Learning scales/chords online? music school?

[Caine123]

hey guys i wanted to ask if you know some service or yourself? who can help out (paid of course!) understanding scales/chords?
my approach (if it is good?) taking a genre and music examples/tracks to analyze and learn the progressions.

thx

[vurt]

hey guys i wanted to ask if you know some service or yourself? who can help out (paid of course!) understanding scales/chords?
my approach (if it is good?) taking a genre and music examples/tracks to analyze and learn the progressions.

thx

normally you would learn the language before reducing it to a genre (music is music)
by which i mean, most good schools will use classics, so theres a lot more literature aimed at this, which in turn makes it easier to study.

plus, if you're not as in to classical music for listening purposes, you may find it less distracting.

just some bits to think about!

[jancivil]

there is as much here in this subforum as anywhere...

But I think a course is better for many reasons.

It seems like there were stickies here with the basics at one time,

[Forgotten]

A comprehensive course would be more beneficial than learning “scales/chords”.

It seems to be a common misapprehension that music theory consists of learning scales and chords. It’s the equivalent of learning an alphabet but not learning how to read or write.

[jancivil]

I don't take this as terribly ambitious, one would have to grasp how triads are built and the info regarding 'in key' in order to analyze progressions. But scales and triads construction is all over the 'net', just the info I don't know how someone would fug it up, it's what you do with it you have to be maybe a bit guarded re: sources about.

[Benedict]

It seems to be a common misapprehension that music theory consists of learning scales and chords. It’s the equivalent of learning an alphabet but not learning how to read or write.

I'm with him^

Here is a whole track I walk through the making of a big track that wnt on an album starting with an easy way to start to use Key/Scale:
https://benedictroffmarsh.com/2018/06/1 ... d-cheated/

This is similar material, focused on how to build a melody & variation to deliver whole pieces
https://youtu.be/VNXrZZZd3qs

[xbitz]

there is a quite good free intervals course on udemy https://www.udemy.com/course/music-intervals-owned/

[jonljacobi]

Not to be hopelessly old school, but if you really want to learn music, there are numerous books that will help you along. Less bandwidth, easier to look up what you want, quite often much better written, etc. And books are an active, rather than passive experience so you might absorb stuff more quickly.

[Giuliano_r]

Is there a specific instrument you are playing? I started learning scales and modes on guitar and keyboard and found a fairly easy way to learn them. First get to know the Theory of what a scale and what a mode is. Afterwards you will be able to learn all seven modes of any given scale. These modes include major and minor scales, too.

Here is an example:

C Major: C D E F G A B

C is in Ionian mode (major) and contains the notes C D E F G A B
D is in Dorian mode and contains D E F G A B C
E is in Phrygian mode and contains E F G A B C D
F is in Lydian mode and contains F G A B C D E
G is in Mixolydian mode and contains G A B C D E F
A is in Aelonian mode (minor) and contains A B C D E F G
and B is in Locrian mode and contains B C D E F G A

The order of the modes always stays the same:

E.g. E major would contain the following modes:

E Ionian (major)
F# Dorian
G# Phrygian
A Lydian
B Mixolydian
C# Aelonian (minor)
D# Locrian

All these scales/modes contain the same notes. If you play them along the neck for five minutes daily you will not only learn the scale patterns and be able to apply them anywhere, but you will be able to memorize both notes and patterns along the neck. I am a bit in a rush and can't write in great detail, but feel free to ask me if you need some more in depth info.

[jancivil]

Common mistake, and it may seem pedantic to point it out, but the modes, while coincidentally agreeing with eg., "C major" in the simple sense of having the same 7 tones, are_not in 'the key of' what you state as the supposed origin of those sets.

First, because that isn't the origin, as 6 of those long predate tonality or keys altogether.
(Locrian, I don't recall and supposed it's kind of 'completist' in order to get to seven. Phrygian and Dorian as names go back to Ancient Greece, although oddly the old Phrygian is Dorian in present day and vice versa. Ionian existed in The Church as a fiction, a correction of Lydian (bit of a long story) so it's a bit ironic that 'major' is the supposed origin.)

