Creating chords from scales/modes

[klackt]

I'm a bit confused - recently I've been looking at chord house http://www.looknohands.com/chordhouse/piano/ for new scales to play with that is outside major/minor.

I've been looking at the greek or chuch modes - so my question is, if I wanted to form chords from F Aeolian for example... I'd use the 1 3 5 rule to create a major chord, but doing that gives me a flat, minor or diminished chord no major.

If I was writing something in this scale, I couldn't use or play a major chord? Is this correct? All the music has to stay in the notes of that scale?


So then how or why, especially with guitarists, say that these scales are used for solos or to be played over....are they being played over another scale? Or the current scale the piece of music is in, for example F Aeolian...or is it just for that instrument/musical part - but then wouldn't that be using other keys outside of the scale? What does it mean when guitarists say that these modes will be played over...

Sorry if I've confused you all, I've confused myself! Is it OK to use each of these church modes as scales on it's own? Using 1 3 5, the chord progressions can be a bit meh and doesn't sound so great, is there something I am missing?

Thanks!

[Bobbotov]

You could play scale over an Ab major, Db major or Eb major chord.

[Audiosprite]

I'm a bit confused - recently I've been looking at chord house http://www.looknohands.com/chordhouse/piano/ for new scales to play with that is outside major/minor.

I've been looking at the greek or chuch modes - so my question is, if I wanted to form chords from F Aeolian for example... I'd use the 1 3 5 rule to create a major chord, but doing that gives me a flat, minor or diminished chord no major.

If I was writing something in this scale, I couldn't use or play a major chord? Is this correct? All the music has to stay in the notes of that scale?


So then how or why, especially with guitarists, say that these scales are used for solos or to be played over....are they being played over another scale? Or the current scale the piece of music is in, for example F Aeolian...or is it just for that instrument/musical part - but then wouldn't that be using other keys outside of the scale? What does it mean when guitarists say that these modes will be played over...

Sorry if I've confused you all, I've confused myself! Is it OK to use each of these church modes as scales on it's own? Using 1 3 5, the chord progressions can be a bit meh and doesn't sound so great, is there something I am missing?

Thanks!

Aoelian is the same thing as the natural minor scale. So naturally your tonic will be minor. Modes are keys. And no, one never "has" to stay within the notes of a scale.

And of course you can use other chord qualities within that scale; scales are keys. The supertonic (ii*) in F aoelian will be spelled G/Bb/Db, a diminished triad. Stack thirds on the notes of the key and you'll naturally get different chord qualities.

As for the solos bit: Certain chords imply certain scales (within the bounds of various musical languages, anyway - a postbop player won't look at a chord the same way as an 80's hair metal shredder). For example, you could play a Bb mixolydian scale over a Bb7 chord. Notice how the chord lines up with the scale -- both have a Bb, a D, an F, and an Ab.

And that's all there is to it. Over the same chord you could also play a Bb major octatonic, a Bb mix#4 (more common than Bb mix), a Bb bebop, whatever. There are parallels like this for every chord. Remember that the chord that's being played at the moment is what defines your options more than the overarching key of the song. If you're in Fm but the chord is a C7, you're not playing an Fm scale. You're playing a C7-based scale.

And to be honest, ultimately that's kind of a quaint way of looking at chords during improvisation. The more modern thing to do is to play the chord and around the chord, playing with inflections rather than purely scales. But this is a good way to learn.

[jancivil]

in modal usage there are certain chords where, you'll run into tensions in them that force the issue of major and take you out of the mode.

I'm going to write in A aeolian for convenience:

you'll derive A minor, B diminished, C major, D minor, E minor, F major, G major triads from the row of tones A B C D E F G.

problematic here is B dim. the tension of B/F in that harmony (note how similar to G7/V7, G B D F) really wants to go to C major here, and now you're firmly in C major, which is NOT A Aeolian (you've lost A as the tonic) Play around with that and you'll see what I mean. You want that tonic to always be referred to, to be doing a mode justice. Use chords that force the issue of major and you're out of the mode and you may as well forget about it.

there are those that will tell you things like 'do D dorian over the ii chord (D minor) in C major', but that's useless, if you're in C major, it's C major, period and all you've done is use the C major scale. It's superfluous to give it other names and too much information to worry about.

in general, exceptions proving the rule, avoid that tritone in chords as it takes you out of the mode. Now, once a musician has a working grasp of modes, one can get away with more, but at this point there's a rule of thumb to watch out for.

[klackt]

I'm a bit confused - recently I've been looking at chord house http://www.looknohands.com/chordhouse/piano/ for new scales to play with that is outside major/minor.

I've been looking at the greek or chuch modes - so my question is, if I wanted to form chords from F Aeolian for example... I'd use the 1 3 5 rule to create a major chord, but doing that gives me a flat, minor or diminished chord no major.

If I was writing something in this scale, I couldn't use or play a major chord? Is this correct? All the music has to stay in the notes of that scale?


So then how or why, especially with guitarists, say that these scales are used for solos or to be played over....are they being played over another scale? Or the current scale the piece of music is in, for example F Aeolian...or is it just for that instrument/musical part - but then wouldn't that be using other keys outside of the scale? What does it mean when guitarists say that these modes will be played over...

Sorry if I've confused you all, I've confused myself! Is it OK to use each of these church modes as scales on it's own? Using 1 3 5, the chord progressions can be a bit meh and doesn't sound so great, is there something I am missing?

Thanks!

And that's all there is to it. Over the same chord you could also play a Bb major octatonic, a Bb mix#4 (more common than Bb mix), a Bb bebop, whatever. There are parallels like this for every chord. Remember that the chord that's being played at the moment is what defines your options more than the overarching key of the song. If you're in Fm but the chord is a C7, you're not playing an Fm scale. You're playing a C7-based scale.

