eHow launches Android app: Get the best of eHow on the go.
Summary: The E minor scale and how to use it to improvise on piano in D minor; learn this and more in this free online piano lesson taught by expert pianist Ryan Larson.
Ryan Larson is a young jazz composer whose teaching technique focuses on the basics of music theory in all 12 keys. When applying his 12-key technique to understanding the logic behind...read more
"Now we're going to take a look at our E minors black chord. As we go through we're going to still use our D major scale but our minor scale starts on the second note, E minor. D, E. So if we go through the same scale but play from E to E, we have our E minor scale. So we make our black chord one, three, five, seven and we still skip two, four, and six but now we're starting at E so we have this chord. You can hear the difference from your E minor and your D major. E minor, D major. So by just starting on the second and building our black chord, we have our minor chord still utilizing the same scale. We can do some stride piano where we go from E to A and just keep playing the chord. E, A, E, A that's your E minor stride. If you want to do D major you go from D to A. So E, A, E, A, D, A, D, A. E minor, D major. So those are your first two chords and again it's all derived out of that same major scale."
eHow Article: E Minor Scale for Piano Improvisation in D