Re: The Relationship Between Scales and Keyes
moog1000 said:
Sorry to be picky put A minor is the relative minor of C major:
A minor - A B C D E F G A
c Major - C D E F G A B C
G Major - G A B C D E F# G
So if you play A to A in G major you actually have a dorian mode - A B C D E F# G A - Santana anyone?
Spot on. E minor (pure) is the relative minor of G major.
Here's another way I look at scales and keys; they are both just bunches of notes, put together according to someone's logic. There is nothing to stop you trying to write a song based on the A phrygian scale (for example). It's your song! (When I first tried to do leads, I had no idea about scales, so I tried to do it using the notes from whatever chord is in the rhythm, and chucking in other notes as passing notes whilst steering clear of semitone clashes. I wan't (and still aren't) very good at it).
In that way, then you could say that a scale is a key.
Look at the C major scale given above. If you wrote a song using only those notes with C as the root, it would be in the key of C major, and you could use the C major scale for leads, if you wanted. Some people may use other scales in C.
For a song to
only use notes from this scale, then you need to use scale-tone chords. Say you wanted to play a D chord. Find D in the C major scale, then count to the 'third' above it (F in this example), and a 'fifth' above (A in this example). This is D minor. If you number the notes in the scale in order, then the chords you would form using 1 - 7 as the roots would be major, minor, minor, major, major, minor, diminished respectively. It's no coincidence that modes formed from a scale follow this major, minor, minor etc pattern also.
In fact, the simplest way I find to play modes is to write a song using only scale tone chords, select the scale I play leads in as being the same as the key of the song, then just change the root note I'm using to tie-in with the root of whatever chord is being played in the rhythm.
I'll chance my arm here though and say that most songs I hear don't use scale-tone chords (I often don't even manage to stay in one key in a song
), so that's when selecting scales becomes really fun. I try to select based on the general 'feel' I'm aiming for (example A phrygian played against an A major chord is supposed to sound Spanish), getting the root right, and trying to prevent clashes between rhythm and lead parts.
I find it helps to remember music is more of an art than a science
utahere:
