The 2 Golden Rules for Combining Scales with Chords

We’ve been talking a lot on the blog lately about improvisation methods and systems . The guitar is a double-edged sword in this regard as a solo can be approached in many ways depending on the player and the desired result. Whatever your style or genre is, and if you’re going the scales over chords route, you’ll want to consider these two golden rules to make the most of your moment of glory.

Here are the two golden rules:

Rule 1. Any scale that contains ALL the chord tones from the chord you want to solo over is fair game.

Rule 2. Knowing the function of the chord in the progression will allow you to find the scale that best fits the chord.Let’s take a more in-depth look at these two approaches. . Any scale that contains ALL the chord tones from the chord you want to solo over is fair game.. Knowing the function of the chord in the progression will allow you to find the scale that best fits the chord.Let’s take a more in-depth look at these two approaches. Rule 1 states that as along as the scale contains all the chord tones of the chord we want to improvise over, we can use it. Let’s try it out over a dominant 7 chord. A dominant 7 chord contains the intervals 1, 3, 5, and b7 so according to rule 1, any scale that contains those intervals is fair game – and there are plenty of them!

If you have a looper pedal handy, load it up with a C7 chord. If you don’t have a looper, you should really treat yourself to one – I recommend either the TC Electronic Ditto or the classic Boss RC-1. Your first port of call over a dominant 7 chord will probably be the Mixolydian scale which contains the intervals from our dominant 7 chord: 1 , 2, 3 , 4, 5 , 6, b7



Here’s a quick pattern you can use to get this going.



I’m a huge fan of these one-octave shapes, especially with the added 7 below the root – it comes in very handy for phrasing purposes.

As you’d expect, the Mixolydian b6 scale also contains all the chord intervals, plus a b6 ( 1 , 2, 3 , 4, 5 , b6, b7 ). Here’s another quick pattern for you, or you could just lower the 6 from the above pattern.



If you’ve never used this scale before, the b6 will throw you off at first. Take some time to work it into your lines and you should come up with some interesting stuff before long.

Check out the Lydian b7 scale, which contains the intervals 1 , 2, 3 , #4, 5 , 6, b7



Again, all the intervals from the chord are in there so it’s fair game. Here’s a quick pattern:



Here’s another scale you could use over a dominant chord, the Phrygian Dominant, which contains the intervals 1 , b2, 3 , 4, 5 , b6, b7 :



Making it Work

To make this work, you need to get comfortable with these scales. Remember, you don’t have to use all of them, and you may not even like how some of the them sound. If you do like the sound of a particular scale, then work on getting the most out of it so that next time you go to solo over a dominant 7 chord, you have it in your arsenal.