We’re exploring what scales to play over dominant 7 chords. See the previous entries listed below for more details.

We’re working with this one-chord progression, which we’ve recorded into Band-in-Box or a tape recorder or something similar:

||: G7 :||

And let’s take look at a single melodic minor pattern to solo with. But before we do that, a bit of explanation on what the melodic minor scale is. Super simple explanation, though a big difference in sound: the melodic minor scale is just a major scale with its major third turned into a minor third. Example:

C Major: C D E F G A B

C Melodic minor: C D Eb F G A B

And here’s a pattern for D melodic minor. Why D melodic minor? Hang tight: play first and we’ll answer questions in a bit.

|------------------|--------------------|
|--------------2-3-|-3-2----------------|
|----------2-4-----|-----4-2------------|
|----2-3-5---------|---------5-3-2------|
|--5---------------|---------------5----|
|------------------|--------------------|

Get acquainted with this pattern and play it over the G7 chord. If you already know a few major scales, this pattern is real close to one you know: the D major scale. As just mentioned, there’s just one note difference between the major and melodic minor scales.

What did you think of the sound? That gets us into answering the question: why are we using a scale whose root is D to solo over a G7 chord? Is it magic, or are we just playing scales at random?

No, we’re not just choosing any scale. Let’s look at the notes in G7 and those in the D melodic minor scale:

G7: G B D F

D melodic minor (starting with G): G A B C# D E F G.

You see that the D melodic minor scale contains the G7 chord with no conflicts. That is, every note in G7 is found in D melodic minor.

But notice something else: The D melodic minor scale has just one accidental: C#. The whole scale is extremely close to the C major scale — just one note different. This means that if you’re playing a tune that uses the C major scale and come across a G7 chord, you can play the D melodic minor scale instead of the C major scale; you will sound interestingly different, but not so different to where you would consider the sound wrong or ugly.

Next time: another way of using the melodic minor scale to play over a Dom 7 chord.

Thanks for reading.

Copyright © 2007 Darrin Koltow

This first appeared in the Guitar Noise News - October 15, 2005 newsletter. Reprinted with permission.

Scales and Soloing Series

• Scales To Use For Soloing
• Scales To Use For Soloing Part II
• Improvising With The Blues
• Scales To Play Over Dominant Chords
• Soloing With Melodic Minor Scale II
• Soloing Over Minor Chords

We’ve been doing a lot of focusing on finding scales for playing over major chords. Please see the previous entries listed below for details.

Let’s work out some scales to play over dominant chords now. Let’s do a one-chord progression with G7:

||: G7 :||

Record several measures of rhythm, strumming the G7 chord into your Band in a Box software, or a simple tape recorder, or something similar. Power Tab - free software - is highly recommended.

Now play back the recording. What are going to play over that G7? If you’re playing it safe, you can start with an arpeggio rather than a scale. Play a G7 arpeggio such as the following:

|--10-7----------------|----------------------|------7-10----|
|-------8--------------|----------------------|----8---------|
|---------10-7---------|--------------------7-|-10-----------|
|--------------9-------|------------------9---|--------------|
|----------------10--8-|-------------8-10-----|--------------|
|----------------------|-10-7---7-10----------|--------------|

What you’re doing is just playing each chord tone of the G7 one note at a time. You’re not hearing anything that’s not in the chord. For a little variety and color play an A note with that arpeggio. Also, try E.

Let’s go back to scales and re-ask the original question: what scales will sound good over G7?

C major is a good candidate. Why? G7 is found in the C major scale (among other scales). In other words, every note in G7 can be found in the C major scale.

Yet, there’s a dissonance if you use C major over G7: the C note. Play the C over the G7 and listen. As mentioned in a previous tip, this note wants to resolve to B.

So you’ve found one scale with a dissonant note and now you say, “Well maybe there’s a scale that contains the notes in G7 but doesn’t have the dissonant C.” You learn a bit of theory and you come up with this scale: G pentatonic. We presented this in a previous tip, so we’re going to zip over to yet another scale: D melodic minor.

Believe it or not, you can use melodic minor scales in at least 4 different ways to play over dominant chords. We’ll start to go over those approaches next time.

Thanks for reading.

Copyright © 2007 Darrin Koltow

This first appeared in the Guitar Noise News - October 1, 2005 newsletter. Reprinted with permission.

