The Music Theory thread

[Jusatele]

I left off by showing the harmonized scale.  I need to revert and explain a few things. Chords are playing 2 or more notes together, As guitarist we generally thing of chords as having a bunch of tones as we are shown open position chords first and Barre chords next. Many never get past these, but a person who studies music theory can get lots out of this and really start to play nice music with the chord knowledge he receives.
A Dyad is what you call a 2 note chord, it is used extensively in the form of a power chord, the 1, 5 combination is the power chord and such as it’s name is powerful in it’s use as it reinforces the chord you are in. But it is not the only Dyad, many musicians use dyads in their music in more tasty form. The band Great White had a guitarist that was famous for his use of dyads, if you would listen to the song Rock Me you hear them throughout, and he did that a lot, When I play one of their songs I emulate his style by using diads
Triads are where we start to get into more full chords, a basic major triad such as a c major, ciintains the 1st, 3rd, and 5thof a chord, In the case of C that is C,E, G.  those on our interval chart
Lets start with a Major Second, 2 half steps
Major third, 4 half steps
Perfect forth, 5 half steps
Perfect fifth, 7 half steps
Major sixth, 9 half steps
Major seventh, 11 half steps
octave, 12 half steps

Now we call these intervals different things
Major Second, Major Third, Perfect Forth, Perfect Fifth, Major Sixth, Major Seventh
When we take a step out of a Major, it becomes a Minor
When we take a step out of a Perfect, it becomes a Diminished
When a Major or a Perfect is increased by a half step it is Augmented
When we take a step out of a Minor interval, it becomes Diminished
And to clear a bit up, when we take 2 steps out of a Major, it becomes Diminished

We find we have a Major Third and a Perfect 5th making that a major chord, To make the D chord we use D, F#, A. How did I get those tones? I take D and count 4 steps which is a F#, From D to A is a Major 5th.

To get a Minor chord I want a Minor third and a Perfect 5th
So D to F is a minor third, Major third minus one step, and the A, a Perfect 5th.
Do we have D, F, A
A major chord has a major 3rd and a perfect 5th
And a minor chord has a minor 3rd and a perfect 5


If you look at the harmonized scale you will see a progression of chords that include  major minor  and a diminished chord, these chords are all Harmonized to that Scale, As we are using the C major key and it’s scale then all the chord tones need to be within that scale. So as we build our chords we need to understand which ones we can use in that key. C having no sharps or flats all chords need not have any.
Our next discussion will be on 7ths, but we have many forms of 7ths and just building them, and using them within the Harmonized Scale is almost a lesson of it’s own.

 

[Jusatele]

7th chords and there use

guys take this one bit by bit till it sinks in

it can get confusing

7th chords

And the Harmonized scale

Ok, this is a base lesson, I know some of what is explained here will not agree with progressions you play, but there are ways to substitute explained later in theory, so hang with it, or ask a question if you are to confused, But I am going lay out these chords according to base theory, changes to this come later,

We will go over Major 7ths, Minor 7ths, Dominant 7ths and the Minor Diminished 7ths

To build a 7th, we add the 7th tone to our Triad and play it, how that effects the chord can be different according to the harmonized scale.
So we go to that scale and add a note above each chord on the staff, now we have the 7ths
That gives us a progression of Major 7th, Minor 7th, Minor 7th, Major 7th. Dominant 7th, Minor 7th, Minor Diminished 7th. Here is why

By the intervals in our harmonized scale we find that in the 1 chord or the 4 chord our 7th ends up being the Major 7th both are major chords so we have major 7ths. in the 2, 3 and 6 chord the chords are minors, and the 7th tone is a flat leading tone, so it is not a major 7th but a Minor 7th. So we call this a minor 7th because it has a minor third. Notice the minor chords just happen to have minor 7ths the name comes from the 3rds not the 7ths

Now our 5 chord, it is  a major chord, but has a minor 7th tone, we call that a dominant 7th, a major chord with a minor 7th has what we call the Tritone in it, (google that or wait a few lessons) any way the tritone wants to be resolved back to the root chord, it dominants.

