Getting Through The Gig – Negotiating A Chord Chart Part 3

Posted on March 23, 2011 by GuitArchitecture

I took the wrong weekend to sleep in! Guitar Squid distributed a link to part one of the post and by the time I got to check my stats for the weekend I had already missed my record keeping days.

However, you got here – welcome.

In the previous posts (part 1 and part 2), I talked about deciphering chord symbols and developing shortcuts for playing them. In this post I’m going to talk about my approach and how I ended up reading the chart.

One final time – here’s the 232 chart with upper extension triads written in:

Full Triadic Substitutions / Shortcuts

Here’s an mp3 of the track. This was recorded with an FnH Ultrasonic recorded directly into AU Lab with PodFarm 2.0 @ 44.1. The goal was an ambient wash of sound but in retrospect, I should have gone with a longer delay time/wetter reverb to hold the sustain.

Here’s the PodFarm Patch:

Here’s Bar 1 of the chart:

232 Measure 1

Notes:

Simple is better. I usually start with 3-4 note voicings and then add from there on subsequent passes.

I chose the F minor chord in the first position to make the C in the chart the top note of the voicing (and thus accent the melody) – this kept my initial focus on voicings primarily on the D, G and B strings.

I added the bass note on the E and A strings so I could get a little more of the chord texture.

On the B minor 11 chord, I made some alterations on the fly. To get the melody note on top of the voicing I doubled the 11 (E on the 5^th fret). Technically this isn’t a minor 11 chord as there’s no 3^rd – but in this case Chris was playing the full voicing anyway, so I’m just adding texture. Depending on what the bass was doing on the second pass I would probably add the 3^rd of the chord (D) on the 5^th fret of the A string.

The 3^rd and 4^th chords follow a similar pattern so I used the same voicing.

I decided to drop down to 1^st position for the last chord to get some low-end emphasis. I’d probably add some harp harmonics as well.

The same voicings and approach are used in Bar 2.

Bar 2

232 Measure 2

Bars 3-4

232 Measures 3-4

Notes:

A 9 (sus4) – This went to g,b and e strings to facilitate the melody note. With the kind of ambient swell sounds that I used – muting the strings with the pick hand between chord changes becomes important to maintain smooth delay.

Bb Maj 9 – Here I was actually thinking Dm 7/Bb. So I’m just using the top notes of the voicing.

E min 9 – This is a stock A string minor 9 voicing I use. I have a couple of these for E and A strings I throw in when I need to.

F#9 (sus 4) – E maj/F# voicing based off of a VII position E barre chord.

G maj 9 – I was thinking B min but then added the A on the 10^th fret for the melody and the G on the A string for the root.

C#min 9 – I moved the melody up an octave on the last 3 chords to amp up the arrangement. Stock E string rooted voicing. Sometimes I’d play the B on the D string and sometimes not.

D Maj 9 – Variation on the C#min9 shape – 2 useful voicings to have at your disposal.

E9 sus 4 – Just kept the D Maj 9 voicing, added the F# on the top string and played the low octave E. I addition to filling out the chord the voicing puts me in a good spot space wise if we decide to repeat bars 1-4.

This has been a long series of instruction for a pretty simple chord chart, but the purpose of it was to detail the process behind those short cuts. It might seem long and involved – but it gets easier over time. In reality – the voicings took about a minute to suss out.

I hope this helps! Please feel free to reply here or send an email to guitar.blueprint@gmail.com with any other questions you might have about this.

-SC

Getting Through The Gig – Negotiating A Chord Chart Part 2

Posted on March 15, 2011 by GuitArchitecture

In the previous getting through the gig post, I talked about how to interpret chord symbols to determine what a song is asking for. Today, I’m going to use upper structure triads (triads built on chord tones other than the root) to simplify the chart. If you’re unfamiliar with the chord symbols below, you may want to start with Part 1 of this lesson.

This lesson will continue to use the 232 chart used in part 1.

(232 © Chris Lavender 2011 used with permission)

For now – let’s assume that you know how to play at least some major and minor triad shapes. (If you didn’t take my advice to review the triadic inversions at the end of the last post – you may want to do so now.)

Getting through the Charts part 1 – Unfamiliar and familiar

When sight-reading a chart, my goal isn’t neccessarilly to have a brilliant interpretation playing it the first time (although if I can make it better – great) . I just want to make sure that I’m playing the chords as written and then try to adapt it to the song. So if I have stock voicings at my fingers for chords on the chart and they make sense, I’ll play those and then voice lead or tailor the approach from there.

Let’s assume for a moment that it’s a worse case scenario – you’re given this chart to play and all of these chords are alien to you.

Step 1:

Look for common chord types.

In this case, there are only a few different types of chords in the piece:

major9 #11
minor 11,
9sus4,
major 9 and
minor 9.

If generic voicings can be developed they can just be moved to the roots of the chords that need to be played.

Step 2:

Convert to the key of C and figure out the chord formula.

The reason to convert to the key of C – is that the lack of sharps or flats in the key signature makes it easy to alter chord formulas as need be.

Here are the chords in question in the key of C:

C major9 #11: C, E, G, B, D, F# (1, 3, 5, 7, 9, #11)

C minor 11: C, Eb, G, Bb, D, F (1, b3, 5, b7, 9, 11)

C 9sus4: C, F, G, Bb, D, (1, 4, 5, b7, 9)

C major 9: C, E, G, B, D (1, 3, 5, 7, 9)

C minor 9: C, Eb, G, Bb, D (1, b3, 5, b7, 9)

Step 3:

Focus on the upper notes (7, 9, 11, 13) of the voicing (and/or any alterations) and make a short cut:

Note:

This process assumes that there’s a bass player who will be playing the root. You also loose the 3rd in the voicing, but you can always add the root, 3rd or any other chord tone in later. The initial step is to just get through the chart, and then spruce it up as you gain familiarity.

In the C major9 #11, the upper notes are the 7, 9 and #11 (B, D, F# ) this is a B minor triad with a C in the bass (also written B min/C).

The shortcut here is –

if you play a minor triad a ½ step down from the root

you’ll have the upper extension of the major 9 #11 chord.

Here are the transposed voicings

Gb major 9 #11 = F minor/Gb

A major 9 #11 = G# minor/A

F major 9 #11 = E minor/F

C major 9 #11 = B minor/E

D major 9 #11 = C# minor/D

Bb major 9 #11 = A minor/Bb

Here they are penciled into the chart:

Maj. 9 sharp 11 Shortcut

Note:

I’m going to into specific voicings in the third and final post – the idea here is to just to document how to figure out some basic chord substitutions. While I haven’t written in the bass note (i.e. Gb major 9 #11 = F minor/Gb – written on the chart as simply Fm), the bass note is still in the original chord voicing, so I can work it into the tonic as necessary.

