Looking For Sad Key/Progression/Scale

Take a look at David's Minor Progress. It's as though the lesson were designed to answer your question!

WOW that was fast! I think you responded as I was writing it! That does look like a good lesson.

Thanks!

OOPPS! I forgot to mention that the one thing that still confuses me about chord progressions is how do I know when a chord is a augmented, 7th, 9th, etc? I know the Roman Numerals let you know WHAT chord letter to use but when should you "modify" the basic chord?

Thanks

Not sure if I am interpreting your ? right, but here goes...I haven't delt in theory lately, so double check this agains another source in case I screw up :D

Take C major.
I ii ii IV V vi viidim = C dm em F G am bdim

Relative minor is Am, right?

Am bdim C dm em F G = i iidim II iv iv VI VII

If you want to add a diatonic extension to any chords, you let the scale dictate what notes (and therefore, chords) you can create.

So lets say we want to make Am and Am7. Will that work (remain diatonic and perfectly in key)? Based on the fact that we are using the A natural minor scale (c major), then yes it will:

Am7 = A C E G ( 1 b3 5 b7)

We could not make Am and Ammaj7 and remain diatonic, since that would require a G#, which is not in the natural minor scale. However, if you wanted to borrow from the harmonic minor scale ( 1 2 b3 4 5 b6 7 = A B C D E F G#) then you could get away with it, which would add a tension through the "outside" note (G#), opening the door to a possible modulation blah blah blah blah. You create certain degrees of tension by "borrowing" notes from other scales. However, if you want to remain strictly diatonic in your chords, you are limited to a single scale and the extensions therein.

Once you venture out of the diatonic restrictions, you are playing with tension via consonance and dissonance, and that becomes a matter of theory as well as taste. How far do you want to push something while staying within an established tonal center? Learning to borrow from keys was the main thing my teacher stressed when we went over this stuff a while back.

Hope this helped, hey Noteboat you're slackin' :wink: :D

M

LOL not slacking, just had a meeting this morning with a banker :)

Once you get into minor keys, you open up lots of possibilities... because there are so many different minor scales!

The 'usual' chord progressions come from the major scale, which has just one main flavor. When you harmonize that, you get major-minor-minor-major-major/dominant-minor-diminished on each of the scale steps.

But with minor keys, you can choose between a whole bunch of different scales to harmonize, and each one gives you different results. Dealing with just triads, these are your choices:

I - minor
II - diminished (Aeolian or Harmonic) or minor (Melodic or Dorian)
III - major (Aeolian or Dorian) or agumented (Harmonic or Melodic)
IV - minor (Aeolian or Harmonic) or major (Melodic or Dorian)
V - minor (Aeolian or Dorian) or major/dominant (Harmonic or Melodic)
VI - major (Aeolian or Harmonic) or diminished (Melodic or Dorian)
VII - major (Aeolian or Dorian) or diminished (Harmonic or Melodic)

Notice that only on the I-IV-V are the chords major/minor... on the other four scale steps you can have augmented or diminished chords; those are spots you can easily use altered chords in minor keys.

Ninth chords can be used anywhere a seventh chord is used - it's just a seventh with an added note.

Minor keys also make use of altered dominant chords fairly often - since you've already got a lot of chromatic options with the different scales, a 7#9 simply adds the altered note from the Melodic minor scale.

Thanks Matt & Noteboat for the detail explianation! I always get confused with the "altered chords" on when to use them. I had always thought if you had a C chord you could automatically put a C+ there and it would fit. But when I'd play it, it wouldn't sound right. The same for 7th, 9th, 11th, dim, etc. I thought it worked like chord voicings...just whatever sounded right.

Thanks