major and minor key or major and minor scales?

[manducator]

The key signature helps in determining the key, but that's not the same thing either.

But 1 key can only have 1 key signature?

For instance the key of C doesn't have sharps or flats in it's key signature.

The key of G has an F# in it's key signature.

[fmr]

The key signature helps in determining the key, but that's not the same thing either.

But 1 key can only have 1 key signature?

For instance the key of C doesn't have sharps or flats in it's key signature.

The key of G has an F# in it's key signature.

C Major has a blank key signature, but c minor has a key signature of three flats. G Major has a key signature of one shatp, but g minor has a key signature with two flats. When you are talking about tonalities and key signatures, you always have to say if it's Major or minor, not just C or G, like you do for chords. Ther are two keys of C, not just one: C Major and c minor.

[JumpingJackFlash]

But 1 key can only have 1 key signature?

Essentially true, but 1 key signature belongs to more than 1 key.

For instance the key of C doesn't have sharps or flats in it's key signature.

Neither does the key of A minor.

The key of G has an F# in it's key signature.

So does the key of E minor.

So the key signature alone doesn't give you enough information to be able to determine the key.

Then there's music that doesn't follow tonality as closely; modal music and various types of "atonal" music for example could still have a "key signature", but yet not technically be in any "key". Also, it is common for long pieces of music to pass through many different keys, without the "key signature" necessarily changing (accidentals are used instead).

[manducator]

Thanks, fmr and JJF. I think I get it now.

Just one thing:

The key of A minor has no sharps or flats.

The A aeolian mode is a mode of the C major key.

They are the same but 1 is a mode and the other is a key. But the notes are the same, right?

[JumpingJackFlash]

The A aeolian mode is a mode of the C major key.

Well, that's a simple way to look at it, but you must remember that modes and keys are completely different things. You should keep them separate. In fact, I advise you don't go near "modes" until you're fully competent with "keys" (or possibly the other way around if you prefer).

They are the same but 1 as a mode and the other is a key. But the notes are the same, right?

Yes, they share the same notes - as do many other modes, scales, etc. But that is where the similarity ends.

I advise not to pursue this on here otherwise you will get umpteen pages of vitriol, fuelled primarily by people who haven't got the first clue what they're talking about (see other recent threads for good examples).

[fmr]

The key of A minor has no sharps or flats.

The A aeolian mode is a mode of the C major key.

They are the same but 1 is a mode and the other is a key. But the notes are the same, right?

As JJP said, the "modes" are a completely different universe. What you stated is a common mnemonic used by people of the jazz and pop to know what notes to play over some chord, but not what "modes" are in reality. You can use it for now, if it makes your life easier but bear in mind this is just a mnemonic, not a FACT. Modes do not belong to keys, they are a different system. For now, you should use Major and minor, and be careful to study the main harmonic functions (I-V-IV), the "modal" chords (iii-vi) - modal because they may lead to change between Major and minor modes, not the other "modes" - cadences, etc.

[tapper mike]

Modes "Can" belong to keys and it is through keys we learn diatonic modes. However in practice modes are attributed solely to the chord name they are associated with. While considered an embellishment or accidental

Take any major blues song that features 7th chords and you'll find that the I,IV and V are all treated as dominant 7ths in the key of C that would be
C7=C-E-G-Bb
F7=F-A-C-Eb
G7=G-B-D-F

Note while the key is represented by C the only chord that fits the C major scale is the G7. The song is still considered in the key of C because the primary major chords from which the structure is built (C-F-G) are aligned to the Key of C. While playing over those dominant7th structures most common options are... the C minor pentatonic scale, the c mixolydian scale, the c major pentatonic scale. these three scales work for the entirety of the solo save.... the turnaround. When greeting the 5th (G7) one generally will modulate to G mixolydian, or one of the G pentatonics. then back to F mixolydian or F pentatonics and finally resolving to the root or 5th.
It's a 50/50 proposition choosing to accommodate the turnaround with chord appropriate licks. Most will choose to follow the turnaround while some will retain the original form as to create tension between the harmony and melody, knowing that the turnaround will handle the resolution for them.

American popular music was not directly derived directly from european classical music. It was mostly itinerant musicians who tried out ideas and said "it sounds good to me, let's keep it. Sun House and Robert Johnson did not have a formalized education in music they were sharecropper descendants of slaves working on plantations. All of their education was based on listening to other field hollerers. While they didn't invent the blues (nor did W.C. Handy who was the first to copyright a blues song. The same goes for early jass (yes look it up) musicians. Extended and altered chords of the jazz tradition were born of jazz. Slash sometimes called over chords did not come from major universities but from the nashville numbering system.

