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We all know that the "straight" pentatonics don't really nail the chord tones well enough for the Dominant class of chords, so you need to alter Pentatonics for Dom. Question is, do you guys bother to put in much work on these? Do you use them more than straight arps? Which altered Pents do you prefer and in which contexts? (Here I don't mean pent subs for altered Dominants, just altered pents for straight Doms..)
Further, how do you like to embellish them? Are there favourite passing tones you prefer? One? Two? Encircling tones like you would for arps? Do you practice all kinds of sequential patterns? Do you treat Dom Pents differently in a blues contexts compared with a more standard harmonic context? How about for non functional harmonic situations?
That's enough questions, for now...
Last edited by Dirk; 10-31-2019 at 05:56 PM.
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06-05-2015 10:11 AM
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I haven't done much with pentatonics...but I do like simple pentatonic subs, like mixing minor pentatonics up a 4th and down a whole step over an altered dom. (so like C and F minor pent over Galt)
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My go-to would be Bb minor pent over GAlt. Sometimes I'm not thinking "must ... play ... pentatonic" but I notice a phrase I play (okay, a lick dammit, a lick!) is indeed pentatonic.
Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
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Not a fan of that really. (Bb minor/ Db maj) It's textbook correct, it has all the alterations, but it floats. I want some skronk on an altered dominant, to my ears, the root and third are actually really interesting on an altered dom.
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yo jeff, skronk?
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Some half step rub. So if somebody's got a flat9 in the upper part of the chord, hanging on a root in the same octave.
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Damn, my long post disappeared... I'll try the short version. Anyone tried altered Dom pents like;
....1 2 3 5 b7
or 2 3 5 6 b7 (mode of In Sen)
Not altered as in "altered Dom", but altered as in the straight Pent is altered to accommodate the b7.
There are plenty of others as detailed in Ramon Rickers book on pentatonics. It gets pretty heavy.Last edited by princeplanet; 06-05-2015 at 11:50 AM.
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Basic subbing can be as simple as using pents based on the I, IV, V as well as b3. But these, as well as the more exotic ones don't really address the Dom functionally. Besides, When guitarists use these pents as subs, it somehow always sounds less convincing compared to when horns and pianos do it. It might be because we play the shapes in ways that recall rock and blues phrasing... But listen to McCoy Tyner or Joe Henderson, and it's a whole 'nother thing... Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
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Yeah, like I said, haven't done much with 'em.
I'm digging the 2,3,5,6,b7 right now, as I'm messing with it.
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If you take a little time to do the math, almost every min pent sub can be used except starting on the natural 7, they are not always strictly altered scale, but have cool sounds. Several maj pent as well.
have fun!!!
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you're missing a major skronkrotunity by omitting the tonic of this scale, jeff Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
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Very good usage of "skronk," joe! Originally Posted by joe2758
you're missing a major skronkrotunity by omitting the tonic of this scale, jeff
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I play more blues than jazz but I do like the Dominant Pentatonic, which is a scale Robben Ford discusses in one of his videos. It is also called the Minor 6 Pentatonic. Intervals are 1 2 3 5 b7. I use the Minor 6 more, which takes the standard pentatonic minor and lowers the b7 to the 6 on a dominant 4 chord in a blues. Here is the A dominant Pentatonic. So in an E blues over the 4 chord (A7) this sounds good.
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Yep, the Ramon book is full of 'em. But I wanted this thread to be about bread and butter usage of pents against Doms. Eg, 1 2 3 5 b7 is just a Dom9th arp. If you are a chord tone based player, I suppose you'd play arps based on the root, or on the 3, 5, or b7 for your extensions. Maybe just triads. But why wouldn't you use a 5 note "arp"? You could finger a Dom9 arp in all 5 caged positions with 2 notes per string. This is a comfortable layout for guitarists, one reason they love straight pentatonics. Originally Posted by vintagelove
Besides, it's easier to come up with melodic ideas with just that one extra note, it suddenly becomes more like a scale than an arp. Then there's all the embellishments and passing tones, sequences etc, you could base your whole style around pents as opposed to just arps, in fact there was a guy on this forum a couple of years back peddling his "system" that was basically this very approach, but for all chord types. (Remember him?)Last edited by princeplanet; 06-05-2015 at 01:06 PM.
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Is that anything like a "squonk"? (There's a Steely Dan song with line, "Have you ever seen a squonk's tears? Well, look at mine." I never knew what "squonk" meant.) Originally Posted by joe2758
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I just googled "squonk." Interesting! Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
I think "skronk" is a Lester Bangs-ism. I think the first person I heard use it was Thurston Moore.
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[QUOTE=mr. beaumont;538013]I just googled "squonk." Interesting!/QUOTE]
Google wasn't around when that song ("Any Major Dude Would Tell You") came out--early '70s. Never thought to look it up later. Glad I just did. Thanks for the nudge.
Here's the tune, by the way.