Last is our minor diminished chord, the 7 chord in progression, it has the minor third a diminished 5th and a minor 7th,

So we see our 4 types of 7ths, where they are used in a major progression, and how they are built.

You need to go play these chords and the sounds will quickly fall in line as if when ever you see move to the 1 or 4 chord you play a Maj7th , a 2, 3 or 6 chord you play a min7th, and the 7 chord is a mindim7th. 
(guys who are using tab will probably need a chord book for this, guys who read music will jut add a 7th to the tab chart in the Harmonized scale.)
Do this in all keys.

 

[Jusatele]

Chord inversions

So we made 7th chords, the actuall making of them was not that hard. We can go on to 9ths, 11ths and on and on. We call these inversions, once we pass the octave of the chord, we are inverting the chord, the bass note is no longer the low note it starts to get intwined into the chord. As we invert we can also start to drop the lower tones to add the upper tones.

Many times we will play an inversion with no bass tone, we call this a ROOTLESS inversion.
Inversions and rootless inversions start too come in more important to a musicians when he realizes that he can add more to a song than he ever did with power chords. A typical rock style band has a bass player and many have 2 guitarist, if we have 2 or 3 musicians playing the bass tone our sound starts to muddy up quick, so we learn how to play these chords as we will have higher tones to intertwine with the lower ones or the bass and other guitarist. Also,, if 2 guys are playing the same part, it gets boring quick, so two guitarist playing chords, not the same voicing, but different voicings of the same chord gives the music depth.
We have many inversions, popular ones are 11ths, 13ths, 9ths, 6+9ths, the list goes on.


If you watch someone who is really fluent in chords, you will see him playing what you think is an unrelated chord but it sounds in tune.
He may be playing a POLY chord, that is a chord that is actually 2 chords, we find these a look in rootless inversions
Key board players can play these together, we are limited by fingers
But look at the Dminor/C poly chord, it is the Bminor-B.D.F#-and the Cmajor-C,E,G-it is also together a form of the Cmaj7#11, so, if a C or C maj7 is called for, could we not play a Bm and still be in the same chord. Just playing an upper rootless inversion?
We are not substituting a chord, just playing the chord inverted up a few more times than others would expect, It adds a bit of tension and interest to the song, Now I would not suggest just going in and starting to figure these out, there is a entire study related to polychords.

 

[Jusatele]

Moveable Chord Forms

Most of us know the A and E Barre Chord forms
You need to learn the C, D , and F moveable chords
Once you have these down you can add more to your playing than 95 percent of players
How you will do it is not by just playing these forms of the chord, but by being able to play dyads and triads off of these forms
Look at it like this, you have 2 measures of a song to play an E chord, so on the first beat we play it in the A barre form. We can now do all of the other 7 beats like this, or go and play dyads or triads off the other forms. That is right, move  around and tastefully add this and tat to give the song more interest, Maybe playing a 5th and 7th tone in the F form, the 3 open bottom strings for a triad of the open chord, drop down and play a nth off the D  form and then go back and finish on the A barre. You have just added so much tonal change and never left the chord.
Guys try to figure out how to do this when they see guys doing it, but it is so easy, if you know these 5 chord forms and where they are for each chord, then you already know where to set up and you just use 2 or 3 strings. Makes you look like you have been working for a week on the change but actually you are just noodeling around with knowledge you have stored and readily available.

 

[Jusatele]

I think that is enough for a year of study, chordal progression would be the next logical move as well as deeper chord theory,
suggestions on where you want to go?

 

[MikeW]

I'm diggin' it so far. Here's a couple suggestions for new directions:

1. How about going through the standard major and minor scale forms and how they relate to the interval development you've got earlier in the thread Justatele? I'm thinking along the lines of taking your wwhwwwh notation and mapping that to the fretboard.

2. How about a good explanation of the closely related keys? Plug that in with a discussion of where they are in relation to each other on the Circle of 5ths.

