How to now what chords to play in a specific scale?

[jancivil]

The last few posts here are from my point "wanking"

OTOH your contribution is so helpful.

not to mention the guy who made the original question
and seems to be a freshman in the theory of music, will get anything about
these

Yeah, and that person vacated the thread apparently. I'm talking about music for somebody that's interested. I already said 'making an argument to myself'.

you may learn something from these words if you have heart to take it.

I've provided a valuable service on this board for years. and there's you with, we-e-llll ^that...

[jancivil]

I find lydian a very strong mode. but I approach it from the vantage point of observing the character of the thing through itself, not taking harmony as primary to determine how strong a line is, not at all.

I have never seen (err well, heard...) it work in anything "functional". Really never. A while ago, on some german guitar player forum, there's been a kind of a contest to construct whatever lydian progressions. I failed to hear any lydian in any of these progressions, unless they were strictly modal.

- Sascha

yeah, I couldn't even imagine it in 'functional'. people could use it over IV nominatively but it would simply be major scale in reality. functionally it would clothe V/V, but as itself, lydian mode, there isn't anything there. let alone with this one.

What I tried to do here is make a thorough as possible argument in the concrete for treating it modally.

[jancivil]

Not that I'd happen to know what lydian minor is supposed to be like (I never exactly heard of it), but the scale above certainly isn't minor as it contains an E, which is the major third of C - so it's clearly major.

I didn't like the name either. But it's a kind of instant synthetic scale, lydian bottom/aeolian top. I don't care what things are named so much though.

It wouldn't have occurred to me naturally. I've been interested in looking for new material via this kind of construction since I was a kid. This is an odd scale. for me it's whole tone scale with an additional tone to get you a P5.

[Aroused by JarJar]

Here is a brief example of what I meant by starting with I-v, I-v... and going from there.

Scale C-D-E-F#-G-Ab-Bb-C (Lydian-Phrygian)

http://www.mediafire.com/?dyyobeaf78t3hsq

[jancivil]

yeah I agree with jopy

I don't agree.
For some reason for me it's hard respect very much...

That's abundantly clear.

[jancivil]

S.Franck:
"Lydian in itself (and for very good reasons) has a really "open" or "weak" character. As a result, most chord progressions
that you may want to try out will sound like something else."

jancivil:
"I find lydian a very strong mode. but I approach it from the vantage point of observing the character of
the thing through itself, not taking harmony as primary to determine how strong a line is, not at all."

S.Franck:
"I do perfectly agree that lydian is a very strong mode. But I have never seen (err well, heard...)
it work in anything "functional".

Very soon you don't know what the person really means or if
he/she knows/means anything.

Well, I understood what Mr Franck said completely. I'm confident he understood what I said. And there's you.

[jancivil]

Back to the original post:

For example: Lydian Minor Scale: C,D,E,F#,G,Ab,Bb

There's quite a lot of unusual chords to be found, and if you really want to come up with a house track only using chords of that scale, it'll certainly sound quite "not too familiar" for most people.

aye, there's the reality of the thread & the context in which people start talking amongst thsemselves, about their ideas of things.

[Aroused by JarJar]

Haartbrejker, it is not true that you cannot do chord progressions (that sound like chord progressions) with this scale. They might not be appropriate for house (I don't know the extent of "house"), but they are not necessarily bizarre. It is hard to do chords with this scale without sounding cinematic, strange, or "oriental", but it is not impossible.

I made a 4/4 120 looping chord progression for this scale- it includes all the notes in the scale and maintains the feeling, so you can jam on it and see that it will work. Your melody might want something different. This is not house, but clearly "electronica" at least.

http://www.mediafire.com/?0zv67yta31qvo6h

[jancivil]

Ab is consistently an 'out' note with that though. 'jamming'... omit that, and yeah.

I would assume that the exhaustive lists (let alone the ensuing discussion) were ultimately discouraging to the OP. it's an exotic scale and rather a lot to consider for someone that has to ask that particular question.

[Aroused by JarJar]

Ab is consistently an 'out' note with that though. 'jamming'... omit that, and yeah.

I would assume that the exhaustive lists (let alone the ensuing discussion) were ultimately discouraging to the OP. it's an exotic scale and rather a lot to consider for someone that has to ask that particular question.

Yes, kind of jumping in the deep end, hope we didn't scare him off.

You can work the Ab in in the penultimate chord, kind of sus to G, and as a passing tone of course (hammer-on G-Ab-G for example) but yeah, it's a chroma in this progression. The first progression that popped in my head was I - VI+ - v - I, because the bass can go C-C-Bb-C, but I'm pretty certain "house" doesn't go there.

[jancivil]

my idea of that scale is that the whole F# G Ab area is too interesting to really harmonize.

your loop, as looped, playing over it, I'm unsure where I is really. there is an emphatic G, I can hang out on G and not go very wrong... so that kind of suggests C = I. But it's restless and ambiguous any way you treat it.
As per what I was saying earlier, the Ab would be an inessential note of the mode, tied always to G.
So here it's essentially what I've seen called 'harmonic' scale, lydian with a flat 7 with that extra twist.
the 'character' tones are the #4 and b7.