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Good old Lester, he sure had a way with words. Anyone remember "In Praise of Depraved Death Dwarves" - Creem article from 1975 about Lou Reed. Now that was Punk Rock! In fact he may have coined "Punk" as well, hang on, maybe that was Legs McNeil.... Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
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I don't think skronk has a textbook definition. In the right (or wrong) hands, anything can be skronky. Originally Posted by princeplanet
Back to the OP, it is my understanding (possibly influenced by Dave Liebman's foreword to his Chromatic Approach book) that altered dominants may originate from the use of minor pentatonic melody notes over a V7 chord. Later, the note became incorporated into the chord - Duke Ellington was probably important.
If you add the b3 to the V7, you get a V7+5, and if you add b7 you get V7+9 (if you overlook the spelling.) So over these chords you can play the I blues scale... (and the 5-b5-4 move will give you that classic 1-7-b7 thing on the V7 chord too.)
(The V7b9 is more of a parallel minor sound, familiar from Romantic era harmony.)
You can improve the sound of this scale for altered dominants by using pentatonics simply lowering the 1 by a half step. This gives you in the key of C - B Eb F G Bb. On the G7 chord, this would be 3, b6, b7, 1, #9, in short, all a growing jazzer needs to alter it up.
Hope that's of help!
EDIT: after a bit of tinkling around, I think it sounds better to add the 7 to the blues scale and have a 6/7 note scale:
1 b3 4 (b5) 6 b7 7Last edited by christianm77; 06-06-2015 at 07:26 AM.
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Interesting, but not really what I was after... Originally Posted by christianm77
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Well has anyone mentioned just a tritone sub of the V pentatonic. As V pentatonic sounds great on a I chord, you could go F pent --> Db pent --> G pent on a C ii-V-I, for example.
I think any movement can sound good though. Sideslip motion for example - F pent, F# pent, G pent has a strong motion to it on Dm7 G7 C, even if it isn't correct from a vertical point of view... I think it sounds great, actually.
(where pent = major pentatonic)
Pentatonics are as good as triads for establishing the sound of a key centre over another (not necessarily related) key centre. Just ask Scott Henderson :-) I should probably practice more of this stuff.Last edited by christianm77; 06-06-2015 at 09:40 AM.
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Wanted to discuss altering ( or even constructing) the Pents themselves, not how to use existing pents to suit altered Dom sub situations (which is probably more interesting, but maybe in another thread?).
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Richard Cochrane has some interesting info on a special altered pentatonic based on the altered scale, using R #9 3 #5 b7. I haven't checked to see if it is one covered in Matt's pages.
Can't say that I've integrated these into my playing, rather they are on my to-do list.
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If anyone's ever read most of the posts I've written (at least in the threads I've started) you probably know I'm all about this stuff. Designing the notes for the melody (we could refer to them as 'scales') based on the specific chords. I generally am being really specific and sticking with 4 notes instead of 5...but a 5th note could definitely and easily be added.
Here's a few I love with the 5th note added:
C13b9 = Db-E-G-A-Bb
C7b9b5 = C-Db-E-Gb-Bb
C7#9#5 = C-D#-E-Ab-Bb
C13#11,9 = D-E-F#-A-Bb
If you haven't read any of my posts about my little 4 note structures (which this is the same stuff just with an extra note added), they're derived from the upper structure triad and then other harmonically important notes added on to them. So each pentatonic scale here is just the U.S. triad for that chord + 2 other notes.
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The 2 "modified" (I should have used this term earlier) I mentioned earlier are called the Mixolydian Pent, and the Dorian Pent. The Locrian Pent uses the same notes as the Dorian Pent. So I suppose they're not really modified at all if you see their construction emanating from the modal perspective, however it helps to learn them, and visualize them, if you simply modify the straight major pent to play over the Dom. Again, you either raise the 6 to b7, or alternatively, swap the root for the 2 (9).
Of course there are plenty of other ways to invoke the many kinds of ALTERED Doms, but for simply playing 5 note scales against ordinary Dom chords without getting fancy, which of the 2 usual suspects (above) do you use, or would you use?
The reason I bring this up is that I'm teaching a few basic concepts to a nephew. He knows his rock/blues scales and seems too lazy to want to learn anything outside of that! I explained to him that you can't play most jazz and treat everything like a giant mode, you have to at least shift between Tonic and Dominant sounds, even in songs that don't change key. So when he tried to play his usual pentatonics but starting from different positions, well, you can imagine it didn't really sound like Jazz!.
So, as a stepping stone, I suggested he "modify" the scales he does know to deal with any Dom class chord. Suddenly he was handling ii - V7, as well as IV7, II7 and bVII.... in other words, he could work out how to sound ok against most standard tunes, just by changing one note in the shapes he already knows. Of course he has to work out where to move things, where to start, and how to join it all together, but it's simple enough so he can "hear" it via trial and error.
Which got me thinking, why isn't this the first thing I got shown when I traversed the wide divide between Rock and Jazz? From there you add the tasty passing notes, point out the 3rds and 7ths, a few patterns, a few licks and you're already sounding like Jazz. All the other stuff can come after that...... no?
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