In the C minor 11, the upper notes are the b7, 9 and 11 (Bb, D, F) this is a Bb major triad with a C in the bass (also written B/C).

The shortcut here is –

if you play a major triad a step down from the root

you’ll have the upper extension of the minor 11 chord.

Here are the transposed voicings:

B minor 11 = A/B

C# minor 11 = B/C#

E minor 11 = D/E

Gb minor 11 = Fb(E)/Gb

and applied to the chart:

Minor 11 Triadic shortcuts

Next, let’s look at the 9 sus4 chord

C 9sus4: C, F, G, Bb, D, (1, 4, 5, b7, 9)

Here the upper extensions are the b7, 9 and the added sus4 (Bb, D, F)

The real difference between the C9 Sus4 and the C minor 11 is the Eb.

The shortcut here is –

if you play a major triad a step down from the root

you’ll also have the primary tones of the 9sus4 chord.

Here are the transposed voicings:

A9 sus 4 = G/A

F#9 sus 4 = E/F#

E9 sus 4 = D/E

and applied to the chart:

9 sus 4 Triadic Shortcuts

For 11 and 13th chords, I tend to think in terms of triads based on the 7th or the 9th. Major and Minor 9th chords can be seen as triads starting from the 5th (but I usually see them as 7th chords from the 3rd – more on that in part 3 of these posts).

Major 9th shortcut –

if you play a major triad chord a 5th up from the root

you’ll have the upper extension of the major 9th chord.

Here are the transposed voicings:

C major 9: C, E, G, B, D (1, 3, 5, 7, 9) = G/C

Bb major 9 = F/Bb

G major 9 = D/G

D major 9 = A/D

and applied to the chart:

Major 9th Triad Shortcuts

Minor 9th shortcut –

if you play a minor triad a 5th up from the root

you’ll have the upper extension of the minor 9th chord.

Here are the transposed voicings:

C minor 9: C, Eb, G, Bb, D (1, b3, 5, b7, 9) = G Minor

Emin9 = B min/E

C#min9 = G# min/ C#

And the big reveal or…

GET ON WITH IT ALREADY SCOTT – WHAT DOES ALL THIS MEAN?

Okay here’s the initial chart again:

and here’s the modified chart with triadic substitutions written in (click on the chart to see it full-sized).

Full Triadic Substitutions / Shortcuts

Which do you find easier to read chord-wise?

“Hey take a solo…”

As an additional bonus to this approach, these upper extension triads can also be approached as arpeggios that can be played over each chord for soloing or as a simpler tonal center for chord scales (just realize that not all chord scales that work for the upper extension triad will work for the initial chord – but experiment and use your ear to guide you for what works.)

In the final post of this series, I’ll show how I ended up voicing the tune.

Thanks for reading!

-SC

Getting Through The Gig – Negotiating A Chord Chart Part 1

Posted on March 14, 2011 by GuitArchitecture

In the previous surviving the gig post, I talked about some memorization skills that can help get through gigs that require learning a lot of tunes. In this series of posts, I want to focus on how to get through gigs that may have unfamiliar chord changes.

In this post, I’m going to be discussing how to interpret chord symbols and then developing some short cuts for how to generate chord voicings on the bandstand as it were. If you are already familiar with how to read chord voicings – you may want to skim this and just go to part 2.

There will be a lot of detail over these posts for how I’m doing what I’m doing, but once you get the concept under your belt. It should be something you can do on the fly if need be.

As an example, I’ll be look at part of a chart Rough Hewn touch/stick/Warr guitarist Chris Lavender sent to me, called 232

(232 © Chris Lavender 2011 used with permission)

First Step – Know what notes the chord symbols are asking for.

It’s not that hard to figure out chords if you know what the symbols mean. Here are some general shortcuts for chord types beyond triads. There are only 3 basic categories that we’ll look at: Major, Minor and Dominant:

Major

(Sometimes designated by “major”, “maj” or a triangle)

Any type of major chord always has a major triad (Root, 3^rd and 5^th) plus a major 7^th in the full chord voicing unless it states otherwise. If a chart has any type of C Major chord variation (C Major 7, C Major 9 or C Major 13) – the voicing has a C, E, G and B.

Note:

When removing notes from any voicing the 5^th is usually the first to go (unless it’s altered like #5, or b5).

The initial short cut is: any major type chord starts with (1,3, 7) or (C, E, B) in the key of C.

Minor

(Sometimes designated by “minor”, “min”. or “-” )

Any type of minor chord always has a minor triad (Root, b3^rd and 5^th) plus a b7^th in the full chord voicing unless it states otherwise. If a chart has any type of C Major chord variation (C minor 7, C minor 9, C minor 11 or C minor 13) – the voicing has a C, Eb, G and Bb.

Note:

When removing notes from any voicing the 5^th is usually the first to go (unless it’s altered like #5, or b5).

The initial short cut is: any minor type chord starts with (1,b3, b7) or (C, bE, bB) in the key of C.

Dominant

(Sometimes designated by “dominant”, “dom”. or no designation

i.e. “C7”, “C9” or “C13” refers to a dominant chord unless otherwise stated)

Any type of dominant chord always has a major triad (Root, 3^rd and 5^th) plus a b7^th in the full chord voicing unless it states otherwise. If a chart has any type of C dominant chord variation (C 7, C 9, C 11 or C 13) – the voicing has a C, E, G and Bb.

Note:

When removing notes from any voicing the 5^th is usually the first to go (unless it’s altered like #5, or b5).

The initial short cut is: any dominant type chord starts with (1,3, b7) or (C, E, Bb) in the key of C.

Beyond this, you just need to add in additional pitches based on what the voicing indicates.

Here’s a chart that relates all of the potential chord tones that you might see to a scale degree for quick reference.

Putting the chart to use:

The first chord in the 232 chart is a C major 9 #11. As a reminder – any extended C major chord will have C, E, G, B in the full voicing. Since it’s a C major 9, a 9th – which in the chart above is a D – will have to be added. The #11 means an F# will get added to the voicing as well. This brings the full voicing to (C, E, G, B, D, and F#).

Again, the only time you would probably play a full voicing is for a solo guitar or perhaps a duet performance. In the next post, I’ll discuss how to extract what you need to get through the chart.

Second Step – Know some chords

When I went to Berklee, I was advised that I should learn at least 2 chord voicings for any chords that could be put on a chart in front of me. These stock voicings are typically low E or A string rooted (as it helps with visualization) and are the default voicings that you would use if you were sight-reading a chart. These typically include triads, Major /Minor / Dominant chord 7^th, 9^th, 11^th and 13^th chords.

