One note of chord not part of scale

Question

I am currently analyzing a track by Deadmau5, and am almost positive that it is written in F# minor. The melody notes are all within that scale, and pretty much all of the chords are too. However, there is one chord where the root note is not part of the scale.

Can anyone help with what's going on here? I've attached a screenshot below with a MIDI chord progression. You'll see that the 2nd chord has a root note of G, but the rest of the notes within it are from the F# minor scale.

I want to ensure that I am continuously improving my music theory knowledge. Reason being, if I was to write my own track, I would completely avoid using a chord like this, because it goes against what I know. The chord sounds great, so that's why I am confused as to why Deadmau5 chose to use G as the root note.

Answer 1

Judging only from the notes I can see here, there are two possibilities:

1. Either the entire song is not F# minor, but F# phrygian.
2. The song is still F# minor, but the second chord is actually "borrowed" from the phrygian scale. This is a technique, which is called "borrowed chords". There, you have some chord progression, however you like it, but at one point, you go out of scale and use a chord from another scale. Same root note, but different scale.

You should look up this technique. There are multiple tutorials online. They can explain it better than me, here in few sentences.

Answer 2

I'd love to find who it is spreading this 'theory' that notes need to conform to the particular key or scale a piece is in!

When learning about music theory initially - in the early stages - it makes some sense to stick to diatonic notes, those from the scale used in the key of the relevant piece. However, that 'rule' gets 'broken' fairly quickly as one advances. Chromatic notes, chords, or borrowed notes, chords abound in all kinds of music. The word chromatic means coloured, and those notes/chords add some colour to what could otherwise be quite a mundane piece.

Theory says that borrowing from other keys is one reason: keep the same root note, change from minor to major, major to minor, use the notes/chords from modes using the same root/tonic. Or introduce V/V, V/ii, V/vi etc. to add more colour.

If the key is indeed F♯ minor, having a G note would indicate the theory that the mode has changed, either using the Phrygian or Locrian mode of F♯. My money's on Phrygian. Which actually emanates from the notes of D major.

Answer 3

Just from the progression this looks more like B-minor to me. The first F#-minor chord could be interpreted as a tonic cause Dmaj7 contains a F#-minor chord. Than it ends on a regular Bm chord.

Answer 4

If I read the notation correctly, that seems to be the sequence F#m, G, A, Bm.

It feels more like the key is B minor to me - it's more or less a reversal of the Andalusian Cadence.

Answer 5

So the notes of the chords are (bottom note is doubled an 8ve down:

    (This is not a series of guitar chords, please stop converting them SE!)

    A   B   C#  D
    C#  D   E   F#
    F#  G   A   B
    ----------------
    F#m G   A   Bm

Or F# minor, G major, A major and B minor.

This sounds good mainly because of the voice-leading. If you think of each part as an individual voice in a choir, (top, middle, bottom), you can see that they all smoothly connect, and none of the voices overlap.

You're correct that the piece seems to be in F# minor ... as the sequence starts on F# minor and goes to B minor - but the chords in between don't have to be strictly notes from the F# minor scale. They're just passing chords on the way to a destination.

You could use these "rules" to try different options:

1. Start on F# C# A, end on B F# D.
2. Smoothly connect the voices from one chord to the next

So any of the following options could also work (and there are many other possibilities). Although some of the harmony is quite distant from the key of F# minor, it's the smooth voice leading that makes it work musically, while also creating some interesting sounds. Try playing these examples and hear what they sound like.

A   B   C   D
C#  D   F   F#
F#  G   A   B
--------------
F#m G   F   Bm


A   C     Db   D
C#  D     F    F#
F#  G     Bb   B
-----------------
F#m Gsus4 Bbm  Bm


A   B    C    D
C#  D    F#   F#
F#  F#   G#   B
-----------------
F#m Bm   G#7  Bm

Answer 6

'What is going on here' is that a piece of music in F♯ minor contains a chromatic note. A normal, unremarkable, common occurrence.

As @Tim says in his answer, there is no rule that all notes/chords in a piece of music must conform to one scale.

But then @Tim's answer gets far too complicated. As do so many answers to this topic. And the complication seems to stem from a deep-seated conviction that, really, everything SHOULD conform to one scale and, when something doesn't, it needs to be justified as the key/mode temporarily changing, as a 'borrowing' (see the underlying assumption that we should always be conforming to SOME scale?) or as a daring 'breaking of the rules'.

Much music has a key centre. Not all music. Not even all rock/jazz music. But a lot of music does. And a lot of music uses functional harmonies - the sort that can be analysed as tonics, dominants etc. But even when playing the tonal/functional game, CHROMATIC NOTES/CHORDS ARE FINE!

Sometimes they're just an 'in-between' transition. Stepping on the lines between the paving stones. Same pavement, same journey, just not hitting each slab dead centre. Sometimes they're just a change of colour. The classic example is the IV chord in a major key. Often modified to iv, the same triad but minor. No excuse needed.

And sometimes a chromatic chord DOES set us off on a journey to another key, another 'home' scale. If that iv was followed by ♭VII7 and then ♭III (starting in C major that would be Fm, B♭7, E♭) there might be some use in considering it as 'borrowed' from E♭ major. But otherwise, let it be just a chromatic chord for goodness' sake!

Where did this misapprehension come from? Probably Berklee, in the 1960s. The Chord=scale thing which replaced melodic composition/improvisation with a 'this chord allows this scale' approach.

To be fair, Berklee itself admits "Using the chord-scale approach gives improvisers (especially less proficient ones) greater melodic and rhythmic mobility..." (I suggest reading the whole article)

https://www.berklee.edu/berklee-today/summer-2000/Chord-Tone

They don't pretend chord-scale is the Answer to Life, The Universe and Everything. But it's just such an easy way to present music to a beginner, particularly one who is more fluent with chord shapes than with notation, and who sees improvisation as their primary aim rather than reading and performing the repertoire (so we're largely talking about guitarists rather than band kids :-) )

OK, rant over. But it is important to keep reminding newcomers that 'being in a key' is a framework not a restriction.