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I was reading about Randy Vincent's new book, which gives various theoretical frameworks for playing outside lines. It got me wondering if anyone has learned to play outside intuitively, either by copying and adapting other people's lines, or by just experimenting with lines of their own, without a theoretical framework.
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12-16-2014 11:01 PM
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Michael Brecker said he played by ear.
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I use anti-scales to play outside of chords.
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Sometimes it is a mix of intuition and then slipping in a bit of theory.
Take these chords
Ebm7 Ab(9) Dbmaj7 Bb(13)
Ebm7 Ab(9) Dbmaj7
This is a familiar ii-V-I-VI cycle sound.
If you were to be thinking of playing outside and happened to play a descending pentatonic phrase over the Ebm7 like this:
Ebm7 - descending Bb minor pent starting from Db (minor third of Bb, flat seven of Eb)
...then if you know the sound of this cycle well you might be able to intuitively imagine that shifting up a half step over the next chord will sound nicely outside, like this:
Ab(9) - B minor pent, maybe descending in the same phrase form, descending from D.
Then you might be convinced further and do this:
Dbmaj7 - C minor pent descending from Eb
Bb(13) - Db minor pent descending from E.
Now for the second Ebm7, what? If you have been starting those pents from the minor third of each, your intuition will correctly confirm that the second Ebm7 could start from the minor third of D (F)... but the D minor pent will not work, so you think fast and notice that the F is the major seven of Gbmaj7, so instead you play:
Ebm7 - F Db Bb Gb Eb simple descending arpeggio of Gbmaj7
then reverse direction because that sounds like what you want to do on the last Dbmaj7.
But what to do about the Ab(9) before you get there?
Maybe you know that the descending notes Bb A Ab will sound nice for this segment of three chords (ii-V-I)...
You are already playing the Bb with the Ebm7, and you see that you will be playing the Ab with the final Dbmaj7, so you put that A in during the Ab(9) chord.
Ab(9) - Eb C A Gb
Dbmaj7 - Eb C Ab F simple descending arpeggio of Dbmaj7
That thing on the Ab(9) has a half diminished sound - so these make the ii-V-I:
substituting Gbmaj7 for Ebm7
substituting Gb half diminished for Ab(9)
playing Dbmaj7
The first part is easier because your intuition tells you that the same form will work moved up a half step for each chord change... until it doesn't, then you have to change gear a little to get the similar form to fit the last three chords... but the thing is, of all those notes you just played (maybe 60 notes) over those seven chords, the only handful of notes that really needed any strong resort to theory was the few played over the Ab(9) chord, and you had some clues for that, and some "spare time" to think about it because the bulk of the rest was fairly easy (intuitive).
Intuitive playing is opportunistic - it jumps up at various moments when it sees a ripe situation, but may then hide out when things change. When it does pop up it gives you a break, or at least some additional conceptual "headroom" to look ahead more deeply...
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I tend to think in small units and focus on doing more with less when it comes to moving outside of the harmony. I did this a while back and it's a warts and all take on being flexible with the chords.
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I also play by Michael Brecker's ear . . .
Originally Posted by StanG
and then the alarm clock rings.
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In a Jerry Bergonzi interview he talks about Michael Brecker, himself and I forget who else he mentioned would get together all the time and jam constantly pushing the envelope developing their ears and the playing. Got to get the sound in your ear to play it with conviction. Even as a listener you have to grow your ears to appreciate. Originally Posted by StanG
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I like to pivot off chord tones and extensions as an entry to going outside by ear.
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"I like to play it, deliberately in another key, then resolve it".
Woody Shaw
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Um... pauln, with all due respect, I think if I followed all of those rules, I could hardly say I was playing 'by ear' anymore, eh? Maybe this is a retrospective look back at what happened when you played by ear...? Originally Posted by pauln
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What rules? Maybe it just looks like that because, yes, I was retrospectively trying to show how the opportunistic aspect of intuition encourages one to do what looks kind of complicated when you actually look at it as a description.
My suggestion was that intuition "grasps" more complicated things and abstracts them into simple things for execution when playing by ear.
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Where did you read about this Jonzo, and when is it likely to be released? Originally Posted by Jonzo
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have I been hacked?/ I did not right happy easter, have not been here since before christmas. Do not open above links.
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http://www.amazon.com/Jazz-Guitar-So...9909115&sr=1-4 Originally Posted by Jazzism
I read about it here, somewhere.
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I don't like to use the terms "outside" and "inside". To me it's all inside the harmony, you just have to hear it.
BUUUT for purpose of the thread, I will consider "outside" sounds as sounds that are not part of the 1357 chord, and inside as the 1357 chord, since my playing approach is more of a chord tone and arpeggio approach rather than a chord-scale approach.
I do put in a lot of thought to the way I step away from the basic arpeggio. I think it's the fundamental and you need to be able to deal with that before stepping away. Naturally, the first thing would be extending the arpeggio and doing something like 3579 arpeggios, etc. or doing scalar lines, which automatically give you an extension between chord tone, but that's still too diatonic.
The first way is to think of approach tone vocabulary. Take the third, for example, play a half step below the third of every chord. Those half steps are chromatic. You can build up from that, do a whole step above the third to a half step below the third to the third. Think of different intervals to approach, and do this with every chord tone.
