How to Solo Over 'Out-of-Key Chords' using Modes

[00:00:00]Hey guys, Brian Kelly here from Zombie Guitar. Here in today's video, I just want to talk about how to solo over borrowed chords. So, I have like seven examples I want to show you. And each of these examples is just a very simple basic chord progression. The examples are all very generic. So, this stuff can be applied to, you know, any genre of music you want. It doesn't matter. It can be applied to any instrument you want. But before I get into the examples, I just want to talk about a couple key points real quick. So, number one, what is a borrowed chord? So, a borrowed chord is just an out-of-key chord. It doesn't really serve any specific function or anything like that.

[00:00:34]Your key information can be found on the circle of fifths. All of the examples that I do here in this video are going to be in the key of C major and or the key of A minor. So, the chords that are found in that particular key, or at least the major or minor chords that are found in that particular key, can be found in the grouping of six on the circle of fifths. So, um any of these other chords could potentially be borrowed chords, all right? Um the thing about borrowed chords is you can't say for sure where exactly they're borrowed from.

[00:01:04]For example, let's say we're playing in the key of C major and a D major chord is thrown in there at some point, right?

[00:01:11]If that's an out-of-key chord, a D major chord is not part of the original key.

[00:01:14]It's not part of the key of C major or A minor. So, is that D major chord borrowed from the key of G major or is that D major chord borrowed from the key of D major or is that borrowed chord borrowed from the key of A major?

[00:01:29]We don't know. You can't say for sure where a chord is borrowed from. What you can say for sure is that it is an out-of-key chord and it doesn't really serve any particular function. It just it's out of key. It sounds cool. It adds interest to the chord progression. So, we're calling it a borrowed chord.

[00:01:45]That's all a borrowed chord is. Number two, don't get too hung up on naming conventions because that's going to confuse you. And there's going to be a bunch of different names for a particular scale that you're going to use over, you know, over a borrowed chord. So, let's say that you're soloing in a key and then this borrowed chord comes along and then in order to solo over that borrowed chord, you need to make one note adjustment from the original scale that you were playing over all of the in-key chords and then that one note adjustment results in a new scale, you know? That new scale may go by a couple different names. So, don't worry so much about what those different names are called or which one is the right answer or whatever. The important thing to understand is you changed one note. Why did you change that one note? What was the reason for changing that one note? Understanding that stuff is much more important than worrying about the specific name of the new scale that has been created by making the one note change. All right, so as we go through these examples, you're going to see what I'm talking about. So, that's the second thing. And then number three, when it comes to soloing over borrowed chords, there's always going to be more than one thing that you can do over that borrowed chord. The easiest thing to do is to just look at the notes that make up the borrowed chord, determine which of the notes in that chord are not part of the original key, and then just target those notes in your soloing. So, if you're soloing in the key of C major and all of the chords are part of the key of C major, then you're not going to be using any sharps and flats. You're only going to be using the C major scale over all the chords. Then this borrowed chord comes along and this borrowed chord has an F sharp in it. So, you just target the F sharp note in your C major playing over that one chord, you know?

[00:03:25]That's the easiest thing to do. You can also take another approach, which is slightly more complicated, which is the approach that we're going to be talking about here in today's video, where you play an entirely new scale over the borrowed chord. And the scale that we're going to be choosing is going to be the diatonic scale of the key that is most closely related to the original starting key that contains the borrowed chord.

[00:03:45]So, as we talked about already, every chord can potentially be found in three different keys. So, we're just going to choose the key that's the most closely related to the original starting key.

[00:03:55]The original starting key for all of the examples is going to be the key of C major {slash} A minor, so there's no sharps or flats. So, if a borrowed chord is found in three different keys, one of the keys contains two sharps, one of the other keys contains three sharps, one of the other keys contains four sharps, we're going to go with the one that's the most closely related to the original starting key. We're going to go with the one that contains two sharps.

[00:04:16]>> [snorts] >> You're going to see how this all plays out once we get to these examples. And then with the naming conventions thing, we're going to name it based on the mode that the chord represents in the key that it that we're saying that it's borrowed from, that requires you to have an understanding of modes, but again, don't get too hung up on the naming conventions. Just focus on the underlying theory of what's going on, which notes we're changing and why we're changing those notes. All right, so with that said, let's get into the examples.

[00:04:42]All right, example number one, we're starting out in the key of C major. It's a C major, G major, A minor, then a B flat major chord. All right, so that major chord could potentially be found in three different keys, but the most closely related key that the B major chord is found in is the key of F major.

[00:05:01]All right, so when it comes to soloing over this B flat major chord, we're going to use the B flat Lydian scale.

[00:05:09]The B flat chord is the four chord in the key of F major, so it's the B flat Lydian scale. Again, the naming conventions, you could tell yourself, "Hey, I'm using the F major scale." Same notes. You could tell yourself, "Hey, I'm using the D minor scale." Same notes. You could tell yourself, "Hey, I'm using the B flat Lydian scale." Same notes. You could also tell yourself, "Hey, I'm playing in the I'm using the C major scale over all of the in key chords, and then when I make this change, I'm playing the C mixolydian scale." Same notes. It doesn't matter what you call it. Don't get hung up on the naming conventions. Just understand that you're making this one note change, and you're making it over that one chord. Check it out.