Thanks for your detailed replied.

My mind is so..... I thought someone was going to laugh at me for my post (ha ha)

So you're saying the music is built aroud the chord, rather than just a scale? The scale, or mode can change suited around the chord?

Thanks again..

in modal usage there are certain chords where, you'll run into tensions in them that force the issue of major and take you out of the mode.

I'm going to write in A aeolian for convenience:

you'll derive A minor, B diminished, C major, D minor, E minor, F major, G major triads from the row of tones A B C D E F G.

problematic here is B dim. the tension of B/F in that harmony (note how similar to G7/V7, G B D F) really wants to go to C major here, and now you're firmly in C major, which is NOT A Aeolian (you've lost A as the tonic) Play around with that and you'll see what I mean. You want that tonic to always be referred to, to be doing a mode justice. Use chords that force the issue of major and you're out of the mode and you may as well forget about it.

there are those that will tell you things like 'do D dorian over the ii chord (D minor) in C major', but that's useless, if you're in C major, it's C major, period and all you've done is use the C major scale. It's superfluous to give it other names and too much information to worry about.

in general, exceptions proving the rule, avoid that tritone in chords as it takes you out of the mode. Now, once a musician has a working grasp of modes, one can get away with more, but at this point there's a rule of thumb to watch out for.

Thank you too, I read what you said and did some late night reading into modes and how they are different from scales. The mode must refer to the tonic of a scale, each mode refers to a different note in a major scale - that's what I learned yesterday. Which i'm assuming what you're saying here..

I've been using scales like E Aeolian or D Phyrgian as scales on their own for an entire piece - so forming chords from that scale only, everything sounds fine... but I guess these modes aren't really scales on their own but are used to accompany a major scale?

I did some experimentation and found out that each mode relates to it's own note in a scale and that technically, say I was in C major, everything would be in key if I chose to use the correct note and correct mode...

So I guess that means - why have the modes in the first place... It's going back to what you said - saying it's Cmajor period.

[Jinsai]

I'm a bit confused - recently I've been looking at chord house ...
I've been looking at the greek or chuch modes - so my question is, if I wanted to form chords from F Aeolian for example... I'd use the 1 3 5 rule to create a major chord, but doing that gives me a flat, minor or diminished chord no major.

If I was writing something in this scale, I couldn't use or play a major chord? Is this correct? All the music has to stay in the notes of that scale?

It's actually pretty simple. A mode or scale gives you 2 things that are important:
1. A "home" or starting note, also called the "tonic" or "root"
2. A set of other notes from which you may choose your melodic material and build your chords.

For C major, your available notes are C D E F G A B, and your "home" note is C.

To build your set of allowable chords, you take each note as the root of the chord, and then add the 3rd and 5th up from it FROM THE AVAILABLE NOTES ONLY.

So for C major (C D E F G A B), you build these chords:
I. C E G (C major chord)
ii. D F A (d minor chord)
iii. E G B (e minor chord)
IV. F A C (F major chord)
V. G B D (G major chord)
vi. A C E (a minor chord)
vii. B D F (b diminished chord)

You'll notice that in this MAJOR scale, your 1, 4, and 5 chords are all MAJOR chords.

For A minor, your available notes are A B C D E F G (same set as C major: C D E F G A B), but your HOME note is A.
For A minor, you build THESE chords:
i. A C E (a minor chord)
ii. B D F (b diminished chord)
III. C E G (C major chord)
iv. D F A (d minor chord)
v. E G B (e minor chord)
VI. F A C (F major chord)
VII. G B D (G major chord)

Notice that in this MINOR scale, your 1, 4 and 5 chords are all MINOR chords.

You can repeat this process for all the other modes. What gives modes their different characteristics is where the major, minor, and diminished chords all fall relative to the "home" position.

You can even build your OWN scales by picking any arbitrary set of notes and assigning one the "home" value. The major and minor scales are just the ones Bach thought sounded best. A return to modal composition was a hallmark of 20th century composition, but composers have been using modes now and then as long as they've been around.

Debussy loved the whole-tone scale. For C whole tone you'd start on C and have a possible note set of:
C D E F# G# A#, and that gives you these chords:
I. C E G# (c augmented)
D F# A# (d augmented)
E G# C (e augmented)
F# A# D (f# augmented)
G# C E (G# augmented)
A# D F# (A# augmented)

Notice that:
1. All the chords are augmented chords!
2. All the chords are basically inversions of either c augmented or d augmented!

The other thing to consider if you want to get really wild is that you don't HAVE to build chords out of root-third-fifth, that's just the way typical Bach/Western/triadic music works - it's build on thirds/triads.

You can build your chords out of 2nds or 4ths or whatever you want. But it's gonna sound weird.

[planetmullins]

One of the ways to make improvising more interesting when using modes is to alter one note of the mode and then play off the chord that results from the alteration. If the original scale is F Aeolian, try playing an E natural instead of the Eb in the scale which gives you a C major chord to fool around with over the F Minor. You can do that for awhile and the go back to the Eb giving your solo some movement. If you do the same thing in F Aeolian and play B natural instead of C, it creates a minor 7(b5) sound which leans more towards the blues scale and can give you some variety. A lot can be done with playing chords a short distance outside the mode in a progression over the basic F minor sound. Straight modes do sound pretty mundane at times. I take each chord created on each note of the mode and play patterns over them until I can really hear what's there.

[A.M. Gold]

I would tend to agree that the modes are what they are. You are going to get whatever chords you get at each scale degree. If you want to use a different chord in a given place, you can do whatever you want, but you may end up digressing away from the strict mode if you change some of the notes.