lowered to a G natural, turning the chord into Eminor (E G B). Amajor: A C# E. No problem here, as all the notes are in the key of D. Dmajor: D F# A. No problem again, but it's pretty obvious that the chord Dmajor is in the key of D major. Bmajor: B D# F#. Now we have a problem again. The key of D doesn't have a D#, but it does have a D natural. Changing the D# to a D natural would make the chord fit into the key, which would make it a Bminor chord (B D F#). Gmajor: G B D. No problem here. All three notes are in the key. A quicker way about this is to memorize the harmonized scale for each key. This is take the scale and building a triad off of every scale degree. When you know a key well, you won't have to go note by note for every chord, but just know that B major isn't in the key of D, for example. With harmonized scale, another shortcut in memorizing is that the chord built off the first scale degree (D in the key of D) will always be major in every key. From the second scale degree (E in the key of D), the chord will always be minor. This makes memorizing a whole lot easier. Here's the complete list: I - Majorii - minoriii - minorIV - MajorV - Majorvi - minorvii
Members Guitarist4life Posted September 29, 2004 Author Members Posted September 29, 2004 So there's no key for the all major chords progression? do I have to use the triads from each major chord as the scale? Or can the D major scale be used on the major chord progression (Emajor- Amajor -Dmajor- Bmajor-Gmajor)?
Members Auggie Doggie Posted September 29, 2004 Members Posted September 29, 2004 Originally posted by Guitarist4life So there's no key for the all major chords progression?There's no single key that contains all of those chords.do I have to use the triads from each major chord as the scale?Or can the D major scale be used on the major chord progression (Emajor- Amajor -Dmajor- Bmajor-Gmajor)? You have chords from several keys; no one scale will fit over all of them. The E-A-D part is all within A major; the B major is not in that key, and further, B major and G major do not belong to any one key either, so you're looking at at least 3 different keys (or scales). The D major scale will work with a D major progression, which can contain the following possible triads: D-Em-F#m-G-A-Bm-C#dim E major and B major are not in the key of D major, so that scale won't work over those chords. You could try it, but there will be some pretty harsh clashing going on. If you had E minor and B minor, THEN it would all fit in the key of D.
Poparad Posted September 29, 2004 Posted September 29, 2004 To add to what Auggie Doggie just said, you're basically going to be changing scales at the points where out of key chords show up (all of which Auggie Doggie pointed out).
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