Finding sweat out of scale chords

[FarleyCZ]

Hi.
I've got a little question for some expirienced musicians.

I've recently felt in love with Pixies "Where is my mind" song. Especially Maxence Crying piano cover. (It's used under few scenes in "It's a Kind Of Funny Story" movie. Amazing film btw...)

I tried to learn it. Not done yet, but I noticed one interesting thing. Whole song seems to be in C#minor (Or E major, I'm not good in finding root notes, but it's sad piece, so I guess it's minor one.)

And if I'm right, the chords go like this:
E
C#m
G#
A

Now, this G# chord. It has a C note in there, which is out of pure C#minor scale. Yet it completely fits there. Similar story with Cee-lo's "F*ck you"...

Now I know it probably has something to do with there harmonic and melodic minor scales, but still. Is there any non-try-or-fail trick how to find these chords whitch don't belong to the key but still sounds cool?

Or could you recomend me some (as noob-proof as possible) material where I can read about how this is possible, what it uses and how I can handle it?

Becouse so far, I've found one or two such a chords, but by try or fail, which is very time consuming and unreliable.

[Ogg Vorbis]

Well, C is not a member of the G# major triad, but B# is. And that certainly fits within C# minor since it's the leading tone.

[sjm]

I don't know the version you refer to, but the original is:

F Dm A Bb

with F A Bb Bbm G as the change.

Are you sure your "D" is not an "E"?


Edit: Assuming the chords are the same as the pixies version, and bearing in mind I'm no theory expert so my terminology may be a bit off...

Black Francis/Frank Black wrote quite a few songs in what I colloquially call the "Spanish" scale - play Am G F E in bad flamenco style to see what I mean - it's pretty cliche and used in numerous songs. Frank Black also liked to include "Spanish" vocals in parts, I'm assuming both these things were influenced at least in part by his time in San Juan. This scale uses the notes of both the natural and harmonic minor scales (i.e. both the 5th and #5, or B and C(B#) in the case of E).

Mr. Grieves, Los Angeles and Hey are other songs by him using the same scale off the top of my head. In fact Hey is the same as Where is My Mind backwards (G F# Bm D).

[FarleyCZ]

I don't know the version you refer to, but the original is:

F Dm A Bb

with F A Bb Bbm G as the change.

Are you sure your "D" is not an "E"?

Yeah, you're right, mistake, fixed.

Btw here U go:

[tapper mike]

This is the thing. DONT TAKE DIATONIC THEORY LITERALLY it's figuative. They just ideas known to work well not absolutes,

The further you advance in musical development the more you'll find people coloring outside the lines. It is not a mandate that you have to take scaletones or chord functions blindly.

Major chords can easily be swapped out from minors. It's done all the time and is a common subsitution. Even more common when the minor chord has a 7th in it. It's done quite frequently to build tension in a song.

[FarleyCZ]

This is the thing. DONT TAKE DIATONIC THEORY LITERALLY it's figuative. They just ideas known to work well not absolutes,

The further you advance in musical development the more you'll find people coloring outside the lines. It is not a mandate that you have to take scaletones or chord functions blindly.

Major chords can easily be swapped out from minors. It's done all the time and is a common subsitution. Even more common when the minor chord has a 7th in it. It's done quite frequently to build tension in a song.

Nice. But still. I know I shouldn't take it literally, but here's a thing. In whatever classic scale I'm in (I kinda learned them by try or fail in past, so it's a bit of hobit that I start the jamm in them.), almost everytime I try to jump out, it sounds like kind of jazz or something. (Actually he refers to this even in video.)

It's just mystery for me how they did it that it doesn't sound "jazzy", but this amazing. Even when I play 7th chord that is actually in key, it still sound more jazzy or bluesy than the Pixies or CeeLo's song. Why is that? How did they make the difference so smooth and tiny?

[tapper mike]

He refers to it as bluesy not jazz or jazzy they are quite different idioms.

Eddie Van Halen is niether jazz nor blues however he freely exchanges major for minor he also superimposes chromatic shapes over full chords.

[FarleyCZ]

Ok, sorry. I'm not a typical bluese or jazz listener.
Still kinda don't get how they make the transition so natural. But on the other side, the C note out of that C#(pure)minor scale is in it's melodic and harmonic variations.

Speaking about variations. Wiki says that most western music is not written in natural minor scales. Is that true? It seems to me that really lots of modern songs uses them...

[Jafo]

Leading tones and melody lines, secondary dominants, and the Rule of Cool. What more do you need?

You can get theoretical if you like. vi can be seen as a free substitution of I. vi-III is a Dorian variation on V-I. (Carlos Santana wants royalties!) The cadence IV-I when the cycle repeats is plagal (the "Amen" cadence), and is very common in rock.

A common trick in (older) rock is to keep the melody diatonic but use only or mostly major chords. Hence, you get III instead of iii against the 3. In fact, melodies often begin on the 1 and progress to the 3, since both are consonant with I. Alternately, if you're a Beatle, you often begin melodies on the 3, which is also consonant with both chords. And with vi. e is 3 of C, i of E and emin, and 5 of A and amin.

[I've always rather liked I-III-IV-iv and its variations, used against 1-3-4-4b(=3). All I need is the air that I breathe, and Alan Parsons producing.]

Another cool related trick is to carry over a note from one bar to another, making it the major third of the next chord. Boston's "More Than a Feeling" is canonical for this -- IIRC, on "See my Maryann walk away" the note on which "away" is sung is g, and the chords change from C to Eb.

