I found a scale that covers the entire minor 2-5-1 melodically

[Strat-itis]

BH 6/dim as single note used modally.

Normally in the BH system, a minor ii chord in major (like A-7 in G) is handled by using the relative major’s 6/dim (C6/dim). That effectively treats the ii as if it were a tonic minor, because the scale carries a b6. The system kind of sidesteps the true Dorian sound.

But if you flip it and actually put the 6/dim on the minor i (A- in this case), its modes cover the entire minor ii–V–i cleanly. You get:
• iiø = Locrian + natural 6
• V7 = Phrygian + major 3rd
• i- = Aeolian + major 7

No borrowing, no alteration - all internally consistent.


Say we're in A minor, we use the C6/dim scale but apply it modally. C, D, E, F, G, Ab, A, B

So using that 1 scale transferring to the modes of each degree that gives us:

For over the ii chord, B half dim:
Locrian with an added major 6th.
B, C, D, E, F, G, Ab, A
Sounds a lil spicier and more elegant but maintains the Locrian sound for the minor ii without using altered sounds.

For over the V chord, E7:
Phrygian with an added major 3rd.
E, F, G, Ab, A, B, C, D
Has b9, #9, the added major 3rd for a functional V without borrowing from harmonic minor, and b13.

For over the i chord, A minor:
Aeolian with an added major 7th.
A, B, C, D, E, F, G, Ab
Sounds tonic minor but elegant, like bebop Aeolian.

All from C6/dim. No alterations, no borrowing from harmonic minor. Belee dat.

[joe2758]

Cool, that is indeed an idea I haven't heard of. You have at least one person interested to hear an example on the piano with chords if you have time. You still doing Chris class?

[Christian Miller]

Yes, the minor key covers the minor II V I.

The fact that this is not obvious to many says a lot about the way music is taught today.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[joe2758]

[joe2758]

ok you're right looks like there's only 1 note different

[Christian Miller]

I actually think not properly understanding the minor key is a huge blind spot in many player's educations. They jump straight to fancy options like the melodic minor modes, and I gotta say it. the Barry Harris scales. So a surprisingly large number of people - often quite advanced players - seem to not understand how to use the natural, harmonic and melodic minor for instance, in the trad classical way.

It helps to be able to hear the classical way of using the scale, which comes up a LOT in jazz. The minor key is not simply one scale, of course, but three that are seamlessly combined. Jazz musicians tend to think of them as very separate, but that's not how they are traditionally used at all. It's much more fluid.

Quite a lot of classic jazz lines are actually based on these options.

Jazz is a little bit different, but builds on these European options. So you have the blues, most obioviously (but it can easily be forgotten). The blues always sounds awesome and correct - if played swingingly.

The Barry Harris m6-dim scale includes the 6th which is a common addition to the I chord, that isn't really used in classical music (at least not on chord I). It's most often found as the last note of a minor key phrase - seriously, it's the raised eyebrow jazz note haha.

The other thing is that it's also a lot looser. Chords don't match up with single note lines. A big waste of mental energy is thinking to match the chord to exactly the scale. It's the biggest boondoggle out there. If you play a b7 against a V7 chord ou get 7#9. It's actually part of the style.

It IS important to be able to articulate harmonies in your line by using chord tones - do do that. You should be able to clearly outline IVm/II-7b5, V7(b9) and I (not necessarily in that order haha). Or VIIo and I-6 ala Barry Harris (or rather, the musicians he learned from such as Coleman Hawkins).

And remember - Barry was obsessed with the classical masters too.

There's a reason generations of jazz guitarists have studied the Violin partitas. It's a masterclass in how to describe harmony in a single line. Also, learn to play compelling minor lines that resolve to the target chord. Steal them to start off with. If you pay close attention to the masters you'll see all three basic minor scales used in a much looser way over the chords.

From there you can add more advanced flavours like tritone subs (cool!), and yes - melodic minor and m6-dim applied harmony.

You also have the 'Lee Morgan' scale which is the minor blues scale with a leading seventh. Grant Green loves this one too.

[Christian Miller]

ok you're right looks like there's only 1 note different

I find it interesting that even in the purely melodic Middle Eastern traditions, you still have a 7th note that can be natural or leading in Maqam Nahawand (basically natural/harmonic minor)

I mean that melodically fits a C minor II V I haha.

I think the scales came first and the chords afterwards.

I suspect it has just sounded good to people to raise/naturalise the penultimate degree of the ascending scale for thousands of years. Adds finality to the melodic cadences. Then, a few hundred years ago people in Europe added voices to the melodies and we eventually ended up with Common Practice harmony, while ME music went down a different evolutionary track.

The raised 7th is the basis of the V7 chord in minor, not vice versa.

