What Scales Do I Use?

[@zulfphotography]

wow solid comparison of how you picture your music using paint and colours translated into cords. RGB is king in video editing and colour grading. its funny how most creative arts, painting, music, photos and video are in the same family and rely on the primary colours in many forms or "cords". Really liked how you explained this

[@JuanReyes-ht1bd]

Not scales, phrasing….✌️

[@eduardocampos4808]

Thanks Remi for sharing your color palette of your art 💙 😀👍🏻🎸🎶

[@Remi_Harris]

Thanks Eduardo 🙂👍

[@Wyrdo999]

I love playing the flat minor7th of a dominant 7th chord in jazz. the thing scales did for me was get my ear used to the sound of them until it became subconscious and that took yrs. and I only ever memorized Major, minor, harmonic minor, and dominant. Great video.

[@tetramusicstudio]

Thanks bro. Helped me a lot.

[@AndyBankside]

Extremely good of you to take the time to share this with us. You'll a hugely tallented young man! Thanks you

[@GuitaristPat]

Excellently presented Remi something I've not looked into much but will definitely do so now thank you for this video 🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸😊😊👌👍

[@brendanokeefemusic-]

Lots of valuable knowledge in those ramblings 🙏😎🤘🏻

[@lukedaymusic4585]

My mum's a painter and my dad's an engineer

[@AntonioCardozo6466]

I send my thanks from Brasil!!!!! 🎉🎉🎉🎉

[@zulfphotography]

Been a while since seen one of your videos. Great job with the lighting and camera, video looks excellent and of course great explanation about scales and your thinking process behind it.

[@Remi_Harris]

Cheers man 🙂👍

[@MrBlaffar]

Love your explanation. A great new approach thank you

[@lukedaymusic4585]

I remember being a child and realising if the blues is 145 and there are 7 notes then surely there's a chord for every note... Turns out that's true 😁

[@ThomasHope73]

Re: parallels with colours, I personally don’t even see it as a “coincidence”, but more as a reflection of the fact that we are intrinsically playing with physics. But, I do love recognising this connection. It alludes to the bigger picture surrounding the art of music; we are creatures exploring the nature of our reality, and finding phenomena that resonate with us.

[@jetpooley]

Hi Remi, thanks for the really helpful video. One question: your way of explaining the note values is based on numbers but do you also know the note names as well? E g - the 3rd of Am is C. If not I am interested where your reference point is for the values are? (Where the Root is, arpeggio shapes etc). I guess the goal is for it all to become subconscious and based on feel but maybe you have some insight into the best path to take when learning this stuff! Thanks!

[@Remi_Harris]

Hey! Yep, I know the names of the notes but my default thought process is based around the value of the notes in relation to the chord/key etc. For me the names (C, C# etc.) are secondary. I'm not sure if this is the best approach for all types of playing though. For example when sight reading it might be better to think in terms of note names first, I think that is how some classical players think. However, I don't really read music and my main focus is on improvising, so I've found that thinking in relative note values works best for me.

[@jetpooley]

@@Remi_Harris Thanks so much for your reply, it’s super helpful. It does lead me to a further practical question (and maybe what I was really trying to get to): How are you able/how have you learnt to locate those values on the fretboard more or less instantaneously? Do you have (or started by having) reference points like chord forms, arpeggio shapes or relating to the root (major third is 2 tones up) or maybe it’s a mix of things? Hope I’m making sense! Thanks for your time.

[@Remi_Harris]

@@jetpooley Yep, the reference points are usually based around chord/arpeggio/scale shapes. I'll make a video about this topic to explain in more detail. I'm on the road quite a bit at the moment but I'll try to get it done in the next few weeks 👍

[@jetpooley]

@@Remi_Harris That’s awesome thanks for your time Remi.

[@TheEpochCompanion]

This is awesome man, thanks for making it

[@BucoBucolini]

It's usually a begining musician who will ask that kind of question. And it's a good question to ask. Remi's answer is right on point (the part he called "rambling") but that's probably what people asking don't want to hear. Because I feel the hope is that being informed about the scales that were used will give you tools to play like Remi. Thing is, the music one plays doesn't come from scales, it comes from one's musical sensibility. It's what's in your ear that will transfer to the instrument. You can become a brilliant musician without knowing a single scale. So many Gypsies play Gypsy Jazz like that. It doesn't hurt to know the scale. It can be very helpful. It teaches you about many other things on the instrument. I personally feel that learning some theory and basic major/minor scale helped my composing. Much more than it helped my improvising. But it's not absolutely necessary for making music but is or can be helpful. By the way, didn't you make a video with a similar subject before?

