Playing over strange chord progressions? Not in any key

[kidgloves2]

Let's say you have a chord progression that is totally wierd and isn't in any key. And you want to play more than chord tones over each chord. How do you choose the right passing notes if you don't have a scale to work with. Especially on the fly?

Let's say a progression like:

Cmaj - fmin - Bbmaj - C#min

Let's say I layed out my guide tones, and I wanted to link them with something more.

[roflol]

isn't that just in c major / a minor

[BassChuck]

Unless you have a totally "Thomas Jefferson Chord Progression" (all chords create equal) some of them will be more important than others, probably the first and last chords in the phrase. Use those chords as 'target' chords and play the roots. Between those chords find scale notes that you like (you may need to invent a scale depending on just how 'not in any key' the chords really are).

If your progression is really outside, in may be better just to outline the roots to give some clarity to the music. Or it just might be that if you are really outside any key, that it doesn't matter what pitches you play... and in that case it probably is better to focus in on the rhythm.

[wiro]

I would extract the scale from what the composer hands out. In this particular case I would figure it to be a variation on Dminor:
Go up like this:

d - e - f - g - ab - bb - db - d

And go down like this:

d - c - bb - ab - g - f - e - d

Sure it will sound funny at first. But when the whole band sticks to this scale it'll start sounding familiar after a while.

[DocBop]

Humm.....

C Major going to parallel minor and with a little stretch (and my ear) back to C major.

C Major on first chord. The Fmi is from parallel minor C minor and so is BbMa7. The C#mi I hear it as tritone sub of V of C major. Tritone sub's usually are dominant, but you can use other chord family though usually done on a sequence of chords. So to me I would treat it as C major going to C minor and back. That give you some nice half-step changes to target.

[Agilulfo]

Following up with what DocBop said, the chord scales that seem to make the most sense in this progression without knowing, for example, what the melody is are:

C ionian (Cmaj)
F dorian (Cmin)
Bb lydian (Cmin)
C# melodic minor (C#min)

[PocketGroove82]

I learned a trick from a teacher where you look for common tones that are in each chord scale.

If you draw a circle on a page and mark twelve tick marks around the border (like a clock)...then you can label the ticks as each note of the chromatic scale. C at the 12 o'clock, followed by C#/Db...on and on all the way around the circle.

Then you circle the notes pertaining to the chord scale of the 1st chord.

Draw a bigger circle around that, and do the same for the next chord scale. Until you have all four of the chord scales circled on the overlaping circle.

At that point you can see all the common notes, for each chord scale and usually you can pull an intersting altered pentatonic out of it, which works well as a jump off point for solos.

I've done this for Wayne Shorter tunes like Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum, and its pretty cool to see that even through the strangest changes, you can find some pentatonic common ground.

It's a weird, over the top way to analyze changes, but it's fun.

(Sorry if this explaination makes little sense, I'll try to scan of these circle diagrams and post it)

[kidgloves2]

PocketGroove82, I don't quite get it, but I'm curious to learn more.

[Johnny StingRay]

It's really not that out of whack. The Fm is setting up the Bbmaj7 and the C#m may be a flat 5 substitute for G7. I may be wrong, but that's what it looks like to me. Usually in old standard jazz, the Fm would set up a Bb7 then resolve to Ebmaj and the C#m would probably be a C#7 substitute.......but who am I to try to change someone's creative inspirations?
Merry Christmas, Johnny

[PocketGroove82]

Originally Posted by kidgloves2

PocketGroove82, I don't quite get it, but I'm curious to learn more.

Okie Dokie, I pulled out some old materials that I got from Mr. Dave Clark, a bass instructor at Berklee. I just took some pics of them to illustrate what I was trying to convey.


This is a diagram of the chromatic circle major scale with the location of it's modes.
Each tick mark represents a halfstep. You should notice the WWHWWWH formula, starting from the top.

Since a wholetone scale is all wholesteps, that is all you see when you diagram it out. Like so:


As far as diagramming a chord progression, you have to use concentric circles and each tick should have a set note name, common to all circles. Here is how it starts.


Lets look at the first two chords of Shorter's Speak No Evil. In the key of Cminor, it goes back and forth between Cminor (I-7) and DbMaj7(bIIMaj7). Since this isn't a very common thing to see, lets diagram it and see if we can find some common tones which work for both chords or even create a scale that would work over both chords.

First I diagrammed the C-7 (I-7) on an inner circle, you will see the note names written inside the smaller circle. I used the natural minor scale(Aeolian mode). Then I diagrammed the DbMaj7 (b11Maj7) on the outer circle, I used the Ionian mode, the note names are written on the outer edge. Then I circled the common tones from both scales...it's easy to see them because they physically line up. Here is what that looks like.


