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Live Stream: Tuesday, June 9th at 7:30pm EST (check your local time zone)
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Hey guys, we are back with Live Lesson EP019! This month’s topic is: Learn to Jam with a Band.
Our ukulele journey usually begins by learning to play the instrument in a solo setting. As your skills improve, it’s only natural to branch out and perform in an ensemble setting.
And that’s what this session is all about! You’ll take your first step by learning how to play a riff and strum pattern alongside a drum, bass, and guitar backing track.
This month’s topic should stir up some great questions! So please post all you have below and I hope you guys join us for the live stream. 🙂
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LIVE LESSONS FAQ:
Q: What happens in a live lesson, how long is it, and when does it occur?
A: Live lessons are usually 30-45 minutes in length, but can extend until all questions are answered. The first 20 minutes will comprise of the lesson, while the next 10-25 minutes will be a Q&A session for premium members.
Live lessons take place every second Thursday of the month at 7:30pm EST (check your local time zone).
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A: Absolutely! Basic and premium members are welcome to post questions that are related to the topic in THIS thread.
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For further clarification, here is a video showing how to do the above (for desktop).
Q: I can’t make the broadcast. When will live streams be released publicly?
A: The live lesson will be released for everyone to view on Monday following the broadcast (third Monday of the month). If you cannot make the broadcast, no worries; you’ll still be able to watch the lesson. Don’t forget that you can submit questions for Matt to answer beforehand (see the above FAQ).
Heads up: We’re doing Tuesday this month 🙂
There will be a jam track and tab. I’ll post that here soon!
I understand the circle of fifths f c g d a e b , If you playing in key of d cords G d a and the cords under G d a will be used. I do not known how to apply the above. It my understanding this is how you known to play in a jam sessions. How do you determine what key you are playing. In close do I understand what I think I understand.
@joe150 I’ll try to give an answer. keep in mind I’m also a student, though.
I assume with”the chords under G D A” you are referring to the so-called “relative minor keys” in the circle of fifth which would be: e, b and a. Notice, I am referring to the major chords in capital letters and the minor chords in lowercase letters.
From your post I am not sure about your level of music theory so I’ll try to explain things that were hard for myself in the beginning. And that’s the confusion that CHORDS and NOTES in music have the same names but are different things. I’ll try to give an explanation of how they correspond to each other.
The circle of fifths (the way you read it) is referring to CHORDS that are part of a key (in this case D-major), as the ones next to and below the “Tonic” (meaning the first NOTE of any scale; which in the key of D would be the note: D). You figured that out already.
If we want to understand not only which chords sound good together but also why, and how we can use that in a jam situation, we need to understand “how are chords build from scales”. That might be where your confusion is. Because if you want to be able to play along in a jam situation, you don’t want to play the chords in the scale, but the notes OF the scale (in that case someone else would play the chords and you would improvise the melody notes, what I am assuming you’re getting at).
You can do that in two ways:
When you figured out the key you are in, simply use the seven notes that are part of the corresponding major scale. In D-major that’d be the D-major-scale: D, E, F#, G, A, B, C#. Be careful, now we’re talking notes, not chords anymore.Another way to think about the connection between the notes of a scale and their corresponding chords:
The D-major-scale consists of 7 notes. Each major scale is build the same way. When we have a look at the steps between the notes we have: wholestep, wholestep, halfstep, wholestep, wholestep, wholestep, halfstep (in short: w,w,h,w,w,w,h). ALL major scales are build this way. To illustrate, I drew a picture of a chromatic scale (containing only halfsteps and 12 notes) and the D-major-scale.From that definite structure of the major scale are resulting very specific chord shapes (major and minor) and I drew you another picture with the corresponding chords and circled the ones you were using in your jam (all major chords).
So there you have your connection. You can play the notes of the D-major-scale over the chords of the D-major-key.
A second more advanced option would be to play the notes of the scale of every chord. That’d be D-major-scale over a D-major chord, G-major-scale over a G-major-chord and A-major-scale over an A-major-chord. That’s kinda advanced, there is a concept class about it on this site, though. (It’s called “playing the changes”)
So now. How to determine which key is used in a jam session? I’d say the safest option is to ask! You could find out yourself by ear but I find that hard, too. To make it even more complicated, there are many other different scales besides major and minor. So asking is a good option.