Scales and Soloing Series

• Scales To Use For Soloing
• Scales To Use For Soloing Part II
• Improvising With The Blues
• Soloing With Melodic Minor Scale
• Soloing With Melodic Minor Scale II
• Soloing Over Minor Chords

We’re back to talking about scales to use for improvising. Here’s the sample phrase we’ve been improvising over:

||: C major, A minor, D minor, G7 :||

In previous chapters we improvised with the C major pentatonic and then the G major pentatonic. See the previous posts for details.

Now we’re going to use yet another scale to play over this phrase in C major, with the intention of hearing some Blues. Here’s the pattern we’re going to use:

|-------------------3-6----|
|-----------------4--------|
|-------------3-5----------|
|---------3-5--------------|
|-----3-6------------------|
|-3-6----------------------|

Play this pattern just shown over a tape recording or midi file of the C major progression.

How did it sound? We can get it to sound even better by highlighting those bluesey dissonances like this: start out playing the G major pentatonic (described in the Scales To Use For Soloing Part II) over the progression, and then after a few seconds play the Eb major pattern just given.

This pattern is the Eb major or C minor pentatonic. Yes, it has two names. It’s not a true blues scale, but it conveys the feeling of the blues. And that feeling comes from just two notes within the Eb major: Eb and Bb. Playing those two over chords in the C major scales produces the sweet, “incorrect” intervals we call the Blues.

We now have three different scales to play over the C major progression. Are you ready for yet another? We’ll dig in next issue.

Copyright © 2007 Darrin Koltow

This first appeared in the Guitar Noise News - September 15, 2005 newsletter. Reprinted with permission.

Scales and Soloing Series

• Scales To Use For Soloing
• Scales To Use For Soloing Part II
• Scales To Play Over Dominant Chords
• Soloing With Melodic Minor Scale
• Soloing With Melodic Minor Scale II
• Soloing Over Minor Chords

We’re looking at scales to use for soloing. Here’s the progression we’re working with

||: C major, A minor, D minor, G7 :||

Last week we improvised over these chords using the C major pentatonic (see Scales To Use For Soloing for details, including the pentatonic pattern we used).

Is the C major pentatonic the only scale you can use over a progression in C major?

Thankfully, no. We have many choices. Listen carefully to how this next scale plays over the aforementioned changes. This is the G major pentatonic:

|----------------------3-5----|
|------------------3-5--------|
|--------------2-4------------|
|----------2-5----------------|
|------2-5--------------------|
|--3-5------------------------|

The G major pentatonic has none of the notes — F and C — that could cause unacceptable dissonances. Specifically, the F, if present, would clash over a C major and A minor chord, and the C, if present, would clash over a G major and E minor chord.

Let’s generalize this finding so we can play in other keys: if you know a phrase or progression or sub-progression is going to stay within a major key and not stray outside it, instead of playing the major pentatonic from the root of the key center (e.g. C penta within C major), play the major penta from the V of the key center (e.g. G penta). For D major, this means you would use the A major pentatonic pattern, and for G major, you’d use the D major pentatonic pattern.

Next time: improvising with the Blues

Copyright © 2007 Darrin Koltow

This first appeared in the Guitar Noise News - September 1, 2005 newsletter. Reprinted with permission.

Scales and Soloing Series

• Scales To Use For Soloing
• Improvising With The Blues
• Scales To Play Over Dominant Chords
• Soloing With Melodic Minor Scale
• Soloing With Melodic Minor Scale II
• Soloing Over Minor Chords

Let’s get into a topic that gets a lot of guitarists excited, and some maybe a little frustrated: scales to use for soloing. Specifically, single line, improvised soloing. This could apply to rock and jazz players, but others might benefit also from learning the theory being applied.

Super practical example: You’re playing some tune in C major and want to improvise over the changes (that’s “chord changes” or “chord progression” if you’re new to guitar lingo.). What scale do you use? Correction: what scales — plural — could you use? Let’s go from the most obvious to not as obvious options.

The obvious option is the C major (A minor) pentatonic. Need a pattern for this? How about the following:

|---------------------5-8----|
|-----------------5-8--------|
|-------------5-7------------|
|---------5-7----------------|
|-----5-7--------------------|
|-5-8------------------------|

And let’s have a basic phrase in C major:

||: C major, A minor, D minor, G7 :||

You don’t need two guitar(ists) to practice this. Get a program like Power Tab or record yourself playing the change just given, and then play notes taken from this penta-pattern over it.