While this is, generally, useful advice, I should state for the record that while I did the initial memorization required for school proficiencies – I quickly forgot the majority of voicings I wasn’t using all the time. Learning every inversion of every possible 7^th, 9^th, 11^th and 13^th chord on multiple string sets will take YEARS. For some people, it’s the best method, but it never worked that well for me.

Once I understood how chords worked, I never bothered to memorize many specific voicings above a 9^th chord because I found some shortcuts to get the sounds I needed.

Note:

This is not to say that you should be lazy.If you follow through on the suggestions that I have – you should plan on learning triads and 7^th chords at a very deep level (i.e. you should have the goal of being able to play any triad or 7^th chord in any inversion in any position).

(more on how to do that in a future post)

I hope this helps! In the next post – I’ll simplify the 232 chart with some harmonic shortcuts.

While digesting this – I’d recommend you take some time to work on your chord inversions. If you’re unfamiliar with them you may want to check out the D major inversions I’ve posted below, and adapt this process to minor triads (just flat the third – F# and make it F in the examples below), and 7th chords (major, dominant and minor).

(The following is adapted from another post (Recycling Chords Part II: Triad Transformation).

Thanks for reading!!

-SC

Note: D major is used in the following examples instead of C major because the original post dealt with transforming triads. Each note of a 1^st position D major chord can be lowered to another note on the fingerboard, without using open strings. In other words, each chord is a moveable voicing on the fingerboard. The following should be adapted to C major and other keys as necessary.

The first step to adapting voicings is to make sure you can visualize triads both horizontally and vertically across the fingerboard.

Horizontal (i.e. positional) Visualization

Here’s a series of D major chord inversions in the 2^nd position.

Helpful Tip

As you play through these voicings pay particular attention to which chord tone each finger is on (i.e. for the first D Major chord voicing – the first finger is on the 5th of the chord (A), the third finger is on the root (D) and the second finger is on the 3rd (F#). More on this later.

Here are the D major inversions in the 5^th position

and in the 10^th position.

Vertical Visualization

Note:

the important thing with both the horizontal and vertical voicings is knowing where each chord tone is located in the voicing.

One way to practice this is to play through the chords and stop at random points and ask, “where is the root?” “where is the 3^rd?” “where is the 5^th?” This has to be full internalized to be able to realize the goal of instant chord tone identification.

Keeping Your Ego Out Of The Song’s Way

Posted on March 9, 2011 by GuitArchitecture

Thanks for coming to this page but it’s moved!

You can find it now on Guitagrip.com.

Thanks for dropping by. I hope to see you at guit-a-grip!

Hardware vs. Software – Or Praises And Perils In Live Laptop Use

Posted on February 26, 2011 by GuitArchitecture

Before I drag this article kicking and screaming down the bloody cobblestones of memory lane, I’ll mention that the kick off for this post was a recent effort to stabilize my laptop rig.

A couple of months ago I found out that the 4 gig chip that my laptop would support had come down in price. This would allow me to max out my elder laptop at 6 gigs instead of the current 4. I surmised that had to improve performance overall.

After saving up some cash – I ordered the chip from OWC. It came very quickly and installation was a snap. I turned on the laptop and seeing the memory say 6GB – was thrilled for about a ½ hour.

At that point, the laptop screen did a big wipe down and I got an error message of death – you need to shut off your laptop, which I did. It powered back up and 10 minutes later did the same thing. I took out the memory and added the old memory back and everything worked fine. I contacted OWC – they had me try a few things, and then sent me an RMA so I could send it back for free. The promptly sent me another chip.

I got that chip in the mail on Monday. I installed it in my laptop and everything was fine. I ran it all day and there were no issues. I got it home and was streaming a video while I was working out and sure enough about an hour in the laptop screen did a big wipe down and I got an error message of death – you need to shut off your laptop, which I did. This time however, when I turned off the laptop, I felt underneath it – I had the laptop elevated to get it some air to help cool it down, but even so – it was still hot enough that you could fry an egg on it. I set the laptop on its side to cool it down and once the back was cool to the touch – maybe a couple of minutes later – started it up and it’s been working fine ever since. I think it was the combination of the poor airflow and table lamps I have to increase the lighting. I’ll have to go to staples now and get one of those self cooling USB fan jobs and hope it doesn’t mess with the audio signal. But it was an important reminder about the precarious nature of laptops as signal processors. The reason I was trying this in advance was because at the next gig I have, I don’t want the laptop to shut down mid song and leave me stranded.

All of this got me rethinking the laptop vs hardware debate that I partially discussed here but is worth a broader examination.

The obligatory history lesson to stave off initial pointed questions of, “Do you even know what that stuff is supposed to sound like?”

As with many of the things I do, my entry into laptop guitar was completely unplanned, but in retrospect not that surprising.

When I first started playing guitar, the amp I had was a no frills, no name combo amp with a 12” speaker. Given my influences at the time (Hendrix, Sabbath, Ozzy, etc.), it’s no surprise that almost immediately I started looking for distortion. Then every dollar I could put together was going for other effects: wahs…chorus….delays… anything I could get my hand on to try to replicate those sounds.

When I was playing in the Committee of Public Safety (my avant-garde core French Revolution fixated band with voice, guitar, bass, cello and drums) – my signal chain was really small. I had a Marshall JCM800 50 watt combo amp with a single 12 (this was run through a 4×12 Marshall 1960A cab). I had a channel switcher for the amp, a volume pedal and a TC Distortion/Boost pedal. The committee lead tone was the TC preamp before the Marshall distortion channel – and it was a creamy tone. I want to say there was some kind of cheap delay in there as well (maybe an Arion), and from what I remember that was it.

The Marshall got stolen from a rehearsal space in Allston while I was trying to resurrect mach 2 of the Committee. The stolen amp was my cue from the universe that it was time to move onto another project. In the meantime, something interesting started happening. The more I got into pedals, the more I started getting into sounds that didn’t sound like the tones I was initially trying to emulate. Soon the more a pedal disguised the fact that I was playing a guitar, the more I wanted that pedal.

At the time, I was working at a music store and an Ampeg guitar amp came in, and I got it for a super low price. I started picking up some EH pedals at the time as well (including a really sweet 1^st generation Russian Big Muff Pi), and I found an old tube echoplex. I remember playing a gig and the sound man took a look at my pedals and said, “Wow – this would be a state of the art rig in like ’72.” It was meant as a dig, but I took it as a compliment. The rig had character, the tones were right there and it sounded as guitaristic (or non guitaristic) as I wanted it to. That amp eventually gave way to amps by Seymour Duncan and Gibson before settling on a 4×10 Hot Rod DeVille (really a pretty great sounding amp with some mods by Tom at AzTech Electronics).

