Music Theory Questions- Ask Away

Our mini music theory question in another thread got me thinking. Lets start a music theory Q + A with me as its own thread! Whatever you are thinking about or working on, ask away! To get you thinking, I will post the two items from the other thread. Do you want to know about chords, scales, progressions, melodies, ??? I think I can be helpful to some people and it would be a great way to make me feel like all those student loans for music school were worth it! See below to get you started.

When musicians talk about chords in a song, they often use roman numerals as a shorthand. If every key as 7 notes (do re mi fa sol la ti) then you can assign a numeral to each I ii iii IV V vi vii. because of how our musical scale is laid out, the I IV V chords are major, the ii iii vi chords are minor and the vii chord is diminished. Most two chord songs just use I and V, I and IV or I and vii (but the vii is lowered by a half step, like in shady grove)

That means, if you know your scales, then you can figure out which chords are common in every key!!!!

In the key of C:
C Dminor Eminor F G Aminor Bdim

In the key of F:
F gminor aminor Bb C Dminor Edim

In the key of G:
G Aminor Bminor C D Eminor F#dim

etc....


Chords usually have three notes. the root, the third and the fifth. the distances between these notes (called intervals) are set according to what kind of chord it is. For example, a major chord has a perfect 5th between the root and 5th and a major 3rd between the root and 3rd. this is what makes it sound like a major chord.

A minor chord has a perfect 5th and a minor 3rd, which is one half step lower than a major 3rd. For example, Fmajor has F A C in it while Fminor has F Ab C.

A diminished chord has a flat 5th and a minor 3rd in it. F Ab B

An augmented chord has an augmented 5th in it and a major third F A C#

with this knowledge, you can "figure out" how to build a chord starting on any note. You just have to be able to count frets or piano keys to find the intervals.

Chords with a 7 on the end of it add another note to spice up the chord. So far, to build our basic F chord, we used the 1st, 3rd and 5th notes of the F scale. to make a 7 chord, we just add the 7th note, which make F A C E or FMajor7.

Remember above where we wrote out I ii iii IV V vi vii ?
Well we can do the same for 7th chords, they all have different qualities that are dictated by adding the notes of the scale. there are four kinds of 7ths that come from the major scale.

Major 7th: major 3rd perfect 5th major 7th
Minor 7th: minor 3rd perfect 5th minor 7th
Dominant 7th: major 3rd perfect 5th minor 7th
Diminished 7th: minor 3rd flat 5th minor 7th


Imajor7 ii7 iii7 IVmajor7 V7 vi7 viidim7 Only the V7 is dominant, its the 7 you hear and use all the time. In the key of F, it is what makes C7 sound so good.

Chords like to move from one to the next, its what makes songs in western music keep moving. 7th chords have one more degree of spicyness or tension in them which makes our ears want them to move even more badly. its what gives jazz, swing, blues, broadway, tin pan etc...its harmonic motion.

SOOOO, to get to gary's question, a G chord on your uke, which you are probably fingering 0232 has the notes gdgb coming out. (notice you have two gs. This happens a lot. there are three notes in the chord but you have four strings) if we switch it to 0212 we have G7 with the notes gdfb. Now we have four notes! Its the F that makes it sound like a dominant 7th chord. g is root, b is 3rd, d is 5th and f is 7th.

Can you explain the diatonic and chromatic scales? Why is there a diatonic scale?

See you at the Gorge Uke Fest.

Bill

Thanks for sharing your knowledge, although I have some experience of music theory, there is always something new to learn.
Just yesterday a friend who has played guitar for over 20 years saw a copy of a printout of the circle of fifths, that I had on the kitchen table, he asked me to explain it to him and he was over the moon that something so simple could take his playing to new depths. So I think what you propose is a great idea.

The chromatic scale is every note that is used in western music. it would be like going to a piano, starting at middle c and hitting every white and black key till you get to c again. The names of the notes are
C
C#/Db
D
D#/Eb
E
F
F#/Gb
G
G#/Ab
A
A#/Bb
B

Notice some notes have two names, the names change according to the context it is used in. (another can of worms)

The diatonic scale is the most common group of 7 notes used in western music. Do Re Mi Fa Sol La Ti Do. There are 12 of these scales, one for each note in the chromatic scale. Just like there are 12 major keys and 12 minor keys in music.