How does it sound? Not terrible, right? But there’s a rough spot: If you’re playing the C major pentatonic over a G or G7, you might hear this dissonance: the C note clashing with the B in the chord. It doesn’t sound terrible if you don’t emphasize the note. Just remember that soloing isn’t all about playing your fingers off. You have to listen, listen, listen.

In the next issue we’ll answer this: Is the C major pentatonic the only scale you can use over a progression in C major? I think you already know the answer.

Copyright © 2007 Darrin Koltow

This first appeared in the Guitar Noise News - August 15, 2005 newsletter. Reprinted with permission.

Scales and Soloing Series

• Scales To Use For Soloing Part II
• Improvising With The Blues
• Scales To Play Over Dominant Chords
• Soloing With Melodic Minor Scale
• Soloing With Melodic Minor Scale II
• Soloing Over Minor Chords

We’re exploring the three types of chords that are all you need to see the Big Picture of making music. For the first two chord types (tonic and subdominant), see the past two entries: The Big Picture of Making Music and The Subdominant Chord.

Remember our main point: no matter what you see or hear in notated or recorded music, there are only three types of chords, as they relate to key centers: tonic, dominant and subdominant. These chords set up key centers in our Westernized minds when we hear them.

Let’s look at the dominant chord. What is it, and what’s its purpose in setting up a key center? Time for a metaphor: taking a vacation from home. The tonic chord is like your home. The lovely vacation place you travel to is like the subdominant: it’s great to be there, but you have no illusion about it being your home. Even as your lying on the beach or knocking back that third margarita, a part of you is thinking, “I kind of miss being home (the tonic).”

So when we hear the subdominant (vacation spot), we’re already thinking about getting home. Before too long, we’re on the ship or in the car on way home. That’s the dominant: you’re one step away from being home. When your ear hears a dominant chord, it’s saying “Yipee. We’re almost home. Just one chord away.”

How do we find the dominant chord? There are two that can function as dominant, whether the music you’re hearing is in a minor or major key center. Chords that function as dominants are built on the fifth (V) and seventh (vii) degree of the major or minor scale.

Example: get your guitar and play a G7 followed by a C. The G7 is the V chord in the key center of C major.

There’s another chord in C major that can serve as a dominant, but you might not know it. It’s Bm7b5, the vii in C major. Here’s a pattern for it: X, 3, 2, 3, 2, X. These are fret numbers, reading from left to right, highest pitch E string to low E string.

Play that Bm7b5 chord, then follow it with the C major. See how much like G7 it sounds? As we’ve done with the other chord types, let’s compare the notes of the two dominant types:

G7 has G B D F

Bm7b5 has B D F A

Three out of four notes in common — no wonder they can serve the same function. They’re practically the same chord.

Practical uses? The next time you come across a G7 while playing a tune, try playing Bm7b5 instead. Or, if you’re writing a tune and want a darker feeling than what the G7 provides, use Bm7b5.

Copyright © 2007 Darrin Koltow

This first appeared in the Guitar Noise News - August 1, 2005 newsletter. Reprinted with permission.

Big Picture of Making Music Series

• The Big Picture of Making Music
• The Subdominant Chord

Back to the Big Picture of making music: the viewpoint that gives you an understanding of how music works. The last installment talked about key centers: the all-important concept that drives Western music. And we looked at the three principal characters in this drama: the tonic, the subdominant and the dominant.

Please see the last entry for more background info, including what the tonic chords are. If you’re already lost, keep this in mind. The point that there are not bazillions of chords you need to know to make music, there are only three — tonic, dominant and subdominant. Discovering this for yourself is like having each dollar in your wallet turn into a $50. Okay, enough rehash. We’re into the subdominant. What is its function? Heck, what is it? The subdominant type of chord is the chord that says, “Not so fast, my pretties. I know you want to reach the mellow and restful tonic chord. But you have to get through me first. I have the same basic sound as the tonic, but when you hear me, you know you’re not ‘home’ yet. You’ve only arrived at a pit stop.”

Yes, the subdominant is kind of a friendly nemesis to the tonic chord. When you hear it, you hear the music wanting to move somewhere else. Let’s see this in action. Get out your guitar, and play these chords in this order: C, Am, Dm, G7, F. Strum each chord twice. What did you feel when you finished playing? Kind of unresolved, right? Like there needed to be something else. That’s because we ended this micro ditty on a subdominant chord, not a tonic chord.

Let’s get more specific. Which degrees of the major scale have the subdominant chords? Just two: the ii and the IV. (Nothing special about these Roman numerals. Using them is just an indicator that we’re talking about parts of the major scale, and not, say, the beats within a measure of music.)

