The Theory Grandpa: You ask, We answer

Hi Tavo, and all the others on the quest. Here comes our Theoy Thread: The Theory Grandpa (thanks to GT from UK, that has the Theory Grandmother ). We can definitely start in one or more ways, but just to be sure we talk about the same things, here are some basic notions:
1. All chords belong to a scale (some might argue with this, but let's just start somewhere). So the first thing to know is the MAJOR Scale Lets start with C Major: C D E F G A B and C.
2. Let's harmonize the C Major Scale (make chords out of each note of the scale) in triads. It means we're summing every second note. Ex. first chord (triad) in the scale of C Major is C major (Notes C, E, G), second chord is D minor (Notes D, F, A), and on goes the list: E minor, F Major, G Major, A Minor, B Diminished.
Ok, let's face it, nothing new, but to most of (me included) at the beginning very painfull to learn end understand. So to point number
3. ASK QUESTIONS.
4. In every scale there are three very strong notes: the root (in our case the C), the fifth (in our case the G) and the fourth (in our case the F). Why this is so, basically it has to do with the succession of the harmonics that every note has. But this will lead us really way too much away.
5. Most important: Try to play these chords in the following order: C (1 measure played in 4ths or swing 8ths), F (1 measure same as above), G (half measure), F (half measure) and C (1 measure). You notice a certain familiarity, but most important of all, you should notice, how these chords tend to stick together, resolve on the root ecc... This in popular music is the most used chord sequence and there is lots more to say about why, and so on. But let's just state it here: tha basis for almost of the pop songs in almost any period of time (i am speaking from the 1920s on..) has it's basis in the chord sequence ROOT, FOURTH, FIFTH.
The next step and very important for the music we listen to, would be the harmonization of a scale in fournotechords. But:
OK, I think from this point on, we can go everywhere, so now the next step is on everyone else out there trying to figure out chords of songs, like me.

As promised, here is the second part:
6. Our triads consist as for now primarily of root, third (major or minor) and fifth (exact or diminished). Four Note Chords: if you add another note one third interval (1,5 note or 2 notes from the fifth) to an existing triad, you'll have our 7th chords. So here the chords in C major with four notes: C Major 7 (C, E, G, B), D Minor 7 (D, F, A, C), E minor 7, F Major 7, G (Dominant) 7, A minor 7, B minor 7 flat fifth (halfdiminished).
Again, from here on, there could be a miriad of questions, but to continue we have to understand, that all these things where known since the (i hope i remember it right) mids of the 18th century. Nobody knew about all this before, so figure out the revolution in playing and composing music from this point on.
BTW: if someone wants to play all this on guitar, you have to look for basic chord shapes, and i usually recommend the CAGED System to slowly dive into it.
Next step: understanding how all these chords relate to each other:
8. We already know the importance of the three chords on the First, Fourth and Fifth degree of any scale. These Chords relate very close to each other and you can almost ever hear the sequence by ear. Now these three chords are also called TONIC, SUBDOMINANT and DOMINANT. But we have up to seven notes and therefore seven chords in every scale. All other chords in a scale are related to one of this three: TONIC chords are on the first, third and sixth degree of any scale, SUBDOMINANT chords on the fourth and second, DOMINANT on the fifth and seventh degree. So instead of playing I, IV, V chord sequence, you can also play: I, VI, II, V. And here we have the standard progression since Gershwin in pop music: the so called Rhythm Change, the Anatole, or simply the 1625, 6251 etc.
Next step: let's choose a song and try to work it out on the guitar, as explained above.
And most important of all: ASK QUESTIONS, CRITIZISE, STOP THIS MAYHEM!!! LET'S PLAY E, A, B AND BE HAPPYYY

I'll just carry on with what Roland said and maybe explain it in a different way. I'm learning the german words for all these terms so please correct me when I say something wrong.

As Roland said, there are different chords inside the scale, and you can also start a new scale from every note of the Scale. These are called Modes and have different names, and especially sounds. Today almost only the Major and Minor scale are still used, but the other ones can also sound very interesting.

For C Major that looks like this, on the left the scale, then the Chord built from every second note, and then then name for the scale:

C D E F G A B C / Cmaj7 / C ionic

D E F G A B C D / Dm7 / D doric

E F G A B C D E / Em7 / E phrygian

F G A B C D E F / Fmaj7 / C lydic

G A B C D E F G / G7 / G mixolydic

A B C D E F G A / Am7 / A eolian (this is the minor scale)

B C D E F G A B / Bm7b5 / B locrian


So what's the reason for all this??
To answer that question we need to know what creates the special sound of a scale. All these scales use the same notes but have a very different feeling. it's because the half steps are in different positions. They're always between the B and the C, aswell as between the E and the F.

