Chords / Modes / Borrowing chords etc

hotpickups

Hopefully you guys can advise me once again. Modes I get and use them all the time albeit mainly Dorian and Mixolydian tbh

I have noticed on various mode backing tracks on youtube for example, are only 2 / 3 chords progressions/vamps etc. Why is that, are they the best 2/3 to use? 

Also, without making the explanation too complicated for me, how can one use / choose 'borrowed chords' to spice up the progression better still? 

Be gentle with me LOL

Barney

hotpickups said:

Hopefully you guys can advise me once again. Modes I get and use them all the time albeit mainly Dorian and Mixolydian tbh

I have noticed on various mode backing tracks on youtube for example, are only 2 / 3 chords progressions/vamps etc. Why is that, are they the best 2/3 to use? 

Also, without making the explanation too complicated for me, how can one use / choose 'borrowed chords' to spice up the progression better still? 

Be gentle with me LOL

Try using 4 and 5th out of the key with root of the mode on the bottom 

So F And G .. .over root C .... Ionian 

F and G over root D....dorian 

F and G over root G ...mixolydian ect 

But these can be transposed 

Say

F and G over C is C ionian 

Bb and C over C root note  is C mixolydian 

Hope it makes sense 

hotpickups

Barney said:

hotpickups said:

Hopefully you guys can advise me once again. Modes I get and use them all the time albeit mainly Dorian and Mixolydian tbh

I have noticed on various mode backing tracks on youtube for example, are only 2 / 3 chords progressions/vamps etc. Why is that, are they the best 2/3 to use? 

Also, without making the explanation too complicated for me, how can one use / choose 'borrowed chords' to spice up the progression better still? 

Be gentle with me LOL

Try using 4 and 5th out of the key with root of the mode on the bottom 

So F And G .. .over root C .... Ionian 

F and G over root D....dorian 

F and G over root G ...mixolydian ect 

But these can be transposed 

Say

F and G over C is C ionian 

Bb and C over C root note  is C mixolydian 

Hope it makes sense 

Thanks @Barney ;

I think I’m more intrigued about how one chooses ‘borrowed chords’ etc for spicing up a chord sequence etc. Is there a simple explanation of how to use / access them ?

Danny1969

Almost all rock music and lot of pop  uses borrowed chords ... generally the flat 7 from the minor and the flat 3rd. If you played something like AC DC purely diatonic it would sound pretty lame

hotpickups

Danny1969 said:

Almost all rock music and lot of pop  uses borrowed chords ... generally the flat 7 from the minor and the flat 3rd. If you played something like AC DC purely diatonic it would sound pretty lame

Ok cool. May I ask for a written down example if possible?

Danny1969

Well 

Creep Radiohead .... in G maj but uses borrowed Cm from the Gm scale  ...... chucking in a borrowed minor 4th chord is a common and effective trick

Any song in a major Key with a 1, flat 7, 4 and there must be hundreds (sympathy for the devil for example) 

Sometimes it's often a quick borrowed flat 3 or 7 ... Please Please me chucks in a quick G which is a flat 3rd of it's Emaj key

Intro to Whisky in the jar .... songs in G maj but first 3 chords are G, F and Em so quick flat 7

Danny1969

Quick disclaimer, I chart songs like 1, 5, 6m, 4 etc because it's quick and easy for dep work and you can see it under poor lighting. I know the correct way is Roman numerals 

hotpickups

Danny1969 said:

Well 

Creep Radiohead .... in G maj but uses borrowed Cm from the Gm scale  ...... chucking in a borrowed minor 4th chord is a common and effective trick

Any song in a major Key with a 1, flat 7, 4 and there must be hundreds (sympathy for the devil for example) 

Sometimes it's often a quick borrowed flat 3 or 7 ... Please Please me chucks in a quick G which is a flat 3rd of it's Emaj key

Intro to Whisky in the jar .... songs in G maj but first 3 chords are G, F and Em so quick flat 7

So no thick and fast rule. If it sounds ok then it is ok I guess  

viz

hotpickups said:

Danny1969 said:

Well 

Creep Radiohead .... in G maj but uses borrowed Cm from the Gm scale  ...... chucking in a borrowed minor 4th chord is a common and effective trick

Any song in a major Key with a 1, flat 7, 4 and there must be hundreds (sympathy for the devil for example) 

Sometimes it's often a quick borrowed flat 3 or 7 ... Please Please me chucks in a quick G which is a flat 3rd of it's Emaj key

Intro to Whisky in the jar .... songs in G maj but first 3 chords are G, F and Em so quick flat 7

So no thick and fast rule. If it sounds ok then it is ok I guess  

That is the thick and fast rule!

hotpickups

I think I can do that @viz   

As usual I always over complicate things when I should just use my intuition and ears etc 

Danny1969

hotpickups said:

Danny1969 said:

Well 

Creep Radiohead .... in G maj but uses borrowed Cm from the Gm scale  ...... chucking in a borrowed minor 4th chord is a common and effective trick

Any song in a major Key with a 1, flat 7, 4 and there must be hundreds (sympathy for the devil for example) 

Sometimes it's often a quick borrowed flat 3 or 7 ... Please Please me chucks in a quick G which is a flat 3rd of it's Emaj key

Intro to Whisky in the jar .... songs in G maj but first 3 chords are G, F and Em so quick flat 7

So no thick and fast rule. If it sounds ok then it is ok I guess  

Yeah essentially there are no rules in music. The key just gives you a basic idea of what chords are likely to be encountered in the structure of the song. There is a bit of a trend in pop and modern country to write songs in pure diatonic chords which do strictly adhere to the key, but it's a bit of a bland, kind of safe sound. 

