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Hey,
After all the years since i started to playing jazz i heard often (more or less) about these mystical thing called "Bebop Scale" or "Bebop Scales".
the first time i was getting in contact with these scale was on the really beginning of my Jazz "Carreer :-D". I saw this scale, found a chromatic note - nice that's it. ;-)
After the years and also a jazz music college. I never heard again of these Scale.
Usually, my approach to improvising in Jazz or Bebop is based on the Arpeggio combined with Chord scales and filled up with a little bit chromatic approach. Basically my personal idea is to use the chromatic note from below or above for a chord or scale tone. Sometimes thinking in some chord substitution (but thats not the topic). On dominant chords, i can expand the rule and can use some dominant and altered scales to also combine altered notes with each other like in the altered Scale.
the often spoken rule "only use chord tones (or maybe scale tones if it had to be :-D) on the strong beats 1,2,3,4 and use the chromatic notes only on the offbeats was really weird and confusing for me. Because in transcription i made i got the feeling that no Jazz Musician has ever heard about this rule. Chromatic notes happens on downbeats all the time i think in Jazz language. Or iam wrong ?
This is basically the way i go since the last few years. Some days ago, i saw a youtube Video, where someone talked about the bebop scale and that the scale is a nice tool and so on.
The first time i understood a little bit the concept behind this scale. I think its not really correct to call it a scale, i would say it is a concept of using chromatic notes.
The idea seems to be, that we try to make a scale, which has chord tone on the strong beats all the time and chromatic notes on the off beats to fill the gabs. In result, we creating a dominant scale with certain chromatic notes for different situations. And till this point of my investigation there are many different bebop scales if someone decide that maybe a 9 a 6 is also a good chord tone for my actually chord change.
I have add a pdf file, so you can see what is basically the thing i have checked out. I took a G7 Mixo Scale and tried to fill the gabs for each degree we can start on the scale and fill the chromatic notes, so that only chord tones are on the strong beats.
the crux on the whole concept and why iam really getting crazy when i am thinking about it is, that i don't understand what the whole concept has to do with practical jazz improvisation.
So with this tool, we can start on a certain degree of a scale and can fill chromatic notes, so every chord tone is on a strong beat. But this concept only work if we really play a line up or down. Or if we change the direction , we have to think in other scale concept immidiately. If we want to use some intervall stuff my brain would explode. So for me the concept only make "sense" we play a scale up and down, with no rhythmic variation, intervallic aproach or melodic ideas. So why should this concept is a good tool or make sense ? Is there really a jazz musician out there, which think this concept is really helpful, and why ?
After all why should it be forbidden to use chromatic notes also on the downbeats ? Is a concept which tries to forbidden this kind of freedom a good concept ?
I know it's seems to be developed by Barry Harris and i love the barry harris concept for comping with the 6th dimished scale, but i really don't get the point out of the Bebop SCale.
Someone here, who maybe can explain me my problem and maybe can give me more information about the idea of this concept ?
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03-22-2018 05:53 AM
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Originally Posted by ginod
2) the rules of added notes in scales are designed to allow a soloist to control the placement of chord tones rhythmically. There is no harmonic significance to what these added notes actually are. They can be chromatic passing tones, ghost notes, open strings or whatever.
An essential jazz skill is being able to place chord tones on the beat in 8th note lines. Once this is mastered the student can use anticipations and delays.
The Barry Harris added note rules for scales are one way to achieve this but not the only way. He has a whole set of formulae for doing this .David Baker’s bebop scales are a simplified version of that.
Hal Galper’s forward motion is a contrasting approach that leads to the same ideas in the opposite direction.
The slavish adoption of any set of rules is to be avoided. In the end they are just a set of guidelines to assist focussed practicing, not a grand theory of jazz.
3) If you find it’s not working for you, don’t bother with it.
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4) your pdf gives the scales ascending. Descending is far more common.
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Rereading your post, I want to address the whole question a bit more specifically.
If you choose to go down this road there are a whole bunch of techniques you can use to develop scales into idiomatic bebop lines. The ‘bebop’ scale as you correctly point out is purely a chromatic embellishment of the scale. There are lots of other ways.
This is the type of stuff I find myself teaching a lot. The source for me is Barry Harris, his stuff on single note lines.
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thank you for the information.
My thoughts now:
If the goal is to sound like a real bebop player and put the chord tones on the downbeat everytime. How can i really develop or practice this ability with this tool ? A tool which seems to based on strict up and down playing, or like you said mostly find use in descending lines. Is there really and advantage in contrast to learn your arpeggio, connect them with each other and in the next step you say "Ok i try to keep the arpeggio on the downbeats and fill it with chromatic and scales tones on the upbeats". So if you have the arpeggio under your finger you know where you can keep for long notes or resting notes.
