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Bm-C#7 to Bm7? Questions.

Depth_Charge

Depth_Charge

Sep 13, 2006
4,143
182
Perth, Western Australia
#1
The guitars are progressing as above. I presume the chords are:

B minor, C sharp seventh and b minor seventh.

First I'm not sure what the seventh means and how it changes "things", which is probably bad. My gut says it means the chords are 4 note chords that includes the seventh of the scale...but I'm not sure and seek clarification. Help?

Second, I can get away with just playing B, C#, B on bass over that progression, but it's a bit boring I feel. Are there any more colourful choices I could consider other than an octave jump from B, through C# up to the B octave?

Third, the song progresses A, C#m, D, A on the verse and chorus and C#m, D, E, Bm-C#m7, Bm7. How do I derive the scale this is from?

Sorry if this seems basic but I get theory better when I "reverse engineer" it from what I'm playing, and I learn theory on impulse not day by day :)
 
#2
Depth_Charge said:
First I'm not sure what the seventh means and how it changes "things", which is probably bad. My gut says it means the chords are 4 note chords that includes the seventh of the scale...but I'm not sure and seek clarification. Help?
Click to expand...

A "seventh" chord usually means a dominant seventh, which means flatting the seventh degree of the scale. So, for example, a C#7 would have the root, third, fifth, and flat seven of a C# scale: C#, E#, G#, B natural.

(Note: in the first part of your post, you say it is a C#7 chord. However, in the latter part of your post, you say it is a C# minor 7 chord. The seventh in each chord is treated the same way, but the notes in the C# minor chord would be C#, E, G#, B natural.)

Second, I can get away with just playing B, C#, B on bass over that progression, but it's a bit boring I feel. Are there any more colourful choices I could consider other than an octave jump from B, through C# up to the B octave?
Click to expand...

There are tons of things you can do, depending on the style of the tune. Using the root and fifth is a time-honored tradition. On the Bmin, you would play B and F#. On the C#7 (or C#min7, whichever it is), you would play C# and G#.

One of the nice things about the root-fifth combination is that because there is no third, it works over both major and minor chords.

Third, the song progresses A, C#m, D, A on the verse and chorus and C#m, D, E, Bm-C#m7, Bm7. How do I derive the scale this is from?
Click to expand...

All of those chords can be built from notes in the A major scale.
 
#3
It really depends on the style of music you're playing. For example, if it was heavy rock etc. I would be inclined to chuck in a 5th or even emphasise the thirds. I am a total mong :help: at theory but I know what a 3rd and 5th and 7th is.
Maybe try this as a starter...
Let's say you have to play 4 notes per bar. Instead of doing something like B B B B, maybe you try something like B D B A.
Sort of like this:

----------------
------------7---
----5-----------
7-------7-------

That gives the 3rd and 7th notes of a B minor and might just work.

As I say, I am totally unaware of Theory and I have just picked up odds and sods form whoever I am around. I tend to do things the hard way which means I try things the Theory people wouldn't necessarily try and sometimes it sounds cool! sometimes not ;)
 
#4
"Triads" or "normal chords" have 3 different notes: Root-3rd-5th
"7th chords" add the 7th: R-3-5-7

Your example is in the key of A Major (aka "diatonic" to the key of A).
A Major is spelled: A-B-C#-D-E-F#-G#

The first chord in your progression is Bmin. Start on the note B and take every other note in the A Major scale: B (skip C#) D (skip E) F#
Bmin = B-D-F# (it is a minor chord because B to D is a minor 3rd; if it were D#, it would be a major chord, but D# is not in the A Major scale.)

Same process for C#min7, except it is a 4-note chord: C# (skip D) E (skip F#) G# (skip A) B
C#min7=C#-E-G#-B (It is a minor 7 chord because C# to E is a minor 3rd and C# to B is a minor 7th; if the chord was C#-E#-G#-B#, it would be a major 7th chord, and if it was C#-E#-G#-B, it would be a dominant 7th chord.)

When you are coming up with a bass line, your "safe" notes are the notes of the chord. The root and 5th are the safest of all, then the 3rd and 7th (if it is a 7th chord). You can also "fill in the gaps" with other notes from the A Major scale, as long as they sound good!

Some chord progressions are "chromatic" or "non-diatonic." That means they don't all use notes from the same major scale. We can talk about that another day :)
 
#5
ps The reason this progression is obviously in A Major is that it has three different major chords: A, D, and E. Diatonic chord progressions can only have three major chords: the I (one), IV (four), and V (five). In this case, A is I, D is IV, and E is V. The majority of rock songs use these three chords :)
 
#7
Personally, I wouldn't pay that much attention to the added 7th of the second Bm chord, I never felt that adding the 7th to a minor chord changes its sound that much (unless it's the major 7th, then we're talking!) I'd simply experiment with what sounds good, if you feel you HAVE to work "extra" chord notes into your bass lines every single time, your lines may sound forced. Many times it's not really necessary because the chord instruments are already covering the chord. I guess that's another vote for the "K.I.S.S." approach.
 