In my playing I've found that going from one key to another through the closely related keys allows nice, natural transitions while adding tension and still allowing you to follow the standard scale forms and CAGED chord forms so others might find that interesting or useful as well.

 

[Jusatele]

give me a few days to relax, this really gets to you writing it out as you have to check and recheck for typos and note values to make sure it is correct

I wanted to touch on why we can use all dominant chords in the blues and classic rock real quick also, so that those who want to stop around where we are at, will have enuff to be drop out for a while and experiment around.

 

[Jusatele]

I'm diggin' it so far. Here's a couple suggestions for new directions:

1. How about going through the standard major and minor scale forms and how they relate to the interval development you've got earlier in the thread Justatele? I'm thinking along the lines of taking your wwhwwwh notation and mapping that to the fretboard.

I have an idea, ok we do this first in the major key of A
when you saw your first scale in notation for a A major, you probably saw a "boxed Scale" going from A on the 5thfret 1st string and going to C on the sixth string
and you started to [play it like that,  You got trapped, what happened is you  got showed a cheaters way to learn 2 plus octaves of the scale.
lets go back and play it in one octave, off the low E.  the notes are A B C# D E F# G# A,as you pluck them sing the name go up and down the scale 10 times
you will end up on the D string on A   play it A B C# on the E string D E F#  on the A and G# A on the D
Next start on the A String and do the same thing
then the D
and then the G
now go back and do them on the next octave up
so now we have acomplished 2 things, first we are memorizing how the scale sounds up and down, something we were cheated from by playing the boxed method as we went up to a C before starting down so we learned the sound of a Phrygian in reverse
the second thing we learned was the fingering of the scale all over the fretboard, we did not have to learn multible fingerings and we know if we get to teh end we slide up and keep going.  or we can go down in the caged method, but we are talking about breaking that cage
understand?    just think, onecage we need to learn the next extension to which is a cage, or a octave we can move to over 8 places on the fingerboard

 

[crash]

Great thread!  I will be sure to check back for updates.  Back when I first started to play, I learned the different modes.  Mainly to practice fingering and picking the way they lay out on the fretboard.  I had to go to the library (this was before the internet) and get some books to learn this and various chords.  Now I have all of that memorized, but I never took it any further.  I really don't know how, why or when to apply the various modes. 

 

[ptirman]

I'm really enjoying the caged system (thanks for all the great posts on this). When I go back and think about it, I was doing some of it before like using the "D" form 2 frets up from the major "E" form classical bar chord, I just didn't know that's what I was doing. Anyone know a reliable source of all the associated arpeggios presented in a concise, decent way?

 

[Nightclub Dwight]

Thank you to everyone for sharing all this info.  Especially, Jusatele.  You have gone way beyond whats expected with your detailed instructions.  I know it must take a lot of time to compose the lessons you're teaching us.  Thank you!

I am working my way through the lessons.  A lot of it is familiar from music classes/lessons I took back when I was a kid.  But I really didn't appreciate it much back then, so its been great to fill in the blank spots with these lessons here.

I have one practical question apart from all the theory we've learned thus far.  I'd really like to learn more about improvising, specifically what "key"or chord form to improvise in against a chord progression.  I realize you can work with the pentatonic in A when the rhythm chord is in A as well.  But with a chord progression, in most of the books I've read, its says that eventually you will learn what scales to use against any given chord progression simply by listening to what sounds good against those chords.  My ear kind of sucks, I need more direction than that.

Do you have any insight you can share, or is this something that will be covered in upcoming "lessons?"  I don't mind waiting if I am asking a question out of sequence with the lessons, but please know that this is something that I would love to learn more about.

Thanks again.  Looking forward to learning more.

 

[drewfx]

I have one practical question apart from all the theory we've learned thus far.  I'd really like to learn more about improvising, specifically what "key"or chord form to improvise in against a chord progression.  I realize you can work with the pentatonic in A when the rhythm chord is in A as well.  But with a chord progression, in most of the books I've read, its says that eventually you will learn what scales to use against any given chord progression simply by listening to what sounds good against those chords.  My ear kind of sucks, I need more direction than that.

