Hello:

Does anyone have some quick and decent sounding chord/scale transitions they use when changing keys by a half step? For example, 1st song is in G, following song is in A-flat, and you don't want the music to stop. I'm not asking for someone to just tell me to play E-flat-7, I'm interested in other transitions you may have come up with. Sometimes, depending on the songs and the effects I want, I may play single or octave notes in tempo (or changing it for the next song) such as G,F#,G,A-flat,B-flat, then hit an E-flat-7 chord of some form to go into the A-flat song.

I'm interested in what other folks may use for these kinds of transitions, as well as when doing a change down a half-step, such as from A-flat to G. Thanks for your time and I look forward to finding out some interesting techniques from other players.

-- bill wood (xb3bill@aol.com), January 17, 2002

Answers

Hi! As for going up a half step, I often use I-flat 7 (In G this would be g-b-d-f). From there, try C minor (or flat the IV chord of the key--same thing). This gives you the Eflat, so progress to E- flat-7, and work your way to Aflat with some interesting melodic progressions. This is reasonably quick, easy, and sounds pretty good, too! I noticed this is an old question, so you have probably discovered many ways by now.

-- Ruth Farkas (satb88@sbcglobal .net), October 27, 2003.