*shrug* Really, it's all just seasonings you can use to give your song more flavor. Nothing to worry about, unless you're getting graded. Unfortunately, there are no prescriptive rules to guarantee awesomeness -- think of it as a license to experiment.

And there are a myriad other ways to look at chord games. Music theory is more of an exercise in understanding things after the fact, and can be as creative as writing music -- "how can I invent a theoretic excuse for why this sounds cool?" You can find a theoretical justification for anything in music; proof of this is an exercise left to the reader.

[Jafo]

Speaking about variations. Wiki says that most western music is not written in natural minor scales. Is that true? It seems to me that really lots of modern songs uses them...

V-i requires a major seventh, which is not in the natural minor scale (which uses a flat seventh).

[Jafo]

Chord voicings also count -- bass notes in particular.

[tapper mike]

Leading tones and melody lines, secondary dominants, and the Rule of Cool. What more do you need?

You can get theoretical if you like. vi can be seen as a free substitution of I. vi-III is a Dorian variation on V-I. (Carlos Santana wants royalties!)

Back in the 70's as a budding young guitarist wanting to set the world on fire
I cut my proverbial teeth analyzising Santana. Which, back then it was rather easy.

[A.M. Gold]

Black Francis/Frank Black wrote quite a few songs in what I colloquially call the "Spanish" scale - play Am G F E in bad flamenco style to see what I mean - it's pretty cliche and used in numerous songs. Frank Black also liked to include "Spanish" vocals in parts, I'm assuming both these things were influenced at least in part by his time in San Juan. This scale uses the notes of both the natural and harmonic minor scales (i.e. both the 5th and #5, or B and C(B#) in the case of E).

Mr. Grieves, Los Angeles and Hey are other songs by him using the same scale off the top of my head. In fact Hey is the same as Where is My Mind backwards (G F# Bm D).

I agree. The "Where Is My Mind" progression is actually pretty reminiscent of Frank's entire first solo album, Frank Black. He has a cool way with those kinds of progressions.

[FarleyCZ]

Speaking about variations. Wiki says that most western music is not written in natural minor scales. Is that true? It seems to me that really lots of modern songs uses them...

V-i requires a major seventh, which is not in the natural minor scale (which uses a flat seventh).

Sorry for my dumbness, but could you explain it further please?
I mean, V-i of A-minor is F, whose all notes are still in the natural A-minor key. Or not?

[Jafo]

Speaking about variations. Wiki says that most western music is not written in natural minor scales. Is that true? It seems to me that really lots of modern songs uses them...

V-i requires a major seventh, which is not in the natural minor scale (which uses a flat seventh).

Sorry for my dumbness, but could you explain it further please?
I mean, V-i of A-minor is F, whose all notes are still in the natural A-minor key. Or not?

Not quite, but close. V-i is a chord change from E Major (the V) to a minor (the i). vi is f minor in a minor, and Vi is F Major in a minor. Roman numerals refer to chords based on scale degrees; lowercase for minor, uppercase for major. For individual notes of the scale, we typically use ordinary numerals -- 1, 2, 3, and so on. These notes of the scale are normally written with a hat ("caret") over them, but since BBS code won't let me do that, let's just pretend they're there.

Back to V-i. It would normally be e-minor to a-minor in pure natural minor, which is a v-i, except that Western music likes to keep the fifth chord, the v or V, as a major. The reasoning behind this is twofold: first, the major third on the V chord is a half-step away from the root or tonic note of the scale, and if you turn that chord into a seventh, you'll have a tritone. Both of these make for a more satisfying resolution.

Wow, that was clear as mud... sorry! Lemme try again.

In a natural minor, you have a-b-c-d-e-f-g as the 1-2-3-4-5-6-7. These are the same notes as C Major, except that you start on 6, the sixth note. The normal chords from this are a minor (a-c-e), b diminished (b-d-f), C Major (c-e-g), d minor (d-f-a), e minor (e-g-b), F Major (f-a-c), and G Major (g-b-d) -- i, ii0, III, iv, v, VI, VII.

The normal chord resolution ("cadence") is the chord based on the 5 resolving to the chord based on the 1. Dominant to tonic, if you wanna be hip in that music geek way. In a major key, that's V-I (E Major to A Major). In a minor key, it's v-i. Go play that on your instrument: e minor to a minor. Kinda dark, kinda sad, and all that. Not much of a resolution.

There's a way to make that more interesting. Instead of a minor 5-chord, try a major 5-chord -- E Major to a minor. Even better, E7 (which is E major with a flat seventh, or D) to a minor. Go play that. Feel how much more definite and substantial that sounds. Bach did that all the time, and he did alright.

That's why you'll often see E Major(7) to a minor, or the equivalent in other keys.

What we've done by changing the g to a g#, changing e minor to E Major, is sharping the 7. Or making it the same 7 as the Major key. (It's the same note.) With that, we have the harmonic minor scale and key: a-b-c-d-e-f-g#. It works well for chords, but it's kinda funny for melodies. Another downside is that instead of C Major and G Major you have a pair of very weird chords (C# Augmented and g# diminished, but don't worry about those). The solution is to raise the 6 and 7 (make them major) going up, and put them back down when going down (return them to minor). That's the melodic minor.

Or you can just follow the Rule of Cool and not worry -- if it sounds good, it is good.