Yes it’s a long title but I’ve been thinking a bit what I would really like Scaler to do. What I have come up with kind of turns Scaler’s current functioning on it’s head. This isn’t to detract any of Scaler’s really useful functions that it has developed over the years. Yes there are many really really good things about Scaler. However what I would really like Scaler to do is to be able to list the scales where a certain chord occurs. This happens to some degree in Modal modulations but is limited to a certain list like the modes of the Tonic. So for example I find a Gdim chord in a particular piece that I am trying to work out. For reference the piece that I am studying is a guitar piece by Dire Straits called ‘Private Investigations’. The piece is written in E minor but uses some modal interchange on the E Tonic note. Most notably the modal interchange is to the mode of E Phrygian but there is more in the piece used to a lesser extent. If I run a Modal Interchange on E minor it doesn’t turn up that Gdim chord. If I do the same for E maj I’m always getting a G#. So I would like to know how Knopfler came up with the G dim chord. Therefore, and this doesn’t just apply to this case it would be nice to know all the scales where a chord like the G dim occurs. I could use some of my limited knowledge and suggest it occurs as a vii chord in a major scale therefore it would be part of the G#/Ab major scale but there must be many more modes that it occurs in. Personally I dont’t get the impression that Mr Knopfler intended to modulate to Ab major so it must be some other mode or scale based on Tonic E that he was borrowing a chord from. It would therefore be handy to search Scaler via specified chords which would open up new scale possibilities.Tell me what you think. Is this feasible and would other users like to see this functionality in Scaler?
In this case I suspect that it may have been taken from/ borrowed from the F harmonic minor scale where dim chords also occur on the ii degree of the scale and the vii degree, but I had to do a lot of testing to reach this conclusion. It would be very useful if Scaler could do this function a great deal quicker than a manual method.
To find Gdim in various scales? The following steps may help:
- Press Detect
- Press Record
- Play the Gdim chord
- Check the resulting Detected Scales, especially the 3/3 ones, and also in the keys: G (or F##), Bb (or A#) and Db (or C#)
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Hey BorkVanBruggelm thanks for that. Such is the vastness of Scaler 2 that sometimes you just overlook what it is capable of. I don’t often use the DETECT and if I do I mainly use it for Audio detection so I never thought to use it in the way that you suggested. Yes that’s pretty cool and does work… What is also cool is that it also offers some pretty radical Modulations if you study it. It generates loads of ideas for moving to new Keys and new Modes. I feel pretty humble that I had overlooked this capability of the Scaler 2. Scaler is always throwing up something new to learn either a new approach or a new set of features to add to the ever growing list. Thanks again.