Chords For Scales Options

[Andrew Cockburn]

Oh man, I had prepared a full bag of questions about chords, after reading a whole stuff about scales and single tones... well, it's empty for a while now fantastic job, it was a big lack in my knowledge


just a quick & simple question:



Let's take we ain't sticked into power chords.... should I play in the second place something like:

---
---
---
-3-
-2-
-1-

?? It builds a good tension, a first thought is some old intro from one of Metallica's songs...

That's actually a flattened 5th, so technically not a power chord, but great for building an evil and tense kid of sound!

in the last paragraph you mentioned getting a chord progression first and than write your riffs on the scale that fits.
but how do i know what scale fits? how do i do this process the other way round?

You can figure it out through a process of elimination! Arrange all of your chords and pull the notes out and order them. That gives you a list of notes and if you know your scales you shoould be able to fit one to the notes you have with a little work!

Hey Guys,

First I wanted to say that I'm a admirer of Andrew's Professional Work, here
Thanks a lot.

But I got a question referring to the Em Chord of the D-Major scale.

I tried to figure out the notes myself using your "formula". So after getting done the D-Major chord I came up with the E Minor Chord. If I'm right it consists of the three notes E Gb/F# and B.

So if I wanted to try out the Chord on the guitar it must've got the tab (If I got that right):

-----2--
--------
--------
-----2--
-----2--
---------

But I'm familiar to playing it without the thin E string :

--------
--------
--------
-----2--
-----2--
---------

Why is it a Em, when one of the 3 notes of which it consists isn't played? Is it a power chord then?

It also could be true that I've made any mistake. If so - Please help me to fix it

I'm looking forward to your answers.

See you soon

Not quite right -

The scale of D major is D E F# G A B C# D

To make a chord from this scale with a root note of E we start at E, skip a note, pick a note skip a note and pick a note, which gives us E G B - these are the notes for E minor

So, looking at the way you normally play it (which is correct) from the low E string up you have:

E B E G B E

All of which are in the chord

The not you had on the high E string, F#, whilst in the scale is not part of a basic E minor chord. In fact it is a 9th, which would make the first chord you showed an Em9 - nothing wrong with that, it's still in the scale, just not the chord you were going for

[Shiho]

But is the G of the D-Major scale not the 3rd? And following your formula ("Minor 1,b3,5") the 3rd has to be flattened, hasnt it? So why do you get a G instead of a Gb?

[utak3r]

But is the G of the D-Major scale not the 3rd? And following your formula ("Minor 1,b3,5") the 3rd has to be flattened, hasnt it? So why do you get a G instead of a Gb?

You're trying to apply this rule for the second time It's already applied... you can't flatten or sharp any note from the scale while building a chord...

[GrannyKiller]

The not you had on the high E string, F#, whilst in the scale is not part of a basic E minor chord. In fact it is a 9th, which would make the first chord you showed an Em9 - nothing wrong with that, it's still in the scale, just not the chord you were going for

Actually it would be an Em+9 chord, since there's no b7 in there. Hope I got it right...

You're trying to apply this rule for the second time It's already applied... you can't flatten or sharp any note from the scale while building a chord...

Yep...

@Shiho - The correct intervals are already there, in the scale -> that's what makes a bunch of notes a scale. To build chords from the scale, you just use the notes that are already in there and follow a simple formula as Andrew already mentioned a couple of times: take a note - skip a note - take - skip - take a note

@Emir - some of those augmented chord types sound awfully nice... thanx for the formulas bro

[Andrew Cockburn]

Actually it would be an Em+9 chord, since there's no b7 in there. Hope I got it right...

Yes, Em+9, sorry.