When did Jazz Musicians start using the altered scale?

[christianm77]

Christian -

Sorry, but I keep asking this. Why aren't you seeking out a specialist musicologist or historian on all this? Why are you trying to do it here or just googling stuff?

And, actually, why are you doing it at all? You appear to be frying your brain in public! Are you being forced to do it? Is it the Chinese? Has someone got you over a barrel?

I'm just curious. I quite understand why others might not share my curiosity (such as Elvis.)

[ragman1]

setemupjoe -

The mm is also a major scale with a b2. There, solved it all!

not

[matt.guitarteacher]

I agree... but major scale has much broader cultural musical context.. it's not just a scale.. it's a key, it's functional thing... etc... we can hear major scale in many different actual musical realisations.

I mean 'using major scale conceptually' means vast opportunities - often so different in resultative sound, style etc....

and 'using altered scale conceptually' - I believe the music must be really scale-ish for that... the whole music I mean.

or it will be heard as occasional alterations of some other scale/harmony, altered dominant tones or whatever.... application to something...

This for me always opens a question: what is a scale essentially? In early music scales and modes have more or less clear construction and logics... it is basically intervalic. But post-functional period scale theories are a bot messy about it. Mixing function and scales logics...

Good post. Sums up a lot of what I feel about it. I mean it's not functional. Right? It's basically substituting for harmonic minor or blues etc. . Making it into a really linear scale/tonality which one wants to played up-and-down seems beside the point to me. when it's played as a scale, in time to real music, it's going to be perceived as a type of dominant arpeggio anyway.

Makes me think of the concept of "negative space" in art .

"Well, let's just do something that's ALL negative space."

But can you do that? The negative spaces help define lines and other shapes, and vice versa. To me, E-alt SOUNDS "More A minor than A minor" much of the time, but it's IMPLYING another THING more than it's a "THING ITSELF".

[christianm77]

From my limited knowledge on the definitive history of the altered scale as it is associated with jazz, I always believed that in the pre-modal era players thought more in terms of arpeggios than scales.

So did I, and then I met Barry Harris.

Listening to Dizzy talk about harmony he seemed more interested in polychordal concepts and encouraged musicians to spend time at the piano where two hands can make sense of Abmi6 over G7.
Trying to find musical examples to prove the use of an altered scale would therefore be difficult if players were picking notes based on an arpeggio with passing tones.

I haven't transcribed as much Diz as I have Bird, but I would say he is quite arpeggio oriented, more so than the second generation bop guys.

Modal music gave us a more CST way of thinking that wasn't as common in bop and pre- bop music.
I do, however, share your fascination with this scale's beginnings. I used to see it called the b5 Lydian Dominant Scale which speaks to how many peopled viewed it as a b5 sub scale.

I'm glad I'm not the only weirdo who cares about this. :-) Isn't it striking how hard it is to look into a relatively simple query such as this?

[matt.guitarteacher]

Yes Gb happens in tri-tone sub of G7 (Db7) but so does G.

1 = b5/#11
b9 = 5
9 = #5/b13
#9 = 13/6
3 = b7
4/11 = 7

b5/#11 = 1
5 = b9
#5/b13 = 9
13/6 = #9
b7 = 3
7 = 4/11

Apart from an early appearance in the music, you would have to find evidence of how the player conceived of
what they played. Whether they called it the altered scale or some earlier facsimile, whether it was associated
with the melodic minor or not.

All these intervals were in common circulation in relation to dominant chords both from tri-tone subs as well as
the collective material of what was analyzed as scale content. Some of the material derives from the African American
melodic aesthetic and perhaps some other sounds emerged from exposures to other music and reinterpreted in a jazz context.