But I digress.
Common alterations in chord voicings that do not comply with key are a regular occurrence in jazz, jazz, blues, and rock.


Even within the basic blues form there are a number of possibilities not only harmonically but melodically using applying less common modes and scales as Robben Ford describes.
Not a nobody - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robben_Ford

[fmr]

Modes "Can" belong to keys and it is through keys we learn diatonic modes.

It is through keys that you thought you learned them... and that's why you didn't!

Take any major blues song that features 7th chords and you'll find that the I,IV and V are all treated as dominant 7ths in the key of C that would be
C7=C-E-G-Bb
F7=F-A-C-Eb
G7=G-B-D-F

You use dominant chords, but they are NOT treated as dominant (because they do not play the "dominant" function).

The rest is the usual tired mambo-jambo that I do not bother to comment anymore. Not the kind of guidelines I would give to a beginner, unless I wanted him to become circunscribed to a very narrow field, ignoring all the rest there is.

[Jafo]

Somewhat OT, but maybe relevant nonetheless, there's also the phenomenon of "playing the changes," as practiced by a lot of jazz and country guys. Instead of playing the notes of the overall key/scale (do what thou wilt with those terms) over non-tonic chords, you play the notes belonging to whatever chord as if it were the tonic.

Hmm, that was as clear as carbon black. Lemme rephrase. If your song is in F Major, most guys would limit themselves to the notes of F Major: f, g, a, b-flat, c, d, and e, even when playing over d minor or C Major. They'd develop lines that emphasize the notes of the current chord (d-f-a or c-e-g, respectively), but they're still playing in F Major. If they were to play the changes, you'd use the key/scale d minor or C Major: d/e/f/g/a/b-flat (sometimes b) /c (sometimes sharp) in d minor; and c/d/e/f/g/a/b(natural). Some people find it more sophisticated, some find it idiotic, and it does weaken the overall tonality, but it's certainly easier on guitar -- just learn two patterns of notes, and transpose over the fretboard.

Oh, and you can also get into modes, altered scales, non-diatonic scales, atonal music, and all sorts of stuff. Throw in microtonal tunings and such, and you have entire worlds of possibility. In this light, we barely have words to describe what's going on. The distinction between key and scale can be useful, except when it isn't.

[jancivil]

Modes "Can" belong to keys and it is through keys we learn diatonic modes. However in practice modes are attributed solely to the chord name they are associated with. While blah blah

No. And no. Both are simply unworkable. And you show exactly why:

Note while the key is represented by C the only chord that fits the C major scale is the G7. The song is still considered in the key of C because the primary major chords from which the structure is built (C-F-G) are aligned to the Key of C.

When greeting the 5th (G7) one generally will modulate to G mixolydian, or one of the G pentatonics. then back to F mixolydian or F pentatonics and finally resolving to the root or 5th.

Do yourself a solid and look up 'modulate', because that isn't it. You've MODULATED from C major to C major there?
Or, if you do some pentatonic for the G chord, if you're in C these notes relate to KEY OF C.
If you call G7 "the fifth" you are saying it is V7 in C. No lingo tossed about changes this simple fact. For the umpteenth time, 'G Mixolydian' there is an extra name for *C major scale*. It doesn't really help in understanding the thing, it's just noise. If this so-called G Mixolydian happens in C, and I feel sure you just said so, it is simply C major. G Mixolydian does not belong to C major. It does not belong to 'G chord' per se.
C major has C as tonic; G mixolydian has G. It's really very simple.

When G7 is the I chord, 'G Mixolydian' gets to be a meaningful name. You have up to seven names for one thing with this usage, which is retarded.

Example: Key of C, ie., C major scale shares the same notes as seven modes. This is coincidental, it is like a mnemonic to 'learn them' in a row, but one should not confuse that with what the modes are. The modes pre-existed 'major' by a long ways.

[fmr]

Oh, and you can also get into modes, altered scales, non-diatonic scales, atonal music, and all sorts of stuff. Throw in microtonal tunings and such, and you have entire worlds of possibility. In this light, we barely have words to describe what's going on.

Oh, I have a word to describe it: Anarchy (or maybe noise).

The distinction between key and scale can be useful, except when it isn't.

