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Posted by: Milenkovic Ivan Jan 6 2008, 06:23 PM

Feel free to ask any theory question that you don't know the answer to, and I'll try to help.

Posted by: shellshock1911 Jan 7 2008, 04:43 AM

Ok I have a question about jazz. First of all I notice the chords change from like Abmaj7 to B7 to Em7, etc. is jazz not diatonic? Second of all, I notice in the jazz soloing lessons we have that there is a lot of chromatics. Is this common? Or do jazz players use diatonic scales a lot as well?

Posted by: Milenkovic Ivan Jan 7 2008, 12:13 PM

Jazz theory is chromatic most of the time. But that chromatic has "evolved" from the use of diatonic scales. This is because in jazz you have lots of key\tonality shiftings. For example:

Blues: 1 key (no shifting)
Rock, Metal, Funk, etc. : ~1-4 keys (little shifting, doesen't have to be 4 off course, sometimes there are extremes..)
Jazz: lots of keys

What lots of keys means is that you use maybe 2 or 3 chords in one key and then move on to the next key and use 2-3 chords and so on. This is just an example, not a general rule. Now imagine that you want to solo over those progressions. You would use diatonic scales, arpeggios or whatever.. off course, but soon you'll realise that you are using a mix of all the scales (tonalities) that are being used in the composition, and they all make up a chromatic scale.
Also not only the modulations (key changes) make up jazz theory, in jazz we use a lot of chromatic chords (the ones that use notes outside the diatonics, like some forms of augmented chords). So when we play jazz harmonies, we actually use minimum 4 notes for every chord, playing also chords in different keys as well, and things get complicated pretty soon. Thats why it is essential in jazz to have a solid general knowledge about scales, modes and tonalities in all keys.

Posted by: DeepRoots Jan 7 2008, 12:17 PM

wow great explanation- i hope to get into jazz in the near future, i truly is a hard style to master by the looks of it.

Thanks again Ivan

Posted by: Moon Boots Jan 7 2008, 12:29 PM

Looks like just the sort of drop in thread I need.

Despite playing for almost 2 years now, I'm was a complete beginner in terms of theory until I read a few of Andrew's theory threads a couple of days ago. Everything was explained really well, but I'm still not quite sure how I should practise or play a scale.

For example:




If I was to learn that, what notes would I play, and in what order?



Cheers,

Jason

Posted by: PlayAllDay Jan 7 2008, 12:31 PM

Start on the 6th string and play always from left to right, then go to 5th string left to right etc ettc

Posted by: Moon Boots Jan 7 2008, 12:41 PM

It's a bit disconcerting to think that you you might be learning it wrong so I'm glad thats sorted now.


Thanks mate.

Posted by: PlayAllDay Jan 7 2008, 12:45 PM

You're very welcome - you can practise with more confidence for sure if you know you are on the right track.

Posted by: Philippe Jan 7 2008, 01:01 PM

I think you should start on one of the root notes. Because if you start on the first note (bottom, left),
that'd be phrygian mode. But on your figure it's a major scale ("C" shape of the caged system).

The finger pattern is the same in both case. But depending on where you start, you're playing a different mode.

Posted by: Andrew Cockburn Jan 7 2008, 01:59 PM

Great explanation Ivan!



Ok, here's the deal - you and PAD are both right in my opinion, but you need to put it into context. As I say in my http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/guitar_forum/index.php?showtopic=3967 you need to be careful about understanding the roots and how they relate to the rest of the scale. This means you need to spend a signicifant amount of time practicing the scale from root to root so that you understand the sound of the scale. As Phillipe says, if you don;t start on the root you will train your ear to hear a different scale (Phrygian in his example).

However, as PAD says, when you have mastered that, then every note on the scale is there for you to use as long as you understand where the roots are, and in playing you should not restrict yourself at all. Also, when practicing for speed and fluency, when you know the sound of the scale, you should play the whole pattern from left to right just as PAD says so that you understand the whole pattern.

Posted by: shellshock1911 Jan 7 2008, 05:01 PM

Alright thx for the awesome explanation man, I see now.

Posted by: Muris Jan 7 2008, 05:08 PM

I wouldn't agree on that one.
You can start from any note actually,
it all all depends of Bass note or chord/chords.

Ouch,sorry for hijacking Ivan

Posted by: Philippe Jan 7 2008, 06:27 PM

ok, next time i'll keep my mouth shut

Posted by: Andrew Cockburn Jan 7 2008, 06:49 PM

Nooooo! Please don't - we're all here to learn and I think you made a good point.

