Chord Scale Memorization

• Chord scales is a fundamental knowledge in Jazz. The gist is that you can fit your typical chord into any existing scale.. if they make sense.
• For example, with a C Major, we have C E G.
• The C Major scale has C D E F G A B C, which consist of all the notes in a C major 7 (CEGB), therefore C Major 7 fits the scale C Major.
• It also fits the C Lydian scale: C D E F# G A B C, which also consists of all notes in C Major 7. Therefore C Major 7 fits the C Lydian mode.
• We can keep things simple by grouping scales that fit together easily.

Section 1: The +- 1 Key Signature Category

• We know C Major fits a C major scale. But it also works well with the same scale of +- 1 to key signature. ie C Lydian.
• It's also one of the reasons why key signatures of perfect fifth interval tend to be "close" to each other.
• Similarly, we know C Minor 7 fits a C minor scale, but it also works well with the same scale of +- to key signature. ie C Dorian and C Phrygian.
• So by grouping in such a way, we get the following:

Triads

Chord	Scale
Maj	Lydian
	Ionian (Major)
	Mixolydian
min	Dorian
	Aeolian (Minor)
	Phrygian

Seventh chords

Chord	Scale
Maj7	Lydian
	Ionian (Major)
min7	Dorian
	Aeolian (Minor)
	Phrygian

• Notice that mixolydian is no longer available for Maj7, because the 7th gets flattened into a dominant chord.

• Diminished chord is diminished chord

• You will also want to learn to quickly figure out the possible keys for each mode of a chord. This can be identified by finding the key signature with the same key sig value as the mode.

• This can also be identified using intervals. The ones provided are the "easier" to memorize ones

Mode keys (Normalized to C)

Chord	Scale	Key sig value	Major tonic key	Interval
Maj	C Lydian	+1	G Major	Perfect fifth up
	C Ionian (Major)	0	C Major	Perfect unison
	C Mixolydian	-1	F Major	Perfect fourth up
min7	C Dorian	-2	Bb Major	Major second down
	C Aeolian (Minor)	-3	Eb Major	Major third down
	C Phrygian	-4	Ab Major	Minor third up (M6 up)
dim	C Locrian	-5	Db Major	Minor second down (M7 up)

Section 2: The Dominant chord

The core of a 7 chord is the Mixolydian mode. But, the 7th chord is typically used to make a part of a song sound unstable. In a strangely counterintuitive way, a seventh chord is considered "stable".

So we want to simply assign the three tension level of scales to the 7 chord:

• Mixolydian: The most stable scale that fits a dominant chord
• Diminished: The least stable possible scale that fits a dominant chord perfectly.

What about the other scales? (The special cases)

There's no way around this (yet as far as I'm aware), use them when you feel that you should. Just like learning TSDs in Tetris, you won't know when to use them if you never use it, so make sure to keep them in mind when experimenting!

The "Outside" scales

These scales are typically used to introduce tension to a song.

Altered Scale

• Altered scale is said to "fit" a dominant chord, but only in the context of using the dominant to introduce tension. In reality it doesn't fit it by our usual definition.

Whole tone scale

• Fundamental chord: Augmented chord
• Augmented chords are already pretty dissonant. They will work surprisingly fine with major triads.
• If you are playing the whole tone scale, then there aren't any avoid notes. You can mash on your keyboard randomly with any button in the scale and it will still feel entirely coherent.
• Memorizing the whole tone scale is "easy". Just pick all the white keys in the first cluster (CDE), then pick all the black keys in the second cluster (FGAB), invert for other whole tone scale.

Diminished scale

• Fundamental chord: Fully diminished 7th chord.
• Interestingly you can still get a major chord somewhere in the scale for stability, so it's a lot less dissonant than you think.
• Memo tip 1: Diminished scale is any two of the three unique diminished chords put together. So if you already have good memory of full diminished chords, you can use those.
• Memo tip 2: It's easier to memorize WH using two minor scales of degree 1 to 4 put together, seperate by half tone.
  • So starting from Bb, pick up first 4 degree and we get..
    • Bb, C, Db, Eb
  • Then slap on another minor scale, one half tone above.
    • E, F#, G, A.
  • And you're done!
• Memo tip 3: For HW, it might be easier to split the notes into two clusters of [root (1), phrygian (b2) + minor/major combo (b3, 3).], separate by whole tone.
  • ie: 1, b2, (b3+3)
  • So starting from C, pick up first 4 degree and we get..
    • C, Db, (Eb, E)
  • Now move up a whole tone and repeat
    • F#, G, (A, A#)
• Memo tip 4: Because of this halved minor scale behaviour, we can easily guarantee that we are partially playing the diminished scale already by hitting the 4 white keys at the half note boundaries.
  • (D,E), (F,G), the boundary in thtis case is EF
  • (A,B), (C,D), the bundaryh in this case is BC

The other "core" scales

These scales aren't entirely dissonant and sometimes actually have whole songs revolving around them.

Harmonic Minor Scale

• Fundamental chord: MinMaj7
• An alternative option to the standard minor scale. It doesn't fit a standard min7. But it does fit a minmaj7, a chord that's used in spy flicks.
• It's not as dissonant as it sounds since we are already familliar with hearing the chord in spy action flicks.

Melodic Minor Scale

• Fundamental chord: MinMaj7
• Like a major scale except the third is flattened. Works surprisingly well with major scale in adding bluesiness.
  • To be fair that's literally what major blues is..
• Similar to the whole tone scale, you can mash the keyboard with all the melodic minor scale keys and it will sound fine...

Subtopic: 13th chord scales

• A 13th chord implies every note in a scale is used! It's easier to remember it as a scale and adjust accordingly.
• Here are some "commonly" used ones

Chord Symbol	Constructed scale
C △13	C Major scale
C △13 #11	C Lydian Scale
C 13	C Mixolydian

• Another way to think of 13ths is think of 9th as manor chord starting on 2nd.