Professional Documents
Culture Documents
IMPROVISATION
When you are starting learn jazz impro, there is a great temptation to learn
the appropriate scales that fit the chord changes, as with the Jamey
Aebersold Scale Syllabus. This approach has some merits, it can be a
"kickstart" to improvisation: as long as you remember the scales that fit the
chord there is little else to concentrate on. This approach does have some
pitfalls, if youre not careful you will end up with a soloing style that just
consists of running up and down scales. To overcome this you need to be
aware very early on that there is a lot more to improvising. Ideally the scales
should help you to construct interesting and melodic solos, you can use
them as a pool of notes to choose from out of which to construct your solo,
rather than relying on them to be the solo. So you also need to know the
chords themselves. In fact I recommend that you really should learn the
chords on your instrument (arpeggios) before you learn the scales to fit the
chords.
As soon as you can, learn to listen, transcribe and analyse saxophone solos.
Transcribing the solos yourself is much better than buying transcriptions if
you have the time, it is extremely good ear training as well as informative.
A 4th over any major chord (unless it is an 11th or sus 4 see ex. 4e)
become fluent in the use of these basic scales and modes, but there are
many complex and interesting scales used by jazz musicians to add
chromatic notes.
This section of this chapter will deal with some of these scales and analyse
their effects.
Bebop scales
A bebop scale is created by adding either:
Because bebop scales are made up of eight notes it is likely that if you start
a typical 8th note run on a downbeat with a chord note (root, 3rd, 5th or
7th) the other chord notes will also fall on strong beats. This obviously
means that notes to be avoided such as the 4th (see above: wrong notes)
become passing notes. (Ex 11b). Bebop scales should only be used as
scales, not to construct melodic phrases otherwise the added chromatic
notes will no longer be passing notes and will not fit the chord.
Pentatonic scales.
These are 5 note scales, of which there are many, however only two are
common in jazz and I will refer to them as the major and minor pentatonic.
The major pentatonic is the same as the major scale but without the 4th or
7th (ex 11d-1). It is common in western folk music and is often used by
composers to impart a traditional flavour (Amazing Grace, Auld Lang Syne)
The minor pentatonic is the same as the Aeolian or Dorian scale but without
the 2nd or 6th (Ex 11d-2). This scale is sometimes used by composers to
give an oriental feel.
Chromatic scale
The chromatic scale consists of all twelve notes available in conventional
western music, i.e. all the white notes and black notes of the keyboard
Diminished scale
This scale consists of alternating intervals of a tone and a semitone (ex 11g1). Another way of looking at it is to imagine two diminished chords, one a
whole tone higher than the other one superimposed on top of it (ex 11g-2)
ex 11j: diminished scales C, Eb, F#, A. Note that the notes are identical.
Arabic scale
There are many Arabic scales but one in particular is used by western
composers to imply a middle eastern flavour. This scale can be thought of as
a relative mode of the harmonic minor, ie it is the same but starting on the
fifth degree of the scale. It is very useful over a dominant 7th chord as it
adds two colourful chromatic notes - the b13th and b9th (ex 11m, 11n)
ex 11n : Arabic scale used over a II-V-I sequence (or simply V-I)
Another way to think of this is to use the harmonic minor scale with the
same root as the tonic chord that the V7 is leading to, so G7 uses a C
harmonic minor but be careful not to emphasise the note C inapropriately.
Used over a major V7 -I cadence the scale implies the modal interchange of
the minor tonic for the major tonic, even though the minor tonic never
materialises.The resolution to the major 3rd of the tonic is very satisfying
after the bluesy minor feel of the scale. This scale is obviously also very
useful over a minor II-V-I.
This scale is often called the altered scale as it supplies many of the notes
that are possible to alter on a dominant 7 chord. In addition to the basic
diatonic notes of C#7 this scale adds D (b9), E (b10), G (#11 or b5) and A
(b13 or +5).
Another way of looking at this would be to use the melodic minor scale
based on the b9th degree of the dominant 7 chord, in the same way we
would use a diminished scale. Note that the first half of this scale is identical
to the way a D diminished scale fits the chord, the second half is a whole
tone scale. This is a very popular scale in modern jazz due to the
interestingly high degree of chromaticism.