Tritone dominant scale vs Altered scale

[Boston Joe]

To get just a little more hippie dippy, there's really something to the amount of "confidence" a "wrong note" is presented with.

Very true. As a yout' I was told, "If you play a wrong note, play it again, louder." I'm not sure that's the BEST advice, but there is something to it.

[Boston Joe]

Next week: why 'what should I play over these chords' is a bad question.

My favorite question to get from a "civilian": "How do you know what notes to play?"

[Tal_175]

How do you do this? Well, by refining the ear and the sensibility. The latter can be called 'theory' but it is really about being able to recognise and apply sounds. Both aspects are best developed by detailed immersion in the music that you love. Theory is there to suggest further possibilities, not set traps.

Well said.
I'm not sure if it's a good thing or a bad thing but it seems like theory informs music as well.
Musicians don't seem to think in terms of just "pool of notes" but they form a mental structure and hierarchy with these notes. That structure is theoretical and informs how they think about and practice these notes. This structure defines the sound more than the "notes in the pool".
For example it is likely that early bebop players were thinking in terms of tritone substitution in their lines since that was a common harmonic device.Their mental structure was two groups of notes (dominant scale and tritone notes) borrowing from each other, which produced a certain sound.
Later on chord scale theory people said look these notes are all just a mode of melodic minor. So people started thinking those notes as a 7 note scale unit which produced a different sound even though the same notes are played.
There are just my speculations. But that is the basis of my original question. I think one would sound different based on how they structure these altered notes.

[christianm77]

So may be it isn't as objectionable as I thought it was (nat7 over dom). What do I know. I'll definitely start using it and see what I think. I sometimes get yelled at by my teacher for playing nat7 over minor. But that's may be pushing it.

I would certainly do it more, for that reason alone.

Be a musical troll!

But seriously - I hope you mean min7 and not minor chord... In which case you can still totally use a maj7, but you need to know what you are doing.

Just ask - 'so what's the first note of Scrapple?'

So now you can be a smart arse student instead! But of course context is everything.

As you no doubt know anyway, the F# on the Gm7 is a lower neighbour tone on the upbeat resolving into the next note G on the beat which adds swing in both the harmonic and rhythmic dimensions especially if you phrase them with a slur by using a nice hammer on.

That's an example of how real language works, and not just generic no-time no-language CST noodling... Anyway....

[christianm77]

Well said.
I'm not sure if it's a good thing or a bad thing but it seems like theory informs music as well.
Musicians don't seem to think in terms of just "pool of notes" but they form a mental structure and hierarchy with these notes. That structure is theoretical and informs how they think about and practice these notes. This structure defines the sound more than the "notes in the pool".
For example it is likely that early bebop players were thinking in terms of tritone substitution in their lines since that was a common harmonic device.Their mental structure was two groups of notes (dominant scale and tritone notes) borrowing from each other, which produced a certain sound.
Later on chord scale theory people said look these notes are all just a mode of melodic minor. So people started thinking those notes as a 7 note scale unit which produced a different sound even though the same notes are played.
There are just my speculations. But that is the basis of my original question. I think one would sound different based on how they structure these altered notes.

I think you are probably correct in your speculations... Or at least my speculations are similar to yours....

And what you have said resembles Barry's description.

The origin and early history of the CST system is a little tricky to track down... But it does seem to have undergone some evolution at Berklee, and despite the drive of institutions like Berklee to (understandably) standardise things, teachers have their own variations on the approach as well even, I suspect, within Berklee itself.

I think another thing that is sometimes overlooked is that all the players who helped develop the CST approach were already masters of the old approach... And I think to this day, most players at colleges are encouraged to learn bebop language and chord tones etc for this reason (possibly in a really superficial ii-V-I licks kind of way, but still). CST builds on that knowledge then...

Anyway, I think the MM modes are cool sounds and dead useful. However, what I've also learned is that they are unnecessary to understand most bebop lines.

I know people seem to think I am misrepresenting CST when I say this, but to me CST with it's preoccupations with avoid notes and so on seems to a fundamentally vertical theory - every chord becomes a free-standing structure. It does not in fact have to be used this way

The hierarchy thing - yes. Most players here think of the chord/scales as a ladder of thirds (as I call it) 1 3 5 7 9 11 13 - using whatever mode seems appropriate to map the progression of a tune. That's a heirarchy of upper extensions, obviously, getting more and more exotic. These are not the only notes you use, of course, but they represent the load bearing structures of your lines.

