Help me understand.......

[musicbishop]

How is it that you can play a song where the "1" is a minor chord but you use all the changes in a major scale?

[PianoClubhouse]

How is it that you can play a song where the "1" is a minor chord but you use all the changes in a major scale?

I think its just personal preference. Some cats use the minor scale and the respective number system for that scale. I personally use the major scale that is relative to the minor, which is what you are stating in your example. When using the number system, my mind processes much faster, pretty much instantly, when thinking in major keys.

[musicbishop]

I think its just personal preference. Some cats use the minor scale and the respective number system for that scale. I personally use the major scale that is relative to the minor, which is what you are stating in your example. When using the number system, my mind processes much faster, pretty much instantly, when thinking in major keys.

They're not actually using the relative major. they're using the major scale to that specific key with the minor for the "1".

Like Cm Is the "1" but the rest of the progression is based off of the CM scale.......

for example I was playing last night and the bass player asked the Keyboard player if we were in Gm. He basically said no we're in GM just churchy. But the "1" was a Gm chord.

At first I really didn't give this any attention until last night. I've seen it all the time but never really questioned it. I maybe confused or something but I'm just trying to get it explained......

[4hisglory]

Do you remember what the 'next' chord was?

[JMac31]

Please do give us more chords. But generally speaking even if your "1" chord is minor a lot of the same changes that work when the "1" chord is major still apply. For example the dominant fifth still resolves to the root weather major or minor (i.e. G7 --> Cmaj or G7 --> Cmin ). That being said if you want a ii-V-I progression the "proper" way to do it in a minor key is with a ii minor with a flat 5.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ii%E2%80%93V%E2%80%93I_progression#Minor_key

That being said these "proper" changes aren't always observed. You will see it various ways. I just started playing gospel. In the past I have played a lot of blues. When playing the blue you often make EVERY chord a dominant 7 and it works. A basic 12 bar blues looks like:

|E7|E7|E7|E7|A7|A7|E7|E7|B7|A7|E7|E7|

Now you can try making the "1" a minor and it has a different sound but the "same" changes still work:

|Em7|Em7|Em7|Em7|A7|A7|Em7|Em7|B7|A7|Em7|Em7|

Sorry for the long post, but I hope it is actually relevant to you. Otherwise sorry for wasting your time lol.

[musicbishop]

literally just simply playing Cm for the one but using the rest of the chords from a CM scale (Dm, Em, FM, GM, Am, B?)