Do you have any insight you can share, or is this something that will be covered in upcoming "lessons?"  I don't mind waiting if I am asking a question out of sequence with the lessons, but please know that this is something that I would love to learn more about.

Thanks again.  Looking forward to learning more.

In some ways this is not as complicated as you might think - it's a matter of really understanding the basics completely and then applying them.

I would say start with 2 pieces of information - the overall key signature and the notes that make up each chord. If all of the notes in the chord are part of the key of the song, you can just stay in key and you're done.

However, if the chord you are playing over has notes outside of the overall key, you need to focus on those notes. There are 2 approaches you can take:

1. Look at the chord in isolation and play a scale appropriate for that chord. For certain genres this can work well, but it doesn't tie the chords together. Theoretically, you can think of it as the key modulating (changing) with the chords. In this approach, if you see a dominant 7th chord, you can just always play mixolydian mode over it, regardless of the previous or next chord. Then you play whatever scale/mode fits the next chord.

2. Look at the chord in context of the preceding and following chords and find scales that fit over the entire sequence. If a single scale doesn't fit the sequence, focus on which notes need to change from one chord to the next, as often those are the notes you want to emphasize, like if one chord contains an F# and the next chord an F natural you may want to emphasize those differing notes over each chord (rather than avoiding them).

The subtlety to keep in mind is a major chord doesn't imply the major scale, it implies a scale with a major tonality; and a minor chord doesn't necessarily imply the minor scale, but rather a scale with a minor tonality. If you stick with the modes, the major modes are Ionian, Lydian, and Mixolydian - Pentatonic major just leaves out the notes that are different between those 3, hence its popularity. The minor modes are Aeolian, Dorian and Phrygian - again Pentatonic minor leaves out the notes that differ between those 3. To choose the notes that differ - the 4th and 7th for major, and the 2nd and 6th for minor, just look at the next chord in the progression and choose the 4th, 7th, 2nd or 6th from the current chord that also fit in that chord.

There are also other major and minor synthetic scales, that are often used in Jazz, that fit different chords. One example is Lydian Dominant, which is a cross between Lydian and Mixolydian (it's also a mode of the jazz melodic minor scale). It has the both the #4 of Lydian and the b7 of Mixolydian, so it's another major scale that can be played over dominant 7th chords. You might use C Lydian Dominant if you had a chord progression like C7 - D7 because C7 = C E G Bb  and  D7 = D F# A C. Together these notes are C D E F# G A Bb C, which is the C Lydian Dominant scale.


If it gets confusing, just focus on the notes that make up the chords - if you just put all of the notes from 2 or 3 successive chords in a progression together, you often end up with the right scale to use over all 3 chords.

And this is another topic, but you can always play the "safe" notes (like the chord tones) on the strong beats rhythmically and the "questionable" notes on the off beats. The notes you hold for a long time, the notes that fall on the strong beats, and the notes you start and end on are generally the ones that are most important to get right.

 

[Jusatele]

I am planing on going further into modes scales and keys, using a circle of 5ths and how to use it
right now I was just giving guys time to catch up a bit
what is important right now is to understand the difference between a scale and a KEY
and how that effects a chord progression
Jazz scales, minor scales, exotics scales, pentatonic scales etc all fall into the big picture with ease, but it is further along in the study, like I said without a base, which is what I have given, everything can get confusing
As of right now the best thing you could do is learn the name of the tones in all 12 major keys, that way if you want to play a D chord, (if you can read music, then this is both asorbed knowledge and it is in front of you when you look at a Staff, the sharps and flats are marked and you just read them) you would know what D chord fits the Key  you are in. all chord substitution depends on that. it is the difference of a tasty chord substitution or one that fits but is not something someone will remember in 10 years

 

[Jusatele]

