A minor and add 11

[pan60]

Sounds like you’re in just a bit over your head.

Not a huge deal. You’ll want to get into something that’s sequenced. No sense getting into modes before you’re confident on key signatures of major and minor.

No shame in not being totally solid on the key signature stuff.

Go through this stuff:

musictheory.net - Lessons

Thats been the high school music theory teachers bread and butter for like fifteen years. Tried and true. Start at the beginning and refresh. Check out the exercises in the other sections.

Theory might not seem totally relevant all the time but it’s like deciding you want to work at an Italian restaurant and trying to learn all the kitchen and food related Italian terms without learning all the language. Possible to do, and you want to be practical, but also learning the grammar and the conversational stuff will be helpful.

And trying to learn music theory by learning to play is like trying to learn Italian by working in an Italian restaurant. Eventually you probably will, but language classes are cool too.

if it was a song and the F was marked as a natural I think I could see it as the relative but its not a song its a scale and chords are being built so its just throwing me why its marked as it is .
but I admit it is over my head and learning to play the guitar something I have made good money doing is not the end result for me getting better allways is but understanding music is my goal.
thanks all

[pamosmusic]

just feel like I am missing something and learning these few chords is not it?
thanks all.
pan

Practically speaking, playing a minor key in jazz probably means playing some melodic minor, maybe a smidge of harmonic minor, maybe some dorian mode, lots of common devices that don't fit cleanly into any of those categories.

Theoretically speaking, a minor key is a key signature and that's that.

So when you look at actual music -- especially jazz, but also most classical music -- minor keys do not fit cleanly into the minor key signature.

Take a few steps back, read that last post I put up there and check out the lessons I linked. Just fill in some of those blanks.

[pamosmusic]

if it was a song and the F was marked as a natural I think I could see it as the relative but its not a song its a scale and chords are being built so its just throwing me why its marked as it is .
but I admit it is over my head and learning to play the guitar something I have made good money doing is not the end result for me getting better allways is but understanding music is my goal.
thanks all

In a minor key, over the tonic minor chord, F# is far more common than F.

We would usually consider F to be a borrowed note and harmonize it with a diminished or passing chord or something. If the F is on a strong beat, the chord is probably not an Am at all, but an Fmaj7.

That's probably why he put the F# over the A, even though he's writing "in the key of A minor." It's just more common and more practical.

He's not harmonizing the key of A minor, he's putting all the useful melody notes over practical A minor shapes. That's a different task and it's going to give you different stuff.

[pan60]

so when you say

Theoretically speaking, a minor key is a key signature and that's that

is the miner signature that of relative as in the six?
A minor being the sixth of C?

so in the case of A minor he is using the F sharp and marking it on the staff?

[pamosmusic]

so when you say

is the miner signature that of relative as in the six?
A minor being the sixth of C?

so in the case of A minor he is using the F sharp and marking it on the staff?

Yeah, Am and C share the same key signature.

In practice, Am uses F, F#, G, and G# pretty commonly, so you'll see a lot of those, even though the sharps aren't in the key signature.

[pan60]

okay that is what I was looking for

thank you so very very much!!

I was seeing the F sharp and going to G maj but now I think I understand

thank you!!!!!!!!!!!

[Mick-7]

I guess because the F is a natural I am seeing as the dorian of Gb maj as opposed to the relative minor of B.
if the F is natural isnt it only six flats?

Yes, Abm7 (and Abm6) is the II chord in Gb major (Gb-Ab-Bb-Cb-Db-Eb-F). Cb has all flats (Cb-Db-Eb-Fb-Gb-Ab-Bb). We're in Gb, not F#, so it's an Abm7, not a G#m7 chord.

I was seeing the F sharp and going to G maj but now I think I understand

Truly, the author's inconsistencies are causing (or at least helping) your confusion, using a Gb major key signature, and then calling the 3rd of Abm 'B'. Using a C major key signature and then using the IIm7 & IIm6 chords from G major, etc.

[ragman1]

I feel now very ignorant I just cant see seven flats I Ab minor?
I see Ab, Bb, Db, Eb, & Gb
and I can see the B as C flat but the F is natural so isnt it Ab min the dorian of Gb maj?
I can see calling the F natural in the context of a song but the reference is laying out a scale and then building the chords?

I jusy cant see what is written as seven flats with the F natural

You're confused. Look it up somewhere. Ab minor key sig is

Bb Eb Ab Db Gb Cb Fb

That's seven. Even if the last two flats were written as B and E it would still be seven.

I can see the B as C flat but the F is natural

That's where you went wrong. The F is not natural, it's flat as in the key sig notation.

Ab min the dorian of Gb maj

The dorian mode of any key is a major scale a tone below the chord. C major is the dorian of the chord Dm. The dorian of the chord Gb is E major.