A way to step outside of the basic arpeggio is using upper structures. C Major 7 for example, has D minor, which gives you D F A (9 11 13). Most people would sharp the F and make it D major for a nicer sounding 11, but if you want to clash a little, the F would be pretty cool. Another cool thing is thinking intervallically. Using larger intervals with diatonic sounds can make the diatonic sounds not sound diatonic (little tongue twister there). You can also use non-diatonic sounds intertwined with resolving chord tones, but we can get there later. You can do the first exercise I mentioned and apply it to these things as well.
Another totally different approach I take is to alter one chord tone, but leave the rest as is. On major chords, I really like the #5 sound, so I put that in with the normal 1 3 and 7, and it really pops out. Ben Monder likes b9s on his major chords a lot. A good place to start is by checking out melodic minor modes and seeing what altered notes the modes give you, from there you can kind of build your own synthetic scales and alter notes that don't belong to any real mode.
Lastly, I like to superimpose stuff over chords as well. This gives a similar result to combining the upper structures/intervallic shapes and the one note alteration. I like to superimpose iv6 chords over V chords, which gives a 7b9 sound, but it's a little more interesting. I do a lot of more complicated ones, but you can figure your own ones out.
I don't really like side-slipping because there's not a lot of thought to it. I do it at times when I'm playing over a dominant chord, but I give it thought. Normally I do it as a V - V/V - V thing, but that's old stuff, Charlie Parker used to do that a lot.
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I think the formula for playing outside to play the pentatonic that consists of the notes not in the relevant scale for that chord.
For example, for CM7: F#, G#,A#, C#,D#. IOW, a major pentatonic scale a tritone away from the chord root.
Major pentatonics a half-step above a half-step below the chord root will only have one note in common.
The same rule of thumb won't work for dominant chords, but there are pentatonic scales that will sound outside.
Perhaps the intuition in playing is when to move out and when to move in.
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Intuitively I think fretboard symmetry opens up a lot of doors on guitar since it is easy to exploit. So using a symmetrical scale, or moving a melodic pattern in fixed intervals towards a destination are very easy to do and if not overused sound awesome.
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That's pretty much what I do. I find the notes that are not in a scale. eg. for dorian, it's a minor pent up a semitone, for mixolydian, it's a major pent down a semitone, and then I relate it to chords. But you could also think in relation to the key centre as in F# maj pentatonic is the outside area whenever playing in c major. Originally Posted by Stuart Elliott
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What I do is work out the tonal centers and chord tones, and then I start making phrases from the scales and chord tones, and then I proceed to "what would it sound like if I played this note instead?"
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I had a college professor that talked about horizontal and vertical gravity. Vertical gravity meaning that notes sound good because of what's above and below them. The note in this line sounds good because the bass plays this and the piano plays this under it. Horizontal gravity is the idea that notes sound good because of what comes before and after. This note sounds good because it's part of a compelling line. Triads and scales are taught as ways to outline the harmony that's there already but they're also so ingrained in our musical lives that they also represent incredible melodic strength. Play an Ab triad over an A7 chord and your ear will tolerate that for much longer than you might think because the melodic shape is so familiar to us. How long you can maintain that dissonance before it just sounds bad depends on how strong your melodic ideas are as well as your personal preferences and those of your listeners.
the bottom line is that playing strong melodies will give you way more harmonic freedom than you think. Unfortunately it's mich easier said than done
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I think you need to hear it and enjoy it before you can play it yourself.
For example, I knew what side stepping was but had never really "heard" it.
So I first of all never really used it, and when I did, it was abysmal.
At some point I heard Rosenwinkel playing some crazy turnaround lick on Sandu(live, its on youtube, the bassist isnt wearing pants) and I learned it and I saw he's using side stepping - thats when side stepping clicked. Or at least a little bit of it.
More recently I heard Brecker and once I figured out, "hey, he uses side stepping here like this and that" and so on, it kind of opened up a little more.
I guess that is how it works for the most part. You hear it, then analyse it so you know what it is.
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This is a good lesson on outside playing:
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Simple way to go outside is to consider all chords under major and minor.
Major: major, major 7th, dominant, dom7(#5), dom9(#5), etc.
Minor: minor, minor 7th, dominant13, diminished, m7b5, dom13(b9), m(b9, sus4) etc
And think
Major: Augmented scale (Ex. C major: C triad/major/lydian, E triad/major/lydian, G# triad/major/lydian)
Minor: Genus chromaticum scale (Ex. C D Eb, E F# G, Ab Bb Cb, and C minor triad/dorian/melodic minor, E minor triad/dorian/melodic minor, Ab minor triad/dorian/melodic minor)
Also for sus chords or undefined harmonic vamps...the fourths scale...or something symmetrical....and just about anything executed right will sound good.
This is simple since I only have to think about scales major third apart for major type chords, and minor third apart for minor type chords.
But the most important part is having those scalar lines and licks memorized and executing them in, out, and then bring it in well without sounding like just hitting random notes. Or if you have good enough sense to play Ab lydian ideas on C major and resolve nicely to C major tonality, then that works well too. What sounds good will sound good. Someone can surely extensively explain how to superimpose and the whole outside thing and all, but if it sounds like too much, then it is too much and most likely just bullshit.
Sylvain Luc does this beautifully.Last edited by pluvia; 01-12-2015 at 03:51 AM.
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