The ii and the IV, when translated into an actual key, (C major in this example), yields these chords: Dm and F. For a quick sanity check, look at the subdominant chords in the key of F major: Gm and Bb.

Next important point is one already covered in the last tip: you can (often) swap one subdominant chord for another. So the next time you’re playing a tune in C major, and the tune calls for an F major chord, try playing a Dm (or Dm7) instead.

A bit of detail here: If it’s true we can swap these chords, they ought to sound fairly similar, correct? Let’s look at the notes in each: Dm: D F A. F major: F A C. Good: two notes in common out of three. Now, dig this: Dm7: D F A C, and F6: F A C D. Same notes. In one sense, they are the same chord. So you know they are interchangeable.

Next time we’ll look at the dominant.

Copyright © 2007 Darrin Koltow

This first appeared in the Guitar Noise News - July 15, 2005 newsletter. Reprinted with permission.

Big Picture of Making Music Series

• The Big Picture of Making Music
• The Dominant Chord

This tip is about the Big Picture of making music. What is that? It’s the mental model that helps you understand how music works. Without that, then scales, chords and maybe even songs will make no sense to you. So let’s answer some fundamental questions about the Big Picture of music and see if it helps you untie some mental knots you’ve made for yourself.

All you need to do to see the Big Picture of music is to understand this: key centers. If you understand how key centers are made, moved into and out of, and how chords work within key centers, then you can fit anything new you learn — chords, scales, songs, fruitcake recipes — into your brain, and it will be a joy to learn.

So what is a key center? Get out your guitar. Play a Dm, followed by a G7, followed by C major. You just established a key center of C. If you sing or play the note C, it sounds like the most restful note, doesn’t it?

The next question is how do those three chords work to create a key center? Let me defer that question for now, and offer instead an encouraging statement: there are only three actual chords in any key center. Say what? Three chords? “I was told there are 7,” you say: you know, one for each note in the scale. Yes, that’s true. But for the purposes of *establishing a key center*, there are only three chords — or actually, three *types* of chords.

Watch out now: when I write, “type of chord” I’m not talking about a chord’s *quality*: major, minor, diminished, polka-dot, etc. No, “type” refers to one of these: tonic, subdominant, and dominant. Let’s explain these, and relate them to some actual chords.

The tonic type of chord is the one that represents the key center itself. It sounds more or less restful and says, “We can just hang here. No need to go anywhere else.” It’s important to note that you will have a true “Tonic,” which is the key center, and other “tonics” that can serve as representatives, or substitutes for the true key center. The true Tonic (note the capital “T”) is the first degree of the major scale. But tonic chords (note the little “t”) in any major key are found on degrees One, Three and Six.

Translate these to C major. The C major chord is the Tonic chord. But the Three and Six, Em and Am, are also tonic. This leads us to the next Big Observation about key centers:

You can often swap out one chord for another if the chords perform the same function (tonic, subdominant, dominant). That means in C major, the chords C major, A minor, and E minor are interchangeable.

“Objection!” someone yells. “I’ve tried that before and it sounded worse than fingernails on chalkboards.” So to that we say this: this stuff about tonic, subdominant and dominant is a part of music *theory*. And you did notice the word “often” back in the sentence starting with “You can often…” Often doesn’t means always.

Back to the point, and how to apply it. The next time you’re playing a tune in C major, try swapping around the Em, Am and C.

Am has two of the same notes as the C chord, C and E. In essence you’ve created a C6 chord, which is C, E, G and A, but without the G. This is why Am7 (made up of A, C, E and G) is an even better substitute tonic than just plain old Am.

But what about Em? While it also has two of the notes of the C chord (E and G), it doesn’t have the C and missing the root can sometimes seem a little jarring. But when you’re playing in a band, you often have a bassist or keyboard player who’s playing the root. And when we add the root C to the rest of the Em chord, we get C, E, G and B, which is Cmaj7.

C6 and Cmaj7 have jazzier flavors than your normal C chord, which is why they don’t “always” fit in with the mood of a particular song. But quite “often” they will. When? Well, that’s a matter of both personal taste and experimentation.

So take some time and experiment with tonic substitutions and next time out we’ll discuss the subdominant.

Copyright © 2007 Darrin Koltow

This first appeared in the Guitar Noise News - July 1, 2005 newsletter. Reprinted with permission.

Big Picture of Making Music Series

• The Subdominant Chord
• The Dominant Chord