Examples of alerted scale and super imposition use please

[ragman1]

transition to the new scale

I don't see the difference. When you say 'transition to' it means change along with the harmonies. You're not reading it off a page and obeying bar lines but the harmonies are dictating change. If the harmonies were written there would be bar lines. I really don't see the issue with this.

In fact, unless Christian can explain something I'm not seeing, I don't get it at all. No one is saying you've got to stop when there's a bar line and start again, that's absurd!

I pause between phrases, since most tunes are made of phrases. 'Bar lines' have absolutely nothing to do with it.

[Christian Miller]

Why not? We play to a musical background, not bar lines on a lead sheet (I'm obviously not talking about sight-reading or using the score as a reference).

I mean, if I know it's going

Am - D7 - (Dm7 - G7)

I'd be tempted to play Am twice as one phrase regardless of any bar lines. But I'd be forced to change to something else at the Dm (which doesn't mean I wouldn't start before or after the actual beat) but the harmony still changes where the bar line is so I don't see much difference.

Take a piece of music and try playing for instance, bars 1 to 4 and no further. You will stop before the end of a phrase. Very often you’ll actually need to play at least the following down beat to finish the musical phrase.

Whatever the chords are doing, phrases often go over through the bar lines even in the beginning stuff I teach kids. One way to test how musical a kid is if they instinctively complete the phrase. Most don’t…. So I teach them to.

Harmony reinforces melody. A harmonic cadence like V-I or even V7alt-I is a based on a melodic cadence: 7-1 for instance or 2-1 (b2-1 for altered).

Ill dig out an example when I get a chance. Come to think of it this might make a good video.

[ragman1]

Take a piece of music and try playing for instance, bars 1 to 4 and no further. You will stop before the end of a phrase. Very often you’ll actually need to play at least the following down beat to finish the musical phrase.

Are you seriously suggesting anybody here would do that? Stop at bar 4 regardless?

[Archie]

Hi all,

I have two related questions. I have been playing for while now but I simply cannot integrate alerted sound into my playing. I am just not hearing it, it just sounds horrible, mainly down to me! I wanted to ask if anyone could recommend some specific examples of an altered scale being used in a solo I can learn? or even just a few phrase from famous solos, guitar sax, anything really.

Secondly are there any examples I can check out of a player superimposing a substitution without the band playing with them? For example someone playing a tritone in a blues while the rest of the band plays the standard progression? Again this is something I have tried and it sounded like a car crash and it got me dirty looks

I have tried various lessons but I frankly only really learn well from records as something out of context doesn't stick with me. I like to transcribe and it is possible i just have not attempted complex enough tunes yet to discover these sound so any examples would be much appreciated.

PS please move if this is not the best forum section.

Thanks in advance!

You can think of a lot of bop language as triads with interconnecting single notes.
Start with basic traids. Use chromatic triad approaches to the target triad or use the nearest melodic minor triad to the triad you are on (ii,v) etc.
Start off by being crude about it and then find little notes that connect your minor ii triad, to the nearest medic minor, or relative melodic minor substitution for the 'V' chord and then land on your root triad, or a substitution for I (be it a 3,6 triad etc..). Which ever comes closest to the previous triad or V substitution.

Bop language is about a smooth transition between ideas/triads/scales/chords. Voice leading where possible.
Your bass doesn't have to be making all the changes with you. For example if the bass player plays a V and you play a b5 (flat ii) , you're both making a tritone sound. Where it can start to go wrong, is if you have another harmonic instrument that isn't following your harmonic substitutions. Pianist's are a total pain

If you find you're still not hearing the sound you want or you are clashing with the bass player, which can happen if you're trying to be clever, then start with simple chromatic approach triads to target triad/chords. I.e #ii - ii- #v - v. See how that goes but bare in mind you want to try and stay away from roots if possible as you're both playing them.

[Christian Miller]

Well, thanks for responding, but are we talking at the level of kids here? And are we talking about bar lines or score lines of 4 bars, etc?

You mean they treat reading music like an adult with pretty severe learning difficulties who reads to the end of a printed line and just stops there, not realising he needs to complete the sentence? Is that really what we're talking about here?

What about when they're playing music by memory? Do they stop at crazy places then? How old are these kids?

wasting my breath but this may be of interest to someone somewhere. This is simple stuff, maybe but the principles are also true for more ‘advanced’ things.

So what follows for melody also follows for harmony. A good example might be the melody to Fly Me to the Moon which fairly obviously outlines the chords of the tune and connects each third on the downbeat with a stepwise note on the upbeat. Furthermore, you actually phrase into these downbeats notes, across the bar line*.

So that’s also how you practice changes playing, you connect the chord tones (or chord scales) by steps across the bar line in this way; leading previous chords into the next smoothly and logically.

