mikedodge

This thread is regarding an idea that works for quite a few situations, as well as a few examples of the idea.

Many times you're already playing the scale and you don't even know it...

Please continue on...

Someone on a forum asked which scale to use for this progression:

If the song being played is in G major
let say G maj, Em, C maj, D major.

Before even thinking about a scale name...

JUST look at what the chords them self are showing you...

With ONLY Root and 5th power chords:

G = G and D
Em = E and B
C = C and G
D = D and A

Let's look at all the notes...

G D E B C G D A

Let's weed out the duplicates (removing the doubled G and D)...

G D E B C A

Now since most people describe linear music forms, scales if you will, from the lowest to highest note rearrangement like so...

G A B C D E

Try ONLY those notes and you'll hear the "glue" that's at the heart of the progression.

The next step, since you labeled them a major and minor chords, is to take the triads and finding what notes you have...

G = G B D
Em = E G B
C = C E G
D = D F# A

Let's look at all the notes...

G B D E G B C E G D F# A

Let's weed out the duplicates (removing the doubled G, B, D, E)...

G B D E C F# A

Let's go ahead and arrange them linearly:

G A B C D E F#

REGARDLESS of the name of any scale, THOSE are the notes that you would want to start with.

Even though that makes a G Major scale, the name isn't important...the NOTES are.

As a proponent for forgetting scales UNTIL you know some things going on with the music, here's another example...

Full scales are not ALL the notes you can play, but all the notes you MIGHT want to play.

For Rock music there's a simple way to get at the heart of what's going on musically, as opposed to going directly to a preconceived scale pattern. Thinking in terms of full preconceived scales can cause a lot of "fluff" into your guitar playing. It can lock you into "patterns" and in a lot of players cases it can keep you from ever playing music instead of stock riffs.

For instance take this VERY common progression similar to All Along the Watchtower, Stairway to Heaven, and COUNTLESS 80's hair metal tunes...

||: Em | D | C | D :||

Most rock guitarists would play these chords with nothing but diads/two note power chords, like this:

Code: Select all


    Em   D    C    D
E------------------
B------------------
G------------------
D---9---7---5---7--
A---7---5---3---5--
E-------------------


Played as just power chord most novice guitarist would just call this || E | D | C | D || without even caring about the Em sign or name.

Now the other thing is, most guitarists will immediately choose the E Minor Pent scale, or maybe the more "advanced" (in thinking) will choose an E Natural Minor.

But in either case the novice is just going to blow through "the pattern".

Let's take those simple two note power chords (E D C) and see what they tell you about what "music" is taking place.

What we'll do is look at the notes in the Power Chord, arrange them in a scale, and then hopefully things will be REALLY clear as to what their notes tell us.

E Power Chord = E B
D Power Chord = D A
C Power Chord = C G

Now lets arrange them from the "I chord" in the progression, E:

E G A B C D

Six notes.

The E Minor Pent that most people would use only has 5 notes:

E G A B D

With this idea of finding out what the hell notes you're ALREADY using in the chords, in many cases (especially in Rock) you can paint a HUGE idea of what notes to use for a scale. And this can be done with little to no "scale knowledge" at all.

In this case it shows you WHY the E Min Pent is a scale of choice, because all 5 notes are DIRECTLY related to the chords being played. But, it also shows you ONE MORE NOTE to use that's missing by the "just play in the E Minor Pentatonic" concept, and that new is DIRECTLY related to the chords being played.

Now forget E Min Pent (and E Nat Min) for a bit and use ONLY the chord notes as your scale (E G A B C D):

E------------------------------------------------------12--15--
B-----------------------------------------12--13--15-----------
G--------------------------------12--14------------------------
D------------------------12--14--------------------------------
A-----------12--14--15-----------------------------------------
E---12--15------------------------------------------------------

By doing this you are using one more note than the E Min Pent, but also one more note LESS than the E Nat Min. BUT, you are covering EVERY note in the chords you are playing. This alone will allow you to feed off the exact chord that are being played and to cover them nicely.

Now as a theorist I know that using the full triads give me other notes too. But, I'm not playing full triads in that chord progression, am I??? But also as a theorist, if I go through this process with the triads I'll also see where any extra notes are the strongest...here's an example with the note we are using already...

In this particular progression you can use that C note almost any time you want. But, try this...

let's "hide the C" or "save the C" for when it's most IMPORTANT music wise...

ONLY use the C note while you are on the C chord. Take it slow, play all the other notes over Em and D, but when you get to C, LAY on that C note. Make it really prominent.

It might take you some time to be able to conscientiously not play C except ONLY over the C chord. But it'll be worth it because you will hear were the C note has the most weight/importance in the chord progression. And, it will start to point you in the direction of REALLY PLAYING OVER THE CHORDS, AND NOT JUST PLAYING A SCALE.

Try small ideas at first. IOW, forget about ALL the notes and try this...

