The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #1

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    Hi! Reading the Introduction to Jazz Blues guitar vol 1 (have to say, excellent book ), it says that the minor bebop scale is the dorian scale plus a note between the b7 and root (Chapter 6 the bebop scales). Ok.
    Mark Levine understands that the minor bebop scale (Mark call as "bebop dorian scale") has a chromatic passing note between the 3th and 4th notes (Jazz Theory Book, p. 174). It is exactly the same notes as the respective mixolydian scale (in the case you're playing a ii - V, it will be the same note for ii and V - the note between 3th and 4th for dorian is the same note between the mixo's b7 and root).

    Sure, I'll choose which sounds better to me. Sincerely, I don't like that "major 3th" on the Mark's dorian bebop scale, but it's much easier - same scale to two chords.

    But the question is: is there more than one minor bebop scale? Is it just a choose, or what?

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  3. #2

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    I throw in the Maj7th note against a minor chord all the time, especially when it's a tonic minor.

    For a ii chord, I think the Maj3rd sounds pretty hip but it's definitely a passing note, you can't hang on it like you could with a Maj7th.

  4. #3

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    The whole point is that if you start to play the scale with a chord tone on the down beat, you will always get chord tones on the down beats. In order to do that you need to add a passing note.

    IMHO any scale that fits the bill to that description is a bebop scale. You may want to be more precise by saying bebop Dorian instead of bebop minor since (I guess) you could also create a bebop Aeolian or Phrygian depending on what you do with the remaining intervals.

    But I wouldn't worry too much about nomenclature and focus on the point of playing chord tones on the down beats.


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  5. #4

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    Ok, understood. It's nice to understand the context - the bebop scale and the goal to play chord tones at downbeat. Anyway, it's more curiosity than other thing. And yes, I like the maj7 much more than the maj3rd in minor chord.

    Thanks!

  6. #5

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    Levine's bebop minor just mode V of the dominant bebop scale.

    You may as well just say Dm G7 = G dominant bebop scale. There's not really much point to the minor scale version.

    I agree with the dorian add maj7 scale in the other book. This is extremely useful and REALLY common. In fact, I don't think of melodic minor and dorian being separate at all, they are kind of the same 8 note scale in bebop.

    You can use either or both when playing ii-V's - up to you!
    Last edited by christianm77; 12-08-2016 at 08:55 PM.

  7. #6

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    There's also a more closely related minor variant of major bebop scale. Barry Harris calls them the sixth diminished (major) and minor sixth diminished (minor). The latter is perhaps more important as a source for deriving harmonic content than for creating lines. It's simply the melodic minor with an added flat 6th:

    C minor sixth diminished = C, D, Eb, F, G, Ab, A, B.

  8. #7

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    It was explained to me that you can use any note you like it just gives you eight notes before the scale repeats!

  9. #8

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    Thanks, extremely useful your comments . The idea is exactly this : 8 notes, always the chord tones on downbeat, and I choose the note that sounds better, or easier, or what I think is better to me.
    PS: never tried the minor sixth diminished scale. Appears nice...

  10. #9

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    How crucial is it to get chord tones on the downbeat?

  11. #10

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    Quote Originally Posted by BigDaddyLoveHandles
    How crucial is it to get chord tones on the downbeat?
    Afaik that's the point of the scale. But it you choose to do so, you can play only the other intervals on the downbeat. Whatever you choose, it's going to keep happening because it's 8 notes

  12. #11

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    Ok - we are talking a bit at cross purposes because I'm not discussing the bebop scale here as 'a thing you play up and down and you have half steps to make the chord tones come out on the beat' - that's a different discussion. I'm really talking about what this guy is talking about here:



    My own video will come out soon - it's part of a basic system on improvising on changes, 3 or 4 videos. But I think I think a lot like this fella.

  13. #12

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    I remember reading somewhere that the name "Bebop" came from Parker and Gillespie's tendency to sometimes end a phrase on a diminished fifth Interval and those last two Notes sounded like the word
    "Bebop".
    Not sure if it's true but if so - that's the Bebop..

    [ yes I know that's not really what the OP meant .]

    Years ago long before I started using Jazz/ Bebop type phrasing in R&B [ which work really well !] I listened to some Charlie Parker and did not hear a flat fifth Interval at the end of many phrases...more of a funny explanation of the Term "Bebop "
    than true ?