In between a lot of other pedals and effects crossed my path. This included a 1^st generation Jam Man (with additional memory slotted in which really turned my head around) and eventually sold, a Rhythm and Sound (also sold), various distortions wahs and other filters. By the time I was playing in Visible Inc (and later in The Bentmen/Tubtime/One Of Us) – my full rig was a tuner, Ernie Ball Volume Pedal, Digitech Space Station, T.C. Electronics Chorus, Memory Man Delay (original), Guyatone MD-2 delay, Akai Headrush looper, Vox Wah and another Ernie Ball volume pedal that went into the front end of a Fender Hot Rod Deville (4×10 amp). The full rig sat in an 88 key keyboard flight case that would not fit width wise across my car seats.

During all of this, I was constantly investigating different digital options. I had the original zoom effect that I used for quite a while, and when the line 6 came out – I remember getting a used 2.0 bean and just being blown away at the flexibility of it. Even later – my B-rig (and the one I used primarily with Annette Farrington) was the pod bean with a line 6 pedal board, the looper, wah and volume pedal. (Later in a cover band – it was only the Pod 2.0 in front of the amp). And that rig sounded pretty damn good in front of my amp. Even the band’s sound guy went from dismissive to begrudging concession. It really didn’t sound AS good as the full board – it sounded different – but it worked and it was a hell of a lot less stuff to bring than a huge pedal board.

This is all mentioned because about a month before I left Boston to go to CalArts, my rig was stolen out of an uninsured rehearsal space. The only thing I had taken home with me was the space station and the Akai Headrush – the amp and all the rest of the pedals were gone. The band hadn’t been rehearsing for a while so I had no idea anything was missing until a month later. By then there wasn’t much of anything to do – but leave Boston and start what would now be my acoustic studies at CalArts.

My first year at CalArts, my wife got me a Pod XT for a Christmas gift – and that was my ticket back on the crazy train of gear. But back when I was rocking a G3 ibook – I remember thinking that someday I’d be able to get guitar tones from a laptop. The day would come that I’d be able to bring a guitar and a laptop and leave all those pedals behind. And now I can say – that day is partially here.

Computer guitar tones are the best they’ve ever been, but there are a number of issues big and small that I think need to be acknowledged.

1. Laptops do not sound like tube amps. They just don’t. Even running a laptop with a Marshall patch through a tube amp – doesn’t sound like a Marshall. Having said that, it doesn’t sound bad. In fact, it sounds pretty damn good. What laptops have all over traditional amps and pedals is flexibility and portability. Knowing that I can bring a laptop and a guitar and (if the venue has a PA) get through a live show makes touring a LOT easier for me.

2. Pedals don’t often break – but when they do – they can be bypassed and the amp still used. The downside is that when the laptop goes down – you’re done. I’ve never ever had a hardware POD breakdown at a show (other than one time when the venue lost stage power and ALL the amps (and PA) lost power. I have had laptop programs crash mid set and it’s very nerve-wracking in a live context in the best situations. In the worst situation – the show’s over.

Laptops are fragile and pedals are built for durability. I don’t have to worry a well-built pedal getting ruined at a show (unless someone pours their beer on it) – but any one of a number of things could be the end of my laptop.

3. The technological barrier to true emulation will be cracked. The news of the new Thunderbolt protocol in mac books is stunning to me. 12x faster than firewire 800? At a certain point the algorithms will be improved enough, the data transfer rate and processing power will be so high – that you will no longer be able to tell if something was recorded on tape or not. You will no longer be able to tell if that’s a real tube amp you’re playing through. It isn’t a question of if it will happen – only when – and honestly I think we’re only about 5-10 years away at the most.

4. Emulation allows for sounds not feasible in the real world. Do I want to get an idea of what running a guitar through 6 tube echoplexes sounds like? Digitally? No Problem. In the real world – you’d have to first find 6 working tube echoplex units – and the hiss would be unusable, trust me on that one.

If you’re planning on using a laptop live – here are some suggestions I have for you

1. Optimize it.

From the get go, get the fastest processor, maximum memory and fastest hard drive you can afford initially. It doesn’t have to be the latest and greatest – it just needs to be relatively fast and expandable. For my live looping rig I have a 2-year old Macbook Pro (2.4 gig Intel Core Duo) with 6 gigs of memory and an internal 7200 rpm drive. I bought it with 2 gigs of ram and a 5400 rpm drive . My initial upgrade was 4 gigs of memory and a 200 gig 7200 rpm drive as that’s what I could afford at the time. The first time I looked at a 4 gig chip the cost was $150. The one I just installed to get the machine to 6 gig was around $90.

As time goes on (and costs decrease) plan on upgrading when necessary.

Count on needing an external drive if you’re going to do any recording.

Defrag your drives – frequently. When I went from the 200 gig drive to the 500 gig drive I defragged it during the drive cloning and my system speed increase was about 30%. It makes a big difference.

2. Back it up.

The first time you lose all your data – you will know how important this is. I’m especially bad at this as well and only back up once a week or so. A hard drive is a very delicate thing. If you knew you easily it lost information, you would lose sleep at night.

3. Make Multiple patches and back them up as well.

Patches take up almost no drive space. I probably have 40-50 different AU Lab settings. The reason for this is that AU LAB remembers all of the patch parameters as you save them. So if, for example, you finally optimize your work flow and settings and accidentally close the mixer window and save it when you close out – that window is gone when you reopen it – and there isn’t a way to recall it. What that leaves is no way to change parameters, levels etc. In other words – you start from scratch. I do this with POD FARM patches as well (multiple variants of tones so if I can call up parameters at will), SooperLooper, Apogee Maestro and FBV preferences as well. Hugely helpful in sessions – believe me.

3. Related to #2 and 3 – organize your folders and label them logically.

In working on my book, you would be amazed at the amount of time lost digging through folders with vague titles looking for old graphics. All my patches are in one place and backed up to a flash drive.

4. To the extent you can – run real world tests before going live.

If the stage has hot lights on it, it’s going to be doubly warm for your laptop – will it operate correctly in a live context. In a related note, record yourself when you’re playing and check levels etc. As I’ve said before, there’s a substantial difference in sounds that work when your practicing with headphones, sounds that work at low volumes and concert level sounds. The more prepared you are, the easier it will be to keep it all together.

5. Keep it compact

Typically in live performance you won’t have an hour to set stuff up. 5-10 minutes is optimal. To the extent that you can, try to pre-cable all of your connections. Don’t assume that the venue will have clean, continual power. I have a surge protector built into my strip – it’s not ideal but it’s better than nothing.

