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JTR
Chatterbox

417 Posts

Posted - 06/05/2002 :  10:30:55 PM  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
I've been working a lot with improving over various songs with the Major Pentatonic and Major scales. But a lot of the time neither of these sounds quite right. Is there a good rule of thumb when to use Minor verus Major? Is there a time when you only want to use pentatonics and not a major scale? And any good tips how to figure out what key a given song is in?






TRincubsfan
Is Anybody Here?

18 Posts

Posted - 06/05/2002 :  10:44:44 PM  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
well im not a guitar genius but i belive that the major scales are used in more mellow sounding songs and the minor pentatonic is used in most all rock and blues. i would say use a major scale when its in a major key and a minor scale when its in a minor key, but i could be wrong.

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Jamie M
Chatterbox

Canada
404 Posts

Posted - 06/06/2002 :  7:05:04 PM  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
Hmmm...The major key of one note is the minor key of another, so I can't say I totally understand what you're saying. G major is E minor... C major is A minor. So if you're playing something that sounds wrong, you may be in the wrong key entirely.

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JTR
Chatterbox

417 Posts

Posted - 06/07/2002 :  01:42:51 AM  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
I understand that, but my point is if the song is E-minor and I'm playing E-major, it sounds wrong for obvious reasons. I'm just looking for ways to determine any given song's key, just looking at a few notes and knowing what key its in. That's all I really wanted for advice.

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Jamie M
Chatterbox

Canada
404 Posts

Posted - 06/07/2002 :  5:20:48 PM  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
Well I'm no expert... in fact I'm not really that good, but what I will usually do to figure out the key is start playing a few notes that fit, and from there pick out the keys that follow those notes. It takes a few minutes, but I can always narrow it down to at least 2 keys, and over time one will start sounding better.
Obviously that's not a very convenient way of figuring it out, but it works for me. You can also look at the chords played, generally one of the chords played in the chorus is the key of the song.
That's all I have to offer, good luck.

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chatterballs
Chatterbox

117 Posts

Posted - 06/20/2002 :  03:58:40 AM  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
Think the key of the song...solo in major or minor scale for the flat third, same notes just different positions for any scale.

Chords are Solo in
C,F,G,Am C or Am
D,G,A,Bm D or Bm
E,A,B,C#m E or C#m
G,C,D,Em G or Em

Basically, just think of changing positions with the same scale, like the Em pentatonic is E G A B D. That's the root, flat 3, 4, 5, flat 7. You can play that scale starting with any of those notes, in any position. When you play G A B D E, that's G major pentatonic. Get the picture. Go and solo. Bend the B, throw in Bb for the blues scale.

Most importantly, know the neck, where notes are. Peace.

--------------------
I once saw a movie where this bus had to keep its SPEED above 50 and if its SPEED dropped, it would explode...I think it was called, the bus that couldn't slow down.
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