As we know many other cultures use different scales as the foundation for their music, but the diatonic is the foundation for classical music, church music, pop, jazz, folk, rock, blues, etc...

Our attachment to it goes all the way back to ancient greece when people started to learn about the ways that strings vibrated and sound was produced. In a nutshell, a vibrating string (or tube of brass, or cane reed, or whatever) vibrates in geometric ways along its length. When you start to measure them, certain intervals show them selves. Basically a note is not just one note, it is many notes combined, your ear just hears the most important one, the fundamental. It is what gives a musical note its richness and timbre.

Anyway, when you start to map out all the natural overtones that come off a string and measure them, you end up with all the intervals that go into our major scale. Cut a string in half, you get an octave, cut it into thirds you get a perfect 5th, cut it into 4ths you get a perfect 4th etc...You can read more about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overtone_series

So, when we take the strongest notes from this harmonic overtone series that naturally comes off of a string, we get the beginnings of our major diatonic scale, the most common intervals between notes and the common chords that we use all the day. Notice that the first harmonics I mentioned above (octave, perfect 4th and perfect 5th) correspond with the I IV and V chords!!!!

Really? No one has any other music theory questions? Chords, chord shapes, melodies, scales, keys, music reading, tab, etc...???

Great thread thanks!

What is the difference between a melodic and harmonic scales?

Also what makes a chord a "jazz" chord?

thanks
ivan

Pure GOLD, Aaron! Thanks, man.

Can you give me some insight on the Diatonic Scale -- is it defined by the W-W-H-W-W-W-H steps?
And how do I relate that piece of knowledge to the Modes?
On a more uke-centric topic, what are the basic movable shapes for chords -- and how do I find the chord root (I managed to memorize the roots on the fifth and sixth strings of my guitar)?

Much Mahalo!

How do you form modal chord progressions?

Adding to this...Apart from the major and minor, what are the point of the other modes?

Adding a question I also posted to the beginner area:

Damn...I've seen Uncle Rod's Boot Camp Document, even downloaded it but didn't commit to it. But now I see it's exactly the place for me to start my fingerstyle/chord changing practice.

A related question though. So I see these chord progressions. What are the rules with these chords within the progression? Meaning for example C - Am - F - G7 is a common chord progression Can I play G7 -> F - Am - C (backwards basically) or does this counter the idea of a progression? how does one determine how these chords can be mixed/matched together in a song?

Thanks!

OK- We will start with Olarte's questions. We already talked a little about the major diatonic scale, but not the minors. If we take the the c major scale (C D E F G A B) and start it on the 6th note it looks like this (A B C D E F G). This is the natural A minor scale, which as you can see has the same notes as C major. The other two most common minor scales are called Harmonic and Melodic minor. They are just "spicier" ways to play in a minor key.
A Natural Minor
A B C D E F G

A Harmonic Minor
A B C D E F G# A

A Melodic Minor
A B C D E F# G# A (and on the way down) A G F E D C B A

Remember above when we built chords by using the notes from the scale? Well, the harmonic minor scale is most commonly used for that. Using a G# instead of G makes our V chord E major (E G# B) instead of E minor (E G B). Which usually sounds better for V chords.

Here are the common chords for A Harmonic Minor
A minor (i)
B diminished (ii)
C major (III)
D minor (iv)
E Major (V)
F Major (VI)
G# Diminished (vii)

The melodic minor is played differently on the way up than on the way back down. On the way up, the 6th and 7th notes are raised up a half step. On the way down they are the same as the natural minor. Note that both melodic and harmonic make sure to raise the 7th note up a half step. This is called the leading tone and it also happens in the major scale. It is the note "B" here C D E F G A B C. Try singing Do Re Mi Fa Sol La Ti Do and stoping on Ti. Our ears generally want to hear the resolution from Ti to Do, which is why harmonic and melodic minor are cool. They give you the minor sound but keep the leading tone.

More on minor scales below when we get to modes.

