Major scale help

[Jamie]

I'll say D major just so you know what I'm talking about.

The D major scale is D, E, F#, G, A, B, C# and back to D

If I was to play chords from the scale D, say D, Em, F#m, G, A, Bm and C# dim I don't have to play those chords do I? Say I wanted to play a Dsus4 instead of the straight D chord, I can?

As long as a chord is made up of notes that are in the scale it can be played, can't it?

And another question. Do I have to play D, E, F#, G, A, B, C# and back to D? Can I play a D chord then F#, G, E and so on? Do I have to play down the scale? Or can I just mix the chords anyway I want as long as they are made up of the notes in the scale?

Thanks.

[LChance]

Hi Jamie,

When we think of songs, we usually talk about keys. For example, a song in the key of D. This tells us we're working with the D major scale. As for chord progressions, we take the 1st, 3rd & 5th degree notes from that scale and now we know what our chord progression will be (D, F# and A).

Refer to my other post on building chords from the major scale to see if they are major or minor chords.

[Average Joe]

LChance is right. But like you were asking, if you could play a dsus4 instead of a straight d. It would be fine, just as long as the root is a D. This would of course change if it was d minor. But in the case of suspended and add chords it would be alright.

If you've learned the modes, try and experiment playing different modes over different types of chords, could come up with something interesting.