When we compare the more common scalesout of this, C major and A minor (we see: to every major scale there's a parallel minor scale which uses the same notes) you can hear a strong difference. Grab your instrument and play them. For the Minor Scale there's no problem to stop just after the G, it sounds more or less "complete"
Now try it with teh C major scale. You can't just stop after the B. It really asks for the C. Why? Because there's only a half step between them. Half steps create tension, that can lead to another note in a great way.

And now a help to use these information.
There's a technique called Solmisation
This might sound a bit weird first but it can help you a lot

You replace every Note of a Scale with a name. They are:
DO RE MI FA SO LA TI DO
As I said, this might sound weird, but when you learn chrod progressions for example with this system you'll never have problems in transposing them.
With this technique you just learn what stage of the Scale is played, and so it works for every scale you use as the basement. And therefor I now have some standard progressions explained in this system with that you can play an unbelievable big number of songs.
The names are not standardized, but I think it#s better to give them names.

Classical Cadence in Major:
DO /FA /SO7 /DO

Classical Cadence in Minor:
LAm /REm /MI7 /LAm

Jazz Cadence in Major:
REm7/SO7 /DOmaj7/ DOmaj7

Jazz Cadence in Minor:
TIm7b5/MI7 /LAm /LAm

"Autumn Leaves" Cadence:
REm7/SO7 /DOmaj7/ FAmaj7/ TIm7b5/MI7 /LAm /LAm

Gospel Cadence:
DO / DO7 /FA / FAm

Spanish Cadence:
LAm / SO /FA /MI7

"Rhythm" Cadence:
DOmaj7/ LA7 / REm7 / SO7

"Child in Time" Cadence:
LAm / SO / FA / SO

"Stand by me" Cadence:
DO / LAm / FA / SO

"House of the rising sun" Cadence:

LAm / DO / RE / FA

Okay I think that's enough for the first.

Thanks for starting this threat I think I'll learn a lot here, and maybe I can share some of the stuff I know, that's good Karma!

Paul

What I forgot concerning the cadences: you read them just like normal chord progressions their just still "open" for every scale you want to use. Try it you'll feel familiar with them, they're used so often!

God bless ya Roland for trying, but I had this deja vu feeling that I was sitting in biochem again and drooling on my sigmoid shaped binding affinity curves, then I fell asleep in the second paragraph.

vic wrote:

God bless ya Roland for trying, but I had this deja vu feeling that I was sitting in biochem again and drooling on my sigmoid shaped binding affinity curves, then I fell asleep in the second paragraph.

And you're completely right Thanks Paul for the followup! You're teacher is really good!! I just read through a few posts concerning chords, or songs. Would be interesting to gather all the requests in one thread, so that the explaining can be done in one place. All the NOledge above is really just the tip of an iceberg that Setzer could have been through in his early twen's, and i bow my head before Paul who wants to do this at his age. That's one way to approach music. The other is obviously just to play. Maybe i'll check some of the chord requests and me and Paul or whoelse has the time and will can just hang on and try to understand, why this is so a beautifull arranged song:



Just insane couriosity?

Wow! I may need to print this out for a resource. This may help me get out of my long time rut that I've been in.

Thanks for the nice words Roland! I can just give you all the advice to try this stuff on the guitar. It's nice to know it, but it's useless if you can't "feel it". I actually think that the feeling for music is way more improtant than knowing a lot of theory, but it's absoultely worth to learn both.

Okay, so completely orientated to do something that you can immediately use on the guitar I'll analyse a Song you might know. It's a very popular Jazz-Standard called "Autumn Leaves" and it shows pretty good what I want to tell you.


To get into it, here's a Video with a Backing-track for it ( I chose a Backing track because the Chords are interesting for us)



These are the Changes I found in the Realbook:

/ Cm7 / F7 / Bbmaj7 / Ebmaj7 / Am7b5 / D7 / Gm7 / Gm7 /

So, based on what I said in my earlier Posting we can bring these chords into an order to re-create the scale.

To know what order the chords have you need to know the steps between the notes in the major scale

For C major:

C (whole step to) D (whole step to) E (half step to) F (whole step to) G (whole step to) A (whole step to) B (half step to) C

Also as mentioned before the half step between the B and the C pulls towards the C. So always when the B is played you can notice that it leads very smooth to the root.

Okay, looking back to the Chords for our Song we' can now find out that they fit to the Bb Major Scale which looks like this

Bb C D Eb F G A Bb

Again we can build up chords based on this scale with the system Roland and I showed you yesterday:
Bb maj7
C m7
D m7
Eb maj7
F 7
G m7
A m7b5
Bb maj7

Okay, this is now what we'd expect, after we found out the scale the Song is based on, so let's look if these chords match to the transcription:

We've got:


Bb maj7 fits!

