Learning to target chord tones.

HAL9000

Danny1969 said:

When given lessons I teach what I call targeting the third.
this just means the pupil writes down the chords and on the  change he targets the third note in the scale of that chord. 

So if it was a change from A minor to D Major for example at the point of the chord  change he will target F# as his landing note.

I'm essentially self taught so hadn't really analysed this, but looking at my playing I realise I do this a lot.

stratman3142

HAL9000 said:

Danny1969 said:

When given lessons I teach what I call targeting the third.
this just means the pupil writes down the chords and on the  change he targets the third note in the scale of that chord. 

So if it was a change from A minor to D Major for example at the point of the chord  change he will target F# as his landing note.

I'm essentially self taught so hadn't really analysed this, but looking at my playing I realise I do this a lot.

It's something I do as well. For example, when playing a blues in the key of A, I might think in terms of the major and minor pentatonic scales overlaid on top of each other for my 'palette of notes' but be aware of the chord tones within that palette. If fact the ear leads one that way anyway.

Moving to the IV chord (i.e. the D chord) I might land on the F# (i.e. the 3rd of the D chord). But that already exists within my palette of notes, as it's part of A major pentatonic.

The interesting one is landing the 3rd of the V chord (i.e. the E chord) which is  G#, which brings in an interesting sound from a note from outside my basic palette of notes.

Danny1969

Yes I think rather than think in modes the most melodic playing comes from thinking about what notes are in the underlying chords ..... 

take something as simple as Apache in A minor ... obviously there is an F natural in A minor not an F sharp but because the underlying chord  changes to D major the F sharp being a third in D major sounds great ... then consider the bridge to the chorus Hank literally outlines the arpeggio of an F major dropping in to a B note which falls beautifully as a third on the next G major chord. So simple yet so melodic. 

Landing on the fifth the fourth and the seventh can also make some interesting melodic phrases .... just basically always consider the chords and the notes in the cold you are playing over rather than thinking about patterns on the guitar and modes
in this respect when planning a solo plan it without a guitar so you’re thinking in terms of notes ... not positions on the fretboard

I’ve got a young student just turned 13  who has started to master this now in less than 6 lessons and it’s made such a difference to how melodic his playing is now to how it was

Brad

AntonHunter said:

Sound advice this.

An exercise another Brad (Shepik) showed me was to take a chord sequence, start on the lowest chord tone, and then move up to the next available one when the chord changes.

So, for example:

|| Gmaj7 | Em7 | Am7 | D7 || 

you would play...

| G (3rd fret E) | B (2nd fret A) | C (3rd fret A) | D (5th fret A) |

etc. up the scale or neck until you reach the top and then come down in a similar fashion.

Just as an exercise, and when you get comfortable playing one-note per chord, you can try doing two notes per chord...

| G - B - | D - E - | G - A - | C - D - |

...and eventually four...

| G B D F#  | G B D E  | G A C E  | F# A C D | (although you'd run out of neck probably...)


But yeah, what @Brad says basically, limit yourself to just chord tones for a bit.

Ah the infamous ‘continuous arpeggio exercise’! It’s a humbling thing to do even when you think you know the fretboard... 

Brad Shepik, what a player!

viz

Brad said:

AntonHunter said:

Sound advice this.

An exercise another Brad (Shepik) showed me was to take a chord sequence, start on the lowest chord tone, and then move up to the next available one when the chord changes.

So, for example:

|| Gmaj7 | Em7 | Am7 | D7 || 

you would play...

| G (3rd fret E) | B (2nd fret A) | C (3rd fret A) | D (5th fret A) |

etc. up the scale or neck until you reach the top and then come down in a similar fashion.

Just as an exercise, and when you get comfortable playing one-note per chord, you can try doing two notes per chord...

| G - B - | D - E - | G - A - | C - D - |

...and eventually four...

| G B D F#  | G B D E  | G A C E  | F# A C D | (although you'd run out of neck probably...)


But yeah, what @Brad says basically, limit yourself to just chord tones for a bit.

Ah the infamous ‘continuous arpeggio exercise’! It’s a humbling thing to do even when you think you know the fretboard... 

