What Scales To Practise ? Options

[aerohit]

Hiya. In order to freely flirt with my guitar, I learned A major and all its modes all over the guitar. But I somehow am not able to produce the kind of noises that would please me. One of the probable reason is because I have not chosen the right scale. Can someone suggest what scale should I choose to begin with, to create some really tasty riffs and licks rock style.

To give a little hint, I like Led Zep, Metallica, Slash and all those rock and roll bands of the 70-80's. So probably some lightning on what scales they worked with would help.

Also, A minor pentatonic box seems to be a pretty popular box. May I know from which major scale,if at all, is it derived from?

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[Ben Howell]

This is actually quite a complex question (i was thinking about explaining this just the other day actually).

Basically we have keys in music.

Theses keys produce a set amount of notes, and from those notes chords are built.

We then make porgressions based on those chords in a key.

So for the key of C major, we have the notes:

C D E F G A B

From which these chords can be built, from the notes of C major:

Cmaj7, Dmin7, Emin7, Fmaj7, G7, Amin7, Bmin7b5


Without going into modes too much -Check out Andrews great theory article on this, link is above-

If a progression is based around each of these chords, they all have a different feel or vibe (proper word is tonality)

So say you base the progression around the C major chord -by base i mean resolve to, or end up at as 'home'

You'll get a progresion like so:

Dmin7-G7-Amin7-Cmaj7

This will have a 'major' sound to the overall progression.

Base it around Dmin7:

Dmin7-G7-Dmin7

It will have a D Dorian sound- youll have to read through Andrews modes workout to understand this.


Each chord built of a scale, if you base a chord progression around it will have a certain 'sound'.

So if you want a major tonality/vibe, base it around the Cmajor7 chord (for the key of C major).

If you want a minor sound, base it around the Amin7 chord.

Want a dorian sound? Base it around Dmin7, the second mode of C major.


What i will reiterate is that regardless of modes/keys, an interval will always sound the same over a particular chord.

For example play D note over C major7, it will always sound like a major 2nd, regardless of the chords place in a key.

Hopefully this is addressing what you wanted to know.

let Andrew chip in

-Ben

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This post has been edited by benhowell: Jun 15 2007, 03:44 PM