Boxes, boxes, boxes.

L

LynnLaFrance

Guest
LLL as i said on the other thread

LLL

i'm sure i was trying to be polite   ;)

so if you map out the intervals in the Min Penta and the intervals of the IV and V chords,

you'll see what jumps out at you that clashes...................   ;)

cheers
Click to expand...

Not sure we're on the same wavelength here Blues Man.  In Level 3 playing - you treat each chord as a I chord for soloing purposes - therefore you change keys with each chord. 

So when you play G Minor Pentatonic over the G7 chord, you are good.  When you play C Minor Pentatonic over the C7 chord you are good.  When you play the D Minor Pentatonic over the D7 chord you are good.  In effect you have no IV or V chords - for soloing purposes.

I believe that is correct, isn't it?
 
B

Blues_Man

Blues Newbie
LLL do you have Griffs SBS course? if so look on page 92

here's a excerpt from Griff on this topic;

* The IV and V minor blues scales alone won't sound very good. They work well when used in conjunction
with the IV and V major blues scales in a composite fashion as we'll see.


if you map out the intervals you'll see the offending note(s) Wink
 
J

Justatele

Blues Newbie
LLL as i said on the other thread

LLL

i'm sure i was trying to be polite   ;)

so if you map out the intervals in the Min Penta and the intervals of the IV and V chords,

you'll see what jumps out at you that clashes...................   ;)

cheers
Click to expand...

Not sure we're on the same wavelength here Blues Man.  In Level 3 playing - you treat each chord as a I chord for soloing purposes - therefore you change keys with each chord. 

So when you play G Minor Pentatonic over the G7 chord, you are good.  When you play C Minor Pentatonic over the C7 chord you are good.  When you play the D Minor Pentatonic over the D7 chord you are good.  In effect you have no IV or V chords - for soloing purposes.

I believe that is correct, isn't it?
Click to expand...
It is close, we actually are not changing keys, the key of the song is where it resolves to, so if we are in the key of A, we always resolve to A, unless we have a key change, but that is in the progression, not a lead line. A simple Major Blues in A always resolves back to the A chord.

What we are doing by treating every chord as a 1 chord is not changing keys but we are beginning to think in a modal fashion. we pick our soloing scale (or mode) so that it does not clash with the chord being played at that moment. So if our chord is a Dominant 7th chord, our intervals being played are a 1 3 5 b7, we chose a mode that have notes as the 1 3 5 b7 being played and our 2 4 6 can be anything. It begins to show we have the knowledge to change our vocabulary and still talk intelligently.

now, unique to the blues you have to remember, we can use the blue note of the Key of the song as long as it is a passing tone, and we allow minor thirds to be played over major thirds, kind of the sound of the blues. However we do not play major thirds over minor thirds.
 
W

wgabree

Blues Newbie
Let's look:

IV7    1   3    5 b7  (chord)
MinP  1 b3  4 5 b7
Mixo   1 2 3 4 5 6 b7  (scale source for 7 chord - notes will work!)

only conflict is b3, but that works because it's the minor third and gives bluesy sound.  lot's of blues players use it - usually as a grace note to the Major 3

V7     1  3  5  b7  (chord)
MajP  1 2 3  5 6
Mixo   1 2 3 4 5 6 b7  (scale source for 7 chord - notes will work!)

no conflict!

(this basically maps out what RJ stated - I used the mixolydian mode for the IV & V as a yardstick of capability - proof of the pudding is try it!  Once you do, you'll notice you've heard it done before!  and the m3 to M3 move is a blues staple!)

:cool:
 
B

Blues_Man

Blues Newbie
wayne wondering why for the V7 in your example you sited the Maj Penta when the debate has been about
using the chords Min Penta over the IV-V?
 
L

LynnLaFrance

Guest
LLL do you have Griffs SBS course? if so look on page 92

here's a excerpt from Griff on this topic;

* The IV and V minor blues scales alone won't sound very good. They work well when used in conjunction
with the IV and V major blues scales in a composite fashion as we'll see.


if you map out the intervals you'll see the offending note(s) Wink
Click to expand...

Hey, this is how we learn!!!  Discussions, not arguments.

I have the SBS Blues Man, but it is still shrinkwrapped and waiting for me to finsh BGU and SWS.