Posted by: Milenkovic Ivan Jan 7 2008, 06:58 PM

Yeah man, thats a pretty logical question to me, unfotunately tonight is like Bogdan's birthday and i go to his party, so I don't have time to write the answer - you'll have to wait until tomorrow

Posted by: Milenkovic Ivan Jan 8 2008, 02:33 AM

Hey guys, I'm back.

Look you need to approach differently to that problem. You have to ask yourself:"What is this on the fretboard?" No really I'll explain..: Here we have a portion of the Gmajor scale on the neck, that is really easy to play. Blue dots are the notes within the scale, and yellow ones are the root (G) notes. So what will you actually learn by knowing this pattern? Well not much really....you will know only...the pattern. BUT if you read the next text, maybe some things will get more clear:

Here we have a Gmajor scale. Since we have these notes from a Gmajor scale in use we will say that we are inside of a Gmajor tonality or a key. Tonality is built around one major scale (in our case we have Gmajor scale off course). So, when you see this scale you know that it has 7 notes and a specific tone-semitone (tone=two frets;semitone=one fret distance) disposition. Something like this:


G - tone - A - tone - B - semitone - C - tone- D - tone- E - tone- F# - semitone - G

Example of this would be the distance between the F# and the G notes. As you can see, they always are at one fret distance from each other.

So why is this important, you're probably scratching your head right now... Well because when you start out from a different note, for example from A note, and play the same notes written in your fretboard here:

you'll get a whole another scale with some other tone-semitone intervals thus building the MODES of the Gmajor key. There are 7 MODES in a Gmajor key as there are 7 notes. Now watch this carefully:

start from G you get: Ionian MODE
start from A you get: Dorian MODE
start from B you get: Phrygian MODE
start from C you get: Lydian MODE
start from D you get: Mixolydian MODE
start from E you get: Aeolian MODE
start from F# you get: Locrian MODE

So, I think you are aware that you need to know all these modes and theory, since it will be a lot easier for you to construct your own exercises and to practice scales.

For the end I suggest that you practice your scales for starters like on the picture shown bellow: with three note per string patterns, as they can be easier to remember. This is just the first mode, build the rest based on what I've told you, and post if you have any questions...And YES you DO have to learn the whole thing But take it easy man

Posted by: Moon Boots Jan 13 2008, 08:17 PM

oooooooooooohhhhhh...I seeee!!! So that's what modes are! I was actually playing different modes without even realising

Your post encouraged me to slow down and think about the notes of the scale, and what I was actually doing when I was playing it, that's definatly much better than just speeding through everything as fast possible and not really understanding it. And after reading what you said about modes I checked out Andrews theory lesson on modes and things are really starting to make sense now.

Thanks a lot Ivan

Jason

Posted by: Milenkovic Ivan Jan 14 2008, 03:17 PM

I'm very glad that I could help man. If you need anything else feel free to ask!

Posted by: Coram Deo Feb 1 2008, 04:42 PM

Hey Ivan, I have a question about your blues soloing beginner lesson. You said in the intro that you used a basic 1-4-5 blues progression, what does that mean? Please explain what you mean by 1-4-5.

Posted by: Milenkovic Ivan Feb 1 2008, 05:50 PM

Hey man,

It means that we are using the first, fourth and fifth chord in a progression. It is common for the blues, and one of its marks. The theory behind it is as follows:

In the blues we are referring on the I, IV and the V degree of the major scale. Since we are using B major for our progression (the blues where the root is B we have the following notes (degrees are in Roman numbers):

I - B
II - C#
III - D#
IV - E
V - F#
VI - G#
VII - A#

These seven notes that you see up there are making the B major scale. Every note is building its own chord so we have 3 chords involved are as follows

I chord B,
IV chord E
V chord F#

and this is what I mean when I say 1, 4, 5 blues progression. Often musician only say the roman numbers when they speak about progressions because it would get pretty messy if I would have to tell you every chord by note name and its category etc..

Now there is one more thing that is making things a little complicated, so if you want to know more go on and read. As you know you can use a B minor pentatonic scale with this progression and it will sound good. And you may probably ask yourself why is that? How can notes from the Bminor sound good over Bmajor progression. Well, we are not using EXACTLY B major chords up there. You probably noticed that I didn't write chord types like for example 'Bmajor" or Bminor. We are using mostly dominant chords in the blues. Some of these chords:

B
E
F#

can be dominant and this is why we have different scales. We can combine notes from minor pentatonic, major pentatonic, thus creating something that resembles like dorian mode, and also use a minor blues scale, which has one blue note as you can see in the charts of the lesson (it is marked green). We combine this scales based on the type of our chords that are used. Most of the time these are dominant (B7, E7, F#7), but can be major, or minor too. In blues you can use any type of chord like 9's, 11's etc, but the main difference is in that minor third, major third or dominant seven that gives the progression its true feel.