#8
The 7th means the 7th degree of the scale. Someone said earlier that it meant Dominant 7th but that isn't right, a dominant 7th is a 7th chord on the dominant or 5th degree of teh scale (A G7 chord in the key of C for example)

Anyway......
If it says B7 then the 7th is an Anatural
If it says B maj7 then the 7th is an Asharp.
if it says Bm7 then the 7th is an A natural

Note that although B7 is a major chord it has a minor 7th. Only play a major 7th if the chord says maj7. Jazz theory is different to classical in this regard.

Practically if the chords are in quick succession then you don't really need to worry about the 7th just stick to the root. The guitarist will be playing the 7th and it doesn't really need any emphasis.
 
#9
ac1710 said:
The 7th means the 7th degree of the scale. Someone said earlier that it meant Dominant 7th but that isn't right, a dominant 7th is a 7th chord on the dominant or 5th degree of teh scale (A G7 chord in the key of C for example)
Click to expand...

I disagree. In my experience, 9 out of 10 times, when a musician says "play a C 7th chord," they mean C dominant 7th (C-E-G-Bb), not C minor 7th or C major 7th. (Which would usually, but certainly not always, mean you are in the key of F.)
 
#12
Mushroo said:
I disagree. In my experience, 9 out of 10 times, when a musician says "play a C 7th chord," they mean C dominant 7th (C-E-G-Bb), not C minor 7th or C major 7th. (Which would usually, but certainly not always, mean you are in the key of F.)
Click to expand...

Your misusing the word 'dominant' there.
Dominant means the 5th of the scale. And so a dominant 7th in C would be G-D-B-F (G7). So yes C7 is the dominant of F but not all 7th chords are based on the dominant, especially outside of classical music
 
#13
ac1710 said:
Your misusing the word 'dominant' there.
Dominant means the 5th of the scale. And so a dominant 7th in C would be G-D-B-F (G7). So yes C7 is the dominant of F but not all 7th chords are based on the dominant, especially outside of classical music
Click to expand...

Again, I disagree :)

A dominant 7th chord is a four-note chord spelled 1-3-5-b7. In the key of C, G7 would be the most commonly-used dominant 7 chord, but certainly not the only one. For example, in a 12-bar blues, the progression would use C7, F7, and G7. They are all dominant 7th chords, even though they are not all built on the 5th scale degree. You would never hear a blues player play CMaj7 as the I chord of a C blues!

Edit: You are correct, however, that the "dominant chord" got its name historically because, in a diatonic chord progression, the only dominant 7th chord is built on the 5th scale degree, which is also called "the dominant." However, composers since Bach have been building dominant 7th chords on any tone, not just the 5th, in order to modulate to other keys.
 
#14
Mushroo said:
Again, I disagree :)

A dominant 7th chord is a four-note chord spelled 1-3-5-b7. In the key of C, G7 would be the most commonly-used dominant 7 chord, but certainly not the only one. For example, in a 12-bar blues, the progression would use C7, F7, and G7. They are all dominant 7th chords, even though they are not all built on the 5th scale degree. You would never hear a blues player play CMaj7 as the I chord of a C blues!

Edit: You are correct, however, that the "dominant chord" got its name historically because, in a diatonic chord progression, the only dominant 7th chord is built on the 5th scale degree, which is also called "the dominant." However, composers since Bach have been building dominant 7th chords on any tone, not just the 5th, in order to modulate to other keys.
Click to expand...
I think were just saying the same thing differently
 
#16
Festus said:
It really depends on the style of music you're playing.
Click to expand...

+1

I agree. We need more info.

There are a lot of things to consider. If I were working on a bass line for the progression, I would want to know: style, tempo, instrumentation, what's going on in the song during that progression...

Does the song require the bass to do something simple or busy? Does it call for something simple with pitch but more complex with rhythm? Or, the other way around?

More info please.

Joe
 
#19
He's trying to say "A C7 chord has a flat 7 / a C major scale has a normal/natural 7th."

Mushroo, I agree with you - a 7th chord usually is a dominant 7th chord, but I suspect that since there is no F# in the song, the song isn't in F#. Maybe he meant C#maj7, or maybe they just like throwing 7ths in to their music to make it sound "sophisticated and jazzy." It's hard to know without context.
 
#20
The "spelling" of a chord as, for example C7 is a dominant chord. This isn't necessarily the V7 chord since there are secondary dominants as well. The "jazz minor" scale is a good example of this, where it has both a V7 and IV7 chord.

A seventh chord is any tertian "tetrad" with the degrees 1,3,5,7 of the scale included. This includes chords such as (in C for example) CMaj7, Cmin7, Cdim7, Cmin7(b5), CminMaj7 and so on.

The example given by the OP, I would assume relates back to F#minor rather than A major, due to the resolution of the dominant. Even though it is not resolved by the progression, the dominant implies that F# is the tonic, rather than A. This makes it a iv-V7-iv7 progression.

edit- MarkTAW is right to say that it all depends on context though, but all things being equal I personally would go with the assumption of F#minor (or harmonic minor) in a scalar sense based on those chords and the implied resolution of the dominant.
 

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