Are bebop scales useful?

[christianm77]

what I find really attractive in Barry's system that it really covers all diatonic relations and makes diatonic theory look more jazz authentic rather than occasionally borrowed from classical..

He describes the same realations in general that can be described with common means of classical terminolgy but in much more elaborated and natural way for jazz style


For example ... he describes MM concept through using 6th minor diminshed (which is the same).. and I am ok with MM..

But I have to admit that theory-wise 6th min dim is much more logical - again at least for functional relations

This has nothing to do with the 6th-dim stuff. That's separate.

The problem is, you have a scale running in 8th notes. You want to outline chords on the downbeat. How do you do this? Lots of ways.

(When I say scale, I mean scale. Not mode. Not some free use of a seven note pitch collection to create melodies. I mean actual scales going up and down in semitones and tones. I'm sure that's what most people mean, but it can't hurt to be super clear.)

You do not in fact have to put chord tones on the downbeat. Sometimes you can put them on the anticipation for example, which is very bop.

But - developing this control of this when using stepwise scalar lines is quite tricky, hence all these drills of which the 'bebop scales' are the best known (David Baker also outlines other schemes). There are different approaches of course.

As BH puts it intervallic playing is less rhythmically constraining than scale playing. But scale playing is very much part of the language of Charlie Parker.

[joe2758]

right no one is suggesting to play a constant stream of 8th notes. check out this video and then add in some 8th and 16th note triplets and then you might start to get it

[Jonah]

not to nitpick, but the minor 6th dim scale also contains a minor 6th. just didn't want anyone to get confused by this

edit: or maybe you meant the classical MM scale-- that makes sense

yes you're right... it has 8 notes... my mistake.
But anyway he describes the same application of it - for example for altered dominants - as MM is used in jazz


As for classical MM - I think it's the same as jazz... or you mean that usually it is played with Natural minor in descending lines - and BH scale this way covers both?
Or did I misunderstood you?

[Jonah]

This has nothing to do with the 6th-dim stuff. That's separate.

Not really sure.. I think within BH appraoch it does.

The problem is, you have a scale running in 8th notes. You want to outline chords on the downbeat. How do you do this? Lots of ways.

You do not in fact have to put chord tones on the downbeat. Sometimes you can put them on the anticipation for example, which is very bop.

But - developing this skill through scales is quite tricky, hence all these drills of which the 'bebop scales' are the best known (David Baker also outlines other schemes).

As BH puts it intervallic playing is less rhythmically constraining than scale playing. But scale playing is very much part of the language of Charlie Parker.

I see what you mean now... probably that's I just do not see... say... 'scales' as litterally ' playing scales'

[christianm77]

Does anybody do something like this?))

I've worked on this and more complex drills for around 2 years and it has become and integral part of my vocabulary.

but the ways you can use it in texture (that is with meter)... and depend oin imagination... you can play only few notes from teh scale or play it in different rythms and so on an so on

I would not ever think about playing all the notes of the scale with note per beat)))

Who ever did it?

Well I know Barry Harris and David Baker. I bought the Klose book because that's what Bird studied. That's all classical etudes.

I do think of this type of scale playing as being very bebop, but it's been around for longer...

Except maybe these Coltrain stuff of 'sound sheets' - but what's the problem to play 7 notes per 4 beats?

No problem. It's just not the bebop language to play 7 over 4. That's some Zappa prog rock shit or something :-)

You can play a scale of 7 notes and finish with the chord tone and the 4+ - that's actually super bebop. But you also want to develop the control to be able to put that chord tone on the beat if you want.

But in order to play bop well, I think you need to develop your ability to play chord tones with rhythmic freedom while linking them together with a mixture of diatonic and chromatic passing tones. That's what the BH approach aims to address, but it's not the only game in town.