It isn't strictly from pedantic, as in practice one tends to take that and want to treat a mode as a subset of major key and then apply the way harmonies function to them;, which is a distraction in a way and a false impression. Keys are major or minor and tonal usage means *function*, ie., the tonic/dominant paradigm.

Let's look at the most extreme example, Locrian which cannot function at all, its 'i' is a diminished triad which kills the whole notion of function at once.

Then, a more normal looking mode, Aeolian for instance doesn't contain a dominant V naturally, and once it does is more clearly stated as *minor*. Phrygian, no dominant harmony on V; Dorian, nope. Mixolydian no, Lydian no.
So we should realize at this juncture that major, your supposed origin, has the tonal function built in, and once we start filling in the triads for a mode, will pretty much retain that behavior; so, EG: Dorian's i and IV run you the risk of being ii-V in its supposed major key relation. Dm and G, esp. with G7, strongly function to C, ruining D Dorian. However your Carlos Santana secret chord progression, i-IV is safe and you may know how to get away with IV7, although the upside is perhaps another matter.

IE: C major has as its tonic, C. No mode shares a tonic with anything else. So, in fact no mode is contained by any major key, the definition of major key (the tonic and the relationships to it) doesn't hold.

[Giuliano_r]

I knew the difference between keys and the Greek modes, but there was quite some extra info that I did not know before, thank you. To confirm what you were saying is that the major difference is that only one of the seven Greek modes (Ionian) has its own tonic.

It still is a great way to learn the patterns of each mode while learning all the notes of the corresponding major key as well, or do you disagree?

[jancivil]

To confirm what you were saying is that the major difference is that only one of the seven Greek modes (Ionian) has its own tonic.

Well, to get one thing out of the way, 'tonic' some will object to, I've seen it here, as it would indicate tonal music.
I don't care, it means more typing (and this is that typing). I will say that Indian Classical musicians say 'tonic' generally meaning 'Sa' as ~98% of the time it's how a raag, raga, is built.

No, the point was that for eg., D Dorian the tonic is D, so it cannot be part of C major by definition.

[jancivil]

It still is a great way to learn the patterns of each mode while learning all the notes of the corresponding major key as well, or do you disagree?

I don't disagree, it's how modes must be described (cf., Bulerías rhythm in Flamenco is modal, the same thing but starting on a different part of the rhythm is a feature); but 'part of _ major' is just not correct and that notion seems to follow that "Ionian" is listed first, and I sometimes go into this.

So, Dorian is mode 2 of Ionian and Ionian is mode 7 of Dorian. It doesn't begin with major, in fact the period of modal counterpoint is over by the time there is this 'major/minor' paradigm.

[Stamped Records]

If you learn how to build chords, the chord itself when built is your scale. Not sure if it can be approached in that manner from the offset but I'm finding with practise that scales are more of a concept than chords and intervals. A scale is at least on a different axis to chords and intervals. The scale is rigid wheras movement from chord to chord with present awareness of key is where I think it's really at.

Like, I can rock from E to A and it will sound like the E is the tonic in a given scenario, but drop a D before the E and the tonic shifts to A with the E having the sonic effect of delaying the inevitable.

There are lots of little paths like this through the key, faking to go one way and going the other and the expectation is already built into us it seems.

But anyway, think chords and intervals on one hand, scale on the other. It doesn't feel like a stacked relationship to me, but two independent parameters in a way.

A question while I'm here. I really like the sound of the chords E, C and A, but that sequence of major chords isn't found in any of the major/minor keys or modes - naturally because it's a single pattern for all of these. So, is there a theory, a description or some literature I can read for what is going on, because I find my ear pulling towards different chords depending on the order I play them in.

[Forgotten]

If you learn how to build chords, the chord itself when built is your scale.

Only if you learn all of the diatonic chords in a particular key. You cannot build a scale from a single chord.