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Cool Chord Progressions
Now I am going to show you a few cool chord progressions. Play each chord for 4 beats, or 8, or your choice. I am showing most of them to you as barred chord forms first because I’m hinting that barring is essential for you to know how to do. And then I’m showing you the non-barred forms of them that I showed you above, since these might be easier for you at first.
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E D E D
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What scale would you use to make up riffs to play with this chord progression?
Well, E and D do not exist together in any key except the key of A (they are the V and the IV chords in the key of A). Therefore the A Major scale would be the correct one. --HOWEVER, since millions of rock and blues players since the 50’s (or 20’s) have “improperly” used either the E Major or the E minor ( =G Major) scale to play with this progression, our ears have gotten used to hearing these “wrong” scales with this chord progression, and so I can safely say that either of these scales will work also.
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5
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What scale should I play with this? Well, since all 3 of these chords are in the key of C (the VI, V and IV chords), and the key of this progression is therefore C (even though the tonic chord C isn’t part of the progression!), then you would use the C Major scale. And you know how to play the C Major scale- just play the scale that you know, with the index finger on the 5th fret.
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1
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What scale should I play with this? Well, this chord progression isn’t exactly in any one key, because the chords E major and F major are not both in any one key. But if you’ll play the C Major scale (your scale on the 5th fret), it will be very, very close and cool.
Now I’m going to get crazy for a minute. Instead of playing F with that barre, try just moving that E formation up one fret, but NOT barring those open strings. Just keep playing the strings open while you’re playing the E formation one fret up like this. You’ll get a chord that isn’t exactly F, but is a cool sounding substitute.- FM7 b5.
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What scale to play? Well, oddly, E and A both occur in the key of E (as the I and the IV), and they also both occur in the key of A (as the I and the V). So you could play either the E major scale, or the A major scale, depending on whether you wanted E to sound like the tonic (main) chord or A to sound like the tonic chord. If you play this progression starting with E instead of A, it will probably sound like E is the main chord, in which case try the E major scale. (your scale on the 9th fret).
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