For the Em and D try using ONLY these to make your phrases:

E------------12--15--
B---12--15-----------
G--------------------
D--------------------
A--------------------
E--------------------

But when you get to the C chord use ONLY these notes:

E------------12--15--
B---13--15-----------
G--------------------
D--------------------
A--------------------
E--------------------

You will find that by doing this, it's VERY hard not to play melodically. This is due the C having the heaviest weight on the C chord and not as much on the Em and D. Hopefully you'll also find that the "just play the E Min Pent or E Nat Min" idea starts to sound very UNMELODIC in comparison.

That's a ton of great stuff that three measly power chords can show you about the music. Spend more time on the music than the scale patterns ;)

Have fun!!!

Let's look at the song That Smell by Lynyrd Skynyrd...

||: F | Am | F | Am :||

Let's look at the Roots and 5th's first:

F = F and C
Am = A and E

Combined we have:

F C A E

There are no duplicates so let's move on and arrange them linearly:

F A C E

These are the notes that are the "glue" to each of these chords.

Here's a couple of ways to sort them out on the fretboard:

E------------------------0-
B---------------------1----
G------------------2-------
D-----------2--3-----------
A-----0--3-----------------
E--1-----------------------

E-----------------5-
B-------------5-----
G---------5---------
D------7------------
A---8---------------
E-------------------

Now, these look more like arpeggio's than scales persay, but let's forget about "common scales" and let's focus on these notes in these patterns.

Use ONLY them to solo for a while; one, it will sound great, and two it will take you out of the norm and get you playing something different that's not a familiar "pattern" to you. And because of all this hopefully it will be awkward and inspiring at the same time.

Now let's move onto the chords triads:

F = F A C
Am = A C E

Together we get:

F A C A C E

Let's weed out the duplicate A and C:

F A C E

Check it out...we get the EXACT same break out using triads that we did using only the Root and 5th's. Wow!

These four notes are for sure the glue that fits these two chords tightly together.

Through more experimentation, and how the song resolves, you'll find this song is in the Key of A Minor.

When "solo'ing", you can use a full A Minor scale, but make sure you keep F A C E as launching and landing notes.

When "listening" hopefully you'll be aware that the F note really fits best over the F chord. So, "save it". Save that F note for certain times over the F chord. It will make it MEAN MORE.

Let's look at Smells Like Team Spirit by Nirvana...

||: F | Bb | Ab | Db :||

Finding the Roots and 5th's we get:

F = F and C
Bb = Bb and F
Ab = Ab and Eb
Db = Db and Ab

Stringing all the notes out we get:

F C Bb F Ab Eb Db Ab

Weeding out the duplicate F and Ab we get:


F C Bb Ab Eb Db

Now let's arrange them linearly:

F Ab Bb C Db Eb

Here's some areas tabbed out:

E-------------------------------------------
B----------------------------------1--2--4-
G---------------------------1--3-----------
D--------------------1--3------------------
A----------1--3--4--------------------------
E---1--4------------------------------------

E----------------------------------------8--9--11-
B--------------------------------9--11------------
G------------------------8--10--------------------
D-----------8--10--11-----------------------------
A---8--11------------------------------------------
E---------------------------------------------------

Now try using ONLY those notes when solo'ing over the progression. You'll will hear these notes as being VERY important to melody over them.

It's amazing how LESS IS MORE.

Go ahead a pick the notes out of the triads now...

F = F A C
Ab = Ab C Eb
Bb = Bb D F
Db = Db F Ab

In a lesson one time when I was teaching this concept, for an example I came up with a super heavy/dark metal tune using these Power chords...

E F G# A

I just took the Root and 5th of each power chord and and pulled up a great sounding scale.

E = E B
F = F C
G# = G# D#
A = A E

Aligned out I got, E F G# A B C D#. Of course it fit like a glove for the progression the chords came from.

(For the record, the scale above is called the: Rag Padi scale. Rag Padi has "two major seventh chords a half-step apart")

It's important to remember to use your ears too. But, for most straight up rock stuff this pans out pretty good...but...

The things to catch is when a tune might be in E or A (as in the "rock Key" of E or A) and the solo section jumps to F# or C# or B or something. IOW, you might have a "separate" progression for a solo section than you do the rest of the song. So you would only accumulate the notes from the solo section and not necessarily the rest of the song.

The thing I like about this approach is that even if you've found you removed one note from a basic scale name, you tend to play differently and can't always rely on the licks you might play in EVERY song that uses that scale...

by avoiding the one note, F# in the case of the Em progression in example 1, you tend you learn how to work your way around the note instead of just jamming it in every Em lick without realizing it's purpose/weight or lack there of.

Also since th is thread uses a couple of stock rock tunes that some people have a hard time solo'ing over without sounding cheezy, of out of genre, try the scales I've presented and see how you can play dead on to the progression just by using a better note choice, instead of a better "scale name".

It's great playing fodder.