Blues Scale - 1 b3 4 b5 5 b7
Major Blues Scale - 1 2 b3 3 5 6
Mixolydian - 1 2 3 4 5 6 b7
H.Minor V - 1 b2 3 4 5 b6 b7
Whole Tone - 1 2 3 #4 #5 b7
Dimininished - 1 b2 b3 3 #4 5 6 b7
Spanish Phyrgian - 1 b2 b3 (3) 4 5 b6 b7


I guess the best (convince even Christian) answers would come from our still living elders that were embedded
in the scene. Along with that would be the recorded or written words of jazz musicians who have moved on.

This is an interesting and challenging academic question. We become accustomed to believing that every
seemingly simple inquiry can be answered with a quick google search. Unfortunately, the mere mention of
"altered scale" is flooded with content of how to usage and more contemporary thinking on the subject.
Therefore, I give up but await the conclusive proof from others.I will let you know if I stumble on any insights
in my day to day musical pursuance.

Great post. b5 "resolving" to 4 makes complete sense in a minor blues context, looking at it that way.

I think, when playing altered, I often hear the same thing as b5 resolving "out of altered" to the 9th of the target chord. Never really thought about it as being just basic blues move like that.

Thanks. :-)

[christianm77]

Good post. Sums up a lot of what I feel about it. I mean it's not functional. Right? It's basically substituting for harmonic minor or blues etc. . Making it into a really linear scale/tonality which one wants to played up-and-down seems beside the point to me. when it's played as a scale, in time to real music, it's going to be perceived as a type of dominant arpeggio anyway.

Makes me think of the concept of "negative space" in art .

"Well, let's just do something that's ALL negative space."

But can you do that? The negative spaces help define lines and other shapes, and vice versa. To me, E-alt SOUNDS "More A minor than A minor" much of the time, but it's IMPLYING another THING more than it's a "THING ITSELF".

Negative space - nicely put.

The negative space of the C major pentatonic

C D E G A

Db Eb F Gb Ab Bb B

Is more like Db dominant scale than G altered.

So when did jazz educators start getting so prudish about major 7s (and natural) 11's on dom7 chords? That's key, because I think that's when the verticalisation of jazz harmony thing really kicked in - that's the paradigm shift into modern chord scale theory.

It's not just scale theory - it's chord/scale theory - the chords and the scales are united in vertical matrimony.

That might seem obvious now, but I don't think it was always a given. I mean, transcribing the solos on All Blues would tell you that, let alone stuff from the previous decades.

so at some point a theorist said something like:

'We must relate the melody notes to each chord. But, this Gb/F# in the Db dominant scale is cannot be reconciled with the G7 chord.

Well raise the 11 to a #11. Oh it's the altered scale.'

Sort of thing.

[matt.guitarteacher]

Negative space - nicely put.

The negative space of the C major pentatonic

C D E G A

Db Eb F Gb Ab Bb B

Is more like Db dominant scale than G altered.

So when did jazz educators start getting so prudish about major 7s (and natural) 11's on dom7 chords? That's key, because I think that's when the verticalisation of jazz harmony thing really kicked in - so at some point a theorist said something like:

'We must relate the melody notes to each chord. But, this Gb/F# in the Db dominant scale is cannot be reconciled with the G7 chord.

Well raise the 11 to a #11. Oh it's the altered scale.'

Sort of thing.

I would assume that their general guidelines for getting someone playing. I mean, we are talking about education. Right?

All things being equal, pentatonic always works . Add back in the seventh for major and second for minor . Basic avoid note type stuff. I personally prefer a "pentatonic plus one" philosophy versus "full-scale minus avoid note". One sounds more like chord soloing, while the other can sound like scale hell.

The endgame stuff is basically the idea of the chromatic scale being your reference, but that's not really a starting point for education. You have to start somewhere, and limitations help .Altered probably works a lot better organizationally than many other things for addressing outside tones in the beginning.

