Cmaj7 to C#dim7th

[ragman1]

I bet they all go for the blues one :-)

[Christian Miller]

I bet they all go for the blues one :-)

I know I do lol


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[BreckerFan]

I think most advanced improvisers are seldom so strict about these scale choices, but it might be helpful to at least try the two scale sounds against the chords to hear what I am talking about.

No, any time I hear someone play a Bb instead of a B I scream and hiss

[Christian Miller]

It burns us


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[pingu]

Oh no I’m going to have to post a video.

Sorry

How to REALLY play diminished chords

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thanks man , that was great

(So at the risk of complicating things
when you have simplified them so
beautifully)

on this progression
|C. |Ebo. |Dm7. |G7. |
over the Ebo
you said think D7 down to the 3rd of B7
which is great ….

but also
I think I’m liking the B7 sound a lot ….
and I’m thinking of it as
B7b9b13
ie 5th mode of E harm min

is that a wrong way to think about it ?
interested in what you think of that Mr Christian

[pamosmusic]

thanks man , that was great

(So at the risk of complicating things
when you have simplified them so
beautifully)

on this progression
|C. |Ebo. |Dm7. |G7. |
over the Ebo
you said think D7 down to the 3rd of B7
which is great ….

but also
I think I’m liking the B7 sound a lot ….
and I’m thinking of it as
B7b9b13
ie 5th mode of E harm min

is that a wrong way to think about it ?
interested in what you think of that Mr Christian

That D7 to the third of B7 move is super elegant but look at the pitches in it …

D E F# G A B C and then D#

except the D, it basically is that E harmonic minor sound. The utility of the D7 move is that you don’t have to learn a bunch of new vocabulary on a totally new scale to get basically the same sound.

[Bob_Ross]

The C - C#o - Dm isn't really a passing chord as such. It is a passing chord, of course, but also has a dual function as a rootless sub for A7b9, the V of Dm.

Oh of course, agreed; my "passing chord" comment was in reference to @rpjazzguitar asking about going from E-7 to Eb-7 on the way to D-7.

[Christian Miller]

thanks man , that was great

(So at the risk of complicating things
when you have simplified them so
beautifully)

on this progression
|C. |Ebo. |Dm7. |G7. |
over the Ebo
you said think D7 down to the 3rd of B7
which is great ….

but also
I think I’m liking the B7 sound a lot ….
and I’m thinking of it as
B7b9b13
ie 5th mode of E harm min

is that a wrong way to think about it ?
interested in what you think of that Mr Christian

I think about it both ways as well. Peter summed up how Barry taught it.

Really it ends up being the V of IIIm - or a tonicisation of the IIIm chord - when you look at it that way, which makes sense. And gives us that B triad mentioned above, of course, into the deal

[ragman1]

Oh of course, agreed; my "passing chord" comment was in reference to rpjazzguitar asking about going from E-7 to Eb-7 on the way to D-7.

Frankly, I don't really care what it's called. You can see how everyone has their own idea of what it represents and pushes it. It's an A7! No, it's a D7! No, it's a B7! I mean, who cares?

Fact is, it's not a 7 at all, it's a diminished chord and it has a function. In this case it's to get from CM7, which sounds like Em, neatly into Dm. The tune the OP's referencing, The Song Is You, is a fast tune so it's probably easier just to use chromatic notes and join one chord to another.

The OP says he can play these changes without a problem so it might be interesting to hear him doing it and what he plays.

I think that's why he is confused by the C#o. That's not simply a chromatic shift like the Ebo, it moves smoothly from CM7 to Dm in a different way. Understanding that it's a rootless sub for A7b9 is a good idea. Playing it well is another matter, of course.

And where is the OP, by the way? Busy tending his flock, I'll be bound

[ragman1]

By the way, has anyone looked up the various transcriptions of 'The Song Is You' on You Tube? They all do it differently. A lot of them don't use dim chords at all.

I'd go through it but I don't think I'll bother.

[rpjazzguitar]

Ebo7 is Eb F# A C. That chord sounds perfect under the C in the melody. I think it's a sound that can stand alone and not have to be thought of as a sub for something else.

But there's also a quick B in the melody right before. You can lower the C or add the B. The former is B7,C the latter, B7b9. Since there's a C in the melody the B7 is going to sound like a B7b9 anyway. B D# F# A C. When you have a b9, you usually get the #9 for free. Add D to the list.

Now, you've got B C D D# F# A. By ear, the F also sounds ok and so does the G#.

Now it's B C D D# F F# G# A. B half whole dim. It's composed of Bdim7, B D F G# and also Cdim7, C D# F# A.