Contrastingly, the blues keeps that 7th cool.

(The major 6th is another issue...)

[AllanAllen]

Yes, the minor key covers the minor II V I.

The fact that this is not obvious to many says a lot about the way music is taught today.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Savage

[Christian Miller]

Savage

The thing is I don't think that's an overstatement

And it's not like I knew either - it took me years to find out this stuff.

Barry Harris is helpful, and I think he'd advise any student to look into the diatonic scales too. It's not all 8-note stuff. But in the end what helped me is just looking into the notes people play.

[omphalopsychos]

Every once in a while I check in on the theory forums to see if we’ve made progress.



…

[joe2758]

Every once in a while I check in on the theory forums to see if we’ve made progress.



…

enlighten us

[AllanAllen]

The thing is I don't think that's an overstatement

And it's not like I knew either - it took me years to find out this stuff.

Barry Harris is helpful, and I think he'd advise any student to look into the diatonic scales too. It's not all 8-note stuff. But in the end what helped me is just looking into the notes people play.

I didn't get it until I tried mapping dorian mixolydian and ionic to the major ii V I and realized it was all the same thing. Then I took a hard pendulum swing to "modes are B.S." that I'm still recovering from.

[Christian Miller]

I didn't get it until I tried mapping dorian mixolydian and ionic to the major ii V I and realized it was all the same thing. Then I took a hard pendulum swing to "modes are B.S." that I'm still recovering from.

It’s kind of weird terminology for the same thing. I think jazzers have a bit of a tendency to view the musical world from the root of the given chord of the moment - which is not always that helpful. Chord scales are an extension of that mindset (pun intended).

Sometimes it’s actually much more useful to look at world from the perspective of the key centre.

For example, it’s great if you are playing through the bridge of rhythm changes where you have a couple of bars to explore a given chord, but much less useful in the A section. In the latter case you are in my opinion better off thinking about the key a bit more.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[AllanAllen]

That’s how I do things, so obviously, I agree.

[rpjazzguitar]

FWIW, Warren Nunes would not talk about modes. He refused, even though some parts of his system were analogous.

He did talk about tonal centers. And he taught that there were two chord types, Type I and Type II which corresponded to tonic and dominant.

Within each type, the chords are interchangeable.

So, Cmaj7=Em7=Gmaj7#11 (I think - I can't recall how he taught Gsomething)=Am7.

And, Dm7=G7=Am7=Bm7b5.

Am7 works as both types.

The result is, for major scale harmony, a background scale (called the tonal center) and plenty of options for various triads (which is the way he often did it) against the harmony. It helped to be blazing fast.

He also talked about natural minor (pretty much the same thing as major) melodic minor, diminished and whole tone. If he had a system for dealing with these other scales, I never heard about it.

Overall, you learn the major scale to cover the tonal center and the two types of chords and you've got a lot of options.

I learned from Mark Levine that all the melodic minor chords are interchangeable. That gives a range of options which can be overwhelming.

Diminished harmony has always seemed confusing to me. Whole tone seems to have a limited number of uses but I've heard some novel applications that sounded great.

[Mick-7]

Say we're in A minor, we use the C6/dim scale but apply it modally. C, D, E, F, G, Ab, A, B

That's the major scale with the b6th added, a.k.a., a combination of the major and harmonic major scales.

I've found it more useful to subtract rather than add scales notes, as I discussed in my Slonimsky thread, for example:
Slonimsky Curiosities

Or you can just take a pentatonic scale like the Japanese scale: C-E-F#-G-B and modify it to fit various chords, for example:
As is = CM7#11; flat the 7th (Bb) for C7#11, flat the 3rd (F) for Dm7, etc.

[Strat-itis]

Christian is correct. It does help, sound good, and benefit your playing to a deeper level to internalize the classical functions of the natural, melodic, and harmonic minor scales. Jazz pedagogy unnecessarily jumps straight to fancy options.

I actually think not properly understanding the minor key is a huge blind spot in many player's educations. They jump straight to fancy options like the melodic minor modes, and I gotta say it. the Barry Harris scales. So a surprisingly large number of people - often quite advanced players - seem to not understand how to use the natural, harmonic and melodic minor for instance, in the trad classical way.

It helps to be able to hear the classical way of using the scale, which comes up a LOT in jazz. The minor key is not simply one scale, of course, but three that are seamlessly combined. Jazz musicians tend to think of them as very separate, but that's not how they are traditionally used at all. It's much more fluid.

However, the base reason for why they do this, is that the mode on the 5 chord does not outline the V7 with a major 3rd in it - the relative major 6 / dim scale corrects this, even if it's only 1 note difference.

