soloing over 5ths

[ibanezzed]

I am curious how theory plays a role when playin metal type licks. I know you need 3 notes to make a chord and the third makes it major or minor right, simple...I had read an old article in guitar mag about Marty freidman and how he makes his own scale for soloing. So my question is how do I go about soloing over 5 chords(ex: B5, F#5, E5), can I just go with a basic chromatic as if it doesn't matter because the chords mentioned in the example are neither major or minor? Could I use a B harmonic minor over all three, just curious on the theory for this type of playin'. thanx fella's

[Poparad]

Although the chords themselves don't paint a complete picture of the harmony, the do imply certain major or minor qualities.

For example, a chord progression of A5 F5 G5 A5 implies the chords Am F G Am. The reason for this is that the roots A, F, and G are only found in two places in a key: the iii, I, and ii chords in F major, or the vi, IV, and V chords in C major (which is the same as i, VI, and VII in A minor). Chord progressions are almost always centered around a major or minor key, and the second of those two (the C major/A minor solution) fits this. By taking each of the power chords into context by looking at the 'scale' they spell out, you can thus find out what the 'complete' versions of the chords are (i.e., major or minor).

Another possible way to find the same answer to is to take the notes of the power chords and see what scale they'd fit into. The A5, F5, and G5 chords yield the notes A C D E F and G, which again are six notes of either F major or C major/A minor. Again, it's more probable that it's A minor, as the progression is fixed around the A5 chord. There is an off chance that it could be an A phrygian progression (F major), but it's unlikely. The one problem with this approach is that the 5th chord formed from the 7th scale degree of a major scale is naturally a diminished 5th, but in practice, it's commonly changed into a normal perfect 5th, breaking from the key, so sometimes this method can throw you for a loop if you're not considering that.

[ibanezzed]

ok I see that but what I don't understand in reading Marty's article on this, he used one scale and there were notes in there that did not match any of the chords(I can't quite remember but I think he was in G) he was playin a scale that had sharps in it, but no sharps in the chords themselves, so I wasn't sure how you can come up with that and still sound good

[Poparad]

I'd have to see exactly what scale it was he was using and the chord progression that it went with, but the key of G does have a sharp in it (F#), and the relative minor, Em, adds a D# when the V chord (B or B7) is used). It could also be that he was just adding chromatic passing notes between notes of the G major scale.