I’m preparing for the Trinity Rock and Pop Guitar exam, and plan to do the Improvising option. I have the Trinity Sessions skills book and for initial and grade 1 it all seemed straight forward.
At grade 2 I’m finding chord progressions such as
Dm G Em A
bpm 100
Style: country
I found some information on the internet about working out the key, some of which was contradictory. The most useful information I could find was on the guitar-chords web site, and from this I worked out it was in the key of Dm Melodic minor. My guitar teacher pointed out the thing about using the natural scale going down, and it didn’t make sense how notes over a chord progression would be different going up or down
This led to me buying your book Guitar Theory which has been very helpful, and I now understand there isn’t a right or wrong answer to this
I’ve tried various things, including playing over the chord progression using the Dm melodic scale, using the pentatonic scales of Dm G Em and A over each chord, I also tried just playing around on the fretboard to see if I could find any patterns that sounded right and came across the C major scale but found myself playing a C# over the A chord
The format of the exam is that you are given a sheet with the chord progression (4 chords, 1 chord per bar, 4 bars that repeats 4 get a short time to look at It, then you get to practice over the chord progression once, and then the second time you are assessed
My question is: in the short time available in the exam should I be working out the key as I have done here (memorising the pattern of chord types I-VII for major, minor, minor harmonic and minor melodic), playing arpeggios, chords, pentatonic scales etc.
i know the answer is probably any of the above, but it would be great to have some feedback as to whether I’m going along the right lines, or whether there is a ‘best’ approach especially in the exam situation?
This is very difficult to answer because as you’ve already figured out, there are lots of possibilities. First and foremost I don’t know anything about the Trinity method but you should not have any need to think beyond what you have been taught so far. If they haven’t yet discussed melodic minor then I wouldn’t go that route.
Melodic minor isn’t a very popular choice in rock, pop and country. Of course it can be used but at grade 2 I can’t imagine this would be the way to go.
All theory aside, other than the most proficient musician, many of us (myself included) might think very differently when given a very short time to listen and analyse. It’s only afterwards that we might think “oh yeah, I could have done this” or sometimes even “duh, how did I not realise that!”
The chords in this progression all belong to D melodic minor. It doesn’t necessarily mean it will sound right in a country solo because we typically expect to hear major scales, pentatonics, maybe sixths intervals etc. If it’s a slow ballad style then we might expect more melodic phrasing and chord tones with a few bends and slides. Not a rule, just kind of typical to this style. When thrown in at the deep end we don’t always have time to think so we go with “typical” and “safe”.
When I look at this chord progression, I see a few things. The first thing I notice is if the A major was A minor then the whole thing would belong to the key signature of C major. This means the only note outside of C major is the C# in the A chord, as you’ve already figured out. There is no C chord, it ends on a V-i (A to Dm) so the home key is probably D minor.
This would lead me to think D Dorian with a C# to watch out for when the A chord is playing. You could then perhaps switch to D melodic minor over the A chord.
Another thing I see here is to sets of ii-V. In other words think of a ii-V-I. This is a very common progression. In the key of C major it would be Dm, G, C and often played as Dm, G7, CM7.
So I might think C major (D dorian) over the first two chords and then shift up a whole tone for the next two chords to D major (E Dorian). To keep that simple you could try playing D minor pentatonic over the first two chords and E minor pentatonic over the next two.
Another option would be to try pentatonics over each chord, as you’ve already said, i.e., Dm pentatonic, G major pentatonic, Em Pentatonic, A major pentatonic.
Sometimes these things work and sometimes they don’t. The only guide is your ear. It’s really not worth trying to think too formulaic as to why sometimes things work and sometimes they don’t.
Now for the reality of what I would do faced with this situation. I’d look at the chord progression, very quickly figure out it was probably going to be a home key of Dm. I know it’s supposed to have a country feel so I’d go straight for Dm pentatonic, use my ears to guide me and watch out for the C over the A. The easiest way to deal with this when you have no time to think is to go all out Dm penatonic over the first three chords using your ear as a guide and then just target chord tones over the A. I’d probably also be thinking about chord tones over every chord change but at grade 2 I can’t imagine you would be expected to think too much about that unless you’ve been given a lot of practice time and preparation.
All of this is just my way of thinking. Others would probably come up with all sorts of other ideas. Either way, I think if you stay mostly around the Dm pentatonic, as long as you are not hitting loads of clashing notes, you should be fine. Hope this helps.