It also has other benefits that I see:

Being a vibraphone player, I am working out octatonic scales to seat for 16th notes so inflections stay square. (And I'm learning hexatonic scales for triplets.) So I think octatonic scales are really beneficial.

Plus I think it does sound elegant. It only adds 1 note so isn't all screwball, but it is nice. Doesn't make the minor 2 sound all weird like locrian nat 2. The 5 chord sounds elegant with some altered notes but includes the major 3rd. And the minor 1 chord sounds elegant like a bebop Aeolian.

[Strat-itis]

Every once in a while I check in on the theory forums to see if we’ve made progress.

enlighten us

Trademark uppity comment from om.. but actually true. Jazz pedagogy overall will never codify true jazz playing correctly. It's up to the individual to find the truth.. and then ideally walk it with actual playing not just debating.

[Strat-itis]

Cool, that is indeed an idea I haven't heard of. You have at least one person interested to hear an example on the piano with chords if you have time. You still doing Chris class?

Thx for the nice comment Joe. Yes, I'm still in Chris class. Gonna stay with him and try to internalize the BH system. I could try to work out an audio or video demonstration of this.

[joe2758]

While everyone here is right, I do find it overly dismissive.

Everything in BH system can be explained using simple basic theory. The min 6th dim scale is nothing ground breaking, but it seems ground breaking to a lot of people who learn it because the thinking process changes the sounds that come out of their instruments.

Since you focus on BH seemingly almost exclusively, the idea you mention above will lead to slightly different flavors than would come out otherwise. This probably sounds unnecessary or overly complicated to people who haven't dived into that method. But, because of the hardcore work you have spent with the scales, to you it's a simple and easy trick.

If someone is taking it as "hey look what I can do with BH stuff that you can't do" people generally like to say "isn't that just..." etc.... and yet their way of thinking leads to different musical results.

Anyway, a few responses seemed a little harsh.

[Strat-itis]

Yup. Exactly as I would state it. That's what Barry is all about. An overall accurate system, with subtle lil moves, but that ends up changing what actually comes out of your instrument when you internalize it.

The jazz forum is always aggressive and dismissive so I tell myself not to worry. People in general seldom ever listen to your perspective anyway. But that's upstanding that you're a rare person who's open to and even eager to hear new perspectives.

About me learning BH exclusively. I'm actually blending in select other influences like Milt and Monk. But I think the Barry system is the best system there is for learning accurate jazz. Plus I really respect Chris so I want to respect the system and internalize it. Even if I'm also integrating other approaches on my own time.

[joe2758]

There is also the other side of things, like when Christian changed my perspective for the better:

I was pushing around 6dim doing Thomas Echols type stuff and I had the thought "Damn, this sounds like Chopin."

So I started analyzing some Chopin through that lens, it worked interestingly well.

Since I can play a little classical it seemed I wasn't too far off from creating little pieces or even improvising in a Chopinesque style using the BH ideas.

Christian pointed out, thankfully gently, that there are better ways to go about that goal. And he did it over and over.

I swallowed my pride and decided to take his advice.

Now, I'm still close to that goal, but using more traditional harmonic approach I am headed in a better direction than basically just faking it with a bunch of diminished chords with borrowed notes.

At the same time, the BH stuff helped me understand some concepts that are more convoluted when explained in a classical sense.

[Strat-itis]

Yep, it can't ever hurt you to interpret and study the material as authentically as possible. Like Christian is always badgering us about.

[Christian Miller]

Bear in mind Barry apparently didn’t start teaching the eight note scales until the 80s.

His older single note teaching is based more around standard diatonic scale materials, albeit framed in a slightly different way.

Let me be clear, Barry very much did understand that classical approach to minor scales. In fact, you can’t play bebop without it. And he was always citing Bach etc in lessons. He would mention melodic, harmonic minor etc in class.

He was of a generation that internalised that stuff - prior to the popularity of modal harmony in popular music and jazz in the 60s.

He framed it a little differently - instead of having the A natural minor, we have the G dominant. Run it down to the 3rd of E7 etc. And you see this stuff in classical music and so on.

This is not how they thought of it exactly, or how classical theorists would talk about it today, but it spits out the same pitch choices. As an improviser there are some advantages in Barry’s approach.

The third of E7 is of course that leading tone again. (Barry also said that you might not always want to do that so as not to get stuck in harmonic minor.)

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[omphalopsychos]

... and then ideally walk it with actual playing not just debating.

yup. that's my point exactly. i don't think lack of theory understanding is the limiting factor for most peoples playing. but we've made it part of jazz culture and we exaggerate the complexity of the subject to stoke our own egos (and monetize education, at institutions and social media). the point of the comment is not that anyone here doesn't get it - it's the opposite. we're pretty saturated on knowledge.