# Scale/key with both D# and B major?



## Winspear (Jul 18, 2012)

I'm writing a piece which does indeed have a lot of chromatics, but the first two chords are a simple D# major and B major triads. They voice lead into each other very nicely with just the 5th being sharpened and the 3rd flattened, to create a 3 5 1 inversion of B major. 
This small fragment sounds incredibly ordinary so I'm sure it would be in a normal scale or key. However I can't find one! Notes involved being D# G A# F# and B. D# is the root. Thanks!


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## Winspear (Jul 18, 2012)

Although it sounds very normal...Trying to fit a good sounding scale around those given notes by filling the gaps is indeed seeming impossible. Also just realised that that inversion of B major could also be a D#_ minor_ +5


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## Stealthdjentstic (Jul 18, 2012)

It is actually a b minor phrygian sextus.


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## Varcolac (Jul 18, 2012)

Play the first three chords of Pink Floyd's "Shine On, You Crazy Diamond." They sound gorgeous, but there's no way you'd fit them into the same key. Gm, F#, Bb. The only note they share is that Bb. Sometimes voice leading leads you in funny ways. Don't sweat it.


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## Winspear (Jul 18, 2012)

Stealthdjentstic said:


> It is actually a b minor phrygian sextus.










I actually managed to finish writing the whole progression just now and have screenshotted it here. This is a string part but the tab is tuned 7 string drop A but an octave higher 




It's accompanying a melody I wrote first - whenever I write a melody first it always comes out quite chromatic. I now realise this chord progression definitely doesn't fit any standard key and is chromatic as fuck! 

I'd like to know what theory is going on here - it works very well and I've heard similar things a lot. Really glad it seems I'm finally able to get down the kind of progressions I've had in my head for so long. Understanding of chords and voice leading is the shit!


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## Mr. Big Noodles (Jul 18, 2012)

Don't think scales. What you have going on here is called a chromatic mediant relationship: mediant meaning that there is a third between the two roots, and chromatic meaning that they don't occupy the same key. Chromatic mediants are same chord quality (Major & Major, or minor & minor), and doubly chromatic mediants are those with differing qualities (Major & minor, or minor and Major). It's a cool sound, for sure. As you noted, it works our pretty well because of the numerous common tones that such relationships often have.

My basic recommendation for this situation is to take care of chord tones first and then mess around with the in-betweens. You know, make sure you stick to D# Fx A# over the D#, and B D# F# over B, then decide whether you like the sound of E or E# more over the D#, and continue with G# or Gx, C# or Cx, that sort of thing. Then, when you get to the B chord, do the same thing: C or C#? E or E#? G or G#? Basically, you want to work from large to small - the thirds are already decided for you, so you have to decide between major and minor seconds between them. Otherwise, you can do something like this:

Yes - Starship Trooper - III. "Wurm"


The chords are G Eb C, all of which are mediant relationships and all of which contain a G. They're treating it like a blues in G, since the progression starts there and eventually ends up there. Also, G and C are in the same key, and Eb is the only outlier.

I recently ran into some subtle use of mediant relationships while I was transcribing this song for my band:

Van Der Graaf Generator - The Sleepwalkers


Skip to 4:08.






Obviously, there's no violin on the track, I arranged violin parts so that we can play it live. No matter. Direct your attention to measure 107. The chord there is C. In 108, the beginning is also C, then the last three eighth notes are a short B chord (although we hear it more as a passing sonority), which is V in E major. At 109, we've arrived at E major. That continues for the next two bars, and all of the material there is from E major. Notice that the last bar in the vocal part and the last four eighth notes in the keyboard and bass part do the same V of the upcoming key as before, though the first chord hasn't ended.






111 is D, so no mediant there. However, in 112, the vocal part sings an E major triad, and if this were normal harmony the E in 113 would be the root of the chord. Instead, the harmony for 113 is C#m. E to C#m is a mediant relationship (diatonic in the key of E major, but still). Then, at the end of 114, the guitar plays a descending C#m arpeggio, and that last E becomes part of the Am in 115. C# to Am is another mediant relationship. They're really highlighting the common tones here by beginning an arpeggio in one measure and having it rest on the common tone at the start of the new chord.

And just because the next part is weird, here are the next couple of measures after:






Quartal harmony, son.