We can play 1 on each chord, then 3, then 5, and so on... this is a great exercise and surprisingly hard for those coming from a memorised scale or arpeggio background.

However, in functional tunes, while these hierarchies are super strict for major and minor static chords, they are much more malleable for moving chords like dominants and diminisheds (even minor 6's sometimes!). The fact that you can always use an altered dominant for a regular one in a line is a case of this....

Also, the 13th is really not the remotest of the extensions. For a lot of swing and bebop music the 6th is at least as common an added note as the 7th for major and minor chords. So the system kind of is a bit flawed here as a description of jazz harmony....

In practice some of the notes are more stylistic than others. This is usually down to the music being pretty diatonic to the prevailing key until the '60s with the exception of dominant chords - which as I mentioned often acted more as voice leading than sounds in their own right. Yes, including bebop.

For instance, I am not going to play #11 on major on a swing gig. Except maybe as the world's nerdiest musical joke.

But #11 on 7? Sure, esp if it's a bVI, IV or II chord. Think of Out of Nowhere, Limehouse Blues and A Train respectively.

But I know this cos I am checking out the music. I know the broad stylistic norms and I am refining my listening all the time. So... #11 as a harmonic tone or melodic tone? That's another one...

So what about my own style, my own music? Well, that's an interesting question. :-)

Really this is all a lot more intuitive then I make it sound. It's not like I think now - I'm playing a swing gig dance so I must restrain the intervallic CST legato. I just play what feels right. Seems to be OK.

[pauln]

Different perspectives into the same thing?
It seems to me that this is mainly a bebop/straight ahead/Barry Harris vs Post bop/chord scale theory/academia way of looking at jazz.
There is also a third way. A hybrid approach if you will. That is the tritone Lydian dominant scale. This avoids the "avoid note" in the tritone scale which corresponds to the major 7th of the original dominant scale:
Let's say the Dominant is G7,
Tritone (Db):
Db Eb F Gb Ab Bb Cb -> b5(#4) b6(#5) b7 7(!) b9 #9 3 of the original dominant scale.
G altered (starting from Db for comparison):
Db Eb F G Ab Bb Cb -> Same except root (G) instead of maj7 (Gb).
Tritone (Db) Lydian dominant:
Same as G altered above.

Which perspective do you use and why? If use the "tritone scale" how do you deal with the "avoid note", just not play it?

There is an officially named Tritone Scale - a six note scale, in Db it is
Db D F G Ab B
- different from what you wrote as a seven note scale
Db Eb F Gb Ab Bb Cb
The official tritone scale in Db has the natural G, but it sounds awkward to me; I tend to avoid chromatic sequences of three pitches unless it is part of the melody. What other names are there for the scale you are calling the tritone scale?

There is the Lydian Dominant - in Db it is
Db Eb F G Ab Bb Cb
This also has the natural G

As an exclusive self taught ear player, I discovered / invented the Lydian Dominant a long time ago before I knew it had a name, and I found example situations across songs where it works from each chromatic interval from the tonic. What you are discussing here, I would consider Db as the b2 of C, (which is the same as the tritone sub for G7 -> C).

Since I found the LD first, I never bothered with the melodic minor or altered scale; when I make either of those sounds, both of which I produce all the time, they are coming from modes of the Lydian Dominant... I use LD as my "basis" rather than MM, same harmonic result.

[bobby d]

I hardly ever think in terms of what notes to avoid. It's better to play notes that one hears than to avoid other notes IMO. In Jazz, we have to get the ear used to hearing those dissonant notes. If you don't hear it, don't play it!

I was drawn to this thread because I never heard of the tritone dominant scale. The OP was confusing instead of spelling out this scale in an easy to understand way.

Also "bebop/straight ahead/Barry Harris" is vague at least to me.

[christianm77]

Barry Harris about the least vague thing in the world lol

But those terms are not interchangeable

[bobby d]

Thanks for clearing that up Christian

[christianm77]

[Reg]

Avoid note are for arranging.... when you still don't have your shit together.... they help you from writing lousy voicings in implied harmonic contexts. The same thing has been applied to learning how to play jazz.... when your performing and don't have your shit together... they help you not play notes that suck with changes.
Obviously after you get your shit together... and understand how you want to use notes in harmonic and melodic context... you don't need any of the training wheels etc...

[Alter]

I just see it as different colors, different ways to create tension over the chords. Tritone dominant scale, altered, Dom.b13 etc.. I think you have to be able to both use them as a soloist or use them to comb when a soloist plays them, so I practice then all