To address your other question, "Jazz" chords is a catch all term to describe the commonly used chords used by jazz musicians. This would include lots of chords that use more than just the root third and fifth and extend out to 7th, 9th, 11th etc...and their common alterations. One of the things that makes jazz harmony sound jazzy is the reliance on extensions and alterations of common chords. The other important technique would be the common substitutions that jazz musicians use on simple chord progressions. They often pack more chords into a form than the composer intended.

On to GoKidd

When I talked about major scales above I mentioned that the space between notes is called an interval. The two intervals we need for this discussion are half step and whole step. A half step (h) is one fret or one piano key distance and a whole step (w) is two frets or two piano keys distance. It just so happens that the diatonic major scale has a specific pattern of intervals that you can use to build it: w w h w w w h. I will incorporate it into the C major scale C w D w E h F w G w A w B h C

As you can see, I have listed the notes with the size interval between each note, either a whole or half step.

This trick can be learned to slog your way through figuring out all the scales. Start on a note, count up the correct interval to the next note and continue your way all the way through the scale.

By the way, this is the reason we have to use sharps and flats when we move to other keys!!!!! If we start a scale on D and just list the notes by using our knowledge of the alphabet, we get this:

D E F G A B C D

If you play these notes your ear will tell you that it does NOT sound like a normal Do Re Mi scale. Thats because its not following our WWHWWWH pattern. If I want a W between E and F, than I have to change the F to F#. If I want a W between B and C, then the C must be C#. That changes this scale to:
D E F# G A B C# D

Mind blowing, right. That is why sheet music in the key of D has those two sharps in the key signature. It is also why we have so many frets and why there are black keys on the piano.

OK, now for modes. (I really should make myself a cocktail first) (OK, I'm back)

Modes are just different kinds of scales that are based off of our diatonic scale. They are ways of using the scale in different ways in order to make a different musical statement. If we use C major as our starting point, we have these notes:
C D E F G A B C
If we re-write them starting on the 2nd note, we get
D E F G A B C D
This is the foundation for those appalachian songs I like such as Shady Grove. Instead of I IV V as the common chords, Dorian usually uses i VII, in this case Dminor and C. This is also the mode of "Greensleeves" and "What Would You Do With A Drunken Sailor) Go ahead and strum Dminor and C a little bit and see what I mean.

We can continue this practice for all the notes of a major scale, here we go:

CDEFGABC Ionian Mode also none as Major
DEFGABCD Dorian Mode
EFGABCDE Phrygian Mode (popular in Flamenco music and death metal)
FGABCDEF Lydian Mode
GABCDEFG Mixolydian Mode (sounds like blues/jazz/swing)
ABCDEFGA Aolian (Natural Minor)
BCDEFGAB Locrian

Each of these modes uses the same notes and same chords, but it trains our ears to hear different notes as the important, home base notes. If you hear a song use Dminor C major and back again over and over. You hear Dminor as home. Just like there are 12 major scales, there are 12 dorain scales, 12 locrian scales etc...Don't stress out though, its not like I use these things all the time. But it does illuminate certain practices like the i VII i progression from dorian.

We will put off chord shapes for a moment while I extend this to reach papplehead's question

We already saw that the common chord progressions are based off of the diatonic scale. A little review: If I line up the notes from a G major scale,
G A B C D E F# G

and I start building chords by using the 1st, 3rd 5th notes, then the 2nd, 4th, 6th notes then 3rd, 5th 7th etc...I will build all the common chords

GBD - G major (1st 2rd 5th notes of g scale)
ACE - A minor (2nd 4th 6th notes of g scale)
BDF# - B minor (3rd 5th 7th notes of g scale)
C E G - C major (etc...)
D F# A - D Major
E G B - E minor
F# A C - F# diminished


Weeeeeellllllllllllll, Ergo, Therefore...

If you start with a modal scale (lets take the dorian mode of G)

ABCDEF#GA and build chords using the same technique, you get:

ACE - A minor
BDF#- B minor
C E G - C major
D F# A - D Major
E G B - E minor
F# A C - F# diminished
G B D - G major

There are lots of common progression using these chords, try strumming:

A minor A minor C major G major a few times in a row. Cool, huh?

or
A minor C Major G Major D Major

So even though its the same chords and notes as the G scale, our insistence on having A minor as the first chord in the progression makes our ears focus on A dorian instead.