[joe2758]

yes you're right... it has 8 notes... my mistake.
But anyway he describes the same application of it - for example for altered dominants - as MM is used in jazz


As for classical MM - I think it's the same as jazz... or you mean that usually it is played with Natural minor in descending lines - and BH scale this way covers both?
Or did I misunderstood you?

don't get hung up on that, I only mentioned the classical because it contains the minor 6th on the way down and I thought maybe that's why you said it's the same thing. Either way, Christian is right that the 6th dim scale is sort of separate from his teachings on single note soloing. the 6th dim scale is a harmonic concept. For the soloing he teaches basically melodic minor, dominant, and major scales with added notes. Some added notes are more common than others, but when it comes down to it you can add any note. literally ANY note

[Jonah]

right no one is suggesting to play a constant stream of 8th notes. check out this video and then add in some 8th and 16th note triplets and then you might start to get it

yes I see... thank you

[bako]

I honestly don't know... but my gut tells me that Monk, Bird, and Diz were not sitting around shedding bebop scales out of a book. That does NOT mean that that approach can't yield helpful results for some musicians. But it seems to me more likely that they played what they played, and then later someone came along and noticed the patterns of these passing tones and said, let's call these scales.

I agree.

Very few people alive today know what Monk, Bird, and Diz were shedding let alone what they were thinking.
I also believe it to be mistaken, any notion that they were all thinking similar thoughts and practiced in the same way.
It is just as unlikely that they were shedding arpeggios through changes, chord tones with chromatic approach notes, chord pairs, chord scales through changes, etc. as bebop scales. These are all after the fact conceptual extractions.
They are neither good or evil, they are simply ideas available to us to engage with or not in pursuit of whatever musical path we choose to walk.

I believe that the music of that period was a melodic conception with an evolving rhythmic and harmonic palette.
Playing with a personal voice was very high on the food chain of a value system.
These musicians lived and breathed music, playing gigs and sessions incessantly.
They worked in bands of their predecessors and later led their own groups.

[joe2758]

Very few people alive today know what Monk, Bird, and Diz were shedding let alone what they were thinking.
.

not for nothing, but barry harris was roomates with monk

[Boston Joe]

))))))))))))))

Does anybody do something like this?))

[...snip]

but what's the problem to play 7 notes per 4 beats?

It's not necessarily that you're going to be playing a four beat scale starting on the root, but the chromatic passing tones do tend to keep the chord tones on the down beat. If you want to change that, you can, but you don't need to worry about it being consistent.

Put it another way. Suppose you're going from the fifth to the root:


1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &

5 6 7 1

In this case, the root ends up on an off-beat. That may or may not be what you want, but if it isn't, here comes your bebop friend:

1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &

5 #5 6 7 1

Now the root ends up on the top of beat 3, which is a very strong place for it to be.

The specifics of the scale are less important than the idea that a strategically placed passing tone will keep your chord tones placed consistently within the rhythmic flow. Yes, you can fool around with the rhythm of your line and get the same effect, but if you're doing a run and you've got this down, you don't even have to think about it.

[Jonah]

But in order to play bop well

now I got it... I was not ever really after playing be-bop authentically...

and now I feel embarassed to get into the thread on be-bop scale

sorry..

[mr. beaumont]

Bullshit? Nah, they aim to explain something, basically...a way of organization. They're just scales with a chromatic built in. If you do enough listening, you'll include that note in your lines, anyway.

I don't think Bird and Diz thought about "bebop scales." But who cares? You're not Bird and Diz. Follow what makes sense, and don't limit yourself to one learning source.

[princeplanet]

Some more ideas, including the "inside out" scales (starting them on the "wrong" note...) :


OCTATONIC SCALES

.................................................. ...................ODD..........EVEN.............. ...............................


