Scales, Chords, Note Choices, Tunings etc.

[Barnhard]

Thought it would be cool to have a thread to help kickstart musical ideas.

My favorite scale of all time, besides the hexatonic blues scale every Stoner/Desert band seems to use, is this weird thing that a friend and I came up with. I think it has a proper name but I've never been able to find it.
C-C#-E-F-G-G#-B-C

Anyone else got something they'd like to share with the group?

[D.o.S.]

Just played around with that one for a minute. I like it.

I'm always at a loss as to why the Hendrix Chord (dominant 7♯9) is so under-utilized in heavy jams--makes for a great change up, especially when contrasted with power chords and SRS RIFFS.

[Barnhard]

Dicked around with that just now. Came up with something completely different (I'm a bass player turned guitarist so my fingers aren't used to hitting complex(er) chords). Sounded cool though.

D:4
A:5
E:3
B:0

All doom could do with a little more dominant injected in.

[Ancient Astronaught]

I like the half step whole step scale (also known as a middle eastern scale) on the frets it looks like this:

0-1-3-4-6-7-9-10

or

C-C#-D#-E-F#-G-A-A#

It's very dissonant and plays in nicely with the one fret slide back n forths and one fret trills you hear alot in like Sleep and Electric Wizard.

[Uncle Grandfather]

I'll play around in lydian cause it has the devil's tritone interval.
just stay away from the major third and its some evil shit

or...throwing in the chromatic scale can get some nice tension that just keeps on building over the drone or whatnot.

edit: harmonic minor is another good one.
also this must be the scale that summons satan.
C tritone scale
C Db E F# G Bb

[celticelk]

Just came in here to post Skip's scale! =) You can also call it symmetrical diminished, if you're a theory whore. =) There are lots of good 7-note subsets of that scale - just leave out any one of the following notes: b9, #9, 3 (the 1st, 3rd, and 4th fret notes from Skip's tab respectively). I'm partial to root-3-maj7 and root-5-maj7 chords, esp. arpeggiated, and I like to use sixths/sevenths/ninths/tenths as well, though you basically have to hybrid-pick or fingerpick to grab those, as the most convenient fingerings are on non-adjacent strings.

[D.o.S.]

Dicked around with that just now. Came up with something completely different (I'm a bass player turned guitarist so my fingers aren't used to hitting complex(er) chords). Sounded cool though.

D:4
A:5
E:3
B:0

All doom could do with a little more dominant injected in.

Yeah, I'm also a bass player, so normally I'll just request/suggest it from/for the thin-strings. When you've got a lot of gain going it tends to get messy throwing those in on bass.

[Uncle Grandfather]

Just came in here to post Skip's scale! =) You can also call it symmetrical diminished, if you're a theory whore. =) There are lots of good 7-note subsets of that scale - just leave out any one of the following notes: b9, #9, 3 (the 1st, 3rd, and 4th fret notes from Skip's tab respectively). I'm partial to root-3-maj7 and root-5-maj7 chords, esp. arpeggiated, and I like to use sixths/sevenths/ninths/tenths as well, though you basically have to hybrid-pick or fingerpick to grab those, as the most convenient fingerings are on non-adjacent strings.

+1 extensions. all that color.

[celticelk]

Dicked around with that just now. Came up with something completely different (I'm a bass player turned guitarist so my fingers aren't used to hitting complex(er) chords). Sounded cool though.

D:4
A:5
E:3
B:0

All doom could do with a little more dominant injected in.

Technically, that's not a dominant chord: the notes low to high are B-G-D-F#, which I would characterize as a Gmaj7. If you want a dominant chord, drop that F# down to F, and you've got G7. (If you're invested in this being your I chord, you could call it Bm(b6), but you'd want a strong B in the bass guitar line to reinforce that root.)

[Ancient Astronaught]

You can also call it symmetrical diminished, if you're a theory whore.

Which I'm not.

But I am all about learning more theory as I know jack squat and just rely on making up my own chords and going off of random stuff I've discovered after playing for so long.

[D.o.S.]

That's the thing about music theory--if you start getting into it way after you started playing (like a lot of us, I'd wager), it's just discovering new ways to talk about the stuff you already know "instinctively" in what's usually a more effective manner.

Of course, my knowledge pool is really shallow, but that's been my experience.

[Ancient Astronaught]

That's the thing about music theory--if you start getting into it way after you started playing (like a lot of us, I'd wager), it's just discovering new ways to talk about the stuff you already know "instinctively" in what's usually a more effective manner.

Of course, my knowledge pool is really shallow, but that's been my experience.

Thats what I've heard from friends who are trained in theory. My whole thing is I would like to learn more about modes and chord progressions and their perceived moods and emotions. Certain keys and progressions definitely sound "evil" or "sad" and Disney is infamous for using the same scales and progressions over and over due to their perception of "triumph" and "accomplishment". To learn more about how music works in that way is what I really want to learn. I'm not into shredding or overly complex music so learning scale after scale and mode after mode for me would turn boring and redundant.

[celticelk]

I think of music theory as being similar to scientific theory: you have to start with a set of observations (every time I drop something, it falls down! those clusters of notes all sound similar!) and then build a framework for understanding how those observations fit together. Music theory can't tell you what's beautiful, but it can help you figure out how to make that beautiful thing happen again, and sometimes suggest productive avenues for further exploration.

[Ancient Astronaught]

I think of music theory as being similar to scientific theory: you have to start with a set of observations (every time I drop something, it falls down! those clusters of notes all sound similar!) and then build a framework for understanding how those observations fit together. Music theory can't tell you what's beautiful, but it can help you figure out how to make that beautiful thing happen again, and sometimes suggest productive avenues for further exploration.

Unnacceptable!!!!

[samzadgan]

this is all really cool…i have try them all…will have to decipher which notes are on which strings and frets…but should be able to do it.

i have no theoretical knowledge what-so-ever…i only discovered the 5 boxes pentatonic scales about 6 months ago…i have only started learning some of this because the bass player in the band knows his theory inside-out…and his been telling me what i'm doing in theoretical terms…turns out i play everything in Minor key…and i use a lot of eastern scales mixed with pentatonic ones. I've been playing for about 15 years and besides the odd tab book, i've always just tried to play what i hear or come up with stuff by fiddling around with guitar whilst watching TV.

did you guys go to some kind of music school or did you have lessons…or did you pick up the theory yourself?

Only reason i ask is because trying to learn by watching youtube or reading online i quite hard for me to understand…a lot of the people teaching theory use that language, and a lot of it sounds very foreign to me.