scales and modes and solos


Tweak
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Joined: 07/16/03
Posts: 41
Tweak
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Joined: 07/16/03
Posts: 41
09/21/2003 3:15 pm
Hi all,
this has proberbly been asked here many times before. Got afairly straight forward Q that i think counts as a technique / theory one;


Ive started spending time learning about scales and modes and have got confused. If a song is in the key of B minor, and has a chord pattern something like Bm G D (proberbly as 'power chords') and i want to solo over it am i right in thinking the following:

1. notes from the Bm scale (melodic or harmonic) should work ove rany chord as long as they are carefully chosen with respect to the chord at that time

2. (and this is my main Q) The relative major of Bm is D, so if on the Bm chord i wibble around with notes from D Aeolian mode which starts on a B, and do the same for the G chord but using whicever mode starts on a G and for the D chord whichever mode of D starts on a D (the ionian?) will it all sound ok? Will i need to alter any other notes to make it fit in with the minor kind of sound? AS far as i can see the modes are still all major..

or is it 3. Do i need to take a minor scale (eg B melodic minor) and figure out the 7 modes for that and use them over the respective chords?

Please help - im having trouble figuring out what i need to learn to do!

Chears

~T~
"This is way too much pressure!"
# 1
noticingthemistake
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noticingthemistake
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09/21/2003 3:39 pm
Originally posted by Tweak
[B]Hi all,
this has proberbly been asked here many times before. Got afairly straight forward Q that i think counts as a technique / theory one;

Ive started spending time learning about scales and modes and have got confused. If a song is in the key of B minor, and has a chord pattern something like Bm G D (proberbly as 'power chords') and i want to solo over it am i right in thinking the following:

1. notes from the Bm scale (melodic or harmonic) should work ove rany chord as long as they are carefully chosen with respect to the chord at that time


Yeah. Although I would chose the harmonic minor scale over the melodic. One reason is G in the melodic minor is raised to G#, when in the harmonic minor scale all chord tones are represented. You could use either but judge by what your gonna be doing; if your soloing the harmonic minor is always a good choice, if your writting a melody than use the melodic. It's that simple.

2. (and this is my main Q) The relative major of Bm is D, so if on the Bm chord i wibble around with notes from D Aeolian mode which starts on a B, and do the same for the G chord but using whicever mode starts on a G and for the D chord whichever mode of D starts on a D (the ionian?) will it all sound ok? Will i need to alter any other notes to make it fit in with the minor kind of sound? AS far as i can see the modes are still all major..


Why do you want to confuse yourself? The chord progression is clearly in B minor, so just use the B Aeolian (minor)scale. The notes are the same for B Aeolian and D Ionian, so nothing is gonna change. The only time you may want to think of each mode for each chord is if your going to substitute one mode over a chord for another. I.E. You could substitute the B Aeolian over the B minor chord with B Phrygian if you wished. The Phrygian is pretty much a minor scale except the 2nd is lowered, that's it.1

or is it 3. Do i need to take a minor scale (eg B melodic minor) and figure out the 7 modes for that and use them over the respective chords?


Yeah. You should do this anyways just for your own knowledge, same with the harmonic minor.
"My whole life is a dark room...ONE BIG DARK ROOM" - a.f.i.
# 2
Tweak
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Joined: 07/16/03
Posts: 41
Tweak
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Joined: 07/16/03
Posts: 41
09/21/2003 3:44 pm
Thanks very much - im feeling less confused already :)
If i ws in a mjor key im assuming that 3. above would apply but using the standard major modes instead of the minor ones that im gonna go figure out. On the subject of that anyone know anywhere where i can go and check them online or use as a reference? Ideally i would love somewhere that had the modes shown as some kinda diagram with fingering numbers and note number within the scale and the name of the note.. any ideas for resources that have all this? (i have a couple of books on order from amazon but so far they have taken like 3 weeks without appearing)



"This is way too much pressure!"
# 3
noticingthemistake
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noticingthemistake
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09/21/2003 4:17 pm
Im glad I helped. If you were in a major key, you would do the same thing I said before. If the chord progression was G, C, D. The only basic scale needed is the G major scale. The notes of that scale will work perfectly over each of those chords, you don't need to think about each mode as it plays over the chord unless you want to substitute. i.e. if you played the G major scale over the C chord, it's heard as a C lydian (same notes as G major). If you want a different sound you could play C major scale over the C major chord instead of C lydian. Only one note changes, F# becomes F natural and the alternation is only slightly contrasting.

