I understand. Its good that geometric shapes can help people to understand scales, chords and key changes.
It is better to know the music theory inside out and that takes time for anyone to learn of course but there is also something to be said for using ‘lock to scale’ and mashing the keyboard like a drum or just choosing one scale thats nice and ‘drumming’ with only those notes.
The music theory is all about describing notes in chords as if they all came from the major scale of the root note of the chord and had been flattened or sharpened. However if its a one man band type situation, or just a one man production, there is no need to describe the chord that way i guess. Any combination of notes you mash while using the notes of a scale will have some technical chord name.
The reason I was asking about all this classical stuff is because I’m putting together a guide on chords and chord progressions. Also it will be useful for bytebeat and ultra fast arpeggiations using phrases. I just need to stay in key first, then throw in some key changes (transpose) later. Heard a lot of people who used arps that were ill-fitting with the rest of the notes in the tune. Even sound effects and bass drums sound better if they are based on notes that are in key with the tune…thats why I dont like drum machines in which the kickdrum’s tuning knob doesn’t have a tune by semitone option (like ielectribe).
The most important thing for me is to just use chords which contain only the notes from the scale chosen for the song.
After that, when doing chord progressions and key changes using major or minor scales, cycle of fifths is useful.
After that the modes ( starting major scales from a different note ).
Then pentatonic major and minor, then harmonic minor and diminished…
I dont really like the jazzy sounding stuff using lydian flat seven, so I would start learning japanese scales instead after knowing the stuff above only because they sound cool. I usually like to keep things simple…but I’m trying to understand more theory at the moment by putting together a chords and chord progressions guide.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that ‘chords from scale’ is the most important information to have when writing a tune. You can get all the arps and stuff sounding nice easily and quickly without too much time wasting trial and error. Even if you don’t have the ‘chords from scale’ information, any combination of notes (from a chosen scale) played at the same time is a chord…do you need to describe it to someone, some other band member? If not, just try different combos. In that case knowing the notes of scales is most important. Sometimes people dont have time to learn scales… In that case use ‘lock to scale’.
This is my problem with theory at the moment:
Some metal I like uses phrygian mode and harmonic minor a lot which confuses me because they say stuff like this:
“Phrygian dominant is derived from the harmonic minor scale, of which Phrygian dominant is the fifth mode”
Its confusing because ‘minor’ is already a mode (the sixth mode of a major scale)…harmonic minor is that sixth mode altered a bit, so how can these metal guys say phrygian dominant is the fifth mode of a sixth mode altered to be ‘harmonic’. The fifth mode of the altered sixth mode of major. Is that even possible? Maybe they are referring to playing harmonic minor using the fifth scale type / shape on guitar?
I would really like an explanation of how to arrange the chords of the cycle of fifths using another scale other than major.
If I’m choosing harmonic minor how do I get the structure of the chords sorted ( I -tonic, ii - subdominant parallel, iii- dominant parallel, IV - subdominant, V - dominant, vi - tonic parallel, vii - incomplete dominant seventh ). Do I consider the harmonic minor scales as relative minors of harmonic major and so just shift the usual major notes in the scales and chords to fit harmonic major?