Using the right scales with it's key

hon pa

Im quite new to the theory side of guitar and have been looking up online videos and lessons learning the major scale lately. I want to be able to improvise with a backing track which I can record myself as i have a loop pedal. What I can't figure out is what key most of the scales are in. Like if I play a chord progression from the key of E, should i try to play a solo or a few notes from the E major scale to those chords? This doesn't sound right at all to me so what I'm wondering is can somone please tell me how to find out what chords "suit" each major scale so I know what chords to try and improvise my guitaring to. Sorry if this is a stupid question, I'm just a bit confused at the moment. Thanks:)

-=al=-

depends what chords you play, you can always go to the trusty minor pentatonic for messing around and start from there then expand the chords add different chord extentions then you can play around with the soloing more and get into more scales and hear different things how they work

stevejazzx

hon pa wrote: »

Im quite new to the theory side of guitar and have been looking up online videos and lessons learning the major scale lately. I want to be able to improvise with a backing track which I can record myself as i have a loop pedal. What I can't figure out is what key most of the scales are in. Like if I play a chord progression from the key of E, should i try to play a solo or a few notes from the E major scale to those chords? This doesn't sound right at all to me so what I'm wondering is can somone please tell me how to find out what chords "suit" each major scale so I know what chords to try and improvise my guitaring to. Sorry if this is a stupid question, I'm just a bit confused at the moment. Thanks:)

What's the progression?
If the progression is strictly diatonic (within the key of e in this case), then the straight e major scale will sound correct.
However it is usually the case that a chordal progressin will feature a chord that is not strictly diatonic - the most common case (althought the possibilities are of course endless) of this is
when you are playing in a minor key and you encounter a dominant 5th
ex. Am Dm E7 (dominant 5)

So this progression we use Am scale, a,b,c,d,e,f,g
When the E7 is played strictly speaking the
A harmonic minor scale comes into place
A B C D E F G♯ A'


We don't change the whole thing to an e scale becasue only one note is different (the G#) so we alter our existing A minor scale to include this note.

Imagine in your case you could be dealing delaing with a standard e maj progression like this

Emaj Amaj B7

in which case you can use the standard scale



but perhaps you're dealing with this

Emaj Amaj c#min f#7 b7 emaj

The only problem here is that the f#7 chord contains a a# note
So for that chord you might play e major scale with a a# note.
This is like a bmajor scale

But the overall tonality is e major
so it becomes a mode of the emajor scale and becasue it alters the 4th note of our scale it becomes the 4th mode of e maj, or e lydian.





This is it at its most basic of course, sometimes you'll sometimes want to play 'wrong' notes over chords. But I dont' think you're quite there yet judging by your opening question.

Thomas from Presence

It's not as simple as just that (Edit: @OP). Very hard to guess keys without a bit of background knowledge.

Here's a few pointers but these are no substitute to learning about key theory, mapping arpeggios and scales on the neck and understanding how certain intervals work against a chord. It's a life times work and its the choices of note, scale and interval that make a player sound unique.

Anyway, and there is a very sound theoretical basis for the following which I will happily detail if challenged:

When using pentatonics - you can solo over a chord with a pentatonic of the same name. So if Amin is on then A minor pentatonic will work as a scale, if G is the chord then G major will "work" over it.

This just one approach of many and will sound a bit drab after a while but can be expanded upon. When using expanded chords for example (such as nines etc) you can take this rule up a level.

Take the chord E9 - its got E G# B D F# which like gluing a regular E chord to a Bmin. This means that playing Bmin pentatonic over E9 works well and playing Bmin over a regular E chord can sound really lush as the solo brings out the sound of the 9 over it.


I could go on all day but maybe get some lessons or read up on these:

1. Arpeggios - if you don't know where chords are over your scales your improvisation will be missing its GPS system
2. Relationship between chords and scales
3. Pentatonics Minor and the much forlorned Major pentatonic in 5 positions.

Best of luck. It's a long road but it's always fun!

eoin5

+1 for arpeggios starting out.

hon pa

Thanks for all the advice, it's a lot to take in since, when it comes to guitar theory I'm still very much a beginner! But I appreciate you taking the time to explain it for me. I'll take the advice on board and look over all the stuff you showed but as you said, I've got quite a way to go and I definitely have a LOT more to learn to get this anywhere near right.