EricTheWeary

[ this turned into something of a ramble...]


Something I realised yesterday for the first time ( although I may have realised it before and forgotten) is why a lot of minor blues have a dominant major chord on the V or IV and V. 

So, for a minor blues or any minor I IV V song to be diatonic those three chords would all be minor. But the major dominant contains a tritone* which a minor 7th doesn’t so it gives a sense of tension and wanting to resolve that a minor 7th chord wouldn’t. 

Not a very famous song but All Your Love by Magic Sam is based around Bminor but the E and F# chords are dominant majors. 

* the major third and the dominant seventh are a flattened fifth apart. 

x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x 

You get a lot of 6ths in rock and roll/ blues ( Chuck Berry, Jimmy Reed,etc) partly because that’s where your finger ends up playing shuffle lines. So that pulls through to AC/DC and blues rock.

Ninths, elevenths and thirteenths were used in swing and jump and uptown blues so that's BB King, T Bone Walker and then through to funk and soul. Lots of James Brown songs, for example, use ninths and we hear that as funky now ( especially partial shapes a la Nile Rodgers). 
Hendrix had played in both traditions so he mixed up ninths and sixths,etc, although arguably you have the freedom to do that over a bass line as opposed to a bigger arrangement. 

The basic tension in blues was playing around between the major and minor third ( pretty much everything by Muddy Waters) and that gets formalised in chord changes sometimes. When I was playing Madness covers they quite often just went between major and minor versions of the same chord which again builds tension. I guess if everything is diatonic it's harder to create tension.

In ska and reggae there is a tradition of playing the II chord as a major whereas diatonically you'd expect minor. Otis Redding wrote songs on a guitar tuned to open G so some of his songs ( Dock of the Bay I'm fairly sure) are all majors but not diatonic. So that's  both sweet and tense at the same time. 

x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x

DesWalker

Regarding ACDC the clue is in the title. Play it, it sounds nice. Not a mode in sight.

Learning how to harmonise the modes is good to know but really has very little application IMO.

pintspiller

Signals Music Studio and Rick Beato have several videos on the subject ( type "borrowed chords" into the search on YouTube to find them ). There is plenty there to give you an idea of best practise or how to experiment.

Personally, I don't, or rather didn't, know the exact key that I write songs in as I usually use powerchords, so things can be sort of vague in that regard and I would have ad libbed using mode shapes that somewhat-fitted and tried to adjust as necessary. Sometimes it worked out great, sometimes it didn't, sometimes it seemed like I had unnecessarily stuck my head up my arse.

At the end of the day, it's what sounds best to you as well as what the trained theorists say. Have fun.

mixolyd

https://youtu.be/1dRA28cdt5c

This video on modal interchange is absurdly slick and fun.  4 minutes and 26 seconds of musical enlightenment.  I also second the recommendation of Signals Music Studio whose videos are always fun, well explained and practical.

As for why those modal backing tracks often only have two or three chords, it’s because a lot of the modes (all except Ionian and Aeolian) are quite unstable so certain chords have a tendency to undermine them and bring the ear into Ionian or Aeolian.

pintspiller

@mixolyd for me modes were more of a way to decode the diatonic when the key wasn't instantly obvious. I've always been envious of rock songs that have the colours and exoticness of modes, but that's probably the shortfall of my using mostly powerchords

mixolyd

pintspiller said:

@mixolyd for me modes were more of a way to decode the diatonic when the key wasn't instantly obvious. I've always been envious of rock songs that have the colours and exoticness of modes, but that's probably the shortfall of my using mostly powerchords

Songs written using power chords can totally use modes just as much as songs written using triads but you often have to look at the melody notes to discern whether the tonality during a chord is major or minor. Nirvana songs are very interesting to analyse in this sense as they often use modal mixture and deliberately alter tonality using melody notes here and there.

One simple trick that Cobain seems to have used is to write a section with melody using triads, then just play it with power chords which creates some ambiguity which is cleared up here and there by the melody.  This can result in chords that are more muscular and melody that is more prominent and meaningful - a win win.

As you have probably found writing with power chords rather than triads also allows more flexibility because it’s easier to make unconventional or non-diatonic chord changes work smoothly e.g. I to bIII and other “up a minor third” changes.  Combine this flexibility with the melodicism and raw power of the “turn triads into power chords” method and you have the start of a powerful songwriting toolkit without needing a particularly deep knowledge of theory.

kelpbeds

Mixolydian is great for using over a major blues. I've done a vid about it here you might want to check out for clarification.

GuyBoden

Thinking that chords must fit a key can stifle originality. Major and minor harmony is just one type of music harmonic theory, there are many others. 

Don't let theory imprison your music.

hotpickups

GuyBoden said:

Thinking that chords must fit a key can stifle originality. Major and minor harmony is just one type of music harmonic theory, there are many others. 

Don't let theory imprison your music.

It so has so good advice thanks @GuyBoden ;

hotpickups

I guess my stumbling block is when one sees all these YouTube videos of someone flying around the fretboard creating effortlessly awesome solos or creating really cool chord sequences using tasty chord extensions etc. It can make one feel so inadequate sometimes when they explain what they are doing theory wise that boggles my mind. I would have to sit down and fathom what the hell they are talking about sometimes. 

Maybe just play and throw in stuff that one doesn’t know the chord shape of or what it is even. Hear how it sounds/works rather than ponder on its theory of its make up etc  

Old videos of Frank Gambale is a prime candidate of that I’ve seen. Goes so fast in his explanation that it just becomes a circus act to me