I now know, thanks to you that "The IV and V minor blues scales alone won't sound very good. They work well when used in conjunction with the IV and V major blues scales in a composite fashion as we'll see."

Interesting though, looking at Wayne's last post and using his info -

IV7    1   3    5 b7  (chord)
MinP  1 b3  4 5 b7

and what would be the same for Minor Pentatonic for the V

V7    1   3    5 b7  (chord)
MinP  1 b3  4 5 b7

Wayne states that the only conflict is b3, but that works because it's the minor third and gives bluesy sound.  lot's of blues players use it - usually as a grace note to the Major 3.  So the only other note that would conflict is the 4th.  However as used in the normal I chord it isn't considered a "bad" note choice.


 
B

Blues_Man

Blues Newbie
Hey, this is how we learn!!!  Discussions, not arguments.


can't agree more LL i've learned alot in this thread,

i just want to ask you in your post below,
in the MinP you mention is that the CminP or the GminP, same question for the V7 as well?

IV7    1   3    5 b7  (chord)
MinP  1 b3  4 5 b7
 
J

Justatele

Blues Newbie
LLL
let's discuss conflict and argument
the 4th would not be a argument
a argument is when we have 2 of one degree
such as if we played a major scale over a Dominant 7th chord
our chord would be 1 3 5 b7
the scale would be   1 2 3 4 5 6 7
our b7 and 7 would argue

this is where we can think modally
lets stick to the key of A for this discussion
so we are on our 4 chord and playing a D7
our notes we harmonize on are D F# A C or 1 3 5 b7
so we want to play a mix, D Mixo is D E F# G A B C
subtract your notes in harmony and you get E G B
none of those argue with the D7 chord, they actually harmonize with the D major scale D E F# G A B C#
now If we tried to use the D major scale you see we would have had 2 7th degrees arguing

now we can use a few other modes here and get harmonic conflict, which is interesting, but we avoid argument

conflict is when we use a degree not in the chord, but not in the parent scale of the chord either

so if we were again playing our D7 chord D F# A C#
and wanted to go modal to play some change from the norm we would pick a mode with these notes, and the other notes of the parent scale E G B can be changed to their # form.

Where you go to get those modes is how much theory you know. Jazz guys go deep, most blues guys will pick a Parallel mode, rock guys may go to the parent scale to search. what ever.

what I am saying, direct argument is wrong, conflict is interesting, but we must define these terms to see that

Isn't theory fun
 
J

Justatele

Blues Newbie
now we are in the key of Amajor, and on the  4 chord, using a D7
if we look at diatonic theory we see this chord needs to be a D maj7, however we are using an A minor penta scale
A C D E G. and our D7 is D F# G C, so there is no argument the such as if our parent scale is an A major our G# would argue

SO. you see the blues are set up modally ( minor scale over a major progression) and that is why changing scales fits so easy

now our Chord is D7 and our A Penta minor fits so well over it
but a A natural minor A B C D E F G A starts to argue over the chords 3rd degree, we could use this because of our blues 3rd degree rule and subtract our chord tones we get
E G A which as we see are in perfect harmony again parent chord scale. all we have introduced is a 3rd degree, wanna get creative?

we will look at our D Phyrgian 1 b2 b3 4 5 b6 b7 or D Eb F G A Bb C

take away chord tones Eb G Bb

take away harmony of parent scale Eb Bb

now you can see the conflict is the Eb and Bb
which are not arguing with our chord so what they add is harmonic interest.

that is one way of thinking modally
 
J

Justatele

Blues Newbie
Now here is why boxes are so important, I want to use a diatonic mode over the D chord, so I go to it,s box and lay it over the chord and I have now 7 modes to choose from that all will a
harmonize perfectly with the D7 chord never changing my position, never having to think about a degree of whatever. they are all just there.
 
L

LynnLaFrance

Guest
Blues Man - the post you asked about I was thinking about the C Minor Pentatonic over the C7 (IV) and the D Minor Pentatonic over the D7 (V).

With all this discussion, ya'll made me take out pencil and paper and books and notes and such!!!  Which is good - but boy is it hard work!

Okay, after writing out a bunch of stuff, this is what I've come up with.

Looking at a normal 12 bar blues with G - C - D as the I-IV-V.  If I want to treat each chord as a I chord and solo over it using the respective Major Pentatonic Scales, these are the notes.....