That's convenient because the melody goes from B to C. You could be thinking Ebo7 but play a B instead of a C. Or you could drop the whole chord a half step to get the B on top. That one sounds a little better to me. Either way, you're still working with the B half whole.

I don't know if B hw is the best way to name it. Maybe C wh would be better, since there's a C in the bass.

The overall point is that when I just use my ear to expand from the basic chord tones, I end up with this scale.

[pingu]

It’s all about finding the sounds
that do it for you ie to your taste ….

thanks for this discussion , I found
out that i dig that 5th mode of Harm min
sound a lot ….
(maybe politically incorrectly)
I call it the ‘Gypsy’ scale
are we still allowed to say that these days ?
I mean it in a good way

PS
I tried it on How Insensitive
sound great

[Mick-7]

That D7 to the third of B7 move is super elegant but look at the pitches in it … D E F# G A B C and then D#

We're in C major, and that's just C Lydian with the b3rd added.

[pamosmusic]

We're in C major, and that's just C Lydian with the b3rd added.

Whatever floats your boat

[ragman1]

It’s all about finding the sounds
that do it for you ie to your taste ….

thanks for this discussion , I found
out that i dig that 5th mode of Harm min
sound a lot ….
(maybe politically incorrectly)
I call it the ‘Gypsy’ scale
are we still allowed to say that these days ?
I mean it in a good way

PS
I tried it on How Insensitive
sound great

Ah, I'm glad you brought up 'How Insensitive'. Absolutely.

I'm going to deliver a short lecture (!) because the muse is on me. If you already know it, sorry. Of course, others may read it who may not know it.

If we harmonise all the chords in all the scales (maj, nat m, harm m and mel m) the dim7 chord only appears once. Lots of dim triads but only one dim7. That's as the leading chord in harmonic minor, e.g. Bdim7 - Cm. So where that occurs the harmonic minor is a very good scale to use.

In Insensatez that happens twice, as we know, Dm - C#o and Cm - Bo. So, as you say, the harmonic minor sound is perfect for those two.

--------------------

The reason it's relevant here is because 'The Song Is You' has C#o - Dm. Voila, perfect for harm m.

BUT the other dim, the Ebo, doesn't come into that category. It's neither coming out of E minor nor going to it, it simply appears between CM7 and Dm. So in that case the diminished scale is best (and other ways of soloing over it).

And if you play with using the harm m over that sequence, CM7 - Ebo - Dm, you'll find the harm m doesn't sound quite right because there's no valid reason for it.

Hope that was concise

[pingu]

while we’re there
how about the Wave in D ?
—————————
over the second chord Bbo
I’ve just been playing dim arpeggio
ideas over it (which works fine)

any other good concepts out there ?
I think A7 stuff works ok
(as per Mr Christians down a semitone concept)

[ragman1]

Wave

You mean bar 2, DM7 - Bbo - Am7?

It's the same thing as the Ebo, so dim, not harm m.

I think A7 stuff works ok

Where? An A7b9 might be all right because of its similarity to the diminished sound but I wouldn't treat a dim chord as a straight dominant, they're really not the same. Too brutal :-)

(Oh, you edited that. Okay )

[pingu]

You mean bar 2, DM7 - Bbo - Am7?

It's the same thing as the Ebo, so dim, not harm m.



Where? An A7b9 might be all right because of its similarity to the diminished sound but I wouldn't treat a dim chord as a straight dominant, they're really not the same. Too brutal :-)

(Oh, you edited that. Okay )

I think we all hear this diminished stuff differently Rag !
but i do appreciate your observation on the dim 7 chord occurring in the Harm min scale
thanks for that ….

Please note
Bbo is not the same as Ebo
as you said above

[ragman1]

Incidentally, for those who are interested in this kind of thing, here are two tricks you can use over dim chords (if you don't know them already).

This is over

CM7 - Ebo - Dm7 - G7
CM7 - C#o - Dm7 - G7

That's the TSIY progression although I've slowed it right down.

The first is using the wholetone scale from any root of the chord. So, for Ebo, it could be Eb, A, C or F# wholetone. It works, it's nice, it's groovy, and it lets you off the dreaded diminished scale. Yippee. So I used C wholetone over the Ebo.

The second is using the major scale a half-tone above any root of the dim chord. So for C#o you can use D, Ab, B or F major. Nice, it works, etc. And no diminished nerves. So here I used B maj (the most unlikely) over the C#o.

Sorry for the quality as usual.

[ragman1]

Please note
Bbo is not the same as Ebo
as you said above

Quite right, sorry. In D maj the biii would be Fo.

All right, in Wave, the Bbo is just a passing chord so, you know, usual stuff :-)

[ragman1]

I think we all hear this diminished stuff differently Rag !

