UNPLANNED DOWNTIME: 12th Oct 23:45
Recommend me some scales to noodle in
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I’m all about noodling, and recently that’s just been in C major. Before that it was all pentatonic.
The other night I switched back to the pentatonic and was struck by how my playing radically changed.
That got me thinking: I should try other scales and chords and see what happens. However it’s always hard to figure out what the next steps are from the above.
Are there different scales that work well over the c major chords? Are there different chords the c major scale works over in interesting ways? Are there whole other scale and chord combos that people turn to for everyday use?
i’m referencing everything in regards to C for simplicity. I know I can move the root and play B major over the chords of B major, which is interesting in terms of getting out of ruts, but sonically sounds similar to me
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Then there’s a myriad of others to try but I’d say get those 4 understood first.
Understanding them is more important than being able to play them well, IMO, because music is as much about head and heart as it is about hands.
It's really cool sounding.
Subjective: major (ionian), minor (aeolian), mixolydian, dorian, phrygian, lydian, locrian (?)
I don't really work like this but I did slavishly put in the mode-hours when I was younger and more foolisher
Which leads to: what are you playing over?
You're going to need a sensible context to get proper benefit, e.g. Google for 'drone backing track'.
I’m assuming the chords for B Locrian should be in someway different to those of C Major to get the benefit? Or is it the case that I should be changing scale root with each chord? Or is it just down to how the scale is played in the different modes?
I tried using iReal Pro, which has a couple of modal exercises with some spicier chords - which was interesting, but it sounded like a lot of those exercises are changing the key (the Dorian exercise has been F#m and Fm)
C Ionian (natural major) - C D E F G A B - 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
D Dorian - D E F G A B C - 1 2 b3 4 5 6 b7
E Phrygian - E F G A B C D - 1 b2 b3 4 5 b6 b7
F Lydian - F G A B C D E - 1 2 3 #4 5 6 7
G Mixolydian - G A B C D E F - 1 2 3 4 5 6 b7
A Aeolian (natural minor) - A B C D E F G - 1 2 b3 4 5 b6 b7
B Locrian - B C D E F G A - 1 b2 b3 4 b5 b6 b7
In strictly diatonic harmony, they all share the same chords...so stacking the 3rds to list the 7th chords:
Cmaj7 - C E G B
Dmin7 - D F A C
Emin7 - E G B D
Fmaj7 - F A C E
G7 - G B D F
Amin7 - A C E G
Bmin7b5 - B D F A
If you want to noodle B Locrian (not a great choice, imho), you need a B Locrian progression...erm...something like:
| Bm7b5 / / / | Bm7b5 / Am7 Cmaj7 |
Strong consonant chords in there but it leans heavily enough on the B to be Locrian.
Beyond noodling, the best improv can come from:
- knowing the underlying key
- knowing the chords and understanding the extensions that you can imply, e.g. you see/hear an F but you can think Fmaj7#11
- thinking about themes/motifs/rhythmic ideas
- breathing
Playing modes over a simple drone (often very purposefully along a single string) can open your ear to their unique sounds.If you're playing over a C major type blues progression (for example), you could try alternating between C major pentatonic and C minor pentatonic.
Then try mixing the C major and C minor pentatonic together (in effect overlaid on top of each other). The combination gives mixture of C Mixolydian and C Dorian.
Then try throwing in a b5 as well.
Selecting notes and creating phrases from that palette of sounds gives loads of possibilities. It's an approach that I use a lot when jamming over a major blues.
https://www.fretjam.com/modal-chord-progressions.html
from that I guess it’s about creating the right progression for the mode.
Analysing what I do, it seems I actually mix two scales - the minor blues scale and the mixolydian (not that I even knew what mixolydian was until earlier today!).
Anyway, the point I’m making is that you don’t need to restrict yourself to just one scale or mode at a time. Find ways of mixing more than one. Almost certainly there will be some things that clash or jar somewhat, but just as likely you’ll discover phrases or licks that you might not otherwise have considered.
So in C it's: C(1), D(2), Eb(b3), E(3), F(4), Gb(b5), G(5), A(6), Bb(b7)
The way it evolved for me was as major pentatonic merged with minor pentatonic, with an added b5. I'm old and the early rock solos I learned by ear largely pentatonic based. If fact I didn't really have a name for them at the time. Plus I probably got that bluesy Dorian sound from listening to Peter Frampton and the Mixolydian sound from Jeff Beck. Then I just stated to merge ideas/sounds together.
