bell notificationshomepageloginNewPostedit profiledmBox

Hoots : What scale is used with this descending bassline progression? I am trying to find which scale this chord progression (Cmin - GB - B? - FminA? - A? - E?B? - Bdim) is borrowed from. I think it doesn’t fit on - freshhoot.com

10% popularity   0 Reactions

What scale is used with this descending bassline progression?
I am trying to find which scale this chord progression (Cmin - GB - B? - FminA? - A? - E?B? - Bdim) is borrowed from.
I think it doesn’t fit on any scale because this progression uses modal interchange. I don’t know any better. Do you have any idea ?


Load Full (4)

Login to follow hoots

4 Comments

Sorted by latest first Latest Oldest Best

10% popularity   0 Reactions

This chord progression fits comfortably in C minor, sometimes including the ?VII (B?), and sometimes the leading tone (B?).

Cmin = C E? G
G/B = B? D G
Bb = B? D F
Fmin/Ab = A? C F
Ab = A? C E?
Eb/Bb = B? E? G
Bdim = B? D F

Extracting the unique pitches, we get
C D E? F G A? B? B? C
which is exactly C natural minor, plus the leading tone.


10% popularity   0 Reactions

You can call it 'modal interchange' if you like. But that sort of assumes that a progression SHOULD stick to one mode or scale, or that it's normal for it to do so, which just ain't so!
This comes pretty close to being in one scale though, if we lump the Natural and Harmonic variants of the C minor scale together.
As @ttw mentions, it implies a strong scalic bass line, always a good alternative to more functional reasons for what chord comes next.


10% popularity   0 Reactions

These chords all belong to melodic c-minor:
B? is the VII (?) of Cm melodic downward (identical with natural minor and the aeolian scale). The VII isn’t augmented.
C, B?, A?, G ... is the upper tetrachord downwards. G/B is the 1st inversion of the dominant chord containing the leading tone B.
The Roman numbers are:
i - V6 - VII - iv6 - VI - III64 - vii dim
The melodic minor scale has a “flat” seventh (vii natural) ... relative to E? major! and a sharp seventh “borrowed” from the major dominant G in respect to the leading tone B.


10% popularity   0 Reactions

This looks a lot like a descending bass progression. These progressions don't really fit some descriptions as the driving force is the descending bass line which holds things together. Your description has a bass of C-B-B?-A?-A?-E?-B. It looks similar to the "lament" bass (been around for centuries from pre-tonality to post-rock). An example would be taking C-B-B?-A-A?-G as a bass line and using Cm-G/B-B?-F/A-A?-E?/G for example for chords. Other possibilities with the same bass line are Cm-G/B-C7/B?-F/A-A?7-C/G-G. or the like.
Certain patterns involving strong bass lines or patterns involving harmonic sequences seem not to follow some "rules of progression" but they create their own regularity (which is what rules are anyway.)


Back to top Use Dark theme