6. Go with the highest resolution your system will handle.

SooperLooper freaks out when I run anything higher than 44.1k – so if I’m looping – everything runs 44.1. If I’m not looping everything runs 88.2, or 96k. The clean sounds have more definition and the dirty sounds are a whole different ball game at 88.2 vs 44.1. Again, this is where having multiple AU patches comes in handy.

7. Be flexible.

Have a backup plan when things go wrong. In a worse case scenario where the laptop completely fails – I can go directly into the amp and get a signal. There won’t be any effects, but at least I don’t have to stop playing while it gets sussed out.

8. Be calm.

This took a while for me to get my head around. The problem with getting freaked out – is that it just exacerbates the situation as typically it leads to bad decisions which leads to more freaking out. The more you can calmly assess what’s going wrong, the more quickly you’ll be able to solve the problem.

9. Bring Extras.

I bring a trouble shooting pack to every gig it consists of:

duct tape – to tape down cables/or hold things together if need be.
a mag light – things get lost on stage very easily.
a small tool bag with screwdrivers, pliers and a wrench
a black magic marker and post its – in case I need to make any patch changes, write up set lists, etc
9 volt batteries (for my ebow – also for my back up tuner)
strings and a string winder
back up usb and firewire cables
an extension cord
a flash drive with back up patches for everything

10. Bring your A game.

Stage presence is a difficult thing to bring to a laptop performance, but to the extent that you can – show that you’re engaged (or at least don’t look bored/frightened) and come out from your laptop once in a while. If it’s engaging for the audience, it’s going to make the performance go easier for you as well.

Thanks for reading!

-SC

The Baker’s Dozen Approach To Pentatonic Scales

Posted on January 31, 2011 by GuitArchitecture

6 for the price of 5

While pentatonics are a great melodic and harmonic device, slipping some extra notes into the scale can add some additional spice to the approach. The most common way to do this is through the method used in the blues scale – which is a pentatonic minor scale with an added note (in the case of the blues scale – a tritone).

The impetus for posting on this was a post my friend Moby Pomerance put up regarding some elements of this very topic. Originally I had devised an alternate (i.e. approximate) fingering for his idea – but ultimately I put a few twists and turns in it and came up with one lick that’s really three mini licks rolled into one.

First – The Scale

Here’s a “box” position D pentatonic minor scale as a starting point:

What I’m going to do is add in a 9th (e) for an additional flavor

If I put this in a 2 note per string pattern using the D on the D string 12th fret as a starting point, I get this fingering ascending and descending. (Use alternate picking with this lick.)

While there’s nothing wrong with fingering it this way, I like dividing it into 3 string groupings. The 2-note-per-string approach with alternate picking is more aggressive – but the dividing the notes per string into grouping of 3-1-3 on the g-high e strings is a little more legato makes it easier for me to sequence sections. So here is the same idea but moved to the 7th/8th position.

Pay careful attention to the picking pattern and the 4th finger. The slide is indicated here to accent the pinky movement. While it’s picked in this example, it could also be played with only the first pick attack.

The lick

This idea is presented below in a larger lick that works over a d minor/d min7/d min9 chord. Here’s an mp3 I recorded with the FNH Guitar in AU Lab- first played slow (1/2 time) then faster (full speed – tempo is around 200).

** Note – the mp3 player on the site seems to be working better in Safari – but if you have trouble playing it – just refresh the page.

Notes:

The picking may seem idiosyncratic – but the approach is based on sweeping individual notes on multiple strings and alternate picking for notes on the same string. You should find it consistent in that regard.

I see this as 3 licks. Bar 1 is one approach. The 1st two descending ideas in bar 2 as the second approach and the last 2 arpeggio ideas as the 3rd lick.

The note groupings are not all uniform. Bar 2 has groups of 6 and 7 and splits a group of 5 up between bars 2 and three. . Breaking out of rigid 4 note 1/16th note patterns adds an element of unpredictability .

There are a number of e-f slides to highlight the added note in this lick. This is done with the idea of breaking the lick into segments rather than just using them in the lick as a whole.

Using patterns that have only 1 note on the B string – can make for some interesting chord ideas as well. Here are some melodic fragments that can double as substitution chords over a d minor chord (with an mp3 here).

Lastly, examining the notes in this scale: D,E, F, G, A, C as unique triads reveals the following:

D, F, A (d minor) + C, E, G (c major)

in other words – to get away from the full-scale approach – you could alternate D minor and C major arpeggios and get a very similar effect. I’ll look at this more in a future lesson.

In the meantime, if this idea is interesting to you – you may also want to look at this GuitArchitecture lesson post, or look at the pdfs of the pentatonic posts in the online lesson (PDFs) tab on the top of the page.

I’m always looking for feedback. If there’s anything in this lesson that helps, or that raises other questions – feel free to drop me a line at guitar.blueprint@gmail.com.

Thanks for reading!

-SC

Recycling Chords Part II: Triad Transformation

Posted on January 11, 2011 by GuitArchitecture

In the previous recycling chords lesson, I looked at ways to reinterpret chords. Another way to create different sounds is to take something as basic (and familiar) as a triad and alter tones to create more complex chords.

Note: this process isn’t designed to replace the need to learn multiple chord voicings but instead to supplement it.

Starting with the Flats

For example, take a C major triad (C, E, G) and flat the 3^rd, and it becomes a C minor triad.

This idea also can be applied to the root of the chord.

If the note C is flatted a ½ step (1 fret), the new note is B. This creates a C major 7^th chord with no root.

Likewise, if the note C is flatted a 1 step (2 frets), the new note is Bb. This creates a C7 chord with no root.

Moving to sharps

To add a 9th to the chord quality, raise the root a ½ step for a flat 9 (b9) (or a step for a natural 9).

This is a good place to make a couple of notes:

First: the voicings presented here are used to demonstrate the process, but I like some of them better in other registers. For example, here is the C add 9 voicing on the top 3 strings.

Second: one reason to explore voicings without roots is that, in an ensemble setting, the bassist often holds down the root of the chord. If you need the root – it’s easy enough to just add it in. Here is the same chord with a root:

The chord tone transformation chart

The following is a map of alterations to show how chord tones can be modified to create other sounds.

Taking the approach above, some general rules can be applied to a major triad.

The root of the chord can be lowered to the 7 or raised to the 9.

The third of the chord can be lowered to the 9 or raised to the 11.

The fifth of the chord can be lowered to the 11 or raised to the 13.

In this manner, a triad can be altered into almost any other functional chord.

Here’s an exercise that utilizes a D major triad to illustrate this idea:

Note: D major is used instead of C major because each note of a 1^st position D major chord can be lowered to another note on the fingerboard, without using open strings. In other words, each chord is a moveable voicing on the fingerboard.

