Chords and harmony: Difference between revisions

Q: When you say math, what exactly do you mean?

Allan: Say, for example, I wanted to find out how many seven note or eight note scales there are in one octave. It’s easy with math, you keep number one constant, keeping it in the same key, and then you permutate the other notes until you’ve got every combination, and that’s what I did. I wrote them all down and catalogued them. I’d take four notes, five notes, six notes, seven notes, and then I’d go up to nine note scales. Then I’d spread them out over two octaves, playing however many notes I wanted the scale to contain.

Q: So what happens in the second octave is different from what happens in the first octave, with a separate set of intervals?

Allan: Yeah, and when it comes out again on the second one, you can take three octaves. You can do as many as you want. I only went as far as three, (laughs) because of the guitar.

Q: Was this done at the same time as learning about conventional major and minor scales?

Allan: No, obviously this came after that, but what I knew was inadequate, and I couldn’t play over certain chords, because I didn’t know what scales to use. I knew if I did this, I’d have them, and then I could use my ears to guide me as to how I wanted to use them, based on what I felt musically. I cataloged them all, and I set aside all of the ones that had more than three semi-tones in a row, because they would be impractical. I finished up with this huge ream of stuff that I needed to learn. That stuff still applies now, I still only remember a small amount of it, but I learn more and more each time. Basically, I did the same thing with chords, I’d build chords from the scales, which is how I think of chords.

Q: Were these specific things that you were thinking, "I can’t play over that," or was it that you just wanted to expand your knowledge and find new chords?

Allan: It was more like I wanted to find chords and voicings of chords, then I’d work on those separately from trying to figure out how to play over them. That’s why, when I see a chord symbol, I sometimes don’t even play a chord that might even constitute that one, I might just play some other chord that’s built on the scale, because that’s how I think of it. When the chords change, it’s the movement, you can hear the scales change from one to the other. When I see the neck, when the chords change, it’s like you can imagine a neck with LED’s on it, and they’re all lit up. When it gets to the next chord, all the dots change. The what I have to do is try to make a melody out of it, or make some sense out of it, or combine that with other things I want to do, like superimposing things on top of other things or whatever. Then you can play on things and add extra chords, playing something that suggests another chord between that chord.