I've been interested in 'synthetic' scales as modes and extended vocabulary for eons and my POV here is *modal* out of experience, it isn't merely an ideology.

as per 'house', afaik Sascha went there as a generality, but in context of hanging around music theory board and noob questions I think we both get the picture.

[Aroused by JarJar]

my idea of that scale is that the whole F# G Ab area is too interesting to really harmonize.

your loop, as looped, playing over it, I'm unsure where I is really. there is an emphatic G, I can hang out on G and not go very wrong... so that kind of suggests C = I. But it's restless and ambiguous any way you treat it.
As per what I was saying earlier, the Ab would be an inessential note of the mode, tied always to G.
So here it's essentially what I've seen called 'harmonic' scale, lydian with a flat 7 with that extra twist.
the 'character' tones are the #4 and b7.


I've been interested in 'synthetic' scales as modes and extended vocabulary for eons and my POV here is *modal* out of experience, it isn't merely an ideology.

as per 'house', afaik Sascha went there as a generality, but in context of hanging around music theory board and noob questions I think we both get the picture.

Yes you'd have to thump out the C a lot in the bass or elsewhere to maintain it as a root. The usual usage of this scale is the mode on G, which makes it the freygish with leading tone, called "byzantine", but even with both a fa and a so, the tonic doesn't get established by functional harmony in that mode, either.

Klezmer house would be alright.

[Sascha Franck]

Really, I think that the scale from the OP is best serving as something "temporary" (as explained before). The 2 halftone steps next to each other make it tough to play meaningful progressions - meaningful in a way that you'd really have a feel of being "home" (hence sort of tonical) or "going home" (sort of dominant-ish) or even "getting away from home" (sort of sub-domninant-ish).

There's one little similar scale, I think it's "arabian major" (or so, I never went far away from the 5 basic scales typical for most western music). Apart from it not sounding all too great on tempered instruments, in C it goes like:
C Db E F G Ab B
We also find two halftone steps next to each other (B C Db), plus we have those two sharped 2nds (Db - E and Ab - B). Harmonizing this scale will become very difficult, at least once we try with the usual approach of stacking thirds. But then, from what I know, scales such as this aren't exactly used as a harmonic base anyway. What you may find is some bass drones and all sorts of note combinations of that scale played over them.

I sometimes enjoy toying around with such scales. but in the end, when it really comes to making music, I never seem to actually use any of them. Maybe I'm getting too old. Or maybe I'm still too young. No idea.

- Sascha

[Aroused by JarJar]

Really, I think that the scale from the OP is best serving as something "temporary" (as explained before). The 2 halftone steps next to each other make it tough to play meaningful progressions - meaningful in a way that you'd really have a feel of being "home" (hence sort of tonical) or "going home" (sort of dominant-ish) or even "getting away from home" (sort of sub-domninant-ish).

There's one little similar scale, I think it's "arabian major" (or so, I never went far away from the 5 basic scales typical for most western music). Apart from it not sounding all too great on tempered instruments, in C it goes like:
C Db E F G Ab B
We also find two halftone steps next to each other (B C Db), plus we have those two sharped 2nds (Db - E and Ab - B). Harmonizing this scale will become very difficult, at least once we try with the usual approach of stacking thirds. But then, from what I know, scales such as this aren't exactly used as a harmonic base anyway. What you may find is some bass drones and all sorts of note combinations of that scale played over them.

I sometimes enjoy toying around with such scales. but in the end, when it really comes to making music, I never seem to actually use any of them. Maybe I'm getting too old. Or maybe I'm still too young. No idea.

- Sascha

I was using pretty much only these kinds of scales for years, but as you mention, they do not originate in equal temperament, so after a while I had to accept that what I was hearing in my head simply wasn't to be found in 12-tET. It's not a path for people who don't feel a real natural need to go that way- you have to rebuild everthing, alone.

In the little soft piano-ish example I did for the OP's scale, C major is clearly indicated as the tonic triad. But you can hear the historical problem I was talking about earlier: if you let the scale speak for itself, it's going to sound Balkan, and if you make the chord progression very distinct, you will change the scale. There are many forgotten composers who worked in this kind of uneasy area. Their more cheesey but catchy efforts often become what people mistakenly think of as authentic folk music. Lessee, an example... Meadowland (polyushko, polye...) isn't a traditional folk song, it's a Westernized faux-folk song written for orchestra. Same with Ochi Chyornye (black eyes, you'll know it when you hear it)- it's not a gypsy song, the music was written by a German in the 19th century. And so on- pretty much all of Europe's "folk" music is reboots and gentrifications from the 19th Century.

Distinctly modal scales and "normal" western harmony simply don't mix.

[qa2pir]

Aroused by JarJar: this is really interesting, care to put some youtube links together for examples?