1 b2 2 3 4 5 6 7 ..........c c# d e f g a b.........c d f a.......c# e g b.......Dm7 (F6) - A9 rootless/C#

Half Dim/E min6


1 2 b3 3 4 5 6 7 .........c d d# e f g a b........c d# f a.......d e g b..........F7 - Em7 (G6) (rootless C maj 9 )


1 2 3 4 b5 5 6 7** .......c d e f f# g a b.......c e f# a........d f g b ........ D9 rootless /F#

HalfDim/Amin6 - G7 (along with it's ii) *first mode cool against A dorian


1 2 3 4 5 b6 6 7 .........c d e f g g# a b....... c e g a....... d f g# b ........C6 (Am7) Ddim7 - E7b9 rootless

*either mode cool against D dorian vamp


1 2 3 4 5 6 b7 7**..... c d e f g a a# b ...... c e g Bb ...... d f a b ......... C7 - G9 rootless/B half Dim/Dmin6

*cool against D dorian


** these 2 modes are the same thing a 4th apart - (eg G mixo- g a b c d e f f#)


SO, Against D Dorian vamp-


the b2 scale starting on odd
the b5 scale starting on even
the b6 scale starting on odd OR even!
the b7 scale starting on odd


want more ideas? take the b2 scale transpose down a tone (begin on Bb) and start odd,
the b5 scale transposed up a 4th...


For a simple 17 to IV7 vamp-


try b5 scale- odd for D7 and even for G7


try b7 scale- odd for C7 and even for G7 ( like previous but 4th up and "inside out"!)

on 2-5-1 type progressions, try b7(even) or b5(even) for both the 2 and 5, and b6 (odd) or b3 (even)

for the Tonic. For G7alt try Abm6 (the b5 scale down a half step)Ab Bb B Db Eb (E) F G

[pamosmusic]

So I'll be very up front here ...

I'm a skeptic.


Could some of you who find the bebop scale useful give me some examples of how you practice them? Not the theory behind them ... I spent a lot of time with them and totally understand the theory and the like. I'm just curious how people actually use them in practice and develop them into lines.


Go!

[joe2758]

If the Barry Harris "rules" for adding chromatic notes to scales count you could turn them into phrases by:

1.adding 16th and 8th note triplet trills
2.including arpeggios
3. octave displacement
4.running the scales "into each other" (eg G7 and Db7)
5. starting or ending on short phrases (5,7,1,4,3)
6. patterns like 1,3,2,4,3,5...then 7,1,3,b2,2,4,b3,3,5
7. endless rhythmic variation
8. enclosures
9. anything you've ever learned to create phrases etc

[christianm77]

So I'll be very up front here ...

I'm a skeptic.


Could some of you who find the bebop scale useful give me some examples of how you practice them? Not the theory behind them ... I spent a lot of time with them and totally understand the theory and the like. I'm just curious how people actually use them in practice and develop them into lines.


Go!

Just go through all the drills.

Go through a progression. Let's take the middle 8 of Rhythm Changes

D7 | % | G7 | % | C7 | % | F7 | % |

Getting started:

I'll run through the scales starting on the beat on each chord tone of the chord. (1 or 3 added notes required)
Then I'll start off the beat (0 or 2 added notes required)
Then I'll do non chord tone on the beat (1 or 3)
Then I'll start on the off beat on a chord tone (0 or 2)
Shift the whole thing onto the next beat over, start again.

I won't necessarily get through everything, so I might just choose one thing a week and shed that. For example, at the moment I am playing a lower NT on the 1+, going up a four note arpeggio through the scale from a chord tone, and then descending until I resolve on the beat, adding any extra tones that I need to.

Another exercise is to play a scale from the top of the guitar to the bottom, continuously through the chord progression, adding the extra notes that you need to outline the harmony.

Classic Barry stuff.

Think of these things as etudes. You can write them out if you want.

[Jonah]

Could some of you who find the bebop scale useful give me some examples of how you practice them? Not the theory behind them ... I spent a lot of time with them and totally understand the theory and the like. I'm just curious how people actually use them in practice and develop them into lines.

I think one side of incorporating scales into practice is organizing the fretboard... visualizing harmony... combining musical and physical aspects of playng etc.

