Grateful Dead Music Forum

I am trying to figure out what scale to use for soloing over a song of mine that has the chords C#m and G#m played one after another for a while. I have tried jamming it in E mixo, which I thought would have worked (albeit the d note which i skip when playing in E on this tune) since the chords are in the key of E, but it doesn't sound right to me. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

the key of E major would be the right one though depending on how rapidly the changes are you could get away with other options. Centering around the C# minor scale or the G# phrygian (still all key of E). If the changes are slower you could find two or more scales and bounce around between them. I like the Dorian/Lydian scales. Though really the modes to me are more about the key signature than the positions they are played in.

Try C# dorian. Both the minor chords you are playing are in the key of B major.

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

D# harmonic minor, then G# harmonic minor.

Mk

tcsned wrote:the key of E major would be the right one though depending on how rapidly the changes are you could get away with other options. Centering around the C# minor scale or the G# phrygian (still all key of E). If the changes are slower you could find two or more scales and bounce around between them. I like the Dorian/Lydian scales. Though really the modes to me are more about the key signature than the positions they are played in.

The progression is slow enough to the point that I could switch back between different scales. Also, it is still a song in the works, and I might elongate the progression even more to get more out of it, as this is meant to the jam part of the song. Thank you for your suggestions!

mkaufman wrote:D# harmonic minor, then G# harmonic minor.

Mk

Grateful Dad wrote:Try C# dorian. Both the minor chords you are playing are in the key of B major.

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

I'll try em out, thanks!

hum out the melody and try to find that on the neck, then see if you've already picked a scale. if it happens that the melody all lies on a particular scale, then bingo... if not, try to look at which notes of the melody are hitting on which chords of your progression to see if it is mostly falling on root notes of the chords in the progression. if that's the case you can try and play a little modally (is that a word?).

since you can already play your own melody than you are already sitting on the answer!