The first step of this exercise is to make sure you can visualize triads both horizontally and vertically across the fingerboard.

Horizontal (i.e. positional) visualization

Here’s a series of D major chord inversions in the 2^nd position.

Here are the D major inversions in the 5^th position

and in the 10^th position.

If these voicings are unknown to you, start by familiarizing yourself with them before continuing to the rest of the lesson.

Vertical visualization

Note: the important thing with both the horizontal and vertical voicings is knowing where each chord tone is located in the voicing.

One way to practice this is to play through the chords and stop at random points and ask, “where is the root?” “where is the 3^rd?” “where is the 5^th?” This has to be full internalized to be able to intelligently transform the chords, with the goal being instant chord tone identification.

As with the horizontal voicings, if these voicings are unknown to you, start by familiarizing yourself with them before continuing to the rest of the lesson.

Triad Transformation Exercise

Now that the preliminary steps have been taken, let’s begin the process.

First, here are a few chord formulas we’ll need:

Major: Root, 3rd, 5th – D, F#, A

Major 7th: Root, 3rd, 5th and 7th – D, F#, A, C#

Dominant 7th: Root, 3rd, 5th and flat 7th – D, F#, A, C

Minor: Root, flat 3rd, 5th – D, F, A, C

Major 7 flat 5: Root, flat 3rd, flat 5th and flat 7th- D, F, Ab, C

Now, let’s go through the exercise as individual steps to explain the process.

Step 1: Take a Major chord (in this case D)

Step 2: Make it a D Major 7 chord

[by flatting the root a 1/2 step (1 fret)]

Step 3: Make the chord a D dominant 7 (D7) chord

[by flatting the root 1 step (2 frets)]

Step 4: Make the chord a d minor 7 chord

[by flatting the 3rd of the D7 a 1/2 step (1 fret)]

Step 5: Make the chord a d minor 7b5 chord

[by flatting the 5th of the Dminor7 a 1/2 step (1 fret)]

You get the idea. Transform the chord into every possible voicing and repeat with every other inversion.

When less is more – A case for smaller voicings

When I started out playing, if a song called for a C major chord, I’d play something like this:

While there’s nothing wrong with six note voicings, context is everything. It took a while to realize that when playing in larger groups, smaller voicings sometimes helped propel the song and allowed for better voice leading.

For example: here’s the same C Major chord but with just 3 notes.

And here is the voicing in a I-iv-V7 (C-F-G7) progression with smooth voice leading.

If you’re playing solo guitar – this isn’t going to fill a lot of space sonically but it works well in an ensemble, and it’s easy to play. A win-win.

I hope this helps! In a future lesson I’ll go further into this concept and use it to create 9th, 11th and 13th chords. In the meantime, you’re free to download and distribute any of the lessons here but I maintain the copyright on the material.

I’m always looking for feedback on what people find useful and what they don’t, so if you have any questions or comments, feel free to e-mail me at guitar.blueprint@gmail.com .

Recycling Chords Part I or Where’s The Root?

Posted on January 5, 2011 by GuitArchitecture

I’d like to start this brief series off with an explanation of how I view the function of theory.

(For those of you who are interested, this is taken from, A brief thought on Music Theory.)

“Theory is secondary to sound.

The history of music originates in organized sound. Theory and jargon were developed over time as a way to replicate those organized sounds. When a term like “C major” is used, it tells the informed person what kind of sound is going to be produced. This jargon then, is nothing more than a way for musicians to express ideas to each other without written music in a more efficient manner.

It’s much less important to be able to look at something and say, “that’s an altered dominant chord” than it is to hear an altered dominant chord in your head and be able to realize it on the guitar (or to hear someone else playing it and know what to play against it).”

This series of lessons are excerpts from the Guitarchitect’s Guide to Modes: Major Harmony book (due out in 2012). While that book covers basic intervals and chord theory, this lesson will make the most sense if you have some knowledge about chords, intervals and chord construction. Having said that, even if you have a very limited knowledge of these areas you can still get something from this lesson by playing through the examples.

When I was at Berklee, one of the recommendations I got was to learn a minimum of two voicings for every chord type I came across (and more if possible). While this is certainly a valid point – another way to approach learning new voicings is to reconceptualize what you already know. To see other ways of looking at things in this case, I’ll need to bring in a little music theory/analysis.

When is C, E and G something other than C Major?

In order to identify a chord, we first have to establish the root to determine the functions of the other notes in the chord.

For example, if we look at the notes C, E, and G with C in the bass we get a C Major chord.

However if E is the root of the chord – it’s possible that the chord could be analyzed as an E minor with an added flat 6^th and no 5^th.

While you may hear this combination of notes as come kind of E minor chord, you are more likely to hear it as a C major triad with E in the bass. The sound of a major triad is so entrenched in the average listener ’s head that it will be very difficult to hear this specific combination of notes as anything other than C major.

This is sometimes written as C/E. This chordal notation is commonly called a slash chord and is written in the format of chord/bass note.

The same is true for the next example. If G is the root of the chord – the chord could be analyzed as a G sus4 add 6 (no 5). But more likely you will hear it as C/G.

Let’s add a note outside of the triad to the chord. By putting an A in the bass, the chord spelling is now A-C-E-G (which is an A minor 7^th chord).

Just because you have 3 notes doesn’t mean that you’re limited to a specific chord type. In other words the notes C, E, and G are sometimes more than a C Major chord.

Using the same process as above the collection of notes above could also be analyzed as:

Converting to C

Let’s now look at how a C Major triad can be analyzed over every other root.

A quick theory tip: Whenever I see chord or a scale that I’m having trouble recognizing, I recommend modulating it to the key of C. The reason for this is the lack of sharps or flats make any accidentals immediately identifiable.

Here are a couple of points regarding this:

There are several ways that these chords could be interpreted and that this is merely my analysis.
The Analysis column is analysis in relation to the root. For example, the C of a C major triad is a b4 over a G# root.
The resultant chord column has an implied analysis. For example the D11 derived from a C major triad over D is more accurately a D11 (no 3rd, no 5th add 9).
Some of the voicings presented are theoretical voicings and not something you find on a chord chart. For example: C7 is a much easier voicing to conceptualize than C Major (add #13) and I have yet to see a chord chart with C Major (add #13) on it.) Ditto for altered roots.

Putting the Theory into Practice

Let’s say I’m playing a song that uses a major chord and I want to spice it up.

In looking at the above chart, I see that utilizing a C major triad over a Bb could be seen as a C7 chord with the 7 in the bass (C/ Bb ) or it could be seen as a Bb chord with every upper chord tension.

Here’s a voicing in open position.

Now let’s make this a movable voicing.