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## stuglue (Jul 18, 2012)

Non diatonic chords are what makes music interesting and it gives you the opportunity to experimental with different sounds.
For simplicity I'd see this progression as Eb major to B major.
In terms of voice leading I'd write it like this
Eb,G,Bb to D#, F#, B so you can see that you've got semi tonal movement from the G down toF# and from the fifth Bb up to the root B.
In terms of sounds over the top, well they are both major so ooff top of my head you've got
Ionian
Lydian
Mixolydian
Phrygian dominant
you could try Eb major then E harmonic minor. Ideally target the major thirds for the string notes. I guess listen and see what your ear likes is


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## failshredder (Jul 18, 2012)

I saw this thread, yelled to myself, "CHROMATIC MEDIANT RELATIONSHIP OH MAN I'M GOING TO INB4 WHORE TODAY" and then was sad/happy that he beat me to it.


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## Bakerman (Jul 18, 2012)

SchecterWhore said:


> Van Der Graaf Generator - The Sleepwalkers
> Skip to 4:08.
> 
> In 108, the beginning is also C, then the last three eighth notes are a short B chord (although we hear it more as a passing sonority)



I don't think it's what you have there, sounds like more C major. 3 sax parts at that point:








SchecterWhore said:


> And just because the next part is weird, here are the next couple of measures after:
> 
> Quartal harmony, son.



It's not that, it's mostly Bsus4 and Asus4. Seems kind of random at the end of each but it's always like this through the top note:


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## Varcolac (Jul 18, 2012)

I didn't know that whole chromatic mediant name. I learnt something today!

Now, what the hell kind of relationship is between the first two chords in "Shine On..."? F# to Bb is a chromatic mediant, but what the damn diddly bongo is Gm to F# asides from awesome?


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## Winspear (Jul 18, 2012)

Thanks very much! Going to take a long time to digest all that for sure haha. Theory is absolutely insane.


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## Mr. Big Noodles (Jul 18, 2012)

Bakerman said:


> I don't think it's what you have there, sounds like more C major. 3 sax parts at that point:



Yeah, there are mistakes all over the place; I only got the score done a few days back and haven't had the time to go through it (35 freakin' pages!). Also, we can only afford one sax player, hence the violin doing harmony. The guy on that record, however, is known to play two at the same time.



> It's not that, it's mostly Bsus4 and Asus4. Seems kind of random at the end of each but it's always like this through the top note:


Holy shit, why did I put 5?  The notes are according to my vocalist, as we were trying to churn this thing out, but that rhythm is all my bad. Anyway, thanks for picking up on that.

Edit: Wait, no, it's 9/8. Although, they seem to be loose with the tempo some of the time.



Varcolac said:


> I didn't know that whole chromatic mediant name. I learnt something today!
> 
> Now, what the hell kind of relationship is between the first two chords in "Shine On..."? F# to Bb is a chromatic mediant, but what the damn diddly bongo is Gm to F# asides from awesome?



Just chromaticism. There's a common tone relationship on Bb. You could also think of it as a chromatic mediant (Gb Bb) with a substitution (Gm for Bb), since Gm and Bb contain two of the same notes.


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## Varcolac (Jul 18, 2012)

SchecterWhore said:


> Just chromaticism. There's a common tone relationship on Bb. You could also think of it as a chromatic mediant (Gb Bb) with a substitution (Gm for Bb), since Gm and Bb contain two of the same notes.



So, the relative minor (Gm) of the chromatic mediant (Bb) of F# major, or am I over-thinking that?

Edit: or of Gb major, but I'd rather mix flats and sharps than end up with both a G flat and a G natural in the same phrase. Not sure what best practice is for naming chords in silly chromaticism.


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## Mr. Big Noodles (Jul 18, 2012)

Varcolac said:


> So, the relative minor (Gm) of the chromatic mediant (Bb) of F# major, or am I over-thinking that?



Sort of. "The chromatic mediant" doesn't mean anything. These are all mediant relationships to an F# triad: D, Dm, D#, D#m, A, Am, A#, A#m. Some of them are diatonic, some are chromatic. While you're on the right track, I don't think that it is accurate to describe it in relative major/minor terminology. Actually, I don't know if there is a concise word that adequately describes what's happening. We look at the music, one chord has Bb D F, and the other has G Bb D - they have two notes in common, so I'll bet that they would substitute for each other nicely. There's no shorthand for that, it is what it is. If you wanted to be obnoxious, you could say that Gm in the context of Gb (I'm using this so that we don't have to deal with the enharmonicism of Bb and A#) is a mediant relationship of a mediant relationship. That's confusing, though. Call it a common tone substitution or something.



