If we take all the white notes except for B♭ and we go up in 2nds, starting and finishing on the C (C D E F G A B♭), then we have C Mixolydian (or F major but starting and finishing on the C) and.If we take all the white notes again, but we go up in 3rds, then we have the CMaj13 (C E G B D F A) (ignore the fact that the ♮11 is not an available tension for the moment).If we take all the white notes and we go up in 2nds (or in steps), then we have the C major scale (C D E F G A B) and.A chord is a vertical representation of that same collection of notes and is built in 3rds.A scale is a horizontal representation of a particular collection of notes and is built up in 2nds.Of course, there are many different scales you can use over a single chord, but we will get to that soon enough. So technically, when improvising, every time a we change chords we also change scales. Every single chord in a progression is allocated a particular scale which can be used to improvise over that particular chord. This is the basis of and the idea behind the Chord-Scale System. In Jazz, this is a very convenient way of thinking, as we will see in a moment. Using modes allows us to allocate an individual mode/scale (I will use the two words interchangeably) to every single chord in a progression. Modes are just a different way of thinking about scales and keys. So, a mode is a scale created by establishing a new root note within a pre-existing scale. If you keep all the notes of a scale the same but change the tonal centre, you create a new scale or mode. Scales can have fewer or more notes (all the way up to the Chromatic Scale with 12 notes).

The (diatonic) Major Scale has 7 notes, but there’s no reason to restrict ourselves to only 7 notes. But first, let’s have a quick refresher.Ī scale is simply some subset of the 12 notes of an octave, and have two components: In this lesson we will learn how chords and scales are related through the Chord-Scale System and discover that chords and scales are actually the same thing.

In the last module we learned all about Jazz Chords. We discussed 7th chords, and how to add tension (9th, 11th, & 13th) to create 13th chords.

Organ note c