Let’s begin with a 1^st position C major chord

and a 1^st position D major chord

Keeping the root and the 3^rd of the C major, we’ll use all the rest of the notes of D major:

and we get a really rich sounding substitution for a C major chord.

Next steps

This chord merely scratches the surface of this approach.

In addition to making some new chords from familiar voicings (i.e. Ab maj7#5 = C major /Ab), you also get some improvisational approaches as well (for example – as a starting point for soloing over a Ab maj7#5 you could play a C major arpeggio rather than learning a maj7#5 arpeggio).

For now, I would recommend exploring these sounds both as chords and as an arpeggio approach (i.e playing a C major arpeggio over each root) to see what sounds work for you and then adapt those to other keys.

Additionally, this process can be applied to any chord. If you feel like exploring this approach – C minor might be a good place to start.

In part II of this series, I’ll discuss a process I call triadic transformation as another way to reconceptualize chords that you already know.

In the meantime, just remember that there isn’t anything here to get too hung up about. Take the sounds and approaches that work for you and discard the rest.

I hope this helps! You’re free to download and distribute any of the lessons here but I maintain the copyright on the material. I’m always looking for feedback, so if you have any questions or comments, please feel free to e-mail me at guitar.blueprint@gmail.com.

-SC

Favored Curry Or Spicing Up Chord Scales And Triads Part 2

Posted on December 24, 2010 by GuitArchitecture

In Part 1 of this lesson, I went over how to create a chord scale for improvising over a specific chord (in this case C major) chord. As a brief recap – here is the chord scale I chose:

C major chord scale with a # 2, # 4, and a b6 scale degree.

To start this off – here’s a sample lick using this scale:

Here’s how the scale sounds played slowly (1/4 note at 90)

Here’s the scale faster (1/4 note at 180).

The chords you say?

Since we’ve engineered this chord scale around a C major triad – we know that any licks we come up with will work over that chord – but to see what other chords can be used with this scale – we need to harmonize it.

Let’s look at the triadic (3 note) harmony first.

C major chord scale with a # 2, # 4, and b6 scale harmonized in 3rds (triads)

**Note the first 2 chords have been moved to the back three strings to facilitate playing:

Here are the chord formulas that are generated:

C, E, G – Root, 3rd and 5th – C Major
D#, F#, Ab – Root, 3rd and double flat 5th – non functional harmony*
E, G, B – Root, flat 3rd and 5th – E minor
F#, Ab, C – Root, double flat 3rd, flat 5th – non functional harmony*
G, B, D# – Root, 3rd, sharp 5th – G Augmented
Ab, C, E – Root, 3rd, sharp 5th – Ab Augmented
B, D#, F#, – Root, 3rd, 5th – B Major

(Note: even though these don’t have a triadic function they can serve a function enharmonically – I’ll get to that in the 7th chord section).

To recap – any licks that we generate from this scale will work over C major, E minor and B major.

Adding the spice

Since we started this approach with C major – let’s look at a lick that spices up a C Major Triad.

Here’s an mp3 of the lick. This is an example of something I might play as a backup accompaniment in the pre-chorus of a song.

To my ears even playing this over a straight C major tonality, the D#–>E really triggers an E minor tonality. Try playing this over a C major –> E minor progression.

Moving to E minor – here’s an approach I use a lot in rhythm playing.

The first step is to take a set of three strings – in this case I’ll use the high E, B and G strings.

Starting with a sample chord voicing in the low register – ascend up the neck by moving each note in the voicing up by scale degree. In this example:

I’ve started with an initial voicing (Ab, C and E) and moved it through scale-wise motion.

(Note: I hear this as G# instead of Ab – you may want to see the section on enharmonics below).

Here is an mp3 of the voicings. In the audio example, I play a low E between each chord to establish an overall tonality.

Having done this – I see some cool dyads ( 2 note voicings) on the B and G strings that I can use to spice up an E minor vamp. This is an example of the type of comping I might do on the verse of a song if the song chart just said E minor).

Here is an mp3 of the lick. Don’t be afraid to lay into the slides or add a little vibrato to make the notes sing a little more.

With a lot of these approaches – I’m not really conscious of what the specific functions of the notes are. Once I know that the scale will work over a chord – it’s more about focusing on the sound of the notes and how they fit into the song. On some tunes – these notes would clash with the melody and it wouldn’t work.

This process is about building a repertoire of sounds to have at your disposal. Knowing the theory around it just allows you to adapt those sounds and approaches to make the fit where you want them to.

Space is the place

Here’s a lick that takes the above approach of breaking chords up into different string sets and applies it to a melody line. Here I’ve focused on the A, D and B strings and added in the high E string at the end.

Here is an mp3 of the lick. Note the slides, vibrato and slightly rubato phrasing at the end of the lick. These are the little nuances that help make the difference between playing music and playing notes.

This next lick combines chord forms and melody by using artificial (i.e. “harp”) harmonics. To produce these – a chord shape is held with the fretting hand while the picking hand picks and partially frets notes 12 frets higher resulting in a chime like timbre. If you are unfamiliar with this technique – just google Lenny Breau (an absolute master of the approach) and you’ll get an idea.

For this specific lick: I’m holding the D# with my second finger, the C with my 3rd and the Ab with my 4th so I can reach the F# with the fret hand 1st finger.

Here’s an mp3.

One of the secrets of this method is to strategically time the release of the fret hand notes. The longer you can leave the notes held down, the more the pitches will bleed into one another – which produces the desired effect. Before we go to the next lick I need to make a brief enharmonic diversion.

An Enharmonic Diversion

An enharmonic is when a note is spelled differently but sounds the same (for example Ab and G#). When playing this over an E drone – I hear the pitch on the first fret of the G string as a G# (i.e the third of the chord) instead of Ab. It’s very difficult for me to hear that note functioning as a b4.

As a case in point, here’s another lick. (This piece makes liberal use of vibrato bar scoops – listening to the mp3 of the lick for phrasing is recommended).

I’ve notated this lick with both a G# and a G natural as those are the intervals I hear in the approach.

With this interpretation it makes the scale harmonically vague as it would then have both a major AND a minor 3rd. If we go back over the initial triadic chord and replace the Ab with G#, F# for Gb and D# for Eb we get a couple of different chord options.

C, E, G#- C Augmented
E, G#, B – E Major
G#, B, D# – G# minor
C, Eb , G – C Minor
G, B, Eb – Eb Augmented
Ab, C, Eb – Ab Major

To recap – in addition to C major, E minor and B major – these licks can also be used with care over E major, Ab major, C minor and G# minor.

To finish this approach out for now – let’s look at 7th chords.