You're bothering with things that don't matter. Play something in F or D minor. Have some fun.

[pan60]

You're confused. Look it up somewhere. Ab minor key sig is

Bb Eb Ab Db Gb Cb Fb

That's seven. Even if the last two flats were written as B and E it would still be seven.



That's where you went wrong. The F is not natural, it's flat as in the key sig notation.

Attachment 122326

and if the scale showed those note there would have been any confusion

[ragman1]

Show me. Take a photo of it. Don't blame the book for your confusion. Let's see it.

[pan60]

The dorian mode of any key is a major scale a tone below the chord. C major is the dorian of the chord Dm. The dorian of the chord Gb is Eb major.

You're bothering with things that don't matter. Play something in F or D minor. Have some fun.

I understand what the degrees are and or modes I think maybe it just a scale degree but?
this is not me trying to learn to play some its about me trying to what what it is going

at any point I think I have the answer as to what was going on.
thanks pan

[ragman1]

at any point I think I have the answer as to what was going on.

Do you? Explain it to me.

[pan60]

Show me. Take a photo of it. Don't blame the book for your confusion. Let's see it.

I posted the attachment for the Ab showing the notes bout the chords I beleave the Ab was post seven
the scale is in my mind clearly the dorian or second degree of Gbmaj make the notes those of of Gbmaj but as mentioned the Abmin is named for it place as the relative so I am good with that
I do understand the B is a Cb and the E would be a Fb but there is no Fb in that scale it is F

[ragman1]

Take a photo. Let's see it very clearly so there's no doubt.

I keep repeating it, pan, there's no future in messing with this stuff. The only theory you have to know is that different keys have different key signatures, sharps or flats. And the music is written in accordance with that. Any temporary deviations are notated in the score.

That's all. The rest is academic brain damage and not worth it.

[pan60]

its posted on post seven of this thread.
but it s the same thing on my first post show no sharps or flats in the key singenture but show F# in the scale

[ragman1]

OK, you mean this.


You're saying the key sig is Ab minor but the note name above says F, not Fb. Is that it?

But that note has a natural sign on it which corrects the key sig.

[pan60]

yes and I now understand it
as others mention

I was unclear as to why it wouldnt have been marked as Gb but I now know its because Abmin is the relative of Bmaj and shares its key sign

at least I think I have it

[ragman1]

B major is a sharp key so it would be called G#m, not Abm.

[pan60]

B major is a sharp key so it would be called G#m, not Abm.

so where is the Abm come from?

[ragman1]

Exactly!

That's why I said right from the start you need a better book. I doubt very much if Frank Vignola, bless him, had much to do with it.

[ragman1]

Look, I'll tell you something. If it wasn't for the theory (which is much more complex than this here) we wouldn't have all the music we know.

But what's the point of all this theory if no one plays any music? So theory is necessary but the music is more important. Play music and definitely have an understanding of it but don't turn theory into something for its own sake divorced from actual music.

That way it becomes nothing more than intellectual amusement, which it is not supposed to be. So, as I say, forget the confusion of a million flats, play something nice in F which has one flat and understand that. And then go on from there. Much more intelligent.

[pan60]

I dont think he intended his charts to be part of a subject of theory
and obviously my knowledge of theory is very limited
as such so is my skill in try to get a question asked properly.

there no substitute for a qualified intructor somthing I should have had any moons back.

but at the end of the day it has become my mission to better understand the theory nd learn to read so forward I strugle

[Mick-7]

I don't think he intended his charts to be part of a subject of theory and obviously my knowledge of theory is very limited
as such so is my skill in try to get a question asked properly.

Pan, ignore ragman, he's just being a curmudgeon.

The fact is, the author wrote key signatures and then ignored them in his examples. The minor 7th (and minor 6th) chord is usually the II chord in a key, thus a "dorian mode" chord. The exception is the min^7 chord, e.g., Am^7 = A-C-E-G#, which is the I chord in A minor (along with Am6).

[ragman1]

but at the end of the day it has become my mission to better understand the theory nd learn to read so forward I strugle

Which means you're not listening to word anybody says and you're going to carry on just as you are.

Then why are you here?

[rpjazzguitar]

My view may be seen as excessively antitheory.

That said, somebody who needs something called "Abm Chord Reference Guide" perhaps does not yet need to be thinking about 7 flats -- which you will almost never see in daily musical life. That music will probably be written in 5 sharps.

Another point is that you don't have to be in whatever key 7 flats might be, to have an Abm, even in major scale harmony.

One more point. The chart labels a note B natural. Why include 7 flats if you're not going to call a Cb a Cb?

And, while I know people who will complain about a chart that has an F# where it should theoretically be a Gb -- none of them are going to play the wrong note because of that difference.