> Edit: or of Gb major, but I'd rather mix flats and sharps than end up with both a G flat and a G natural in the same phrase. Not sure what best practice is for naming chords in silly chromaticism.


It really depends. When I look at music on paper and I see G Gb G&#9838; Gb G&#9838; Gb, I'll change the Gb to an F# so that I don't have to keep writing accidentals. You also don't want to write A (A C# E) Bb° (Bb Db Fb) because only one note is changing there and you don't want it to look like there is movement if there is no movement. Compare that to A (A C# E) A#° (A# C# E). Much cleaner. It's one of those things that is up to the discretion of the engraver.


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## ncfiala (Jul 18, 2012)

Varcolac said:


> So, the relative minor (Gm) of the chromatic mediant (Bb) of F# major, or am I over-thinking that?
> 
> Edit: or of Gb major, but I'd rather mix flats and sharps than end up with both a G flat and a G natural in the same phrase. Not sure what best practice is for naming chords in silly chromaticism.


 
Here's a really succint explanation paraphrased from wikipeda:

A *chromatic mediant relationship* is a relationship between two chords whose roots are related by a third, contain one common tone, or share the same quality, i.e. major or minor.

After reading the wikipedia article on this, it kind of sounds like putting a chord in between two chords in a progression that it has a chromatic mediant relationship with is the chord version of putting a passing tone between two notes in a scale. But then again, I have no clue what I'm talking about.


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## Winspear (Jul 19, 2012)

SchecterWhore said:


> My basic recommendation for this situation is to take care of chord tones first and then mess around with the in-betweens. You know, make sure you stick to D# Fx A# over the D#, and B D# F# over B, then decide whether you like the sound of E or E# more over the D#, and continue with G# or Gx, C# or Cx, that sort of thing. Then, when you get to the B chord, do the same thing: C or C#? E or E#? G or G#? Basically, you want to work from large to small - the thirds are already decided for you, so you have to decide between major and minor seconds between them. Otherwise, you can do something like this:



Can you expand on this? I'm not sure entirely what you're talking about. Writing melodies or what? For this the melody is what I wrote first. Not that that makes your advice invalid. Just want to know what you're telling me to do. Thanks again for the infinite wisdom!


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## Mr. Big Noodles (Jul 19, 2012)

What I'm saying is that you already have your chord tones. Those are decided. In this case, let's talk about F#, A#, and C#. As far as other notes go, you can still do some sort of G, some sort of B, some sort of D, and some sort of E. All of these should be a minor or major second away from an adjacent chord tone, and occasionally an augmented second if you want that sound. I decide this stuff by ear when all else fails. However, the above figure makes it look like I'm talking about scales. Whenever I have a harmonic situation that does not lend itself to scalar interpretation, this is more of what I'm thinking:






I might be working with a simple figure and have to decide whether I think the major second sounds correct, or the minor second.


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## Winspear (Jul 19, 2012)

Gotcha  Would you tend to use changing key sigs for stuff like this? As you can see in my screenshot the accidentals are a mess


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## Mr. Big Noodles (Jul 19, 2012)

Changing key signature? No. However, I would pick a key signature to begin with. Eb major (three flats) is preferable to D# major (theoretical key, eight sharps), or you could use B major (five sharps) if you heard that more as the tonic. In Eb, I would respell B as Cb, and in B, I would stick with D#.


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## Winspear (Jul 19, 2012)

Cool, Eb it is as that's most certainly the root


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## Mr. Big Noodles (Jul 19, 2012)

Root or tonic? They're different things: root refers to the note you name a chord after, tonic is the note you name a key or scale after.


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## Winspear (Jul 19, 2012)

Sorry I always say that - I did indeed mean tonic. This chord progression repeats once with the bass droning Eb, and then the bass plays the roots, beginning and resolving on Eb. I'm planning to record it tonight as a mixtest - I'll post a link in here also


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## Winspear (Jul 20, 2012)

Here we are http://www.sevenstring.org/forum/recording-studio/205133-classic-prog-epic.html#post3107880


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## anne (Jul 20, 2012)

Sounds very ptree!


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