The Logic Off Topic list

Uh-oh,

I'm afraid that this answer/thread could become a bit longer... maybe we
should take that to the L-OT if you want to go a bit more into the details.
I'm ccing anyways

<gi-meyer@...> wrote:
> I sample a LOT, loops, riffs, whatever. Mostly funk, rock, jazz. WHen
> performing live, we improvise on top of the loops and beats. For some
> reason, I have discovered that playing the following scale on top of
> loops (in the loop's key) works very well:
>
> C D D# F F# G A# C

Well, that's a common minor scale with some kinda obvious chromatic note
(the F#).
To clear a very basic thing right from the start, in western music's 7 tone
scales there's a common practise of not using ANY note-letter twice with the
exception of chromatics (there are some further exceptions but we might not
want to deal with them right now). It's also that usually EACH note-letter
in a kinda *full* 7-note scale is used once.
The above mentioned scale would originally dericve from some minor scale,
for a start let's say natural minor, that one would look like this:
C D Eb F G Ab Bb C (as you see, each letter is only used once).
The derivative pentatonic scale would then be:
C Eb F G Bb C
and the additional chromatic note would make it look like:
C Eb F F# (or Gb, just as you like, usually depending on scoring reasons) G
Bb C

You might complain that the D is missing here, but that's just not part of
the pentatonic scale

Btw (and that might be important to know before continuing this discussion)
there's a strong reason for only using each note-letter once.
Usually in analysis scales are explained/analysed stepwise, meaning that
EACH letter becomes an appropriate number. To demonstrate, a plain C major
scale woul look like that:
C - 1
D - 2
E - 3+ (as it's a major third, some people prefer 3j, but I prefer the +
sign for scale analysis)
F - 4
G - 5
A - 6
B - 7+ (+ for a major seventh this time)

Having said that, an A allways is some kinda 6th degree on any C scale, no
matter if it's major or minor, so the A# just doesn't meet the theory in
your above mentioned scale. I know that this is caused by Logic as Logic
allways gives the # first. But anyways I wanted to have the most obvious
things in terms of notenames cleared up before we continue with any
discussion

Now, the reason that this scale often fits your needs when improvising over
the above mentioned stuff might be that all of those styles (especially rock
and funk) prefer minor keys as their roots and the above mentioned
pentatonic scale is like an "allrounder" to fit these kinda chords.

> (Here the Logic part comes in; I use the environment to transpose and
> remap notes, to make sure I never hit a wrong note. I know, cheating,
> but thats what technology is for isnt it)

Eheh...

> But now I feel I have "used" up this scale. But I don't know where to
> go, I don't know WHY this particulary scale works so well on a lot of
> loops. It just does. What is typical jazz scales, what are good
> scales to improvise on top of?

The "goodness" of scales allways depends on the root chord and the amount of
chord progressions.
(Sidenote: IMO it depends way more on the improviser to make smart use of
phrasing, but well, that issue can't be covered theoretically too easily).

But ok, let's assume you had a lot of stuff where your minor scale allready
is doing a fine job.
For a start you could just try to "complete" the scale, that is using like a
full minor scale over your loops.
Most likely a so-called "dorian" minor scale (we might discuss the meaning
of that later on...) would do a good job for this.
That one over a C root would look like this:
C D Eb F G A Bb C
Now you might still add the F# as a chromatic passing note, but there's some
other interesting chromatic passing notes (vastely arranged in order of
"average" appearance): B, C#, E and G#
So the complete thing could look like:
C (C#) D Eb (E) F (F#) G (G#) A Bb (B) C

One very important thing is that for a start most likely you shouldn't use
those chromatic passing notes as target notes for your lines as they allways
cause some "need" to be resolved into one of their neigbour notes for ears
trained to listen to western music. It's especially true for the E as that
one would be the major third over a minor chord, most likely the most
clashing note in harmonic theory.
With the above mentioned scale that might also be true for the A, but that's
more up to your phrasing-wise interpretation of it.

As soon as you go the feeling that the A might not fit at all (not even as a
passing note when playing the scale without any chromatics) you might try
using an Ab, which would give you a C natural minor scale.

Hrm, I think this answer could go outta hand, I don't even know if you have
the slightest clue what I'm talking about... I should finish for now and
wait for your reactions...

> ps, I have no formal musical education. ok maybe thats the problem?

Just because of that.

Honestly, there's some books which explain chord-scale relationsships, you
should get one of those.
I don't know any proper ones that are internationally published, but I seem
to remember a reasonable one of Jerry Coker (piano based I think, personally
I'm a guitar player).

Oh, eventually a good idea comes to my mind... I think I will be hanging
around on the RocketNetwork servers this evening/night (CET that is), so you
could just download the latest RocketControl and join, might be a nice thing
to clear some of these things online (my current username up there is
SaschaBeta, you could do a search or mail me before). Of course everybody
else might join as well, maybe we could have an interesting discussion.

So far,
Sascha