I'm sure it isn't to you, based on what you described

What you wrote is basically "anything goes". Question is: "Anything goes" where? It would be like what I hear over and over - people playing notes up and down, trying to play as fast as they can, without going anywhere. As someone once said: "When they play too much notes, it's because they don't know what notes to play". Very much true.

Try to compose, and play what you compose, and forget about mambo-jambo.

[jancivil]

Somewhat OT, but maybe relevant nonetheless, there's also the phenomenon of "playing the changes," as practiced by a lot of jazz and country guys. Instead of playing the notes of the overall key/scale (do what thou wilt with those terms) over non-tonic chords, you play the notes belonging to whatever chord as if it were the tonic.

Fine. But that playing the changes gets taken to the point of "G mixolydian because G7" when the tonic is C. Again, you now have up to seven names for one thing.
And you get people that never make this distinction. G mixolydian is a world of its own. it does not sound like C major. It isn't C major.

The B in it vs the 'flat VII' F has a tension that belongs in Mixolydian; you go B-A, it's a #4-3 deal. There is a whole world opened up by understanding what the thing IS.
It's interesting in itself.

[jancivil]

Modes "Can" belong to keys and it is through keys we learn diatonic modes.

It is through keys that you thought you learned them... and that's why you didn't!

Take any major blues song that features 7th chords and you'll find that the I,IV and V are all treated as dominant 7ths in the key of C that would be
C7=C-E-G-Bb
F7=F-A-C-Eb
G7=G-B-D-F

You use dominant chords, but they are NOT treated as dominant (because they do not play the "dominant" function).

Dominant is a function, not a type of chord, though. Through a certain way of thinking, C7 could be [the secondary dominant] V7/IV but F7 is dominant when it goes to or implicates Bb; in that three chord blues this of course doesn't occur. F7 certainly is not 'treated as' dominant there. This is why I went into 'major/minor 7th' in another thread. It's called dominant seventh chord as a type but, as popular as it may be that's a misnomer.

So let's take the F7, you want that Eb in your line? It's the b7 of the F chord but it surely is not b7 of C. You could go outside and do whatever & think of F as your basis, but F is not the tonic. The ear knows it's 'IV'.

If you really know from modal you can appropriate things from modal, such as that #4-3 kind of lydian thing over the root; you can say 'F lydian flat seventh' or some synthetic scale and work from this or another understanding (and yes, *as if* a new tonic; the distinction one must make is 'as if' vs 'really'; in jazz harmonic functioning music there is a goal, typically w. new goals, so we want to focus; in blues there is one true goal.) but modes just do not *belong to* key or chords. That muddies the waters unnecessarily. One could miss out on a whole thing {which you could apply to *as if* new tonic} confusing modes with major as if major is the font from which they spring. They do not, it's a coincidence. C Ionian is the fourth mode of G mixolydian for all that matters, C Ionian isn't even the font from which six other modes spring, and C major is its own thing besides.

[jancivil]

forget about mambo-jambo.

That isn't really fair, one could have all of those things Jafo mentioned as vocubulary and quite know what to do with them.

The thing that happens I feel I ought to clarify is the use of mode names as if they are the modes, when they are being used as scalar material. If you're in 'major', there is the one scale though and it's not a mode.



tapper mike went right from trying to make mixolydian on 'the fifth' true, into talking about things outside the key. So you're on IV, F and you say to yourself 'F lydian flat seventh' and your palette is F G A B C D Eb, GREAT. It's not really F lydian, it's just a way of coming up with intervallic notions (We'll say 'that lydian thing of #4' per a root. ). So for instance you can hold onto that Eb until we're home and it's b3. If you're doing jazz changes there is a look-ahead to goal in the first place. So as pedagogy I say keep it simple stupid, don't be having all of this language on your mind trying to navigate in real time. "In C" and "F tonic" at the same time, a bit

If you're in a C Ionian environment and you go to an F-rooted area, if you know from Lydian as a mode you have a vocabularly you might not have if you are confounding F Lydian with C major.

[fmr]

forget about mambo-jambo.

That isn't really fair, one could have all of those things Jafo mentioned as vocubulary and quite know what to do with them.

You could... Problem is: If you know your basis, you probably don't need them. If you don't, you risk confusing things, which may imprison you in a narrow universe, presuming it's all there is (and we have seen this over here all the time).

And all this because people want to "improvise". Jesus, musicians have improvised all over the centuries, without needing this. They just needed to work hard on their art and skills. Nothing changed, except the rising of the myth that only jazz musicians improvise.