Hobby beginner musician. No music theory.
I have a guitar chord progression:
D Maj [5Fret]
E Maj [7Fret]
G Maj [3Fret]
A Maj [5Fret]
E Maj [1Fret]
E7(sus2) [7Fret]
Sounds ok to my ear.
But Scaler is telling me that the G Maj doesn’t belong to the detected modes/scales:
D Lyd, E mix, A Maj, F# Min, G# Loc, B Dor, C# Phry
The alternative chords suggested, such as F# Min or G# dim, don’t sound right at all.
So basically, I don’t know what’s wrong with the G Maj, or how to fix it?
Nothing is wrong with G Major, just use it. There’s only one rule to music in the end. If it sounds right it is right.
Nothing is ever wrong in music. When I worked at composition houses in London I would always have experienced composers come in and tell me what was right but as per your example nothing is ever wrong. Select your scale in scaler and go to the Modulation Page and Select the Modal Interchange preset.
In A Major for example you would simple be borrowing the G Major from the minor mode (borrowed chord) hence Modal Mixture / Interchange. Could be argued that you are using the parallel minor or chromatic mediant but thats all a bit fancy. What you are doing is using your ear to judge what sounds right. Scaler is designed to support that creativity! Hope that helps.
Thanks for the reply and screenshot.
Just to clarify before I go on, Scaler2 is amazing, and my problem/confusion is solely due to my own ignorance. I’m one of these guitarists who have learnt to play by ear and shapes, and I actually have no idea about the notes on the fretboard or the name of the chords I play.
So, my particular confusion with the progression I posted, is that the G Maj was not a suggested chord - it’s like Scaler was trying to protect me from using a chord that couldn’t possibly work well with the rest of the chords in the sequence. But at the same time, the G Maj sounds much better than many of the suggested chords, even the blue ones.
And given that, I still don’t understand why the G Maj is dark grey. I thought the colouring indicated how ‘far away’ a chord was from the current scale, and therefore indicated that it was less likely to ‘work’ in the sequence?
What is it that makes the G Maj dark grey in this case? And why does it still sound better than many of the blue suggested chords?
Thanks.
The greys on the chord boxes are simply telling you that the chords feature notes outside your selected scale. The darker chords have more notes outside the scale. Like all music theory this is just a guide. I would suggest don’t worry, theory is theory. Scaler is good at not forcing you to do anything but just letting you know how theorists would approach things or - how to work with modern western music theory!
PS - we all love grey chord boxes!
