April Music Blog 2022
Dean Cutinelli here from the Colorado School of Music. Remember we are just a call away to start your private music lessons. We offer guitar lessons, piano lessons, drum lessons, Violin lessons, vocal lessons as well orchestral instruments. Now on to our discussion about jamming over a minor progression.
Today I will be discussing playing over two minor chords. For this example we will use A minor and D minor. When analyzing these two chords you will see they are from the key of A minor. The two chords can also be analyzed from the key of D minor. If we start by talking about A and D minor being from the key of A minor we would see that A minor is the one chord and D minor is the four chord. With this analysis we would have the options of playing an A minor scale. You could also play your A minor pentatonic scale including the flat 5. Of course you could play the relative major scale of C as well. Now if we flip our analysis of these two chords and make the D minor the one chord and the A minor the five chord you will have a few new sounds to try over these chords. First you would have the D minor scale and the D minor pentatonic scale with the flat 5 to try out. Next you could try the relative major key to D minor which is F major. Things to consider when jamming these sounds over the chords is which chord is played first. You could experiment playing your progression starting with the A minor chord first. Then try the progression by starting with the D minor chord first. This might not sound like a big difference on paper but when you actual here the two different progressions each should pull your ear a little more to the side of the fence of which ever chord is being played first. Each time you start and end the progression you are coming back to which ever of the two chords you started with and that should feel a little more like home. If you have A minor first A minor scale should sound more like home or inside the box and vice versa. When you look closely at the difference between A minor and D minor you will see that there is only one note different between the two scales. A minor has no sharps or flats and D minor has Bb. Sometimes you may find from one day to the next you prefer a specific sound. If these two chords were from a song, usually the melody will dictate which sound or scale would sound best.
If you want to push the limit a little bit try playing an A harmonic minor or D harmonic minor scale over the progression. A harmonic minor scale is a natural minor scale with a raised 7th. A harmonic minor would be A,B,C,D,E,F,G#.
Feel free to come in to the Colorado School of Music and take a lesson from me. We offer guitar lessons, piano lessons, drum lessons, violin lessons and vocal lessons as wells as orchestral instruments.
