Question About "outside Notes"
TheKeplerConject...
Jun 30 2009, 05:09 AM
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Posts: 131
Joined: 10-June 09
From: Boston Mass
Hi Muris,

I'm finding that the majority of the solos I really like don't stay strict to a particular scale/mode. So this is something I've been trying to get my head around recently. I was wondering if you could help. Under what circumstances is it okay to deviate from the "proper" scale or key, and how do you select which "outside notes" are most acceptable.

I've read that you can look at the current chord and select a mode that will fit that chord if build from it's root. For example, you could use the lydian mode over a Maj7 chord based on that principle, as the lydian mode contains 1,3,5,7. Is this a valid approach? I sort of think that in such a short period of time, the listener would remember which notes don't fit. I feel like it should be more complex.

Also, how would one select chords that contain notes that are not in key. This occurs in your Pull-offs Lesson, where the key is E minor, the scale played is E harmonic minor (in which the 7th degree differs) and it contains an E Major chord. I can't make sense of how this works and ends up sounding good.

Any wisdom you could share would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance! (And thanks for all the great lessons. I just got E Minor Melodic Solo down pretty good. Hope to post a vid at some point for REC.)

PS. I think the scale diagram in that lesson may be incorrect.

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Muris Varajic
Jun 30 2009, 02:11 PM
Instructor
Posts: 15.459
Joined: 22-June 07
From: Sarajevo,Bosnia
Hello. smile.gif

Key or scale you gonna use very much depends of chord progression,
and chord progression might depend of key/scale if you do it
the other way around.
Let me try to explain this.
Lets say you have chord progression that goes like this:
Em, Cmaj7, Em, G, Am7, D and Em.
Now, this is nothing but pure Em key and the scale
you're gonna use here is Em scale, or even Em pentatonic
since its already included in Em scale.
And here is another progression:
Em, Cmaj7, B, Em, E7, Am7, D and Em.
This one is more complex but it's still in key of Em
cause you can feel Em chord as a root all the time.
But lets see what other chords here are producing.
B chord here has note D# so obvious scale over that chord
would be E Harmonic Minor.
Then we have E7 chord which has dominant role for Am7
that goes right after, scale wise you can use few things here,
E Phrygian Dominant, E Mixolydian or you can simply mess
around with E7 arpeggios or som.

Speaking of chord and valid mode, that's bit tricky to explain.
You mentioned major7 chord and that's why I used Cmaj7
in both progressions above.
And to understand the modes completely you need to
listen/look at the whole picture, not just one chord.
If you play Cmaj7 chord only for couple of bars
you can play many things over it, C major scale, C Lydian etc.
But if you have progression with more chords you
always need to locate root chord and root scale/mode.
Here we had Em scale and Em as a root chord
so this Cmaj7 is just a chord within progression,
no need to think of it as C Lydian or som.

Regarding Pull-offs lesson, that E chord has the same role
as in examples above, it works as dominant for IV degree chord
which is Am chord, that kind of progressions is very often in
classical music but also in todays music as well, pop, rock, you name it.

I'm gonna check the diagram tho,
please to let me know if you need anything else regarding this topic. smile.gif

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TheKeplerConject...
Jul 1 2009, 04:31 PM
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Posts: 131
Joined: 10-June 09
From: Boston Mass
Thanks a lot for the explanation. I really appreciate it. You've definitely cleared things up (and prompted more questions smile.gif) There's one point you made that I'm not quite following. You said:

"Then we have E7 chord which has dominant role for Am7
that goes right after"

I've tried to find more info about this. Is this what would be considered a secondary dominant? I don't quite get how E7 would have dominant function for Am7. I thought maybe it was like a temporary modulation to (or "tonicization" of) A minor. But when I tried to apply it I found that E7 doesn't fit because of the G#. So I thought "there goes that theory". Then I found the following on Wikipedia:

"Secondary dominants are normally major chords, not minor; thus, the secondary dominant of VI in C major is considered to be E major, not E minor. This accords with the fact that in a minor key, it is normally the dominant major chord, not the dominant minor, that might serve the function of dominant harmony."

So, are we simply forcing major tonality on what would be an Emin7 in order to establish it's dominant function?

Again, I can't thank you enough for the help.

Oh, and my mistake re: the diagram. I looked at it again and it is in fact correct. Sorry 'bout that.

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Muris Varajic
Jul 1 2009, 10:20 PM
Instructor
Posts: 15.459
Joined: 22-June 07
From: Sarajevo,Bosnia
Spot on, it's called secondary dominant
tho there are few other names for that.
Dominant is 5th degree, in key of Em we have B chord as a dominant.
Most powerful dominant chord is major type of chord, just as written in Wiki, no doubt.
But minor dominant also sounds very nice,
it doesn't have much of that tense as major
and it's used a lot in many music styles.
Try Bm and see for yourself, it's sweet!
Now, Am is 4th degree in key of Em and chord E really work as a dominant for it,
it leads towards Am chord.
You can simply play few ordinary chords in Em key
and then hit E chord, you should "hear" that it leads to Am somehow,
specially cause of G# note you mentioned,
it needs resolving into A note.

And yeah, Em7 also can be considered as some sort of dominant for Am,
even in a key of Em.
But the problem is, it's our root chord, it's kind a perfect place to stay,
no need to move around unless you want to.

All in all, key might include few chords that are not included in root scale
but it's still the same key cause root chord is untached,
you can call it as temporary modulation if you want
but it doesn't last enough to be considered as a modulation,
after few seconds you can hear same good old root chord.
Listen to your ear, it will show you the root,
everything else is the way how you explain things to your self. smile.gif

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