Slonimsky can be quite useful

[JEdgarWinter]

A bit late to the party, but looking through some older threads I noticed that there was some interest in whether Slonimsky's Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns was at all useful for jazz musicians. Since I think the book has an undeserved reputation as totally useless, I thought I might sketch out some practical uses for the thing.

To make a long story short, Slonimsky's patterns are all structured around different ways of dividing the octave (and then on to two octaves, and onward to many more octaves than guitarists can even contemplate...) Slonimsky also has a nomenclature (infrapolation, ultrapolation, etc.) that is too clunky, but which organizes enclosures and neighbor note patterns very neatly.

How to use the book? The simplest way to start is over dominants. In the first half of the book, all the patterns are structured around the tritone: C-F#-C. Try these patterns over D7 or Dalt. Some sound good, some sound weird, but none of them sound "bad" to me. Particularly over a modal vamp, or a blues, being able to access a lot of lines of varying density and contour seems to me to be a great thing! Especially if you like early 60s music, like that of Eric Dolphy or Cecil Taylor's early records, Slonimsky opens a lot of doors to those sounds...

Slonimsky lines can all also be plugged in over F#diminished or half diminished (thinking of the pattern starting on the b5), or over A minor (thinking of the pattern starting on the b3).

Here, for example, is Slonimsky pattern 59 (with some open strings thrown in for good measure), configured as a D7-Gmaj7 lick. Beautiful music!!!



------------------4-3--------------------------
-----------3-----------7--3------------------
-----0-------6-5------------4------2-----
--6----4-----------------------4-5----
3--------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------

[ksjazzguitar]

OK, I'll pipe in since no one else has.

I looked at it at one point and just found it overly-pedantic and unnecessarily complicated (and that's a lot coming from me!) I still have a long way to go before I exhaust a more "conventional" scalar approach before I need to enter Slonimsky's world. But there are people who swear by it. If you can find inspiration there, go for it. But for me, it was much ado about nothing. I'm sure there is some great stuff in there, but I found other avenues more fruitful for me.

Peace,
Kevin