Cm7 fits!

D7 ?????

Ebmaj7 fits!

F7 fits!

Gm7 fits!

Am7b5 fits!

Bbmaj7 fits!

Why is there a D7 when we were actually thinking that there had to be an Dm7. I guess everybody of you who accidentially played a major instead of aminor chord knows that this can sound pretty painful, but (and now please listen to the Song) it absolutely doesn't You wouldn't notice that it actually doesn't fit to the scale when you just listen to the Song

But where does it come from????????

Maybe we're just looking at the scale from the wrong place. Who said that the Song is written in a Major Key???

(Advice: most of the time the last Chord in a Song shows you the right Key)

Okay, so let's look at it from the parallel Minor Scale (remember: the minor scale that uses the same notes)

It'd look like this:

G A Bb C D Eb F G

Okay, but there are still the same notes so that's still no Explanation why they chose no minor chord.

Earlier in this posting I mentioned the steps between the notes of a scale, and now we're coming to the reason why.

Let's look at the steps between the notes of the scales

Bb Major:
Bb (whole step to) C (whole step to) D (half step to) Eb (whole step to) F (whole step to) G (whole step to) A (half step to) Bb

G Minor:
G (whole step to) A (half step to) Bb(whole step to) C (whole step to) D (half step to) Eb (whole step to) F (whole step to) G

As explained before the half steps are important for the Sound of the Scale and to create tension.

To understand what I say now you really need to hear this.

In the Major Scale there's only a half step before it ends with the root again. When you play the scale you wouldn't get the idea to stop after the A, because it's only sound complete after the Bb

Now try to play the G Minor scale and stop after you played the F. No Problem!

This shows pretty clear what is one of the most important principles in music.

Half steps create tension!!!

That's why there exists a different Version of the minor Scale called "harmonical minor"

The difference is just that you make the note before the root note a halfstep higher so you've got only a halfstep before the root again.

In our case that'd look like this:
G (whole step to) A (half step to) Bb(whole step to) C (whole step to) D (half step to) Eb (one and a half step to) F# (half step to) G

Now play this scale and you'll see that the rule of the G is more important

And now we can finally answer the question why we have a D7 instead of a Dm7 just put the notes together again:

Dm7= D F A C
D7 = D F# A C

Okay let's resume what we found out:

-The Song is written in Gm what is the paralel Minor scale to Bb
-Because it's written in minor they changed the scale to make it sound more harmonical
-Therefore the added the F# what makes the Dm7 a D7

BTW if you look at the Transcription you'll se that the D7 is played immediately before the Gm, I think now you know why!

Of course you can use this scale for improvisation over the Chord changes. You'll find out that it fits in a great way!

This is not a speciality of Autumn Leaves by the way, it's a common thing used in many other Songs.

Don't be to afraid of that stuff it really isn't that complicated!

After having written this text I want to tell you all, that that whole theoretical stuff is worth nothing when you don't practise on your instrument. You can be a great player without knowing anything about scales and chords, but you can't be one without Feeling.


Paul

Wow!!! After all this very definitely perfectly analyzed Autumn Leaves, just two tips to those who really want to dive into it:
- Prepare yourself a paper with the five fingering positions of the major scale on the fretboard. For those who don't have them: 5 fingerings
MP me or Paul (he surely has on too) if you want a more concentrated paper.
- Learn all those fingerings 1) up and down every pattern, 2) then connecting one pattern to another. You're playing notes from the C Major scale. Think of Pattern one as a combination of the phrygian/lydian mode since the first notes are E/F, The second pattern is the mixolydian, first note is G (fifth degree of C Major), third and most used pattern is the aeolian, begins with A, fourth pattern is the locrian/ionian (begins with B and C), fifth pattern is the dorian. So everytime somebody will say, "Oh, just play some dorian stuff over this chord", you can start at the root of the chord, if it's a dm7 it is D, and play the fifth pattern. It's a good help for beginning improvisors. Some teachers will say, that's the wrong, but it helps you to understand the "COLOURS" of the scales. That is some important step. If you want to continue on Autumn Leaves, play the Bb major Scale over every chord, but be prepared NOT to play an F on the D7 chord, instead when reaching that position, try to play the F#. My teacher at the Musicschool let us play so called continouus scales over Autumn Leaves. That means that you play eighth notes throughout the Standard, and everytime you arrive at a new chord, you start from the last played note using a minor or major second only to begin the next scale. For the Cm7 for ex. you start with C, playing: C, D, Eb, F, G, A, Bb, C, then on the F7 you continue with D, Eb, F, G, A, Bb, C, D and so on.
Let's check out some Setzer tunes next. I just have to check out which.