Tying a few things together

We have introduced the 12 major keys
And we have introduced the circle of 5ths, the harmonized scale and the Minor keys
We know that the Minor Key relative to it’s major Key. What that means is it uses the exact same tones. To ease study, the 6th tone of a major key is it’s relative minor. So if we are in C, then we see Am has the same tones. They are as closely related as they can be.
The next keys that are related, differ from C by 1 tone each, they are F and G, or 1b and 1 sharp. So they are closely related, and as you can see in the circle of 5ths how the keys get further related, 2bs, 2#s, etc.
This should be considered when changing keys, the simplest way to change a key is to go to your relative minor, you change no tones but you change the progression pattern.
So instead of going WWHWWWH starting at C, we change and go WHWWHWW starting in Am. Now that sounds good, but does it add any tension? Not really so we decide to go to a closely related key or it’s Minor and we add Tension that wants to be resolved. Now we are adding interest to the song. How far we go depends on personal taste I guess, and how far you can get away with it. Also, if you need resolution back to the original key or not. It is a study into itself., but that is how Keys relate to each other.
So we see how a minor key is just a major key in a relative way.
It is just a Major key started in the 6th position
12 major keys and 12 minor keys, that is all the keys we have.
Modes are just the same but not keys, of course we have 7 modes to a Major scale, they have been listed, each starts on a different tone of the Scale of the Key. And Follows the tones of that Key. If you are going start on the 3rd tone of the Key, you are playing a Phrygian, looking at the WWHWWWH pattern we see we play the intervals of HWWWHWW.
The Phrygian mode related to the Major scale in C is E, we see this is a minor mode by having a minor third.
This is a mode, not a Key, it is a mode of the major C scale it does not change chord progression, it changes voicing, there is no Key of E Phrygian, E Phrygian is a Mode of the C Major scale. Another study to itself, but we are just tying things together as of now.
Now, we want to find a reasonable way to know what Bs or #s are in a key, Back to the circle of 5ths. If we look at C we have no #s, we go a 5th forward and come to G, it has 1 Sharp, and that is F#, funny That F comes before C in the circle, If we go to the next 5th we come to D, 2#s and we add the next tone C#, funny, it was the key after F, So as you see we just follow the Circle, What we are actually doing musically is aligning our 7th tones, as we work around the circle our other tones will work out as they already have been changed, so going from C to G, we need to align the F as F# now our intervals are correct, then as we go to D we need the C to come forward, the F# added last time already has aligned our 3rd. and so on, that is how the #s are added and the bs? Same concept  just we are working backward so C becomes F with one b, Bb, it aligns our 4th, next key is Bb and we see we need to align that 4th or Eb, and on it goes, we meet at Bb/F#. Now as we added a sharp or flat we just built on what we had, all we were doing was aligning the notes to the intervals WWHWWWH.
Now you begin to understand the harmonized scale, it is not a new scale it is actually a list of Arpeggios. The arpeggios diatonic to the Key you are in and how they build chords. We first learn triads, we move to 7ths and let’s  add 13ths and 6/9ths right now.
But those are the chords you play in that key. They fit
Note: Blues, Blues/Rock, Jazz, all have rules unto themselves because of the way the are made up, and that comes in later.
Using the Harmonized scale is simple, if we start on E, or the bottom line of the staff, add a 3rd and a 5th, we have just used the next 2 lines, then add a 7th, the next line, and so on, if we add a even interval, those would be the spaces, the key signature tells us what notes are # or b. And if we add a F chord we start on the first space.
Did I mention if you read music this is absorbed knowledge?
Anyway so we now see how to use the Harmonized scale in finding a chord, it is also an arpeggio study as when we advance it out we learn the arpeggio of that chord. Many guitarist play down the scale to learn the arpeggios of the scale.

Any questions?