[@Remi_Harris]

Hey man, I did make a very short video on this subject but I thought I'd do something a bit more in depth. I agree. You don't have to have an extensive knowledge of scales to play jazz. There are great players out there who play jazz without that kind of knowledge. But, I do think that these great players still have an intuitive feeling for it, even if they don't necessarily know the theoretical terms for everything. For example there's a lot of debate about whether Django knew theory or scales, I can't count how many times people have said to me that Django knew nothing about music theory, but yet if you analyse his playing he was so accurate. For example, one passage in his Dark Eyes solo he descends nearly 2 octaves of a harmonic minor scale (note for note), then ascends a diminished arpeggio (from that same scale) back up. It seems to me that he knew what he was doing, even if he might not have had the theoretical terminology for it all. But I think there is perhaps too much attention paid to scales in the guitar world at times. Like somehow they are the key to being a good musician and as you say, simply knowing scales won't make you a great musician, but there is no real disadvantage to learning how they work. Western harmony is essentially built around scales after all, both the chords and most chord sequences are derived from scales in some way, so they are kind of embedded within the DNA of the music. This is probably for another video about theory in general but I kind of think of it as the grammar of music. You can speak without knowing what grammar is, but your sentences will probably still follow the standard grammatical framework (use of verbs, nouns, past tense, present tense etc), even if you don't realise it. But, learning solely learning about grammar won't make you a great writer. That's kind of how I think of music theory in a way, it's not really means to learning music, buts it's a great tool for analysing and understanding it.

[@BucoBucolini]

@@Remi_Harris that's another thing, it's a little silly to me when people say Django didn't know any theory. I guess you could argue that in a way if you speak in technical terms strictly. By that I mean he didn't learn any theory from books or theory as such. But he knew massive amounts of musical concepts and used them in his playing including scales like you said. Whatever you call it, he new music inside out. He simply learned music through music and directly from music.

[@Remi_Harris]

Yep. I totally agree 👍

[@67er_matze97]

brilliant lesson 👍

[@fbonini6232]

Thank you Remi, really useful! I loved the fact that you talk about the thinking process and What you say resonates with my way of playing. Will you do, or have you done, anything about how you think when you structure a long solo?

[@Remi_Harris]

Hey! Glad you liked it. I haven't done any videos on structuring solos before. I will have a think about it though. I don't really have any specific rules I follow to be honest, I guess it depends on the tune and the vibe/feel I'm going for. A lot of solos will be structured to build up to a climax dynamically which can be cool. But I also like solos that don't really aim to peak at the end, but rather sound more like a stream of ideas, like you're talking about something, where each phrase is informed by what has come before. That's something I try to work on a lot. Chet Baker was a really master at that.

[@fbonini6232]

@@Remi_Harris Thank you Remi...you gave me already something to think about 😀 Look forward to your next video!

[@eduardocampos4808]

Very kind of you. 💙

[@felipebrilhante8642]

Nice

[@RobertMatichak]

Thanks Remi. Very generous of you! Peace

[@Remi_Harris]

Cheers Robert 🙂👍

[@televinv8062]

Great vid Remy, thanks. Questions for you. Example, G blues, major. I ' hear' that before going to the V (D), if you slip in a G dim or Bb dim chord, it sets up the V well. Is this considered 'proper'? And, other than this example and doing a II-V-I with the 5th, are there other things one can do to 'set up' the V well?

[@Remi_Harris]

Hey! Yeah it is common to put set up a V chord (or II V) with a diminished chord in that way. You often see it in standards and turnarounds. For example this is a very common sequence | G | G/B Bbdim | Am7 | D7 | ... or... | G Bbdim | Am7 | D7| ... in both of these cases the Bbdim is kind of functioning like a VI dominant chord (E7). While E7 and Bbdim aren't really the same chord they can function in the same way in cases like these and can often be interchanged. The main difference is usually where the melody note is. An E7 doesn't have a G note in (unless it's a E7#9), where as a Bbdim does, so you often find the Bbdim is used for turnarounds and sequences where you need the G note through the turnaround. The E7 has a G# as its third so that can sometimes clash if the melody is on a G note at that point. If you do need a G note you can use a regular Em7 as a VI chord which would work with a G note in the melody but Em7 is essentially G6 so the harmony doesn't really "shift" in this case (other the bass note) which I think is why the diminished option is more common in jazz turnarounds. Another couple of options that spring to mind would be | G (Am7) | Bm7 Bbm7 | Am7 | D7 | ... or ... | G | A13b9/Bb | Am7 | D7 | ... the 1st one is just using a parallel shift from a III down to the II which is a nice sound (the optional Am7 is often used in conjunction with this idea), and the 2nd one uses a A13b9/Bb instead of a Bbdim. These two chords are almost identical but the A13b9 has an F# where as a straight Bbdim doesn't, although both of these chords are found in the same diminished scale (A half whole) so they are often interchanged. Some other options to experiment with could be to alter or substitute the VI chord, eg. Bb7 (tritone) or even Fm7 to Bb7 (adding a II chord to the Bb7) or E7 aug (whole tone) etc. Hopefully some of this is of some use to you, but feel free to ask me any more questions 🙂👍

[@televinv8062]

@@Remi_Harris not some of this, all of it! Thank you for your detailed explanation. Very much appreciated! Best wishes!!