[00:05:47]>> [music] [music] [music] >> So here in this second example, I'm going to be throwing in an A flat major chord. Again, the A flat major chord can be found in three different keys. So we're going to be picking the key that's the most closely related to the original starting key. In this key that's the most closely related to the original starting key, the A flat major chord is the four chord. Outer circle, counterclockwise position, that's the four chord. Four chord equates to Lydian. A flat Lydian, that's the scale I'm going to use over the A flat major chord.

[00:06:45]>> [music] [music] [music] [music] >> Here in example number three, we're going to be borrowing a chord in the other direction. So this is clockwise in relation to the original starting key.

[00:07:25]So we're now going to borrow an A major chord. The A major chord can be found in three different keys. So we're going to choose the key that's the closest to the original starting key.

[00:07:34]Using that key, it's the key of D major, it's the key of B minor, but it's the A chord that we're that's the borrowed chord, you know, so in that key outer circle clockwise position, that's the five chord position. Five chord is Mixolydian.

[00:07:50]A Mixolydian, [snorts] that's the scale we're using over the A major chord.

[00:08:00]>> [music] [music] [music] >> Here in example numbers four and five, I just want to give you a back-to-back comparison of what it would sound like if you were to take two different approaches to soloing over borrowed chord. So, here in this example, we're going to be soloing over an E major chord. Of course, the E major chord can be found in three different keys. We're just going to pick the key that's the closest to the original starting key.

[00:08:45]Choosing that key, E major is in position five outer circle clockwise position. So, we could play the E Mixolydian scale over this borrowed E major chord.

[00:08:58]>> [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] >> So, of course, that works, but then we could also take a much simpler approach to soloing over this borrowed chord. We could just say, "Hey, E major it's not part of the original key. Let's look at the notes that make up an E major chord, E G sharp B. Oh, that G sharp, it's not part of the key. Boom, let's just target that note over this one chord." And then we could even look further into things and be like, "Oh, let's let's name this scale, you know, we have this new scale that contains a G sharp. Get rid of the G, throw a G sharp in there, we have this new seven-note scale. It could be called the A harmonic minor scale.

[00:10:03]It could be called the C Ionian sharp five scale if you're referring to the um C as the tonic note of the scale or the root note of the scale. It could be referred to as the E Phrygian dominant scale if you want to, you know, use E as the root note of your scale. So, it could have a bunch of different names, but it's >> [music] [music] [music] >> All right, two more examples. These are borrowed minor chords now. So, in this example, we're going to borrow a B minor chord. B minor chord can be found in one of three keys. The closest related key that it's found in is the uh key of G major, key of E minor.

[00:11:07]B is an inner circle clockwise position, so that's the Phrygian spot, that's the three chord, three chord equates to Phrygian. So, the B Phrygian scale is the scale that we're going to use over it, call it the G major scale, call it the E minor scale, call it the B Phrygian scale.

[00:11:23]>> [music] [music] [music] [music] >> And then this final example is going to have two barred chords in it. I'm going to have an A flat major chord and I'm going to have a C minor chord. The reason I threw the A flat major chord in there is because it kind of didn't sound all that great just throwing the C minor chord in there. So I was like, I need something else in there to make that C minor not sound so abrupt and, you know, whatever. So this is an example of where we're actually using three different scales. So over the in key chords, the C major and the G major, the original starting key, we're using the C major scale over those two chords.

[00:12:24]>> [snorts] >> When it gets to the A flat major chord, we already know what to do over that chord cuz that was a previous example, A flat Lydian. And then for the C minor chord, that comes or that's found in three different keys, choose the key that it's that's the closest to the original starting key.

[00:12:39]Doing that, it C minor equates to Dorian. It's in the inner circle counterclockwise position, so that's the two chord position. Two chord equates to Dorian. So we're going to play the C Dorian scale over that chord. All right, so here's that example.

[00:12:56]>> [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] >> All right. So, that's the approach you can take to soloing over borrowed chords, you know, just find the key that's the most closely related to the original starting key that you're playing in and then choose that diatonic scale as your soloing framework over that borrowed chord. Or you can just look at the notes that make up the borrowed chord and then say, "Oh, that one note is what makes it out of key." and then just focus on just that one note, you know? A couple different ways to to do this, you know? So, with all that said, that's going to do it for today's video. Thank you very much for watching.

[00:14:14]If you haven't already, stop by, check out my website, Zombie Guitar. It's my labor of love for the last 10 years or so. I also have a new website that just has single courses on it called guitargoals.com. If you want to stop by, check that one out, too. That'd be cool.

[00:14:26]Anyway, thank you guys for watching.

[00:14:27]I'll see you next time.

[00:14:32]>> [music] [music]