Honestly, if anyone really wants a different angle on looking at melodic minor and outside harmony and how it can be organized to articulate blue notes etc., Reg's videos are super valuable. To me, altered scale harmony never made sense on paper, because it just doesn't. Half the notes sound like a big ugly clam when you first start playing these things out of some stinking book. You really have to hear someone execute them well in terms of harmonic rhythm etc.

Reg plays "outside" lines and harmony far more "inside sounding" than anyone I've ever heard. The paper stuff never made sense until I got what he was doing. If the rhythmic aspects and harmonic rhythm are generally better, all of this stuff sounds great, even to casual listener's who aren't into jazz.

[Durban]

Hey Christian, was just messin, no Elvis altered no way, cool vid

Alternate names: Altered, Superlocrian, Ravel, Locrian b4, Pomeroy


ps. Elvis played great Holdsworth styled guitar C F G

[christianm77]

I would assume that their general guidelines for getting someone playing. I mean, we are talking about education. Right?

I think there is a confusion between 'stuff to play' and 'overarching theory of harmony' - to their credit most good players who are into CST don't take theory too seriously and what they play and what they say may be two different things.

For example, I had a colleague who went for a lesson with Jamie Aebersold, who told him to not play 'so harmonically correct' all the time :-)

All things being equal, pentatonic always works . Add back in the seventh for major and second for minor . Basic avoid note type stuff. I personally prefer a "pentatonic plus one" philosophy versus "full-scale minus avoid note". One sounds more like chord soloing, while the other can sound like scale hell.

The endgame stuff is basically the idea of the chromatic scale being your reference, but that's not really a starting point for education. You have to start somewhere, and limitations help .Altered probably works a lot better organizationally than many other things for addressing outside tones in the beginning.

Honestly, if anyone really wants a different angle on looking at melodic minor and outside harmony and how it can be organized to articulate blue notes etc., Reg's videos are super valuable. To me, altered scale harmony never made sense on paper, because it just doesn't. Half the notes sound like a big ugly clam when you first start playing these things out of some stinking book. You really have to hear someone execute them well in terms of harmonic rhythm etc.

Reg plays "outside" lines and harmony far more "inside sounding" than anyone I've ever heard. The paper stuff never made sense until I got what he was doing. If the rhythmic aspects and harmonic rhythm are generally better, all of this stuff sounds great, even to casual listener's who aren't into jazz.

Sure. I mean Reg is great, and his videos are very rich in info.

My general first call with this stuff is always, go listen to the records. That way I can work my ears and get a theoretical understanding going at the same time. It's always worked for me.

Anyway again, this is lapsing into usage. Personally, I'm not looking to learn how to use this scales per se... I know how to use them. But hearing how different players use them, and listening to lines and harmonies using these ideas are always of interest.

[christianm77]

Hey Christian, was just messin, no Elvis altered no way, cool vid

Did you have that vid in mind when you posted?

[christianm77]

OK the wacky world of Warne Marsh 2-octave scales (source a Jazz Life, Klopotowski)

Dominant 3 - the arpeggio version is a dom 7 chord with a minor/maj 7 on the b9

So,
1 3 5 b7 + b9 10 b13 15

Now the scale runs, in say C7:

C D E F G A Bb C' Db' Eb' Fb' (E)' Gb' Ab' Bb' C"

So basically it's dominant/mixo first octave, altered second octave. Dom I is the same thing with lyd dom second octave, and the Dom II is of interest as well ... check out the book...

Playing these things in thirds etc is a lot of fun and quite a mindfuck.

Anyway, where did Warne get these scales from? Tristano or were they his own invention? Klopotowski was studying with Warne sometime in the '80 IIRC)

[matt.guitarteacher]

I think there is a confusion between 'stuff to play' and 'overarching theory of harmony' - to their credit most good players who are into CST don't take theory too seriously and what they play and what they say may be two different things.

For example, I had a colleague who went for a lesson with Jamie Aebersold, who told him to not play 'so harmonically correct' all the time :-)



Sure. I mean Reg is great, and his videos are very rich in info.