You can do this for any mode and key!!!!!!!

To touch on Freackykit's question, each mode has its own melodic and harmonic character to it, that our ears here a difference in. The ancient greeks, who first mentioned this effect, believed each mode had a different emotional character as well and songs should be written so that the words and mode correspond. More info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_modes

I somewhat agree, and most of the classical greats and modern pop songwriters do as well. (Scarborough Fair by Simon and Garfunkel of Mars by Gustav Holst come to mind) Think about "I will Survive" by Gloria Gaynor.

Am Dm
At first I was afraid, I was petrified
G C
Kept thinkin' I could never live without you by my side
Am Dm
Then I spent so many nights thinking how you did me wrong
E
And I grew strong
E7
And I learned how to get along

It would sound way less emotional if the aminor and dminor were replaced by major chords!

Which leads me to AcousticBuckeye's question about rules. Yes, there are common ways to do things. When they become so common that we start to notice, we often find ways to analyze and codify these things. That is when a practice becomes a theory. But, for every great song that follows the rules, there is another that breaks it! Our ears can honestly get used to almost anything, as long as we get the chance to hear it repeated a few times. Some of the greats are the ones that break the rules so much that we don't notice it's revolutionary anymore. When we were learning about Sonata form in college, (which is the way that most classical symphonies are organized) it was almost impossible to use Mozart as an example, because he was constantly breaking the rules and messing with listeners expectations. It was way easier to use a minor composers child's piano sonata to learn the form!

Look at the the chords to She Loves You by the Fab Four


"She Loves You"
(J. W. Lennon - J. P. McCartney)

Intro:

Em
She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah
A
She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah
C G6
She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah

Verse 1:

G Em
You think you've lost your love
Bm D
Well I saw her yesterday
G Em
It's you she's thinking of
Bm D
And she told me what to say

Chorus:

[1: She says 3: Because] she loves you
Em [xx5003 xx4002 xx2000]
And you know that can't be bad
Cm
Yes she loves you
D
And you know you should be glad

Verse 2:

She said you hurt her so
She almost lost her mind
But now she says she knows
You're not the hurting kind

[repeat chorus]

Post-chorus:

Em
She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah
A
She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah
Cm
With a love like that
D G
You know you should be glad

Verse 3:

And so its up to you
I think it's only fair
Pride can hurt you too
Apologize to her

[repeat chorus]

[repeat post-chorus] G G/F# Em
(...glad)

Coda:

Cm
With a love like that
D7 G G/F# Em
You know you should be glad

Cm
With a love like that
D [N.C.] G G/F#
You know you should be glad
Em6
Yeah, yeah, yeah
C G6
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

Its actually kind of weird and spends a lot of time hiding the fact that it is in the key of G.

So, learn the rules, understand the rules, but be ready to break them.

Maybe I will get to moveable chord shapes in a moment.

Thanks for all this information, Aaron. It's proving to be a very good refresher for me.

This is great stuff Aaron, keep it coming! BTW, I got both of your 2-chord songbooks, and they're really cool. :shaka:

Please explain the difference in a 1/2 diminished chord and a full diminished chord. That continues to perplex me!

Good Question, and it will also help me review a few things.

Chords are just collections of notes. The intervals between the notes give each chord its own flavor. For these chords, we will need to examine the root, third, 5th and 7th tones.

F Major 7 has F A C E which have a major 3rd, a perfect 5th and a major 7th.

F Minor 7 has F Ab C Eb which is minor third, perfect 5th and minor 7th

F7 has F A C Eb major 3rd, perfect 5th and minor 7th

That brings us to the two kinds of diminished chords, the 1/2 diminished and the fully diminished. Both of them have F Ab and Cb which are a minor 3rd and diminished 5th. The difference is in it's 7th. 1/2 diminished uses a minor 7th while fully diminished uses a diminished 7th, which is one half step lower.

F 1/2 dim7 F Ab Cb Eb you can finger it 1312
F dim7 F Ab Cb D you can finger it 1212

F 1/27 diminished is also called Fminor7b5 for your information.

Both of these chords are what I call pivot chords, which are very spicy chords that help push a song from one part to another.