C major chord scale with a # 2, # 4, and b6 scale harmonized in 3rds (7th chords)

**Note: the stretch on the second chord should be approached with caution. If it hurts – stop playing immediately!

Here are the chord formulas that are generated:

C, E, G, B – Root, 3rd, 5th and 7th – C Major 7
D#, F#, Ab, C – Root, 3rd and double flat 5th, double flat 7 – Enharmonically – this spells – Ab, C, Eb, Gb, – or Ab7 – but doesn’t serve a function from the D# pitch.
E, G, B, D# – Root, flat 3rd, 5th and 7th – E minor (Major 7)
F#, Ab, C, E – Root, double flat 3rd, flat 5th – Enharmonically – this spells – Ab, C, Eb, Gb, – or Ab7 – but doesn’t serve a function from the F# pitch.
G, B, D#, F# – Root, 3rd, sharp 5th, 7th – G Augmented 7
Ab, C, E, G – Root, 3rd, sharp 5th – Ab Augmented 7
B, D#, F#,A – Root, 3rd, 5th, flat 7th – B7

This gives us a couple of new tonalities to explore – namely, C Major 7th, E minor (major 7th), B7 and Ab7.

The final tally:

At a minimum, this chord scale will generate licks that can be used over the following chords:

C major, C Major 7th,

C minor, C minor (major 7th)

E major, E Major 7

E minor, E minor (major 7th),

Ab major, Ab7

G# minor

B major, B7

Next steps:

You will probably not like the use of this scale with all of the chords listed but, as is the case with any musical approach, the key is always to use your ears as a guide to what works and what doesn’t.

I hope this helps!

Happy Holidays and thanks for reading!

The material in the lesson is adapted from the material in The GuitArchitect’s Guide To Chord Scales book. More information about that book (including an overview and jpegs of sample pages) can be found here.

-SC

PS – If you like this post you may also like:

MAKING MUSIC OUT OF SCALES

CREATING CHORDS AND LINES FROM ANY SCALE – A HARMONIC COMBINATORICS / SPREAD VOICINGS LESSON

.

RECYCLING SHAPES OR MODULAR ARPEGGIOS FOR FUN AND PROFIT

GLASS NOODLES – ADAPTING A PHILIP GLASS ARPEGGIO APPROACH TO GUITAR

.

MELVILLE, MADNESS AND PRACTICING – OR FINDING THE DEEPER LESSON PART 2

SOME USEFUL ONLINE PRACTICE TOOLS

POSSESSION IS 9/10S OF THE LAW BUT PERCEPTION IS EVERYTHING OR PRACTICING PART VII

TESTING YOUR VOCABULARY OR PRACTICING PART VI

PRACTICE WHAT YOU PLAY OR PRACTICING PART V

.

DEFINITIONS AND DOCUMENTS OR PRACTICING PART IV

TENSION AND THE SODA CAN OR PRACTICING PART III

PROPER POSTURE IS REQUIRED FOR PROPER PERFORMANCE – PRACTICING PART II

PRACTICE MAKES BETTER AKA PRACTICING PART I

.

MELVILLE, MADNESS AND PRACTICING – OR FINDING THE DEEPER LESSON PART 2

FINDING THE DEEPER LESSON

INSPIRATION VS. INTIMIDATION

.

WARMING UP: FINGER EXERCISES, THE 3 T’S AND THE NECESSITY OF MISTAKES

“THE LIMITS OF MY LANGUAGE ARE THE LIMITS OF MY WORLD”

A BRIEF THOUGHT ABOUT MUSIC THEORY

.

BOOKS

LESSONS

.

Favored Curry Or Spicing Up Chord Scales And Triads Part 1

Posted on December 7, 2010 by GuitArchitecture

[This lesson uses material from The GuitArchitect’s Guide To Chord Scales which details all unique chord scales from 3-note cells to the 12-note chromatic set. You can find out about that book (and the other GuitArchitecture books) here.]

When improvising over a C major chord, the first thought for many beginning improvisers is to use the C major scale as a melodic resource. For example: here are the notes of a C Major triad (C, E, G) broken up into a sample 2 string arpeggio:

C Major Arpeggio

One related chord scale for this scale is the C Major (Ionian) scale. The reason for this is that all of the notes in the C major triad are found in the C major scale.

C Major Scale

While there is nothing wrong with this approach, in addition to being a fairly bland melodic color to utilize, it contains the 4th scale degree (F), which is often referred to as an avoid note because of its 1/2 step relationship to E.

Option B: Modal Interchange

One solution to this is to use modal interchange to find alternate scales that work over a triad. For example, C Major is a diatonic chord in the key of G. Playing a G major scale starting and ending on C produces a C Lydian scale.

C Lydian (Parent scale: G Major)

This scale works well with the triad. In addition to containing the C major triad, it also has a raised fourth degree (aka #11), which adds a nice tension.

But this is merely scratching the surface of what can be found from this approach.

Option C: Creating your own chord scale

Here ‘s a process for generating any chord scale based on a chord.

Step 1: Start with a chord and write out the notes of the chord in ascending order.

Note: the smaller the chord, the more scale options you will have.

Let’s now look at the C major triad as a chord formula. Since it’s made up of the notes C, E and G any parent scale for C major chord should contain these notes (at least for now).

Step 2: Between the notes of the chord, write in all possible notes for each additional scale degree.

For example, in the Ionian and Lydian chord scale examples above, the 2nd degree was D, but it could have just as easily been Db or D#.

Expanding on this idea, the 4th could either be F natural or F#, the 6th could either be Ab, A natural or A#, and the 7th could either be Bb, B natural or B#.

If we apply this idea to the all of the other scale degrees, we end up with a chromatic scale that looks like this in list form:

Scale Degree 1 – C
Scale Degree 2 – Db, D, D#
Scale Degree 3 – E
Scale Degree 4 – F, F#
Scale Degree 5 -G
Scale Degree 6 – Ab, A, A#
Scale Degree 7 – Bb, B

or this in music notation:

C Major triad with chromatic scale degrees

Note: If you are planning on harmonizing the scale, deriving modal arpeggios or pentatonics, I recommend you keep each scale degree unique (i.e. that you use either Db or D or D#, but not more than one type of D pitch).

Likewise, there are several enharmonic pitches (i.e. pitches that are spelled differently but sound the same) presented in the full chromatic. While you could use A# and Bb in a chord scale since they are the same sounding pitch the result will be a 6 note scale.

Step 3: Choose the scale degrees that sound the best to you.

Based on the above parameters, there are 32 unique chord scales for the C major triad. Let’s look at one of them.

For this example, I’m going to choose a #2 for the second scale degree, a #4, a b6 and a natural 7 scale degree for a very chromatic chord scale. Here it is in list form: