Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Personally I would dump the scale book for now.
DO you have access to a keyboard? You can hear the difference in the inversions. A lot of pop has inversions, which means our music has a lot of inversions. I used to have a piano player tell me when he wanted me to help "enforce" the inversion to add tension. When you do a walk up or walk down from one chord to another, my bet is those will translate to the chord being played, how you ask? In the case we discussed, They are already notes in the chord, we are just changing the lowest note(inversion). That's all.

I will have my notes up within the hour.

No notes, I left my book at the mechanics at lunch. I'll have to get it tomorrow as they are closed now.

No problem Charly,

I just feel better letting off some steam.

It's better off this way, now I can look at it with a clear head.

First things first Tony. Take a deep breath and lets get started.

That being said, here is what I DO understand, possibly we can go from there.

I UNDERSTAND the Root, Third, Fifth gig in MAJOR CHORDS. I'll use "C" to make it consistent.

C D E F G A B C. GOT IT. The TRIAD or ROOT, THIRD, FIFTH is C, E, G.

I UNDERSTAND in a MINOR CHORD or triad, the THIRD is Flatted,

C D Eb F G A B C

and in DIMINISHED CHORDS, the THIRD and the FIFTH is also flatted.

C D Eb F Gb A B C

In Augmented, the 5th is SHARPED.

C D E F G# A B C

I understand that you were just trying to make a point here, but lets get this straight first (And we'll always keep C as tonic, for the sake of argument):

You're correct - the root, 3rd and 5th make up a chord.

- If we're in C major, the I chord is C-E-G. C major is C D E G F A B C.

- If we're in C minor, the i chord is C-Eb-G. You were correct. However, you then proceeded to write C-D-Eb-F-G-A-B-C. This is NOT correct. C minor has 3 flats. The correct scale would be C-D-Eb-F-G-Ab-Bb-C.

- You got the C diminished chord correct as well - but this would NEVER be a i chord. For example, a C diminished chord would come as the vii chord in Db major. Or as the ii chord in Bb minor.

This may have been the reason why your passing notes weren't working.

Okay, scales.

The important thing here for starters is to learn ONE SHAPE for every type of scale. You should never, ever have to think about it. Once you learn the finger pattern for a major scale, you can move it anywhere you like. I'm sure your book can give you the correct fingering. Memorize and be done with it!

Know your major scale, know your minor scale, know your harmonic minor scale. Harmonic minor differs from minor by only one note - the 7th scale degree is raised.

Melodic minor is nice to know but mostly used by jazz soloists.

If your aim is just creating basslines, then don't bother with a Hungarian minor scale, or a whole tone scale, or any of that weird stuff.

I'm getting there John,and I think I found my missing piece. When I first read your post, I thought, ok we're looking at the key sig (C major) and now you're telling me that that scale does not apply when minor.

Well, the only way I can see to tell if it's C minor in sheet music, is to look at the notes that make up the chords.It is easy when you get a chord chart as it already tells you. Or, is there another piece I am missing?

Thanks John,

Ok....

I understand what you wrote. THANK GOD.
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- If we're in C major, the I chord is C-E-G. C major is C D E G F A B C.

- If we're in C minor, the i chord is C-Eb-G. You were correct. However, you then proceeded to write C-D-Eb-F-G-A-B-C. This is NOT correct. C minor has 3 flats. The correct scale would be C-D-Eb-F-G-Ab-Bb-C.

- You got the C diminished chord correct as well - but this would NEVER be a i chord. For example, a C diminished chord would come as the vii chord in Db major. Or as the ii chord in Bb minor.
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GOT all this....THANK YOU!

"Know your major scale, know your minor scale, know your harmonic minor scale. Harmonic minor differs from minor by only one note - the 7th scale degree is raised."

BINGO, that's exactly what I needed, THANK YOU. I realized I need the major & minor (but the book states there are two minor scales), NEVER knew about the harmonic minor.

I have a scale book that has HUNDREDS of scales in them. I guess it was just a case of information overload. They NEVER state which ones are crucial. Not a problem, I'll be burning up the pages tomorrow.

You are correct, all I want is some sweet bass lines, some CORRECT passing notes, and then some melodic corded stuff.

I am a weird bird, I can read music, and can copy Geddy, Squire and others, but I can't make up a bass line on my own.

THANK YOU again John, I really appreciate it.

Cool Tony!

Charly, if I understand you correctly, yes - each major scale differs from its minor scale. Some quick ones:

C Major - no sharps and no flats
C Minor - 3 flats - B, E, A

G Major - One sharp (F)
G Minor - 2 flats - B, E

A Major - Three sharps (F, C, G)
A Minor - No sharps, no flats.

How do you know what key you're in? Well, look at the key signature first, that narrows it down to two - either a Major or its relative minor (C major or A minor, for instance). Once you have that, look at the last note of the piece - usually, it'll end on tonic.

No problem Tony, and i'm sure Jdog will chime in here with even more salient points.

"Once you have that, look at the last note of the piece - usually, it'll end on tonic."

Hey, that's a cool trick John, THANKS!

Ah, the relative thing pops its head up! Tonic at the end works most of the time, but it has also burned me a few times too!

That's right, it doesn't work all the time. But for most fairly straightforward tunes, you should be alright. Do take note of the key signature, though!

It actually burns me way more when I do it from the last chord in a chord chart .

Personally, I gotta have something to mix with my Tonic.

I certainly wouldn't serve any to a Hungarian minor, though...

Here's those notes:

Tone groupings are built from the lowest note to the highest. The term inversion means that the note order has been changed or "inverted" so that a degree other than the first(tonic/root) is on the bottom

major triad - major third and a minor third. If you play the root again on top, you have added a perfect fourth.

minor triad - minor 3rd, major third, root again on top,perfect fourth.

dim triad - minor third. minor third
aug triad - maj third, maj third

thus the last two are symmetrical, both musically and patternwise. This is because they are composed of the same intervals. The lack of symmetry in the Major and minor tone groups results in new patterns with each inversion.

quatrad - adding the 7th (only six of 'em, Maj7th, minor 7th,dim 7th,aug 7th, minor 7thb5, dom 7th, Dom7th)

BIGGEST note from book

Most of what you will be doing in a tonal sense will be based upon the first two sections, so don't skimp on practice