Saw this, missed it before.

Actually I don't think we do. I hear a dim arpeggio just the same as you and I played them for ages, still do.

But I suppose there comes a time when you begin to wonder if there aren't other ways to do it, to spice up runs which may have become jaded and habitual. At least, that's what happened to me.

So I started looking into it and picked some up. Diminished chords are in all kinds of tunes and what you may do depends a great deal on the tune. Different sounds work wonders for soloing, others not so much.

You may say you're 'not there' yet but one day you will be. In fact, it's almost inevitable. So these days I don't mind making it sound a bit out. To be honest it's quite fun!

[pamosmusic]

Saw this, missed it before.

Actually I don't think we do. I hear a dim arpeggio just the same as you and I played them for ages, still do.

But I suppose there comes a time when you begin to wonder if there aren't other ways to do it, to spice up runs which may have become jaded and habitual. At least, that's what happened to me.

So I started looking into it and picked some up. Diminished chords are in all kinds of tunes and what you may do depends a great deal on the tune. Different sounds work wonders for soloing, others not so much.

You may say you're 'not there' yet but one day you will be. In fact, it's almost inevitable. So these days I don't mind making it sound a bit out. To be honest it's quite fun!

Theres also a lot of ideas out there — as Christian mentioned in the ATTYA thread … as bebop matured a bit and definitely by the time we got those second generation boppers like Sonny Stitt and Dexter Gordon, people stopped using the diminished chords for a spell. So if you’re familiar with the swing era changes — which usually had the diminished chord — and the late bop changes, then you’ve got a built in repertoire of cool ideas for how to navigate those chords.

By and large I’m with you — I think diminished chords have a lot of possible functions, so we hear their direction quite a lot of different ways. But also I think a lot of the standalone ways to play the chords are brain things more than ear things. Not a lot of WH diminished in the bebop and swing vocabulary. More 7b9 stuff going where the improviser hears it going.

For example, over the C#o going to Dm, you’ll often hear A, a half step below the Bb … and D, a half step above the C#

[ragman1]

Theres also a lot of ideas out there — as Christian mentioned in the ATTYA thread … as bebop matured a bit and definitely by the time we got those second generation boppers like Sonny Stitt and Dexter Gordon, people stopped using the diminished chords for a spell. So if you’re familiar with the swing era changes — which usually had the diminished chord — and the late bop changes, then you’ve got a built in repertoire of cool ideas for how to navigate those chords.

By and large I’m with you — I think diminished chords have a lot of possible functions, so we hear their direction quite a lot of different ways. But also I think a lot of the standalone ways to play the chords are brain things more than ear things. Not a lot of WH diminished in the bebop and swing vocabulary. More 7b9 stuff going where the improviser hears it going.

For example, over the C#o going to Dm, you’ll often hear A, a half step below the Bb … and D, a half step above the C#

Absolutely. I forgot to mention before that the boppers skipped them and used ii-V's instead (I think that's what they did).

I think a lot of the standalone ways to play the chords are brain things more than ear things

Again, absolutely. Most transcriptions have melodic ideas covering dim chord measures rather than 'here's my go-to dim idea'.

Truth is, I can play dim scales but I just don't like them that much

Matter of interest, what do you do with dim chords?

[pamosmusic]

Absolutely. I forgot to mention before that the boppers skipped them and used ii-V's instead (I think that's what they did).

Definitely most often. But in the ATTYA thread Cliff was asking about F# over the Bdim chord near the end, and we all kind of agreed it was like he was playing Bm as a passing chord between Cm and Bbm, so that transposes exactly into the Em *Ebm* Dm idea that you and whoever else were discussing up thread.

Lots of cool stuff.

Matter of interest, what do you do with dim chords?

Depends — for the C#o I’d probably play A major with an added b2 …. over the Ebo I’d do D major with a b2.

The b2 gives a very cool diminished sound in both cases. And the diminished going up to the next chord is basically a secondary dominant. The diminished going down is a little different so I basically play it like PMB mentioned upthread.

I should probably credit Jordan Klemons with the latter idea. He hipped me to that little triad with the b2. Particularly in the context of those non-leading tone diminished chords. He uses it in bar 6 of the blues. So it sounds really nice going to the ii or back to the I.

I was working on Heartaches recently and it has a big dominant on the VII … same with I Remember You, same with Meditation, same with If I Loved You.

Major triad with the b2 is a money sound over those chords.

[ragman1]

Major triad with the b2 is a money sound over those chords.

They would be 7b9 sounds, right?

And, for a whole bar of the dim chord, those four notes would just be repeated, presumably.