Posted by: Coram Deo Feb 1 2008, 08:16 PM

Got it! Thanks man! You don't have to keep the chords in that order do you, that seems boring! And can you add more chords from the same progression or just use the 1-4-5?
And not to change topic but in the posts before mine, are you saying if I play an A minor pentatonic scale but don't start my run on the root note it is not in A minor?

Posted by: Milenkovic Ivan Feb 1 2008, 09:37 PM

The progression for the blues is usually a 12 bar blues progression. It goes like this:

I - IV - I - I - IV - IV - I - I - V - IV - I - V

Every roman number represents a chord played over one bar (four beats). In blues you can put other chords off course, but classic blues progression involves only these three chords.


If you play a run from other note than A over Aminor scale, it will be a mode of that scale. A scale is an array of notes played from the first one, to the same one in a higher registry (octave higher).

I will ask you to please go and read the post about modes more carefully and see if it makes some sense, because I explained there pretty well how the modes are built.

Posted by: Coram Deo Feb 2 2008, 03:23 AM

OK, I have read your post and also read Andrews posts on modes and its starting to become more clear......now I can see the importance of memorizing the fret board!! It sounds like modes are based on a seven note scale, so does that mean you cant apply them to the pentatonic scales, since they only have 5? And thanks for all your help!!

Posted by: Andrew Cockburn Feb 2 2008, 03:28 AM

(Sorry to butt in Ivan!)

The modes we talk about are generaly more accurately called "Modes of the major scale" - other scales such as pentatonic have their own completely separate modes, some have names other just numbers. E.g Mode II of the pentatonic minor scale is actually Penatatonic Major, then you have Mode III, Mode IV and Mode V.

Posted by: Coram Deo Feb 2 2008, 04:02 AM

Right on! I'll try to get a handle on the major modes first, but thats good to know. I don't think I have ever seen a post or lesson on the pentatonic modes, are there any? If not maybe there should be. Thanks for the response!

Posted by: Milenkovic Ivan Feb 2 2008, 11:26 AM

No problem at all Andrew, a help from an expert is always needed

Posted by: Andrew Cockburn Feb 2 2008, 01:54 PM

Thanks Ivan you are a gentleman!



Modes of the pentatonic scale are generally less musically useful than the major modes so you don't see much of the apart from the Major Pentatonic. However, some modes of other scales are in somewhat more common use, for instance, Phrygian Dominant, which is used occasionally in neo classical and progressive is actually Mode V of the Harmonic minor scale.

There are literally hundreds of modes and scale sout there, its fun to pick one and write a song around it - an interesting way to get some inspiration

Posted by: Milenkovic Ivan Feb 2 2008, 02:25 PM

Ah yes, the good ol` Phrygian/Dominant scale I call it Phrygian/Mixolydian since I learned that way out of local theory books, but it's the same thing basically. I've just done a little lesson using this one in one Macedonian folklore song, it should be out pretty soon.

Posted by: Andrew Cockburn Feb 2 2008, 02:40 PM

Yes, I don't think there are set names for some of these - Dominant means minor 7th, and Mixolydian has a minor 7th as well, so it is just as good a name

Looking forward to that lesson, should be very cool!!

Posted by: kjutte Sep 29 2008, 12:08 PM

Would like to add that even though you start on another note, you aren't really modulating until you change the root notes.

Edit: sorry for hijacking aswell

Posted by: kevvyg Jan 27 2009, 01:13 PM

Hi Ivan,
As you're discussing modes, can I just ask something? The triads build on the Ionian mode (major scale) are MmmMMmd.
Are the chords built on the other modes altered because of the different interval patterns or are they the same, but just in a different order? (Could we have a theory section on 'Modes for Dummies'?).
Modes were a bit of a mystery to me, but they are beginning to make sense.
I couldn't get my head around the fact that all of the modes contain the same notes given one particular tonality (ie C major, D dorian, E phrygian etc). These all contain the notes CDEFGAB, so I thought, how can we know when we're playing in a certain mode, we seem to be playing in ALL modes simultaneously!!
It seems that it's the emphasis of the root note, and its relationship with the other notes in the scale, especially the 3rd and 5th, and the chords built on the scale notes - see above!
On the subject of blues, I've got my work cut out at the moment, as I've started concentrating on mastering the blues lessons in GMC, and this has made me realise blues is not just a minor pentatonic played ad-lib over a I-IV-V chord sequence. More's the pity!!
I let Ivan know in a separate thread, but if anyone's interested, check out http://12bar.de/index.php for a really helpful site about all things blues, including some note for note analysis of some classic blues songs.
I've discovered from studying the GMC blues lessons and this other site that it's a REALLY GOOD IDEA to learn the notes on the fretboard, along with the minor AND major pentatonic patterns, so that you can swap between the two at will. Anybody out there got any suggestions how to speed up the process of learning the fret notes?! I'm trying to do it a string at a time, but it's really easy just to sit there going "B, C, D, E, F, G, A, B...". Not that helpful, as I'm just reciting the alphabet!!
Any help will be greatly appreciated!!!!!!!!!!!!
How about hypnotism?