If I were to try to put a label on the group of notes now, I suppose it could be called either
Mixolydian with an added b3 and b5 (in my 'Jeff Beck' mindset)
or, Dorian with an added ma3 and b5 (in my 'Peter Frampton' mindset)
(Wilf plays a style which is a very long way away from what I play, and probably what you play too, but that doesn't matter. He is, in his delightfully simple homespun way, an excellent teacher and a chording wizard. Recommended.)
Sorry I didn't read the full post ....maybe try some arpeggios ....from the c major scale Cmaj7..Dm7 ..Em7 ect
Coincidentally, Tim Pierce talks about something similar in today's live stream from about 1:58 to 4:40 (clip below). Except his example is in the key of A.
I’m not that good at playing scales - I’ve never learned how to play them properly and don’t normally incorporate long scalar structures in my playing. Understanding the notes in a key or scale though, I’d say that’s pretty mandatory, even if it’s only a a tacit / experiential understanding.
For any progression, what you really need to do, to understand the key, and the key's notes, is to follow these steps. I'll take your G-Dm-Am-C looped progression as an example.
1) Identify the root. This is pretty much the first thing you have to be able to do as a musician. Other words for root are key note, home note, 1-chord, "what the song is in", final resting place, foundation note, fundament, base, home base, etc. In your little progression the home note is G. This is pretty uncontroversial. The progression starts and ends on G (because it's actually G-Dm-Am-C-G). So G is the root. If you struggle to hear that with absolute finality, then try listening to more music and practise listening to where the music draws to a close. It's not always the first chord, but it often is. It's normally the last chord, but sometimes it's not. In your progression it is. The way you've written it looks like the last chord is C, but it's not, it's G. Because it returns to a final G after that C. It's sort-of like this:
G-Dm-Am-C / G-Dm-Am-C / G-Dm-Am-C / G-G-G-G.
You should be able to hear those chords going round and round and hear where home base is and correctly identify it as G.
2) Identify the "tonality". There are 3 choices: major, minor, or ambiguous. The way to find out is to see what your G chord is. Well, you've already said, it's G, not G minor, so you're in a G major tonality. It could still be ambiguous, so to be bullet proof, you could look to see if there are any G minor notes in the rest of the chords. The major / minor determining note is the 3rd. In G, that would mean a B for G major, and a Bb for G minor. You just have to know that. Now, when you look at your other chords to see if any of them deploy a Bb, none of them do. Actually none of them has a B or a Bb - the notes just don't exist in Dm chord, Am chord or C chord. But importantly there's nothing to give a hint of G minor. So it's not ambiguous. You're in a G major tonality.
3) Establish the chords of the progression, agnostic of key. You're playing 1 chord, 5 chord, 2 chord, 4 chord. You can just count up the alphabet to find that out. Now, you're playing the 1 as Major, the 5 as minor, the 2 as minor and the 4 as major. So the progression is a 1524, and written in Roman Numerals, it's I - v - ii - IV. (the Capital letters denote Major.
4) Identify the scale that fits with this progression. You have to ask, are you in bog-standard "Major" (AKA "Ionian mode") or one of the other major modes?
OK. There are two other major modes besides Ionian. They are Lydian and Mixolydian. Which are you in? Well, there are some clues in your chords. You can't be in G Ionian, because G Ionian has a V chord, not a v chord. And you can't be in G Lydian, because that has a raised IV chord (as well as a major V chord). Whereas what makes mixolydian special is that it has a minor 5 chord - in other words, a v not a V. (This is just stuff you have to learn.) So your progression is in G Mixolydian.
The notes of G mixolydian are G A B C D E F G. (yes it's the same notes as C major, or B locrian (which is horseshit so put it out of your mind), or A minor. But those facts are irrelevant. Because you are in G, not another letter.)
And the chords of G mixolydian are G Am Bdim C Dm Em F and G.
As you can see, I - v - ii - IV fits perfectly with it. I've bolded the chords above to prove it.
5) Noodle away. There you are. G mixolydian it is. If you noodle in G mixolydian throughout that progression it will sound fine. Of course you can deviate from that to create interest and tension. but the default notes are G A B C D E F G.