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I find it surprising the number of musicians who don’t understand or haven’t mastered the number system.
It is one of the single, most important elements of playing by ear.
On a grander level, it allows musicians to speak on a “universal level.” We can describe what we’re doing in a song without relying solely on letters. It’s not, “D minor to G dominant 7 to C major 7″ anymore. Now it’s, “2-5-1″ in C!
This week’s question comes from Bob Myers in Alabama.
“Jermaine, I’m loving your lessons but I have one question that’s been on my mind for a while. When are you supposed to use sharps or flats? Sometimes I see flats, other times I see sharps. Thank you in advance for your answer.” My answer…
Yesterday, we briefly introduced modes.
We learned that although they have fancy greek names and sound all intricate, they are no more than individual scales that simply start and end on a different tone of the major scale.
So you literally play ONE scale but you start and end on different notes of that scale, depending on the mode you want to play. It’s that simple.
What I’ll show you now isn’t quite as simple…
In your playing, there comes a time when you start getting into soloing and improvisation… and one place to start is “modes.”
Every major scale comes with 7 modes. At first glance, they can appear intimidating: Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian, Locrian.
These are greek names to describe each mode of the scale. They sound harder than they are to play, trust me! Let’s get started…
Let’s not kid ourselves.
The whole point of learning all these theories, principles, and shortcuts isn’t because we’re in love with this stuff (well, some of us are). But for most, learning this stuff is a means to an end.
And without a doubt, the ultimate “end” (at our website at least) is to hear a song and in a matter of minutes, be able to play it.
There’s a lot that goes into it, don’t get me wrong. But here, I want to give you a really concise blueprint…
Today, let’s talk about borrowed chords.
They are chords literally borrowed from what we call the “parallel” minor or major key.
Let’s not mix up “parallel” with “relative.”
If we were in the key of C, as we’ve learned in other lessons, A, the 6th degree of C, is the relative minor of C. Likewise, C is the relative major of A. That’s not what we’re talking about here.
Parallel keys have the same tonic note… or home base. That means…
The other day, I answered a question regarding popular gospel scales one can play — and the diminished scale was on my list.
But it haunted me because this is a pretty big scale… 8 notes to be exact. It’s what we call an octatonic scale. And I knew people wouldn’t want to take the time to learn it in all 12 keys. So here’s a 2 second method I came up with to learn it fast…
Yes, I’m back! (I’ll explain why I’ve been gone so long in a subsequent post but please come through and comment to let me know you’re still anxious about hearing from me… even though I’ve been gone for a couple of months. I apologize.)
(By the way, thanks for all your support. You have been tremendously supportive on our radio show, the new gospel music training center, our various product launches, etc. I appreciate you).
Well, since I’ve been helping out with e-mails lately (to make sure we keep response times under 1 day), I’ve had an epiphany. Why not take a question a day from the REAL e-mails that come in and elaborate on them? It makes it easier on me because I’m answering that e-mail anyway — now I can simply format it, expand it a little further, and post it on the blog for all to see. Works for you?
Today’s lesson is real important because it puts together all the stuff we’ve learned in the past few posts. If you haven’t read them, now may be a good time.
This audio lesson gives you a nice little recap and way to apply this altered scale to real chord progressions and songs! Check it out…
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