I know you said its only one concept to reach the goal, but i really want to understand the concept to make a clear decision if this concept fits for me or not. But at the moment, i don't get the big advantage and how someone can really practice this concept in a practical context.
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Originally Posted by ginod
How can i really develop or practice this ability with this tool ? A tool which seems to based on strict up and down playing, or like you said mostly find use in descending lines. Is there really and advantage in contrast to learn your arpeggio, connect them with each other and in the next step you say "Ok i try to keep the arpeggio on the downbeats and fill it with chromatic and scales tones on the upbeats". So if you have the arpeggio under your finger you know where you can keep for long notes or resting notes.
There’s a real limit to the scope of what I can outline here in text. It’s best to have a practical, step by step lesson where someone can tell you what to practice in a clear way. Otherwise ends up being a wall of text.
I know you said its only one concept to reach the goal, but i really want to understand the concept to make a clear decision if this concept fits for me or not. But at the moment, i don't get the big advantage and how someone can really practice this concept in a practical context.
For a C ii v i, i would teach students to develop lines using scales and arpeggios on the G7 scale and connect using passing tones to a chord tone of C for instance.
Later we would do Blues, Rhythm Changes, standards etc.
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Isn't the answer to all these questions 'Go and listen to the records!' just like Joe Henderson said. Of course it's very valuable to learn the exercises/scales etc. to get the concept under your fingers. But for how to apply it to make actual music, listen to the recordings.
I never heard of bebop scales until a few years ago. But I have been basically doing it for years because I learned it from listening to Bird, Dexter Gordon, Chet Baker etc. Lots of chromatic passing notes. But they don't just play a descending scale, they make a melody out of it. That means directing and shaping the line, changing direction mid-phrase, up, down, up again, interval leaps, rhythmic accents, triplets, etc. etc.
Also it's clear from listening that the chromatic notes are often inserted at the points where the line is heading downwards, as Christian said. For some reason it just works better that way, I don't really know why, just an aesthetic thing perhaps.
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The power of synchronicity. This popped up in my feed. I suppose it excuses me from having to make the video
This is the kind of stuff I teach...
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Originally Posted by grahambop
The bebop scale is name given to common practice. I never heard of it until I started joining internet forums.
But if you go to the music--yes, it's there. I doubt these guys thought of it as such. Jazz education when bebop was developing was listening to other players.
So yes, you can learn the scale, do exercises, whatever. I'd say it'd be more beneficial to listen and cop dozens and dozens of lines from players you like. Before long, hearing ideas like those the bebop scale provides will be natural, it'll be the dooby-do's and bop-shoo-bams you hear in your head.
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Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
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Thank you all for sharing your experience.
Which books can you recommend for this topic. Maybe a book which show you how can i practice to use it in practical improvisation.
I am not really sure if the concept fit for me. Like i said i developed my jazz language by learning the Chord Scales und Arpeggio and mostly my ear and taste for the improvisation how i want to put chromatic notes. But i am curious to learn new concepts like this.
I found a book " Talk Jazz by Roni Ben Hure". Somebody know it? Unfortunately i can't get it in local book show, so i have to pay 25 $ only for the shipping costs . But i can't find an ebook offer
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I would say leave the books alone for a while and learn from the actual music.
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Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
Willie Thomas tells the story of learning about "pentatonic pairs" (a foundational concept for Willie) from Wynton Kelly when they were in (IIRC) an Army band together. Apparently, Wynton taught that to a lot of players.
Another thing we sometimes lose sight of it is that a lot of public schools (in the US) 'way back when' had music classes. Not band---though there was that too--but music classes. Sight singing, learning to read music, some of the basic elements of music: a lot of schoolchildren learned (or were at least offered the chance to learn) those things.
Also, many churches taught kids (in Vacation Bible school, summer camp, whatever) some basics of music so that they could count rhythms, read melody lines, sing hymns.
There's a fascinating story about Dizzy in "To Be Or Not To Bop." He had studied a lot. When he joined (I believe) the Earl Hines band, there were players who were keen on 'the new thing' and those who were not. Dizzy taught a lot to those who were interested in learning it. Some were, some weren't. It was not "music school" in the academic sense but when you step back and ask, "since when did people have to go to college to learn to play jazz?" you start to realize, "O, lots of important learning goes on outside of schools..." It's learning nonetheless.
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Originally Posted by grahambop
I know different things work for different people, but I can't imagine going straight to the source ever hurting...
In my never-to-be released book, "How to not totally suck at jazz in ten short years," the first year is just listening to nothing but jazz for as many hours a day as possible.
I'm being a bit silly, but I'm always surprised by how many people I talk to who want to learn jazz and they don't really listen to jazz.
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Yea one Mr. B quote I remember is the 1st 10 years is the hardest. I’ve been playing jazz for over 10 years, but I’ve taken years off at a time. So I consider myself to still be grinding through that “first 10 years.” Makes me feel like there’s light at the end of the tunnel.
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Originally Posted by christianm77
Because this kind of statement can sound so simplistic and obvious, it's easy to miss just how important it is. Some things will never be understood until you explore playing them a little.
I think it's really important to not "waste" too much time worrying about potential inefficiencies or about time spent on things which you may not wholeheartedly adopt long-term. Nothing is wasted. To a large extent, it's all part of the process. Sometimes you get a tremendous benefit from exploring something which may eventually be ruled out or discarded. One aspect of knowing a "thing" is knowing other things which are "not the thing".
I have had times when I spent far too much time analyzing something abstractly, which could almost never be understood that way. But you don't really learn that lesson until you explore it by actually playing it.
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Originally Posted by ginod
The best thing are the Barry Harris workshop dvds but they are more expensive. But great.
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Originally Posted by grahambop
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Originally Posted by ginod
So literally, you could take a student right through practical applications...I might even be inclined to start that way--tell them--get these say, 10 lines under your fingers, then, ok, here's the raw materials (the bebop scales themselves), now make 10 lines of your own.
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Originally Posted by grahambop
It is necessary to listen to jazz greats. But when Charlie Parker said "it was all done with books", or stressed the necessity of working on technique (-he used to practice 12 hours a day!) or took method books to gigs for ideas, that's worth paying attention to too.
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Originally Posted by ginod
It's only a rule of thumb. There's plenty of stuff in the other direction, but it's a decent starting point, and you can find tons of lines that follow that basic template.
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Right...but to play devil's advocate--those were NOT jazz method books...
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Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
Bird or Diz were already brilliant musicians, they knew what to do with those patterns to make music out of them.
Have to admit I’m a bit anti books, because I never used them much and I think it did me good to be forced to get it by ear from the records. But that was pre-internet days, probably nowadays I would be like everyone else and try and do it all from books, online courses, etc.
Then I would probably come on a forum like this and say ‘I’ve learned all this stuff, but how do I make it sound like jazz?’
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I put out some old Parker Transcriptions and looked a little bit whats going on there depending on the rhythmic. and yes i have to say it's shocking me how consequent he place chromatic passing notes on the offbeat. There are only a few bars where he don't do that and use some stuff like - " Chromatic from below, chromatic from above and then dissolve in a chord or scale tone."
But things he did not do is placing only chord tones on the downbeat. There are a lot of scale Tones on the downbeat, often he is starting a phrase with a scale tone like 11 for minor7 Chords. On Dominant he use alterations on downbeats quite often like b9, b6 etc.
What i see on the first look ist that he likes to place Scale Tones on the beat like this (in a 2-5-1)
minor7 - 11, 9 and very - ! Terrifying often b13 on the downbeat as chromatic passing note and for Beginning a phrase !
Dominant7 - 11, 13, 9 mosty but also alteration like b9, #9, #11 (ok for Tritone-Substitut),
Major7 - 9, 13, - often he likes to play #5 on the downbeat or starting a phrase with #5 on the downbeat (no idea why :-D )
When i look at the video of Rotem Sivan. He also introduce possibilities for use bebop scale where scale tones (in this case the "G" - 9 ) fall on the beat.
Ok people will think now i am overanalyzing and be to critical. But i am really confused.
When i look at the Rotem Sivan Video and his scales, he also use a G as a nine for his scale on the downbeat.
So the goal seems not really be to put only chord tones on the downbeats. Charlie Parker don't do that and Rotem Sivan break the Rule in his video after 1 minute and use Scale Tone on the downbeat after he said "This thing help you to only put chord tones on the downbeat".
My question now is. should i really torture a student to practice (as a essentiell skill) to only put chord tones on the downbeat if the greats also use Scale tones on the downbeat all the time.
I think the really important thing is to be able to target chord tones for guidetonelines if the chord changes. in between of them, its absolutely a good advice to place scale tones on the downbeat as well ?
Maybe i am a little bit a pain in the neck. But i really try to find the perfect exercises and concepts for Jazz and Bebop Phrasing for my students (and also to understand more what i am doing the whole day :-D ) and don't want to torture someone with things which doesn't bring you to the goal ;-)Last edited by ginod; 03-23-2018 at 08:45 AM.
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Any such theoretical exercise is only a guideline. You can start by playing chord tones on the strong beat, it's not a bad method. A student has to start somewhere and a rule like this is helpful. But you also need to know that in reality, the musicians play whatever sounds good. So they will also do other things that weren't in the 'rules'. Like playing non-chord tones or chromatic notes on a strong beat, if it makes a good melodic and rhythmic phrase. But maybe that stage comes later, when the student has developed the melodic sense to make it work. (And I think they should develop that sense by learning examples directly from the recordings).
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