That’s a simple example but the same logic equally applies to whatever altered harmony you want to use; connect by steps into chord tones in the next bar. It is also the way Giant Steps is laid out ; each V or ii V is a pickup to the I chords that all lie on the downbeats. It also works for any harmony you can imagine, functional or not.

one good exercise is simply to run scales through a tune and keep moving up in steps without changing direction.

This may be obvious to you, but a lot of students haven’t clocked this. Hal Galper wrote a book about it, Forward Motion.

* of course in jazz you can also push them onto the previous upbeat, which is kind of how it is in this song. Whoops.

[Bobby Timmons]

You do whatever you want if you have control over what you are doing.

Which will include following through on ideas over chord changes and bar lines and won't include playing isolated ideas for every chord all the time.

[Bobby Timmons]

I don't see the difference. When you say 'transition to' it means change along with the harmonies. You're not reading it off a page and obeying bar lines but the harmonies are dictating change. If the harmonies were written there would be bar lines. I really don't see the issue with this.

In fact, unless Christian can explain something I'm not seeing, I don't get it at all. No one is saying you've got to stop when there's a bar line and start again, that's absurd!

I pause between phrases, since most tunes are made of phrases. 'Bar lines' have absolutely nothing to do with it.

It's helpful to practice playing lines across chord changes/bar lines because people aren't born with that ability.

[Jonah]

It's helpful to practice playing lines across chord changes/bar lines because people aren't born with that ability.

Well.. maybecit is a bit disappointing... but usually those who do it well are born with that abilty.

[Tal_175]

Well.. maybecit is a bit disappointing... but usually those who do it well are born with that abilty.

A young Charlie Parker was attempting to play an improvised solo, but lost track of the chord changes; as a sign of contempt, Jones threw a cymbal from his drum kit onto the floor near Parker's feet to get him to leave the stage.*

Turns out even Charlie Parker wasn't born with that ability. So maybe not that disappointing afterall.

*Jo Jones - Wikipedia

[ragman1]

Which will include following through on ideas over chord changes and bar lines and won't include playing isolated ideas for every chord all the time.

Of course, Jimmy.

All this is nothing new, it's part of improvisation. Obviously we don't stop just because it's the end of a chord (what?), it's got to flow. So, if someone's really not getting it, point them to transcriptions and/or recordings and show them - if they want instruction, that is.

Hereabouts, with the odd exception, it's preaching to the converted anyway.

[Irishmuso]

Actually I was just checking this Epiphone demo, the player employs altered scale in the blues context nicely. Check out G7 alt -> Cmin and F7 alt -> Bb7 (bars 8 and 10):

mmm....not sure

[rpjazzguitar]

Simplest way I can think of.

Get a backing track, 90 bpm, Dm7 G7 Cmaj7, 4 beats each. Or, 8 if you like.

For Dm7 use only chord tones. Play quarters, maybe a few eighths.

For G7, play only Ab B Eb and Bb. Quarter note each.

For Cmaj7 play chord tones.

Rinse and repeat until the sound starts getting in your ears.

That's an Abmin(add 9) arpeggio over G7.

That's b9 3 #5 (or b13 if you prefer) and #9. All four of those notes are from G alt. The only altered note missing is a Db. You can try adding it. You can also play F and G, which will help anchor the ear to the underlying G7.

One of the tricks of making the alt scale sound good (as was said above, on a resolving dominant) is to sprinkle it in, not dump out the box all at once.

So, you can play a G7 lick and then insert a couple of notes from Abmadd9.

[charlieparker]

I think you should play around with some lines that connect smoothly into the next chord and then things start to make sense. A common line from say a G7 to C might be B, Ab, G, F, E or 3, b2, 1, 7, 3 of the C chord.

Then you can change it up by adding in the b3 to resolve to the G, something like B, Bb, Ab, G.

The #5 and b5 are a bit trickier to work with and use them less.

[rpjazzguitar]

here's a little deeper dive. My earlier post tried to make it easier than this one.

Here's another approach.

Play (against a backing track) Dm7 Db13 (x43446) Cmaj7.

That's the sound of alt.

Try Dm7 Abmin(add9) Cmaj7.

Now a detour. ANY chord from Abmelmin will work in place of that G7 and give the "alt sound", more or less.

Per Jazz Theory by Mark Levine, you can pick any notes you want from the melodic minor scale and they will work. You'll like some more than others.

The usual chords derived for Abmelmin are constructed by starting with a note of the scale and picking out every other note.

Ab Bb B Db Eb F G.

So, the first one (every other note starting on Ab) is Ab B Eb G. That Abminmaj7. And you can use it instead of G7.

Next one is Bb Db F Ab.

Next up Levine uses a different one ... B Eb F Bb and calls it Bbsusb9. But if you like you can just use the stack of B Eb G Bb.

You can figure out the rest.

The point is, every time you strum one of these instead of G7 in the ii V I, you'll be cramming the alt sound into your brain.

[ragman1]

Crossing bar lines? This is how to do it

[Christian Miller]

Crossing bar lines? This is how to do it

Exactement.

This is true of both Raney’s lines but also the melody which is a classic pickup into the downbeat thing.

[ragman1]

And ascending sequences. Over the bar lines.

Where is Babaluma?

[DonEsteban]

The bar line is basically poison

Lava it is .... the bar line is lava!!!



But now a little bit more serious.... a tiny, tiny tip from me for the beginner: If you don't really hear altered scale yet, be sure to avoid starting your phrase, your line, on the root, it's hard to make it sound good from there, you'll learn that later.

Start on the flat nine for example and try a diminished arpeggio.... you'll see, sorry hear!

As I said, only tiny tip but give it a try!



PS.: And try descending lines, it's easier to make them sound cool than ascending ones.

[charlieparker]

Exactement.

This is true of both Raney’s lines but also the melody which is a classic pickup into the downbeat thing.

Maybe someone can explain it, but what does playing across the bar line refer to? I've always thought of it as anticipation or delay, i.e., phrases that start early or end late with respect to the harmony.

But, I don't know if that's accurate.

[DonEsteban]

Hi all,
Secondly are there any examples I can check out of a player superimposing a substitution without the band playing with them?

Take "Autumn Leaves" for example, bar 27 and 28 that are typically played as a chromatic falling chord progression, i.e. G- Gb7 F- E7 (when we are in Bb major /G minor).

This is a substitution for G- C7 F- Bb7

Make yourself a backing track with the original chords just mentioned, but then play a line that clearly outlines the chromatic chords, and you have something superimposed. Or do it the other way round.

Or outline Parker Blues chords against a standard blues comping.

General tip:

Playing altered or superimposing different chords are both a kind of "playing against the grain" sort of a thing.

You need a playing technique that allows you to sound fluent and convincing, and you need confidence. You will acquire both with practice, but it takes time, be patient with yourself!

[ragman1]

Maybe someone can explain it, but what does playing across the bar line refer to? I've always thought of it as anticipation or delay, i.e., phrases that start early or end late with respect to the harmony.

But, I don't know if that's accurate.

It means, to put it very crudely, starting a phrase halfway (or thereabouts) into a bar and finishing halfway through another. It might be the next bar or a couple. (As opposed, as the others have pointed out, to either playing complete bars all the time, or mostly).

Here's a simple example I've found. See how the lines straddle bars. Which means the notes of each phrase have to outline more than one chord. What people are saying here is that it's a beginner's mistake to only apply one scale to each chord individually. Obviously, doing it that way, there's no real flow to the music. Crossing the lines gives motion to it and just sounds better.

[charlieparker]

It means, to put it very crudely, starting a phrase halfway into a bar and finishing halfway through another. It might be the next bar or a couple. (As opposed, as the others have pointed out, to either playing complete bars all the time, or mostly).

Here's a simple example I've found. See how the lines straddle bars. Which means the notes of each phrase have to outline more than one chord. What people are saying here is that it's a beginner's mistake to only apply one scale to each chord individually. Obviously, doing it that way, there's no real flow to the music.Crossing the lines gives motion to it. It just sounds better too, obviously.

Got it. And yeah, I can see how beginners could get caught in that trap.

[Babaluma]

The forum lessons section has some altered dominant examples which might be useful.

The Altered Scale For Jazz Guitar (Scale Diagrams & Licks)

Thanks very much for this!

[Babaluma]

Specific examples; have a look at the heads of Night in Tunisia, Segment and - very much - Hot House.

It’s common to find parts of the altered scale being used more than the whole thing; the (3)-#9-b9-1 on V7 is incredibly common - take Green Dolphin Street.

Another common device is the minor triad; so on G7, Abm.

Its a moot point whether these little figures come from the altered scale or the tritone sub; in a sense they are basically the same thing… Db7#11 = G7 alt

Thanks for all the super helpful tips Christian!

[Babaluma]

I practice lines with altered scale thinking of the tritone (lydian) dominant and it's family of arpeggios.
So for A alt that would be:
Eb7 (root)
Gmin7b5 (third)
BbminMaj (fifth)
Dbaug (seventh)
(Also the triad versions) combined with the Bb Mel min scale.
I just work on different ways of going to the target chord with lines that combine these arpeggios with the Bb Mel Min scale.

This is very analogous to the family of four concept of Sherly Bailey (but also similarly to Barry Harris, George Benson etc concepts) but applied to the altered scale.

Tritone dominant has a half step motion to the target chord, so this view also makes it easier to see these lines as part of the tritone chord voicings.

Thanks this is very helpful!