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@sir_anzalot I finally decided to get the enya nova, it just arrived and I’m delighted! It’s more than I expected and has a nice weight to it, sound is super clean. love it. thanks for the advice. let me know if you get the electric one. happy new year, stay safe.
@simonalexander honestly I ‘m not sure I gonna make it in time! I have a pretty busy weekend and just about two more days to get it down. I understand now why so few people chose the piece^^ anyway if I’m not finished in time maybe I’ll post half of it, just for the fun and then I’d like to see yours, too^^
@simonalexander I also tackled billie jean and I think I’ll submit at the last minute ^^ it’s so much fun though, I like it so far (gonna start learning the bridge tonight)
@sir_anzalot do you want to share what you’ve found? (:
@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 (:
@bklynsoul thank you, that honestly makes me so happy (:
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).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 (:
@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^^
@funtime2018 I think thats excellent! good luck with it (: