Stella, G7 alt chord problem, advice needed

**Cunamara** · 11-12-2020, 10:32 PM

Originally Posted by christianm77

Harmony is so much of a small part of it, and yet it is all people talk about. You have to be able to make melodies.

There are a thousand recordings of Stella. Find out what those people - people who are the people you really want to be emulating - do over those chords, because that’ll be so much richer than some scale prescriptions. JUYFE!

Well, the improvised melodies have to be interesting but also must connect to the harmony, and that's the hard part for people without inherently great or superbly trained ears. Hence the discussion about it, chord-scale theory, etc.- trying to make up for hearing. Scales don't create melodies and people playing scales over chords sound like that is what they are doing. Scale options just point to certain kinds of sounds that you might like.

**christianm77** · 11-13-2020, 04:11 AM

So, Jim Hall plays an arpeggio - four notes - and it sounds great. Why?

rhythm

If you don’t got it there are no secret jazz notes that will help.

The term ‘inherent’ betrays a fixed mindset to me. I don’t think you need great ears. My ears started out pretty awful. I got better, not by doing fancy ear training but by listening to things and trying to copy them. Like a language.

So, can you can tap out a rhythm when you hear it? That’s the thing, people think studying solos is about the pitch choices but it’s as much about the rhythm and phrasing.

You can play boring notes but if you have rhythm you can make it into a phrase. Often that’s the difference between a scale or an arpeggio, and music.

You can try to play music as if it were engineering, but won’t alter the fact that that’s not what music is.

**ragman1** · 11-13-2020, 05:54 AM

Originally Posted by christianm77

So, Jim Hall plays an arpeggio - four notes - and it sounds great..

Well, I hate to be controversial but I don't think it was so great. I don't think it worked. To be honest, I think the whole solo sounded contrived.

He actually played C Ab E D over the E7+ (because he did it in G) which is Eb B G F in Bb. That's a descending aug arpeggio starting on the #5. It should have worked but it sounded clashy to me. Not quite right. Probably all right on paper!

But I'm also wondering whether it was the chord behind it that was funny. Was that a simple 7#5? I can't quite hear it.

You can try to play music as if it were engineering, but won’t alter the fact that that’s not what music is

But that I agree with completely.

**ragman1** · 11-13-2020, 06:21 AM

Sonny Stitt did something nice. It's in A and there's a sort of series of aug-type arps descending in whole tones to Bm6. Starts at 0.50.

**christianm77** · 11-13-2020, 06:27 AM

Originally Posted by ragman1

Well, I hate to be controversial but I don't think it was so great. I don't think it worked. To be honest, I think the whole solo sounded contrived.

He actually played C Ab E D over the E7+ (because he did it in G) which is Eb B G F in Bb. That's a descending aug arpeggio starting on the #5. It should have worked but it sounded clashy to me. Not quite right. Probably all right on paper!

But I'm also wondering whether it was the chord behind it that was funny. Was that a simple 7#5? I can't quite hear it.

But that I agree with completely.

Er, what’s the melody note of the song at that point?

**ragman1** · 11-13-2020, 06:45 AM

In Bb, Eb, I know. That's why I say it should have worked but then I think it went clonk after that. it wasn't the Eb that went clonk. Can you hear what the chord is behind what he's playing?

**vsaumarez** · 11-14-2020, 12:41 AM

It may be you are looking at the G7 as an independent dominant chord. If you look at both the melody note and the chord that follows, it give you a clue as to what is happening. Eb is the melody note, which is the sharp 5th of G7. Cm7 is the one chord in the V I sequence. So, the sound is very minor but with that lovely major 3rd, B natural in it. Some see this a C melodic minor. Others will see a ii V I (Dm7b5 G7 Cm7). I see an altered dominant so G7 with a #9, b9, and #5.

**matt.guitarteacher** · 11-14-2020, 07:19 PM

Rethinking on the OP, it seems that the problem is the same one I had many years ago: "I can play melodically otherwise. How can do this the same thing on altered?". The main problem with altered is learning to hear it, but it's difficult because it doesn't really function in the same way as other diatonic modes, in terms of chord tones and arpeggios etc.

In my opinion, the easiest way to hear altered in the beginning is to learn it as modal interchange with the I chord and VI chord of the parent melodic minor scale. For G altered, you'd use the I chord from MM ..... Ab mel minor and it's related Ab-(maj7) arpeggio. So, if you have two measures of diatonic vocabulary that you think sounds good over Ab-7 chord, then learn to play the same for MM - with a raised 7 (G nat). It's much easier to hear in the beginning with Ab-(maj7) "chord tones" in that way for G7alt.

Then, learn to do the same with the VI chord...F-7b5/locrian vocabulary becomes Locrian#2. That's one is of course more difficult if you aren't as comfortable with Locrian in the first place. Both of these arpeggios sound "very G alt", and melodic lines from the full-scale which target them as "chord tones" sound great.

There's more, but just being able to play over those two chord substitutions for altered will give you more altered vocabulary than many guitarists ever play. Also, if you use these two arpeggios to target (or alternate-with / lead-into) vanilla G7, it sounds great and conveys more of a harmonic minor type motion/sound. Many players default to arpeggios for outside chords anyway.

**matt.guitarteacher** · 11-14-2020, 10:26 PM

By the way, what is the Barry Harris take on this? Is it based on the target chord being minor, the target chord being II- of the key (I think, from memory), the preceding chord/harmony etc etc?

Just curious. Thanks.
#

Originally Posted by christianm77

Er

**christianm77** · 11-15-2020, 04:53 AM

Probably Bb7 into Cm as the basic option?

Other options like Db7 and Abm6-dim

Probably advise players to stay on dominant scale as much as possible, and not play too much of the harmonic minor (as we know more dominant material.)

Also we learn lots of whole tone patterns too. Which seems to be a popular choice on this chord.