 

[Jusatele]

Guys, this one is too simple if you just view it like I lay it out

remember, this is a base lesson, with a twist at the end
it is the first time I lay something out rigidly and then tell you how to destroy that
Destroying it with structure is how music works, other wise it would all sound the same
so

Guitarist guide to modes

Modes seem to be a huge mystery to most guitarist, they seem not understand why or when. So we will break them down and understand why or when.
First let us say, Modes are not Keys, they are not scales, modes are patterns within the major scale.
What that means is, a major scale has 7 tones, it runs in a only one pattern: Whole Step, Whole Step, Half Step, Whole Step, Whole Step, Whole Step, and returns to the tonic with a Half Step.
Or as I keep writing it WWHWWWH, nor mater what key you are in, if you start with the tonic of that key, that is the major scale for that key.
Now each major scale has 7 modes
Ionian
Dorian
Phrygian
Lydian
Mixolydian
Aoelian
Locrian
Those are the modes of a major scale, no others.
And each starts on s specific tone

Ionian is the first tone, it is the Major scale WWHWWWH
Dorian is the second tone WHWWWHW
Phrygian is the third tone HWWWHWW
Lydian is the forth tone WWWHWWH
Mixolydian is the fifth tone WWHWWHW
Aoelian is the 6th tone, it is the related minor key and scale WHWWHWW
Locrian is the seventh tone HWWHWWW

So if we are in C and want to play it’s Lydian Mode we start on F the 4th tone of the key of C and play the fingering of that mode
If we are in G and want to play the Lydian we start with C, and around the circle of 5ths we go.
If we were a single note instrument, then knowing all these notes is real important but being a guitar we know the pattern to play, easy right, we get to cheat

That is the why we have modes, we do not write music off modes, we do not write progressions off modes, we use them for patterns of notes to play. Why, to change the voice of the scale, not the notes, note the chords, but the voice of the scale.

Play a Ionian and then play a Dorian beginning 1 full step higher and you will understand, we played the Major scale in the key we are in both times, but it sounded different because of the tone we started and ended on. You need to understand that, we never changed and notes, all the notes are the same, what we did was start somewhere else as we played the notes, In C,  CDEFGABC, or DEFGABCD. Same scale, just the fingering changes as started and stopped somewhere else.

SO Why?
If you are planning a solo, and want to phrase off the 3rd tone, you grab that tone and phrase in the Phrygian.
Simple?  Extremely how a guitar is laid out, imagine trying to remember that on a Sax?, all those fingerings as you run and all those keys. You however only have to know you are starting on the (insert here) tone and go for it.
As I think you can see, the modes are more important to study for a single note instrument than they are for a guitarist because we have the ability to just pattern they have to know what note is coming up by name and finger it, no patterns.

OK that was base theory, let us expand on it

Each mode has a distinct sound, Spanish, dark, spacey, smooth, funky, they all sound different, we can use this to our advantage if we use them over very simple chord progressions and break a few rules here, Want a Spanish sounding song, run the Phrygian mode over a few chords, want a dark sound, run the Aeolian mode. Substitute it for the major scale beginning on the tonic and you can get this effect. I know it breaks the rule of it is just a mode, but it also brings into the rules of certain kinds of music which use different rules for their base. Blues and the Mixolydian, Heavy Metal and the minors, Spanish styles and the Phrygian, It works as long as we keep the chords simple and stay in the form of that sound.
Remember we are learning theory to structure music, so learning how to break rules is important as we learn to break them in certain places to achieve a sound. However we have to live within the confined space that allows us.

In review, we have 7 modes to a major scale
They are just patterns within the scale
We get to cheat learning them as our instrument is laid out in patterns
We use them to accent different tones within a scale and add Voicing
Or
We break the rules and use them to change the mood of a musical piece using it as a Scale instead of a mode but are limited to the bounds of the style of that music.

 

[Jusatele]

Circle of 5ths

I want you to look at this and realize all the info it has in it
A lot of lessons are going have you referring back to this for reference
This is a very powerful tool

sharps > FCGDAEB <flats
1 Sharp F# 2 Sharps F# C# etc
1 Flat Bb 2 Flats Bb Eb etc

 

[ptirman]

You've put a tremendous amount of time into this Justatele. Thanks. It'll take me a while to get through it but you're making it understandable. Thanks again. :hello2:

 

[Jusatele]

I have 2 more in mind before I get to the real meat of the subject

chord progressions and chord substitution

and song structure comes in during that