I mean you practice scales is one thing

But you play lines is another thing

At least for me practice is not conciiously connected with performance

Am I wrong?

By the way... To be true Barry's masterclass as shown above is scaring me a bit... it looks too academic for such a non-academic style of playing...

No irrespect here for anyone - especially for Barry.. just my feel

[joe2758]

yeah Jonah man only you know what's right for you, no one here is going to give you the hard sell. I mostly go on about barry harris stuff because I stumbled upon it here and wish I had earlier

[jordanklemons]

So I'll be very up front here ...

I'm a skeptic.


Could some of you who find the bebop scale useful give me some examples of how you practice them? Not the theory behind them ... I spent a lot of time with them and totally understand the theory and the like. I'm just curious how people actually use them in practice and develop them into lines.


Go!

Pete, I'm not the right one to answer your skepticism specifically, because I'm not one of the guys spending my practice time with the bebop scale. But I'm a fan of talking more about process and actual methods during practice time than theory and ideas anyway... so I figured I'd chime in on this. Like I said earlier, my approach was to understand what the central set of skills were that would allow me an improvisational sense of freedom within a bebop context, and to reverse engineer a set of practices that would help develop those skills. Some people might get them from the scales, I just wasn't able to.

So the main skill I decided to focus my time on was to learn to feel, and even anticipate, the strong harmonic beats. I'd spent years working with metronomes trying to feel the 2 and 4 to get that swing feel down... but nobody was really talking about how important it was to feel and anticipate the 1 and the 3 when playing lines... and being able to line up the notes in an intentional way around those beats. So I decided to write a series of "bebop etudes" for myself where I started essentially with a guide tone line that moved through a progression on the "strong" beats.. and then I filled in the weaker beats with chromatic movement, arpeggios, scales, neighbor tones, whatever, etc. It really didn't matter to me. The etudes have turned out to offer me a ton of really cool results... but ultimately, the primary focus from the beginning was simply to spend time practicing FEELING beats 1 and 3 and how to even set them up ahead of time.

Here's a video of the first chorus of a basic blues I wrote:

A buddy of mine took my video and recorded a 2nd track of him comping the changes. If you're having a hard time hearing the changes in the first video, or are just curious to see how they go together...

So my practice time would be first to memorize an etude. Then to play through it without backing tracking tracks paying extra attention to the sound... can I actually HEAR the chord progression moving without the chords being spoon fed to me? Then I might relax my ear a bit and play slowly through the etude tapping my foot on 1 and 3 and over emphasizing that note as I tape my foot... much like I used to do with 2 and 4. Then there is a whole plethora of other things that can be done to create and extract phrases and vocab from the etude. But again, my main goal was learning to feel the 1 and the 3 in my bones... to the point that I could feel it coming with no thinking or 2nd guessing necessary.

[joe2758]

... but nobody was really talking about how important it was to feel and anticipate the 1 and the 3 when playing lines... and being able to line up the notes in an intentional way around those beats. .

Barry Harris does-- haha sorry! I had to! (but seriously, he does)

[destinytot]

Despite having had both sets of Barry Harris Workshop DVDs for quite a while now, I haven't practised bebop scales at all - yet.

And despite unpleasant echoes of adolescent all-nighters and last-minute cramming before exams, I prefer to acknowledge that I find myself cognitively challenged by them.

They're definitely not BS, in my opinion; I plan on finally facing that challenge throughout August.

[pamosmusic]

So the main skill I decided to focus my time on was to learn to feel, and even anticipate, the strong harmonic beats. I'd spent years working with metronomes trying to feel the 2 and 4 to get that swing feel down... but nobody was really talking about how important it was to feel and anticipate the 1 and the 3 when playing lines... and being able to line up the notes in an intentional way around those beats. So I decided to write a series of "bebop etudes" for myself where I started essentially with a guide tone line that moved through a progression on the "strong" beats.. and then I filled in the weaker beats with chromatic movement, arpeggios, scales, neighbor tones, whatever, etc. It really didn't matter to me. The etudes have turned out to offer me a ton of really cool results... but ultimately, the primary focus from the beginning was simply to spend time practicing FEELING beats 1 and 3 and how to even set them up ahead of time.