Brad Shepik, what a player!

This is a great exercise - the only thing I’d say is it’s actually easier to do 2 notes per chord, then advance to one note - at least that’s what I find. 

Brad

@viz completely agree. I’ve always found it easier to do quavers or crotchets through this exercise. Minims and semi breves are always ways tricker. 

I think it might have to do with the smaller subdivisions allow me to play more of the shape. Whereas the longer notes mean I really need to know the notes, so more thinking power Is required. 

viz

Brad said:

@viz completely agree. I’ve always found it easier to do quavers or crotchets through this exercise. Minims and semi breves are always ways tricker. 

I think it might have to do with the smaller subdivisions allow me to play more of the shape. Whereas the longer notes mean I really need to know the notes, so more thinking power Is required. 

Yup! It’s also cool to do 3 notes per chord, and include the 7th of each chord. I find that’s the best way of not getting into repetitive loops. 

viz

elsmandino said:

I would be really grateful for some insight as to how other players target chord tones.

This is something that I have only recently been trying to actively do, in an attempt to make my improvisation sound a bit more musical.

I have my own system of doing this but would be grateful for some advice on whether this is a good/bad way of looking at things.

1. I have learnt the major scale in all the CAGED shapes ( I know that there are lots of people that prefer the "3 notes per string" technique but I find CAGED, as a beginner I find CAGED more manageable).

2. For each shape, I have learnt the intervals - for example, if I am in the "C" shape, I can pick out all of the seven sets of intervals.

3. I pick a random backing track - e.g. Am, C, Em, G.

4. I work out that this is all part of the C major scale, thus this is a vi, I, ii, V progression.

5. Over each chord, I try and target the chord position, plus 2 up, plus 2 up - e.g. over the vi chord, I play 6 intervals, plus root intervals, plus 3 intervals.

Is this a good way of looking at things?

The alternative would be to think - this chord is Am, this is made of notes A C E, I need to target these at the moment.  

Any views/tips would be much appreciated.

I don’t think I’d read your first post and have a few comments which I hope clear up a few things, and if they’re already clear, apologies, and hopefully it can help someone else!

The first thing one absolutely has to get right is to understand the home note. The second thing is to understand the tonality. The third thing is to establish the chord numbers. The fourth thing is to understand whether there are any 'modes' at play. And the fifth thing is to start noodlin’ - either using chord tones or just using lyrical, tuneful melodies. 

These questions have to be answered in order. There is no other way. 

So, for the progression Am C Em G, it goes like this:

1) What is the home note? Listen to the progression. Where does it settle? You don’t need any theory for this - don’t look at the chords, just listen to the musical flow. Assuming this is a repeated progression played evenly over 4 bars with no accentuation, there can only be one answer. The home note is A. I suppose if it were played with 3 short chords before the bar, followed by a long G, and if that were the end of the piece, it would be in G, but under almost all other circumstances, this is in A. So A is the home note, the ‘tonic’ chord, the “i” chord. Don’t get swayed into thinking of it as the vi of C (unless you‘re a Nashville System devotee) or the ii of G - both of which are mathematically true, but musically irrelevant. 

2) What is the tonality? This question means “is this a major or minor piece”. There is only one way to find this out. You have to look at the 3rd note of the i-chord. Nothing else matters. Since A is the tonic, we must look for (or listen to) the C or C#. If it’s a C, we’re in A minor. If it’s a C# we’re in A major. In this case it’s obvious. Not only is the second chord a C but also we already knew the first chord was Am, with a C in it anyway! So we’re in A minor; the tonic is the A, and it's written ‘i’ not ‘I’. 

