How Scales Are Born From Chords (1 Chord, 2 Chords, 3 Chords)

[music] >> Hi everyone. This is Jason Zac from Nathaniel School of Music. In this lesson, I'm going to kind of show you how you can build scales through maybe a more unconventional method, not through the usual tone-tone-semitone method, not through a modal method, but through a chordal method. So, you take two chords. And a good way to start would be maybe take an a single note D. What are all the chords that have D in them? At least major and minor. Let's begin with that. You have D major, you have D minor, you have G major, you have G minor, you have B flat [music] major, and finally you have B minor. So, the point I'm trying to make here is a chord is basically an unfinished scale. But it's almost finished. In fact, a triad gives you three notes. A scale needs seven. So, you just kind of have four left, right? So, that's the whole lesson in a nutshell. That's what we're going to do. And when you have two chords, the you don't leave too much of room to the imagination. Yes, you'll have maybe two chords. What if one of the uh what one of the notes are in common between the two chords? Or two notes are in common? Then you have notes to the imagination. But if you have three chords, I think yeah, you can imagine a scale easily out of those three chords, right? So, the point here is how scales can be born through chords. That's what we're trying to do. And if you think about it, that's kind of how chord charts work. You read chords and you interpret scales. This is how we can even modulate music or do scale modulations because the chord is kind of telling you, you play whichever scale works with me. You don't have to say that it follows the key signature of the song, which should be E major or E flat major, which which has three flats or E major, which has three sharps. You're not locking to a key or a scale even. You're just going with the flow. You're letting the chord dictate the scale or a pack of two chords, you can call it a cadence, dictate a scale or three chords, a trio of them, dictates a scale. It could dictate this scale major today, it could be harmonic major tomorrow, it could be mixolydian the next day. So, you can have a lot of creative options around this process. Okay? Before we get started, it'll be nice if you can get your keyboards out, practice along with me, and don't forget to like, share, subscribe. That'll really help the channel grow. It's probably the only way to make this channel grow or any channel for that matter, especially in the age of AI with all the uh non-human content out there, which is kind of taking over our bandwidth, so to speak, as music educators. So, this support will mean a lot. And the notes, the study material is waiting for you on our Patreon channel. Let's get cracking. So, good way to start practicing chords would be to get a pack of them around one root note or one target note. So, if I say D is my target or my anchor, I can have 12, but I'm just picking D for simplicity. So, if I take D, you'll have D major. And by the way, this whole thing, there are handwritten notes which I'm following. The same thing will be available on our Patreon channel. And what's cool is we've built an app to help you transpose the contents of this lesson to all the 12 keys, not just D, which will be focused in this lesson. So, head over to Patreon at some point and or you can even pause the video and see it as we practice. So, D major, [music] you have this chord. Now, what scales go with the D major chord? You could argue D mixolydian, D major. You could also look at a few other scales that don't have D as the tonic. For example, G harmonic minor. If I play G minor if I play D major here, >> [music] >> D will be the dominant chord and it'll also be the dominant chord of the G melodic minor. >> [music] >> So, D could work in the scale where it's a tonic of the D major chord could also work in the scale where it's not the tonic. And now let's take another chord and all this is in the chord tree, so to speak, of D. So, in the vicinity of D, D has a D major, it has a D minor, it has a G major, a G minor, a B flat major, all having D and a B minor >> [music] >> having a D. So, if I now take, let's say, another one, G minor, which has G B flat D. >> [music] >> What scale can you interpret? You can just do all the the the G stuff, right? You can take a G minor, >> [music] >> right? And if you take G minor chord, you can even build maybe a >> [music] >> It could be the fifth or the dominant of the D Phrygian. >> [music] >> So, start with the dominant and the tonic or even the subdominant, which will be the fourth. So, hold down the chord in the left hand or maybe just do tonics. >> [music] >> Hold down the chord and then run a scale. These are what we call as major-esque scale because they work on the major triad. Do check out my video or tutorial on major-esque and minor-esque scales where we dive into this concept a lot more deeper. We cover almost every possible minor-esque and major-esque scale. We say "esque" because there are so many. Okay? So, if you take B flat, [music] B flat major B flat harmonic major mixolydian >> [music] >> Lydian or that was Lydian flat seven or Lydian dominant Lydian normal You have lot of options just on B flat, right? So, one chord will have three notes. So, four notes will be missing and those notes will be up to your interpretation, what you feel should be those four notes. Now, what if you have two chords? So, let's take two chords in the same chord tree of D and just handpick two chords. Let's take D major and G major. What do we have now? D major >> [music] >> G major. Already, we have a D in common. So, that's totally giving us D F sharp A G B and two notes open to interpretation, open to our own choice. So, maybe let's form a scale. Sa Re is missing. Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni is missing. So, I can interpret it as these two chords are going to play. >> [music] >> So, what shall I compose? Either D is the tonic or G is [music] the tonic, I don't know. So, let's assume D major is the tonic. Definitely >> [music] >> D major. What about [music] Mixolydian? [music] But, I can't do because there's a G major. Now, I can't change the da or the sixth degree. However, maybe I could even consider playing a G harmonic major by maybe making the G as my [music] tonic and then D as my dominant. It's dominant. >> [music] >> So, that's a G major [singing] a D major and then So, just by reinterpreting it if you have a pack of two, a set of two. D major is there, G major is there. So, if D major's the tonic, you get D major, D Mixolydian. If G major's the tonic, you get G harmonic major, which is a beautiful scale. Now, what if you play D major and G minor, which is also part of this set of chords that contain the note D in them? You have D major G minor. [music] So, what's the first scale? Maybe what if G is the root? >> [music] >> D7 resolving to G minor. A melodic minor. Or you could do a D harmonic major. >> [music] >> Okay, what about maybe combining D major with a B flat major? So, you have D [music] F sharp A B flat F. So, things [music] like that. You can get a Love that. Whatever that scale is, it's pretty cool. So, you can kind of even build scales with two chords you don't even know. What about D major and B minor? That's very simple because they just have Yeah, they have two notes in common. So, you get the idea, but maybe avoid doing D major with D minor. That'll be a bit weird. Or yeah, this the namesake chords you can avoid. So, there are a lot of options with two chords. We've put together the chart on the Patreon. Check it out. When you marry D major with G major, D major with B minor, uh D minor with G major, then some unusual stuff like D major with G minor, you'll get the harmonic minors, you'll get the melodic minors, the harmonic majors, and the like. So, do check out the exhaustive guide that we have for you, which will be there on all the 12 keys. So, moving forward, what if you have three chords? The gaps are going to close. You'll It'll become very obvious. So, if I take the pivot note D, and it has all these six shapes: D major, D minor, >> [music] >> G major, G minor, B flat and B minor. Let's combine D major, G major and B [music] minor. If you consider those three chords, they're basically part of the D major scale, isn't it? They're also part of the G major scale. It's just the functions change. So, in the G major scale, G would be the tonic, >> [music] >> B would be the mediant, D major would be the dominant so. >> [music] >> While on the D major scale, >> [music] >> D will be the tonic, G would be the subdominant, >> [music] >> and B minor would be the relative minor chord or the submediant as we call it. Okay? Then what about other combinations? Maybe you have G major, >> [music and singing] >> B minor, D D major. So, G major, B minor, D major. That could work with a rather rare scale. >> [music] >> G harmonic major basically, but you can go back to normal usual suspect scales where you go [snorts] D minor, [music] G minor and B flat major are part of two two ecosystems. The B flat major scale >> [music] [music] >> where B flat is the tonic, D minor is the mediant, and G minor is the submediant or the sixth [music] or the F major scale where you can go G minor as your supertonic, which is two, B flat [music] major as your subdominant of four and D minor as a relative minor or the submediant. You have F major and what else? With the two minor chords, you could also consider it as D harmonic minor. You have DFA, [music] DGB flat, and B flat B flat major. The only thing we don't have is the C sharp. So, it could either be the harmonic minor or maybe even the natural minor. Harmonic or natural minor would work very well. So, the whole idea here is the chord is kind of an open question. It It It answers well, the notes of the chord for sure, but a chord usually will support the scale that is there. The scale we learn has seven chords, three being major, three being minor, one being diminished. But, what if the chord itself can give birth to the scale and many scales even? One chord could give birth to so many scales, as you know. Two chords narrow it down a bit more and three chords really narrow it down. And the whole exercise was to take chords that are having one note in common, in this case D. But, moving forward, you could explore with all these other common notes, of which there are 12 notes in music, so you can keep at it, I hope. Okay, thanks a ton for watching the lesson. I hope you found it useful and you can apply it in your practice, in your compositions, and whatnot. Okay, and don't forget to hit the subscribe button and turn on the bell for regular notifications. I will catch you in the next one. Cheers.