See this makes a lot of sense to me. But it's also freed from the strictures of the whole bebop scale thing.

The ideas Christian posted for working through it make some sense to me but ... perhaps could you (Christian) post an example of one or two of those "1 or 3 notes added" sort of ideas so I can see sort of what you're getting at. Because my biggest issue with bebop scales is that they always seemed to offer a single narrow solution to a problem that didn't really exist. That is a harsh way of saying that I always thought of them (because they're often represented) as a way to distribute a scale evenly over a four bar measure and get chord tones on strong beats. The obvious next questions being ... well how often do I want to play a scale from top to bottom in one measure? What happens when I want to play syncopations? What happens if I want the ninth to be prominent -- or the sixth -- or the sharp eleventh.

Again -- these are not accusations -- I'm genuinely curious because I suspect that it was probably a lack of imagination that made these less useful for me rather than a lack of utility in the scales. I just figure maybe outlining some of the shortcomings I saw (at the risk of incurring the wrath of the forum) will maybe give you guys something to target with your explanations of how you practice with them.

Convince me! I want to be convinced ....

[jordanklemons]

Barry Harris does-- haha sorry! I had to! (but seriously, he does)

I've studied with BH as well. Not privately, just in the masterclass thing... and I've worked through the written materials he gave out (6 dim harmonic stuff as well as the chromatic passing tone stuff)... I don't recall ever hearing or seeing the idea of learning to feel the 1 and the 3. Can you point me in the direction? A link to a video? A pdf? I haven't spent THAT MUCH time around him... so maybe I missed it.

[plasticpigeon]

Yeah, I mean... I think about it like this...

Does anyone know when bebop scales were invented? I genuinely have no idea, so if someone does, I'm curious. Is there a book that is historically accepted as their first appearance in the theory canon? When was it published? Was it before or after bebop came about?

I honestly don't know... but my gut tells me that Monk, Bird, and Diz were not sitting around shedding bebop scales out of a book. That does NOT mean that that approach can't yield helpful results for some musicians. But it seems to me more likely that they played what they played, and then later someone came along and noticed the patterns of these passing tones and said, let's call these scales.

But they could have just as likely said, hey notice how they keep putting the "better" notes on these important beats? And then because of that, they're able to fill in all sorts of weird, chromatic nonsense in between?? Had they said that, the conversation wouldn't have been about the scales, but about learning to feel the harmonic rhythm. And for me, practicing that has been much more fruitful.

On a side note... if you're working out of a book and you genuinely don't feel that any of the lines in the book sound good to you... I might recommend reconsidering whether or not you should be spending time there. Maybe you just need to "open your ears up" to those types of lines. But maybe it's just leading you in a direction your ears and your intuition don't want to head in. Is there a CD that comes with it? Can you hear the lines being played by someone else in a musical situation? You might want to just sit and listen to that CD. If you don't find your toes tapping, and your neck moving, and your soul and heart wanting to just get up and move... that might tell you something...

Maybe work on some lines that you DO love for now, and come back to it in a year or two and see if its grown on you. Just a thought.

David Baker writes a lot about bebop scales in his books, "how to play bebop". I think he is quite old school and played in the bebop era. I just loked him up and saw that he died in March:-(

[JensL]

I've studied with BH as well. Not privately, just in the masterclass thing... and I've worked through the written materials he gave out (6 dim harmonic stuff as well as the chromatic passing tone stuff)... I don't recall ever hearing or seeing the idea of learning to feel the 1 and the 3. Can you point me in the direction? A link to a video? A pdf? I haven't spent THAT MUCH time around him... so maybe I missed it.

I've heard Barry Harris say that in workshops as well, but they were live not on YouTube

Jens