As for a website. I'm sorry I don't know any off the top of my head but I know several people have posted with links to good guitar sites. You could probably search here or google and find what your looking for cause most guitar sites have diagrams of different scales.
"My whole life is a dark room...ONE BIG DARK ROOM" - a.f.i.
# 4
TheDirt
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TheDirt
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09/24/2003 5:37 pm
Don't try to overcomplicate things. As noticing said, the progression is in B Aeolian, so you shuold solo in B Aeolian. By switching to D Ionian and G Mixolydian, you're just using excess thought where it's not needed. The listener will not notice the difference, because it's the chord progression that determines key center, not the soloist.
What you could do is add flavor notes to B Aeolian. You can play the b9 (which implies using B Phyrgian over a B Aeolian progression), the b5 (implying B Locrian), the #7 (implying B Harmonic Minor), the natural 6 instead of Aeolian's b6 (implying B Dorian).
Hopefully you see the point I'm getting at. Every substitution of modes that I made was going from mode B [insert mode] to B [insert mode]. The tonal center of B is constant throughout the song. Going from B Aeolian to D Ionian is pointless. However, B Aeolian to B Dorian back to B Aeolian is not. Make sense?
Also, feel free to use the GuitarTricks search engine to look up more posts on modes. I just did a search of all the things I've written on modes. Go to this link to check it out. You should find some useful info in some of those posts.

http://www.guitartricks.com/forum/search.php?query=modes&forumchoice=3&booleanand=yes&searchin=all&searchdate=-1&searchuser=TheDirt&searchdateline=&exactname=yes&action=dosearch&getdaily=&pagenum=
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# 5
Tweak
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Joined: 07/16/03
Posts: 41
Tweak
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Posts: 41
09/27/2003 3:10 pm
ahh thats cool. One problem i keep having is that when i start improvising some lead over the top it always sounds very 'happy' no matter what i do, thats what im trying to get away from and im seeing now from both of your bits of advice that if i just stick to B aolian it gets me closer to the overall sound of the piece i have in mind. I tend to end up sounding like brian may a lot of the time, but not quite as fast.. whereas i want to be sounding more like satch or malmsteen in terms of the notes im playing if not the frantic yngwie-warp factor. I wish i had spent mor etime in the past learning about modes and what modes work with what. Cheers both!


"This is way too much pressure!"
# 6
noticingthemistake
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noticingthemistake
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09/27/2003 3:53 pm
Originally posted by Tweak
[B]ahh thats cool. One problem i keep having is that when i start improvising some lead over the top it always sounds very 'happy' no matter what i do, thats what im trying to get away from and im seeing now from both of your bits of advice that if i just stick to B aolian it gets me closer to the overall sound of the piece i have in mind.


If your looking for a less "happy sound" try using the minor pentatonic scale, and the blues scale [1, 2, b3, 3, 4, b5, 5, 6, b7 (7 for a leading tone)] over a major chord progression. This is a very common technique for rock guitar solo's, but it requires alittle more attention to harmony. Use the major scale tones for a basis, and the others for alittle contrast from the "happy" sound.

I tend to end up sounding like brian may a lot of the time, but not quite as fast.. whereas i want to be sounding more like satch or malmsteen in terms of the notes im playing if not the frantic yngwie-warp factor.


I'm not sure about satch but I know malmsteen uses alot of minor scales and he often substitutes minor scales with modes like the phrygian mode. Check out what TheDirt wrote to see what I mean.

Good luck!
"My whole life is a dark room...ONE BIG DARK ROOM" - a.f.i.
# 7

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