What I found an easy way to start is the pentatonic-major-scale. Instead of using all 7 notes of the major scale, you’d leave out the 4th and 7th note and use the remaining 5 notes. You can play them over any chord of the major scale and it sounds good! Again in D-major:
D, E, F#, A, B.
With that method I got my roomie to jam with me though she only knows about five chords. Really cool (:So I hope that helped a bit and cleared up things rather then obscuring them^^
@anirbaf, that was useful to me. But why do you put minor chords as corresponding in a major scale?
@anirbaf That was so kind of you to take the time try to help me, I learn by going over and over things. Each time I read it, I see something I missed. It means a lot rock class 101 look out for each other.
another view on building chords, because as a visual person this can help with the somewhat limited image of scales represented as a line: try imagining the notes of a scale in a circle. this way you can start from any note, go right, take every other note and build your chords (:
oh it seems like my last post got mixed up, so here is my original post:
@joe150 It’s my pleasure! (: I’m so glad I can be of help as I am really into learning music theory and I enjoy it so much! I find it so helpful.That is something to do with intervals. I’ll try to explain without too much other concepts. (Again this is applicable to any major scale, as they are all build in the same way)
If you have a look at the D-major-scale, you can see the two halfsteps in the scale between the third and fourth note and then again between the seventh and eights note.
If you know chords, you know that they consist of a perfect fifth and a third. But let me draw another picture for you.
First picture: You can think of chords as “stacked intervals of thirds”, but we name the intervals in relation to the first note, the tonic (there are names for any intervals, but the important ones right now are thirds and perfect fifths). That means we can think of a triad (a chord consisting of three notes) as two stacked third intervals.
It is confusing, because we are now talking of “thirds” and “perfect fifths” as INTERVALs between two notes (the intervals between D and F#, as well as between F# and A are thirds). But we are also calling the NOTES in relation to the tonic: the F# is a third in relation to D and A is a perfect fifth in relation to D. I indicated that in the picture.
The perfect fifth is always exactly seven halfsteps from the tonic (check it out: between D and E is one wholestep, between E and F# again one wholestep, between F# and G one halfstep, between G and A one wholestep, which makes in total: seven halfsteps). That’s funny, because there is always a halfstep inbetween the tonic (any tonic) and their corresponding perfect fifth (try it!)
But we said that a triad is stacked thirds, and not fifths! So there is the one note missing, that divides seven halfsteps into two third intervals. It’s clear to see that those intervals are not gonna be the same: the halfstep will be either on the one side or the other.
Have a look at the second picture: Compare how I build the D-major-chord from the D-major-scale and below I build the E-minor-chord from the same scale. In the case of D-major, the ḿinor third (containing the halfstep) is on the right, between the third and the fifth. In the case of E-minor, the minor third is on the left side, between the tonic and the third.
The build of a major scale makes the second chord of every major scale a minor chord! You can now go yourself and try this with the other notes of the scale and find their corresponding triads. Take for example the F# and go two notes up to the A. That interval contains the halfstep (between F# and G) which makes it a minor third interval. Again one third up to C#: no halfstep between A and C#, which makes this a major third interval. How is the sound of this chord (F#-A-C#) compared to the D-major-chord?
You can see now, that the determining factor of a chord sounding happy or sad, is the nature of the first third interval, and if it’s a minor third or a major third.
To get back to your question: Major scale doesn’t imply that the corresponding chords are only major chords. Take the most played chord pattern in the key of C-major: C – G – Am – F.
Those chords are all corresponding to the major scale! To make the connection to our example, try to play D – A – Bm – G. Sounds familiar, right? That’s because it is the same chord pattern, just in another key (D-major).@anirbaf
Thank you as well for your detailed explanations and drawings. This definitely helps me bridge some of the material covered in the Intervals & Chord Theory units of the Theory & Jamming course on this site & other info I’ve gathered. I’ll have to break it all down & digest it but good stuff.@bklynsoul thank you, that honestly makes me so happy (:
@lisadmh if you need further clarification to what I wrote, please let me know! I am grateful for feedback, this way I can also learn to explain it correctly (:
Here is the PDF for tonight’s live stream.
Please make sure you are logged in to download it.
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P.S. There will be a play along backing track, but we’ll have that ready for you guys to download tomorrow when we publicly release the lesson. 🙂
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