  14. #13

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    Quote Originally Posted by Robertkoa
    I remember reading somewhere that the name "Bebop" came from Parker and Gillespie's tendency to sometimes end a phrase on a diminished fifth Interval and those last two Notes sounded like the word
    "Bebop".
    Not sure if it's true but if so - that's the Bebop..

    [ yes I know that's not really what the OP meant .]

    Years ago long before I started using Jazz/ Bebop type phrasing in R&B [ which work really well !] I listened to some Charlie Parker and did not hear a flat fifth Interval at the end of many phrases...more of a funny explanation of the Term "Bebop "
    than true ?
    From the all-knowing Wikipedia:

    The term "bebop" is derived from nonsense syllables (vocables) used in scat singing; the first known example of "bebop" being used was in McKinney's Cotton Pickers' "Four or Five Times", recorded in 1928.[3] It appears again in a 1936 recording of "I'se a Muggin'" by Jack Teagarden.[3] A variation, "rebop", appears in several 1939 recordings.[3] The first, known print appearance also occurred in 1939, but the term was little-used subsequently until applied to the music now associated with it in the mid-1940s.[3]

    Some researchers speculate that it was a term used by Charlie Christian because it sounded like something he hummed along with his playing.[4] Dizzy Gillespie stated that the audiences coined the name after hearing him scat the then-nameless tunes to his players and the press ultimately picked it up, using it as an official term: "People, when they'd wanna ask for those numbers and didn't know the name, would ask for bebop."[5] Another theory is that it derives from the cry of "Arriba! Arriba!" used by Latin American bandleaders of the period to encourage their bands.[6] At times, the terms "bebop" and "rebop" were used interchangeably. By 1945, the use of "bebop"/"rebop" as nonsense syllables was widespread in R&B music, for instance Lionel Hampton's "Hey! Ba-Ba-Re-Bop".


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  15. #14

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    I've seen speculation that it came from "Groovin' High", where the first phrase, soon repeated, sounds like bebop. But I don't believe it's that simple. Wikipedia is probably closer to the truth.

  16. #15

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    Quote Originally Posted by sgosnell
    I've seen speculation that it came from "Groovin' High", where the first phrase, soon repeated, sounds like bebop. But I don't believe it's that simple. Wikipedia is probably closer to the truth.
    As in the 1-7-b7-6 thing? That's such a common run down. CESH as some might call it. What makes it bebop as opposed to swing is the rhythmic displacement of the chromatic line.

    Anyway I use that stuff all the time.

    Thing is I'm not convinced bop scales are really a thing. It's a common solution to a very basic problem in Western music - 7 note scales, 4 beats in a bar. Stick an extra note in there. As Barry Harris points out the number of notes you add in depends on whether you start on the beat or off the beat, and whether or not you start on a chord tone.

    Anyway historically, the so called bebop dominant scale is a common feature in the music of Sousa... Verdi writes major bebop scales as bass lines, etc. In jazz, they are common in the music of Fats Waller etc...

    In fact bebop scales are actually un-bebop. Bebop comes from breaking things up.... So called bebop scales are dead regular, pretty square. The name 'bebop scale' probably comes from people looking at jazz from what I think of as the Post-bop Perspective.

    The Post-Bop Perspective is looking back on changes playing as it was developed by the 50's - it is not examining the way that this language came to develop, so everything gets put in one blob...

    From this point of view, bebop IS changes playing, and these musicians are unlikely to spend much time scrutinising the differences between Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young and Charlie Parker, say.... They just want to be able to get through the tunes, master the language etc.

    It's an a-historical approach. Nothing wrong with it, just a different perspective. Me, I like the history.
    Last edited by christianm77; 03-16-2017 at 02:07 PM.

  17. #16

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    No, I'm talking about the melody notes. Bebop, a doodle-doodle deedle deedle bebop. Or something like that.

  18. #17

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    Quote Originally Posted by sgosnell
    No, I'm talking about the melody notes. Bebop, a doodle-doodle deedle deedle bebop. Or something like that.
    Ah OK - I get it... Yeah I could see that....

    Didn't they used to call it Re-bop?

  19. #18

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  20. #19

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    Bepop-a-rebop.