3) What are the chords? Assuming we are using a normal system not the bizarre Nashville system, the chords are therefore the 1 3 5 and 7. We 100% know this because of the alphabet. Even if the key was a complicated one with sharps or flats (e.g. G#m B D#m F#) we’d ignore the sharps and just look at the alphabet. We also know the 1 is minor, the 3 is major, the 5 is minor and the 7 is major. We’re only talking about the triad chords here by the way, so we’re looking at each chord’s third note. Anyway, as you stated at the beginning this is Am C Em G, so the progression is i - III - v - VII. As Brad said, you can choose to call the III a bIII and the VII a bVII if you like, because those chords are a semitone below what they would have been if the piece were in A major. So i - bIII - v - bVII. Classical musicians generally don’t do this, rockers generally do. Anyway, now you have the chord progression agnostic of key, so you can play it in any key you like.

4) Is this progression 'modal'? This is crucial if you’re going to noodle correctly and not spoil the flavour of the progression. Modes confuse people. This is because, relatively speaking, every mode can be specified as a mode of any other mode. Eg, Dorian is the 2nd mode of Ionian. And Ionian is the 7th mode of Dorian. And it takes considerable brain power to get your head round this concept in real time as music is playing.

But here, we are not talking relatively, we are talking absolutely. So, absolutely speaking, we simply want to know whether this piece is in one of the three 'diatonic' minor modes, i.e. A Aeolian, A Dorian, A Phrygian, or maybe a 'non-diatonic' mode such as A Harmonic Minor or A Melodic Minor.

Assuming this is a diatonic piece, there are 3 choices - Aeolian, Dorian or Phrygian. Aeolian is the default one (it's called 'natural minor'). Dorian is a lighter mode (it has a raised note), and Phrygian is a darker mode (it has a lowered note). Which note is raised or lowered compared to Aeolian? Well, in the case of Dorian, the 6th note is raised. In the case of Phrygian, the 2nd note is lowered. Otherwise it's the default Aeolian with a major 2nd and minor 6th (B and F). So:

- if it were Aeolian, the iv chord would be minor (to allow a minor 6th on the tonic) and the bVII chord would be major (to allow a major 2nd on the tonic)
- if it were Dorian, the IV would be major, to force a raised 6th on the tonic, an F#. (The bVII would remain major like Aeolian)
- if it were Phrygian, the bvii would be minor, to force a lowered 2nd on the tonic, a Bb. (The iv would remain minor like Aeolian)

In your progression the bVII is major so it's not Phrygian. There's no iv chord, so we don't know if it's Aeolian or Dorian. So you can noodle throughout the progression in A Aeolian or A Dorian. Both sound nice. Aeolian sounds slightly darker / pessimistic / tragic; Dorian sounds slightly lighter / optimistic / funky / quirky.

5) So how to noodle? Now you can focus on the chord tones like others have said, or you can use lyrical / melodic methods to write your tune, which deserves its own thread. Actually for chord-tone writing you don’t strictly need step 4 above. But for melodic writing you do. 


I hope that is helpful at least in part!

randerson

Playing through a chord progession in arpeggios all in one position, then repeating across all positions once you've got the hang of position 1. Mike Stern also had an exercise where you end every line on a chord tone either from a semitone below or a whole step above which I found beneficial too.

Axe_meister

Practice your scales in 3rd, especially as you have learned your CAGED shapes.
Start on the root note and then play the 3rd note in that scale and then a 3rd note higher. So you have the 1 3 5 (triad) from the root.  Now do the same from the octave. 
Now do the same from the 2nd note of the scale, now you will be playing the minor triad off the second note, then the 3rd note and so on.
Once you have done that in all 5 shapes. You have the triads down in every position.
Then do the same with 4 notes, i.e. 1 3 5 7.
Now you can think modes.
Obviously Dorian is the second mode of the major scale. 
So I shift the pattern towards the neck by two frets so I can stay in the same root note and start on the second note of the shape and do the same again.
That way I play the the chord notes for the C Major scale, then the C Dorian, then I do the same for the phygian shape, etc.
It helps, if you have a metronome and the underlying chord changes in the background, so you can hear the triads/arppegios over the underlying chords. A free DAW such as cakewalk can really help here.

Then you can spice things up a bit. Rather than just going up the arppegios in order, try 1 5 3, then 1 3 5, then 3 5 1 then 5 3 1.
Suddenly you hear shades of Eric Johnson, especially when you start to join the CAGED shapes and go up and down the neck.