I have a chord progression E minor> C major > G major I want my guitar strumming the Eminor, Cmajor,Gmajor progression
But I bought Scalar in the understanding it could help me compose piano chords to go over the top of this, for instance, I thought Scalar 2 could suggest piano chords to go on top of the E minor guitar chord. I don’t now what chord, I thought Scalar would suggest.
I have Logic Pro 11, I want to do the chord track, but I wanted to add colour n movement to the progression. So like suggest alternative piano chords to go over the top of my Basic Em,C,G progression, to add feel and colour. My music theory knowledge is limited but I am sure I can do this, how do I get help from Scalar to do this. I put my Em,C,G progression in the boxes down the bottom, and used the suggest button, but I don’t think that is what it does, I am missing something, any suggestions
Hi @DaveW welcome to the forum. As far as suggesting piano chords to accompany your guitar chords, I think it is generally assumed that the piano will play the same chords as the guitar. So in your case, both the guitar and piano would play E minor, C major, G major.
Scaler 2 can certainly help you find more colourful or interesting variations of these chords, as opposed to completely different chords.
For example, all the chords in your progression are diatonic with regards to the E minor scale (this is something Scaler’s detect mode can help you discover), in other words they all consist of notes from the E minor scale. With the E minor scale selected, you should see all of the chords from your progression appear in Section B, as part of E minor’s diatonic chords. You can then use the various menus above like Shape and Voicing to help you find variations of these chords e.g. Em7, or just a more interestingly voiced Em chord.
The Suggest button you mention before is more useful for helping you find additional chords to continue your chord progression, if you want to extend past 3 chords for example.
Hi Tristan, thanks for the response, yes it’s my first post and know very little about Music Theory, thanks!
Okay thats great, I will use the basic chords and follow guitar, When you say “shape” what do you mean?
I am trying to use Scalar 2 to write chords into Logic Chord track to use with the session player piano, the inversions, don’t seem to work nor the different voicing, is this right or am I missing something
Hi @DaveW the left menu above Section B is known as the Shape menu. It defaults to ‘TRIADS’ where each chord is a basic three note triad, but can be used to add extensions and change a C maj chord for example into C maj7 chord.
Regarding Logic’s Chord Tracks, there are many Scaler 2/Logic users here so perhaps someone can correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m guessing Logic is identifying chords from Scaler ignoring and voicing/inversions and handling that itself. So you may need to make those adjustment in Logic rather than Scaler.
Davide actually made a video earlier this year about using Scaler 2 with Logic’s Chord Tracks so maybe have a look at that for some tips. There are also a few forum threads regarding this so have a search for them, but you’re welcome to create a new post about this if you need more help.
