In "My Stupid Mouth" by John Mayer he plays what looks to be the following chords:
D xx023x
Aadd4/C# x4x22x
Dsus2/F# (or F#m add b6) 2x022x
Gsus2 3x023x
then he plays the following chords:
Gmaj7 3x0032
F#m7/A#??? 6x465x
Basically I can't figure out, for the life of me, what this scale is. I thought maybe it was D Dorian but then it would have Am instead of Amaj or maybe some type of modal blues scale with the A, A#, B. Any help at all would be much appreciated.
Thanks,
Mike
An interesting question, Mike!
To start with, some of your difficulty is in the names assigned to the chords. Looking at just the fingered notes, you have:
D-A-D
C#-A-C#
F#-D-A-C#
G-D-A-D
The first two aren't really chords... just intervals. The third one I'd call Dmaj7; the fourth is named right.
If we line up these notes in a scale, we get:
A-C#-D-F#-G
You're starting out with a D 5th interval (a D 'power chord'), and D major has all of the notes in the first four chords.
So far so good... the next two chords are:
G-D-G-D-F#
A#-F#-C#-E
putting these in order, we get:
A#-C#-D-E-F#-G
This doesn't fit any major scale pattern at all... the scales which have A# don't have a G or D natural.
That throws out major scales for the second part... but what about minor ones?
The relative minor to D is Bm, and there are three B minor scales:
B-C#-D-E-F#-G-A-B (natural minor)
B-C#-D-E-F#-G-A#-B (harmonic minor)
B-C#-D-E-F#-G#-A#-B (melodic minor)
You can see that all the notes of the last two chords are in B harmonic minor.
Play in D major, then shift to B minor for the last two chords. When you change to the relative minor key, sharp the A note.
Tom
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