My Mind's Boggled - Please Help

W

wescloxmusic

New member
I don't know much about music theory, period. I play by ear. I've come across one of the most unusual problems I have ever experienced (I've been at it 14 years). In my song, I use bar minor 7th's along with majors and adding notes to a chord here an there (think throw in the pinky finger). The main riff is a Bm7 C#m7 D#m7 then back to C#m7 add a pinky on the high B (11th?). So I would assume playing the bass would go something like B C# D# C# (like any other song would). That only works sometimes. Other times, it sounds out of tune. My bass is fine. Intonation set correctly, in tune, yada yada. The same goes for the guitar. What is going on here? I can get away with choosing a new bass riff with higher notes and funky patterns, but I couldn't help but think maybe I've stumbled on something important. Theory buffs, please help me out here. Thanks in advance, Wes.
 
Any chance of hearing that? Is the tonal centre B or C#? IE: does the Bm7 chord lead into the C#minor chord? Sounds like a 'parallel' chord progression.
 
I made a mistake in naming the first chord. It's actually a B major 7, not minor. Sorry about that. But I hear a common note to the progression in the guitar riff and the lower octave notes on the bass seem to go out of tune when I play them along with the guitar unless I run up the scale. I'll check out about parallel progressions though. Thanks. As far as tonal center, I'm really not sure (probably B, since the high B is thrown on the end and fits perfectly. I like how it changes the chord to seem like something completely different). The progression is B7 to C#m7 to D#m7 to C#m7 add the high B (11th?).
 
Last edited:
wescloxmusic said:
I made a mistake in naming the first chord. It's actually a B major 7, not minor. Sorry about that. But I hear a common note to the progression in the guitar riff and the lower octave notes on the bass seem to go out of tune when I play them along with the guitar unless I run up the scale. I'll check out about parallel progressions though. Thanks. As far as tonal center, I'm really not sure (probably B, since the high B is thrown on the end and fits perfectly. I like how it changes the chord to seem like something completely different). The progression is B7 to C#m7 to D#m7 to C#m7 add the high B (11th?).
Click to expand...


OK, just a quick check before I get into a full blown answer - in one part of your response quoted you name the chord as B major 7 yet when you do out the progression you write it as B7? Which is it? BMaj7 (B-D#-F#-A#) or B7 (B-D#-F#-A)?? makes all the difference in the world.

Could you also do out internet guitar boxes for each of the chords as your statement about throwing in the high B (11th?), is confusing at best : i.e. a G barre chord is


3rd fret
+-+-+-+-+-+
o | | | o o
+-+-+-+-+-+
| | | o | |
+-+-+-+-+-+
| o o | | |
+-+-+-+-+-+


use courier as the font surrounding the text like so


[FONT="Courier New"]
3rd fret
+-+-+-+-+-+
o | | | o o
+-+-+-+-+-+
| | | o | |
+-+-+-+-+-+
| o o | | |
+-+-+-+-+-+
[/FONT]
 
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