[@MrXeberdee]

@@Remi_Harris Scales always confuse things..... In my book Bbdim belongs to Eb7 and is like a minor 2 chord, which is why you commonly see a flat 6 (Eb7) in G also, which would be the 5 to the Bbminor (in Ab scalic terms). Good example eg. Nuages, which all comes from the concept of what you can call harmonic major (G major with an added Eb) - this gives you an 8 note scale and dims on even steps, the 2 of course, but nice minor/major 4 chord, the addition of a 6th step (Eb), a real dim on the 8th step (was half dim as step 7 in major). You can also get some nice stuff like Dmaj over Eb bass or Bmaj over G. Look at Nuages - G6 - Eb7 - Am7b5 - D7b9. Explain that in scalic terms of Gmajor without an Eb - it would get very complicated trying to explain all those strange altered chords, but simple if you just add an Eb and think about it as a bunch of resolutions. Lots of flat sixes in Djangos stuff - case in point in Nuages going to the 5 of Em - B7 also (3rd is D#/Eb) - Em/maj7( maj7 is D#/Eb) - even mid section goes C to Cm (again 3rd is Eb). Interestingly - Eb is the golden section of G - the flat 6 & major 3rd inverted - doorway to the augmented symmetry (color primaries) and the diminished (tritone axes). People always think of a scale as one thing, but it's really 2 things - somewhere to go, and a place to start. In simple terms G goes to C (G-A-B-C) which then goes back to G again (D-E-F#-G). If you're thinking where to go, then you might get there - but if you think you're already there, then there's no journey :)

[@LewisKilvington]

Fantastic video man!!

[@Remi_Harris]

Cheers dude! 🙂👍

[@CreatedbyLC]

Video starts at 07:20

[@tonyryan6688]

Fascinating insight 👍

[@Remi_Harris]

Cheers Tony 🙂👍

[@LucasAraujo-qk7bh]

Thanks 🙏🙏

[@Remi_Harris]

Cheers Lucas 🙂👍

[@JeffMountainPicker]

Hi Remi, I love your playing and I am learning to play guitar; I've been working at it for years, still have a long way to go. I was puzzled by one your statements about chords; major, minor, and *dominant*. I know what those first two imply, the 1, 3, 5 for the root, and so on. Flat 3 makes the triad minor. What is a dominant chord? The word *dominant* just means "5" to me. In a major key, the three major triads are the 1, 4, and 5 chords. For the 5 chord, if I add tone #4 to the chord, it becomes a "dominant 7th", as 4 is the flat 7 of the major 5 chord. So what is a *dominant chord*?

[@Remi_Harris]

Hey Jeff. Yeah, so a dominant chord refers to any major chord with a flattened 7th. They're called dominant chords because they are usually created from the 5th note of a major scale (which is as you say is known as the dominant note). If you create a 4 note chord from that note (5th) by ascending in 3rds, the first 4 notes you get would be a 1 (root), a major 3rd, a 5th and and a flat 7th. In the key of C major this makes a G7 (starting from the 5th note). This is the only time a "dominant 7th" chord is created in a major scale, as the other major chords in the key have regular major 7 notes rather than flattened 7ths. The dominant chord family also includes variations and alterations of the 7th chord, so G7 would be the basic dominant chord foundation, but G9, G11, G13, G7b5, G7#9, G13b9, G7#5b9, G7+(aug), G7alt etc etc are all generally referred to as dominant chords because at their core is a G7 chord. Hopefully that all makes sense but feel free to ask me any more questions about it. Cheers. Remi 🙂👍

[@jeffstram5666]

@@Remi_Harris Yes, that makes perfect sense, and sort of what I expected the answer to be. I do use 9th and 13th chords, and I get the whole "family" idea of chords built on the Dom7 4-tone chord. I guess my hesitation is rooted in still thinking of chords = triads. Now I'm simply thinking in 4 note chords, which gives the whole picture. The terms are correct; the 7th is implied. I thoroughly enjoy your playing, and though I've been playing for 50 years, I didn't mount the focused dedication required to get anywhere near what you're doing, with apparent ease. Sheesh! I'll continue learning licks from you and others, and get on with it as well as I can. Being retired allows the time to be spent on the guitar. (When I was young, I was too scatter-brained to study & develop my skills.) Thank You!

[@Remi_Harris]

@@jeffstram5666 Cheers Jeff! Any time 🙂👍