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Hi,
“To sound ok” is a very relative thing that depends on the context as well as on your personal preferences.On the other hand, your question is a little weird, to be honest. Asking what chords you can play over a given scale doesn’t really make sense; usually you’ll want to know what scale(s) you can play over a given chord (or chord progression).
The lesson you’re referring to (EP404) is in E Major, and the song has two chords: E (which is the I chord) and F#m (which is the ii chord).
One approach that Brian often uses is to improvise using the scale corresponding to the key of the song, without worrying about the chord changes. This doesn’t work in all circumstances, but I will not discuss this further here (if you want to know more about this, look for a post called “Scales or Arpeggios” I posted some time ago).So in this case, the E Major scale or the E pentatonic major scale is all you need. In fact, Brian starts from the E pentatonic major and adds a perfect 4th, which turns the scale into an E Major scale – even though he never uses the 7th. The reason he adds that 4th is because he wants to be able to play the 3rd of that F#m chord. But you could make do without it.
If you want to approach this from a very theoretical perspective:
1) spell the two chords: E = (E G# B) and F#m = (F# A C#)
2) write down the chord tones in ascending pitch order starting from E: E F# G# A B C# X
The final note “X” is undecided; it’s the 7th degree of the scale. If you make that a D# you get the E Major scale; if you make it a D you get the E Mixolydian scale. Brian decided to get rid of it altogether.Bottom line: these notes “work” because they correspond to the chord tones of the underlying chords.
I hope this helps.
Regards,
JM -
JM- First, thank you for your response. Second, my apologies as it seems I may have upset you with my awkward way of posting the question. I am old and I just enjoy entertaining myself on guitar. I like to play to backtracks that are simple and stick with the maj and min pentatonics. I will try and state this a bit more clearly. When I am playing to something in the key of E with only the chords in the key of E, the pentatonic does not always seem to sound good with all chords. So, I am looking to play that scale with chords without having to add/delete notes. That particular 2 chord lesson worked well and was wondering if there are certain chords in that key that you should avoid in order to keep with the one scale? Oh, and I have been a paying member for several, several years. So, one stupid question divided by what I have paid to date….them’s good business!
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Hi,
You didn’t upset me in any way, and I didn’t say your question was stupid. I’m sorry if I gave you that impression. I did say however that your question was a little weird because, as I mentioned, you usually want to know what notes you can play over a given chord or chord progression, and not the opposite since usually the chord progression is a given.But let’s return to your rephrased question: why doesn’t the E Major Pentatonic scale always sound good over the (diatonic) chords of the E Major key?
That’s a perfectly reasonable question! 😉Unfortunately, the answer is not necessarily simple.
A first important theoretical element to take into consideration is consonance versus dissonance. The following intervals are always considered consonant: the 3, the b3, the 5 and (obviously) the octave. All the other intervals are considered (more or less) dissonant.A second element to take into consideration is the melodic role that a given note plays in the flow. To make things simple, we’ll just consider truly melodic notes versus non-essential notes (passing notes, anticipation notes, escape notes, etc.).
When you play over any chord, the chord tones will obviously always sound good, since they belong to the chord. For example, in E Major, the notes E, G# and B will be perfectly consonant over the I chord. Over the IV chord you’ll favor the notes A, C# and E; etc.
Now, if you only use the E Major Pentatonic scale, you’ll only have the following notes at your disposal:
E F# G# B C#On that IV chord (the A chord), you can safely play the E and C# notes but not the note A since it doesn’t exist in your scale; with any other note you’ll introduce a dissonance.
For example, playing the F# note over that A chord will introduce a 6th, turning that A chord into an A6 chord, which is mildly dissonant.
Playing the B note over that A chord will turn it into an Aadd9, which is already more dissonant.
And playing the G# note over that A chord will turn it into an Amaj7 chord, which is rather dissonant.Remember however that “dissonant” does not necessarily mean “wrong”. If the dissonant note is a non-essential note, that dissonance will usually be totally OK, especially if the next (resolving) note is a consonant note.
If however the dissonance is an essential note it will arguably not work very well.So, in summary, you’ll usually want to play consonant chord tones on the strong beats and leave non-chord tones (passing notes) for the weaker beats. And you’ll always want to resolve any dissonance you create.
A related question to your question is: how do I pick chords to harmonize a given melody?
Many of the ideas above apply in this case, but I think this reply is already long enough!…I hope this clears things up a bit for you?!
Best regards,
JM -
One simple answer is that if all the chords appear naturally in the key, then you can play the major pentatonic scale of that key over it all.
For example, suppose you have a simple doo wop song that goes C / Am / F / G. Its in the key of C, and all the chords fit perfectly in the key of C, so the major pentatonic will work over the whole thing. Same goes for almost any three chord song. Same goes for a song that’s simple three chord structure, say A D A E, etc… There you are in the key of A, and A major pentatonic will work for the whole thing.
Hope this helps.
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I don’t disagree… but I don’t completely agree either 😉
Assume the chord progression is as follows:
C / C / Am / Am / F / F / G / G /
Same chords, but the harmonic rhythm is two times slower.
In theory, the C major pentatonic scale still “works” in this case. However, on the F chord (for example), you will probably not want to dwell on the E or G notes of the pentatonic scale because they create a mildly dissonant chord and therefore don’t sound so smooth.
You can play these notes, of course, but you’ll probably want to use them as passing notes towards the notes A or C which are chord tones.
The same is true for all the diatonic chords.When the harmonic rhythm is fast(er) as in your example, this doesn’t matter so much because in that case the quick pace at which chords change will automatically resolve any dissonance.
The OP has experienced this since he noticed that not all pentatonic notes work equally well over all the chords.
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