Thanks!
Kevin

Posted by: Ivan Milenkovic Jan 29 2009, 11:52 PM

They are the same, only in a different order. Different interval patterns don't affect the chordal build in that way that they chords are changed. Chords shift along with the intervals in parallel, so they remain the same.


That's exactly right mate. The emphasis is on the strong notes of the scale - the notes that are building the harmony. Different voicings of the modes can help you create different vibes on top of the harmony, so you can mix modes in different keys to create modal solo. If you have major chord, there are three major modes that you can use, so you mix, and see where it takes you. And yes - you have to know all the modes in all the keys perfectly!

You are on the right path mate, your conclusions are good! Blues is definitely not all about minor pentatonic scale! it's about expressing your feelings and making a positive stand about life, although life is hard. You tell that story, a blues story of yours so the audience can hear it. Blues is the feeling, the vibe, it is connected by the name with the "blues" music, but blues is something more than that. Traditional to modern blues music has changed and evolved a lot, and you can check out the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blues, it is great for knowing the essence of the blues music.


Learning notes on the neck requires time and patience, so I suggest you spend some time learning the notes horizontally and vertically, and then try to nail the tone you want. It may take several months but it is well worth it, just like you said mate.

Posted by: GOGG Feb 6 2009, 04:43 PM

Hello Ivan,

i have a question about the minor third interval in the D minor chord/ C major scale...
Why is the A on the 3rd string a minor note? Why can't it be a major note?
I will send you the link:
http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/ls/chords-workshop-level-1-chord-basics/#last

It's in the 5th video,1:51minutes.

Thanks and sorry if there was the same question earlier!

Best regards,
Goran

Posted by: Ivan Milenkovic Feb 9 2009, 01:15 AM

This A note in the D major chord is not a minor or major interval. Chord is made from:

1. Root
2. Third
3. Fifth


In D minor chord we have:

1. D
2. F
3. A

F is the third interval and it can be major or minor. A is the fifth interval and it a perfect interval that doesn't have a major or minor character.

Check out this http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/guitar_forum/index.php?showtopic=3285 about intervals it may clarify some things a bit mate. If yo have any questions please ask.

Posted by: sted Feb 9 2009, 12:13 PM

Hey Ivan!

Being a budding blues man im always trying to incorporate new things into my free form playing, i always seem to revert to minor pentatonic because its so familiar, what other scales etc go nicely with Blues style playing? Im ok with modes but just cant seem to get them into the playing effectively even though something like Dorian is a minor scale which should sit pretty well, it just doesnt "feel" right?

Any tips would be appreciated.

Posted by: Ivan Milenkovic Feb 10 2009, 01:47 AM

Hey man,

Dorian mode, and blues scale are the ones that you can use very effectively in the blues.

Also blues is about mixing the major and minor pentatonic scales together. Have you tried that perhaps?

Posted by: kevvyg Feb 16 2009, 02:38 PM

Hi, hope you don't mind me sticking my oar in, but a good site I can recommend (if that's ok), is one I've already mentioned to Ivan. Google 'Slowhand Blues Guitar'. It answered a lot of my questions...
You can also check out this thread that I started: Ask an Instructor>Ivan Milenkovic>Theory(Ivan)>Blues!How to sound more bluesy!!
Hope that helps!

Posted by: Figon Jun 23 2010, 04:47 PM

Hello,any exemple for mixolydian mode over menor chord? very thanks.

Posted by: Ivan Milenkovic Jun 27 2010, 08:10 PM

Hello,

Mixolydian mode has major third interval, and minor chord has minor third interval. Using the specific mixolydian note array over minor chord, will shift the focus out of the mixolydian root note to 2nd, 5th and 6th degree of the scale, depending what note of these is the base for forming the minor chord.

For example take C major key:

V degree is G, mixolydian mode

minor chord in C major key: Dm, Em, Am

Play Am chord and over that mixolydian up and down and you will see that the focus will shift from G to A (2nd degree of mixo mode). It's natural that we perceive music like that, chords are guiding us to certain notes, and vice versa - certain melodies guide us to certain chords.