Mean Notes and Scales: A blog teaching users on how to build their own chord progressions using the major scale and popular modes.
Mean Notes and Scales is a blog aimed at new music producers wanting to learn about chords and how to build their own chord progressions using the major scale and popular modes.
The author of Mean Notes and Scales goes by the name “Gravy” which is his DJ name. He has been producing electronic music for over 5 years now and is currently studying a degree in Music Production.
This blog was created in order to share Gravy’s knowledge of chords with other music producers, as he noticed that there wasn’t much information on the internet that explained chords in a way that was easy to understand.
MEAN NOTES AND SCALES: A BLOG TEACHING USERS ON HOW TO BUILD THEIR OWN CHORD PROGRESSIONS USING THE MAJOR SCALE AND POPULAR MODES.
My name is Kevin and I am an electronic music producer and DJ from the Netherlands. I have been producing for almost 10 years and have learned a lot about making chord progressions in that time. In this blog, I will be teaching you how to build your own chord progressions using the major scale and popular modes.
After listening to some of my favorite songs, I realized that many of them had similar chord progressions. This inspired me to create a blog where people could learn the basics of building their own chord progressions using these common patterns.
Mean Notes and Scales is a blog and YouTube channel written and produced by Mark Meronek. The main focus of the blog is to teach users on how to build their own chord progressions using the major scale and popular modes such as the Lydian mode, Dorian mode and Mixolydian Mode. The blogs are usually short, easy to follow, and include a video linked from YouTube. The videos provide clear instructions on how to play chords, scales, and chord progressions.
The author of Mean Notes and Scales is an electronic music producer who has been producing music since 2012 under various aliases. He has released tracks on various labels such as Potobolo Records, Cr2 Records, Big Fish Recordings, Digital Empire Records, and more. He has collaborated with artists such as Mr. Sam (Magik Muzik), D-Unity (Unity Records), and Peter Brown (Cr2 Records). His music can be heard in countries all over the world including Belgium, Germany, France, Spain, Netherlands, Italy and more.
He started his career producing Dubstep under the alias “The Nodfather” from 2011-2013. He would go on to start making House Music (Elektroshock) in 2014 until present day.
The purpose of this blog is to teach you the formulas for all of the popular chord progressions in modern music so that you can form your own unique progressions and add some spice to your tracks.
Learning this information will also help you learn how to use a scale/key as a reference for writing chord progressions. The scale is the most important tool for any producer.
The Major Scale:
The first thing we are going to look at is the major scale. This scale is probably one of the most widely used scales in modern music. A lot of the chords and progressions you hear in pop, rock, and hip hop songs are derived from this particular scale.
The formula for a major scale: WWHWWWH (W=whole step, H=half step)
In the key of C major this would be: C D E F G A B C
The W’s represent whole steps, which is two half steps or one full step on your keyboard. The H’s represent half steps, which is one key on your keyboard.
I’m going to show you how to build your own chord progressions for your tracks.
Chord progressions are the patterns that your chords move through. Most of the time, these progressions are made up of triads.
Triads are three note chords built by stacking notes from a scale on top of each other in intervals of thirds.
Here is an example of a triad built from the major scale:
C Major Scale: C D E F G A B
C Major Triad: C E G (C is root, E is a major third, G is a perfect fifth)
The distance between each note is called an interval and every interval has a different sound. The two most important intervals in harmony are the major third and the perfect fifth because they define whether a chord sounds major or minor.
When it comes to chords, the most important thing to know is that there are only seven notes. I’m not counting the sharps and flats, because they don’t add anything new; they’re just alternate ways of playing the same notes. In practice, this means you will be using a maximum of three or four different pitches per chord; in fact, you can use any combination from zero (a “rest”) up through all seven notes at once as your chord.
Think of a chord as a single sound. It’s like a word that means something specific when you say it alone, but can also be used as part of a sentence. (For example: “I feel good about myself.”) When two or more chords are played in sequence, the resulting progression conveys a certain idea or emotion to the listener, much like how your words convey meaning to someone who hears them.
Chords come in three types: major, minor and 7th type chords. You can make these by adding one note at a time to an open string on your guitar (starting with E). Each note has its own pattern that repeats every seven frets on the fretboard. Major chords tend to be
The major scale is one of the most important scales in western music. It is the basis for many popular scales and modes, including the Lydian, Mixolydian and Ionian scales. The major scale is also used to construct chords (see my post on chord construction).
A great thing about the major scale is that it is easy to represent visually on a piano keyboard. This makes it an ideal starting point for people who want to start writing their own music. In this post, I will show you how to play the major scale over 3 octaves on a piano keyboard as well as how to build chords from it.
The Major Scale in C