Major Pentatonic     R    2    3    5    6
For G                      G   A    B    D    E
For C                      C    D   E    G    A
For D                      D    E   F#  A    B

So when we look at this we see that every note being played is part of the G Major Scale (C is the 4th and F# is the 7th of G Major).  We all agree that playing Major won't create any "conflicts".

If I want to treat each chord as a I chord and solo over it using the respective Minor Pentatonic Scales, these are the notes.....

Minor Pentatonic     R    b3    4    5    b7
For G                     G    Bb    C    D    F
For C                     C     Eb    F    G    Bb
For D                     D     F     G    B     C

When we look at this we see that every note being played is part of the G Major Scale or G Minor Scale (Eb is the b6 of G Minor Scale).

So given these notes for the Minor, and barring any error by me, the only note I can see that might conflict is the Eb, even though it is part of the Minor Scale of the "Parent" (for lack of a better term) Key G.

So - is this analysis correct?  And after playing just the Minor Pentatonic in each Key with a jamtrack, including the Eb-b6th - it sounds pretty melodic to me.  Guess I'll have to wait til I crack open SBS to find out exactly what I'm missing and what I should really do.  Maybe it's a matter of "this sounds okay, but THIS sounds much better!?!"   :)
 
Marv

Marv

I play 'err' guitar.
Lynn,

I'm still a pattern guy and not an analysis guy, but you got me curious. I posted a little challenge in the jam room and took the first 12 bars. 

I mostly pick out my licks by ear based on what I hear the band doing, so maybe I just avoided bad notes or don't know how to tell when I played a bad one. ;)

Anyway the post explains what I tried.  Maybe someone else would like to jump in too:

http://bluesguitarunleashed.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1332918961/0#0
 
J

Justatele

Blues Newbie
LLL you are getting better at this

I am impressed

one thing we need to keep in mind is the difference between a root/parent key
and a chord in progression

and we need to keep in mind that if we are discussing the blues, we use Dom 7ths in the 1 and 4 spot not mag7ths

so when we look at our chord, we spell out that chord as it is being played

key of G as in your analysis
1 chord is a G7, so that is a G B D F
4 chord is a C7,                  C E G Bb
5 chord is a D7,                  D F# A C

I know it may look like a small thing but so many guys are going to be playing the 7th chord voicing it is good to have it included up front

the song never changes key, the guy who is soloing is not really changing keys, he is harmonizing to the chord as if it was the key. now given that the chord has only 4 notes, he is giving a lot of leeway
;).
 
W

wgabree

Blues Newbie
wayne wondering why for the V7 in your example you sited the Maj Penta when the debate has been about
using the chords Min Penta over the IV-V?
Click to expand...

Well, because both were mentioned, so i was being thorough (two for one deal!).

:cool:
 
B

Blues_Man

Blues Newbie
thanks for that wayne all this info going back and forth hard to keep it straight

i posted this query on your mixo test

http://bluesguitarunleashed.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1332720408/21#21

curious what's your answer
cheers
 
W

wgabree

Blues Newbie
thanks for that wayne all this info going back and forth hard to keep it straight

i posted this query on your mixo test

http://bluesguitarunleashed.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1332720408/21#21

curious what's your answer
cheers
Click to expand...

Answered it!  Cut and paste confusion  ::)
 
L

LynnLaFrance

Guest
Lynn,

I'm still a pattern guy and not an analysis guy, but you got me curious. I posted a little challenge in the jam room and took the first 12 bars. 

I mostly pick out my licks by ear based on what I hear the band doing, so maybe I just avoided bad notes or don't know how to tell when I played a bad one. ;)

Anyway the post explains what I tried.  Maybe someone else would like to jump in too:

http://bluesguitarunleashed.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1332918961/0#0
Click to expand...
Thanks Marv for putting this out there.  I haven't been "down stairs" in a long time, mainly due to trying to practice for BGU Live this year.

I've been a pattern/box guy too for the most part but the nice thing about this forum is that you get gently pushed out towards the great wide open (sometimes whether you want to or not  :) ) and learn new things.  It's not easy pushing your comfort zone but in the long run it gives you more knowledge and allows you to do more.

I'll try to put together something for your recording.  We can see how bad it sounds, or not.  With this discussion I'm really looking forward to getting into SBS and see how Griff really plays Level 3 - but alas, I need to focus on SWS and BGU first.  See you in the Basement Marv!!
 
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