So with the scales I chose, we got C-Eb-F-Ab-Bb.
If you flip those around, you get Ab-Bb-C-Eb-F...which happens to be a very familiar major pentatonic scale, and it sounds pretty hip to play an line over both chords, rather than just playing a bar of cminor followed by a bar of Dbmajor7 (which can also be cool if used sparingly).

Upon further inspection, I notice by looking at the diagram, that the note G natural would line up with both chords, if I played a Db Lydian, rather than Db Ionian. Pretty Hip, if ya ask me.

Granted, this is a pretty long process but you can do entire tunes this way, or really tricky fast moving sections.

Anyways, I didn't come up with this so don't flame me if you think it's stupid, but I think it's pretty neat and can help you to boil weird progressions down to their most basic elements.

Sorry for the long winded post but I hope someone gets something out of it.

Matt

[Mingus]

Cool! Could you Email me those pictures, as well as the explanations, I would like them very much!

Thanks!

[mutedeity]

Originally Posted by kidgloves2

Let's say you have a chord progression that is totally wierd and isn't in any key. And you want to play more than chord tones over each chord. How do you choose the right passing notes if you don't have a scale to work with. Especially on the fly?

Let's say a progression like:

Cmaj - fmin - Bbmaj - C#min

Let's say I layed out my guide tones, and I wanted to link them with something more.

If I was to look at that in terms of how to apply a relative scale or series of notes I would probably look at it as being relative to F melodic minor with a secondary b6 played in that last chord.
That b6 momentarily makes the scale F harmonic minor.

There are numerous ways to approach something like that though, that is just one way of looking at it.

[PocketGroove82]

Originally Posted by Mingus

Cool! Could you Email me those pictures, as well as the explanations, I would like them very much!

Thanks!

Mingus, I could email them, but they are all located at my PhotoBucket page. I even uploaded the rest of the scale/mode circles from the page which had the major and wholetone circles.

Here is the link to those photos.
http://s147.photobucket.com/albums/r318/PocketGroove/

I don't really know what more I can say about the explaining the whole process, but it works great with mingus tunes!

Just make sure you take the melody, key, and function of the chord into account when picking the chord scale. Although experimenting is anyways encouraged.

[GreyBeard]

From what you describe, you are talking ATONAL but then you show chords like C Maj fmin etc. So, I'm a bit confused. Music theory is only a way of describing in an organized way what sounds good or right.

[Bassist4Life]

Originally Posted by kidgloves2

Let's say you have a chord progression that is totally wierd and isn't in any key. And you want to play more than chord tones over each chord. How do you choose the right passing notes if you don't have a scale to work with. Especially on the fly?

Let's say a progression like:

Cmaj - fmin - Bbmaj - C#min

Let's say I layed out my guide tones, and I wanted to link them with something more.

I don't really understand what you're trying to do. I guess I need more information.

What style of music?
What's the tempo?
What's going on in the music?
Are you creating an accompaniment? (walking, groove...)
Are you soloing?
Are you trying to play something that sounds "outside"?

You can play anything you want as long as it resolves (or doesn't).

Joe

[Audiophage]

Call the C# a Db and it's really not that weird looking. You can very easily use the 3rd of one chord to approach the next root, from some kind of a second. It's not really all that atonal, just kind of chromatic. You're just playing I-iv-bVII-bii. It's got sort of a phrygian dominant flavor to it.

[funkydanbass]

Originally Posted by roflol

isn't that just in c major / a minor

Umm, no... not by any stretch of the imagination.

[BassChuck]

Originally Posted by GreyBeard

Music theory is only a way of describing in an organized way what sounds good or right.

Sorta. Music Theory is a way of describing what other people have thought sounded good in the past. You don't have to agree.

(said in the most friendly manner possible): As soon as you start thinking about what is 'good' or 'right' or 'correct' etc. etc you start eliminating options and possibilities. Sounds cannot possibly have the qualities of 'good' or 'bad', its only people who can put that judgement on them. Anything is possible.

[kidgloves2]

Thanks Pocketgroove, that's very interesting!


As for this question

I don't really understand what you're trying to do. I guess I need more information.

What style of music?
What's the tempo?
What's going on in the music?
Are you creating an accompaniment? (walking, groove...)
Are you soloing?
Are you trying to play something that sounds "outside"?

You can play anything you want as long as it resolves (or doesn't).

Joe

Style of music is kind of like Radiohead
Tempo can be any

I basically want to create interesting/memorable bass lines using more than just chord tones. I already know how to use chord tones. Also, I'm just learning,. I mostly think diatonically. So if I were to use passing notes, I would take them from the key that I'm thinking in. But some chord progressions modulate so fast or don't have anything in common, so I don't know how to think about passing tones between chord tones.

I guess there is probably more than one answer depending on the progression.

[Pacman]

This is for more than just jazz.

The article is written from a jazz point of view, but start there. It will help in all styles of music.