Question on chromatics

[Anton]

Hi dudes , when soloing over a chord progression ? is it possible to jump to a chromatic sequence without it sounding off key ? or are chromatics Atonal ? therefore not fitting into chord progressions , because there's no root notes as such is there ?
Hope u can help
Anton

[btweensunandmoon]

john petrucci uses chromatics a lot. I would say to check out some dream theater to see how he uses them.

[baileyk85]

Well I always use chormatics as a way to break out of the traditional sound of the scale and the chords you're using. It does sound a little unharmonic if that's the right word but that's what makes it interesting.

[zEr0]

Chromatics are atonal and therefore won't fit into chord progressions you may be playing over. This means you shouldn't be overusing them. When i want to play a chromatic passage I usually chose a given interval (not too large) of the scale I'm soloing over and I play all the notes in between.

Personally there are only two reasons why I may decide to do this:

1- I want to create a tension feeling when going from the first note of the inteval to the last one by playing all the notes between them, even the ones not in the scale.

2- The extra notes in a chromatic passage may help me to get my timing right. I mean if i want to go from one lick to another and the first one doesn't finish exactly where I want to start the second one, then I may add some chromatics to be sure the second lick is where I want it to be (timewise).

The second point is quite hard to get the hang of, specially when playing fast because you have to be very aware of time. Petrucci uses chromatics a lot because he has a perfect sense of time keeping (which also allows him to play insanely fast).

I hope my poor english was clear enough and of any help.

[Devo]

the only times i use chromatics is when i run out of ideas in a solo and start shredding ... usually happens pretty quick.... im not very good at solos

generally they give you a nice washy sound, you get to play alot of notes without going very far in register, unlike sweeping where your register is changeing rapidly and you have to be careful cause you can sound out of key very easily.

using them melodicaly is rather difficult as they do tend to sound very dissonant and hence people will think your off key. one way to use chromatics is to just use chromatic passing notes, alot of use use them all teh time. for example in a solo where you go c-d-e (three notes) you could stick in a littel chromatic passing note and go c-d-d#-e.

go experiment with em and see for yourself.

steve

[little wing]

here's how i'd use cromatics, normally to get a little bluesy or jazzy.. meaby sometimes even rush them up to get that little rushing feeling..
and like most of u, to get a tune in beat just in case you'd tend to loose the beat a little. Sometimes, cromatics are useful to add colours to soloing but a little too much might be bore.
Check out Steve Morse.

[Ekim]

Speaking of Steve Morse, I think he said to place the "non-sensical" notes (the ones not really in key) on the upbeats whenever you can. So you're accenting the ones that make sense. Maybe I'm explaining it wrong, but I don't think so.