My general first call with this stuff is always, go listen to the records. That way I can work my ears and get a theoretical understanding going at the same time. It's always worked for me.

Anyway again, this is lapsing into usage. Personally, I'm not looking to learn how to use this scales per se... I know how to use them. But hearing how different players use them, and listening to lines and harmonies using these ideas are always of interest.

Sorry. Probably not being clear . What I'm getting at has to do with the analysis part though actually. It's about that perspective he has towards harmony which I think he got from a pianist at some point.

Most of us are taught to analyze transcribed language and lines in terms of chord of the moment. So, for chromatic approaches to a major or minor chord, we tend to spell those outside notes, on paper or mentally, in terms of that major or minor chord. Therefore, maybe the only place we really look for "altered" is over dominant chords.

By contrast, if you start looking at chromatic approaches to chord tones of non-dominant chords as if they are dominant approaches (Not all are dominant of course), and spelling them in relation to that would-be DOMINANT, you are probably going to find a lot more justification for early altered-type language. I would suspect a few more sharp 11's as well.

It's just a different way of looking at it. In the end it doesn't matter I suppose. I personally find that my ears hear a lot better while thinking that way, as opposed to something like ..."all of the chromatic approaches which sound good over a minor chord" etc. :-)

[christianm77]

Sorry. Probably not being clear . What I'm getting at has to do with the analysis part though actually. It's about that perspective he has towards harmony which I think he got from a pianist at some point.

Most of us are taught to analyze transcribed language and lines in terms of chord of the moment. So, for chromatic approaches to a major or minor chord, we tend to spell those outside notes, on paper or mentally, in terms of that major or minor chord. Therefore, maybe the only place we really look for "altered" is over dominant chords.

Well, the thing is not the note, it's how it behaves after it's played. Most chromatic notes resolve by step right away on a major or minor chord, unless it's a b3 (blues).

If a note is left unresolved and the next note is arrived at by leap it can be understood in some sense as harmonic. This is the definition I use. Unresolved chromatic notes are markedly more common over dominants, it's true.

So, for example, F# on a C7 chord. F#-G - Neighbour tone. F# to say Bb - Harmonic tone - implied chord is a C7#11.

Obviously enclosures extend the process (F#-A-G, for instance), and chord progressions can be understood as a series of delayed resolutions played in a row. (say F# C Eb E C G for instance.)

By contrast, if you start looking at chromatic approaches to chord tones of non-dominant chords as if they are dominant approaches (Not all are dominant of course), and spelling them in relation to that would-be DOMINANT, you are probably going to find a lot more justification for early altered-type language. I would suspect a few more sharp 11's as well.

I'm not sure if I've parsed this sentence correctly. Basically if I start seeing every chromatic chord or line leading to I as related to a dominant, I am going to run into conceptual problems with some common progressions.

I have no desire to get into theoretical gymnastics, so if I see a musician expressing the chord change:

IV IVm6 I
over
IV #IVo7 I

(Which is extremely common)

I am going to go aha! Miles Davis/Sonny Rollins/Lester Young/Bud Powell/Charlie Parker is thinking IV-voice leading-I.

More broadly - Subdominant - voice leading - Tonic. It's a frickin' cadence.

In this understanding, there's absolutely no need to go there with the dominant. Putting F#o7 or something on G7 is a bit weird, for instance. In other words I see dominant chords as a subset of voice leading, not the other way around.

The effect is probably similar to doing things the other way around. But I find Reg's approach a bit confusing terminology wise, for instance. In broad terms I think it ends up doing the same sort of thing.

I mean I suppose you could see F#o7 as going to Em which is related to C (B7b9), for instance. That's another way into the same thing.

It's just a different way of looking at it. In the end it doesn't matter I suppose. I personally find that my ears hear a lot better while thinking that way, as opposed to something like ..."all of the chromatic approaches which sound good over a minor chord" etc. :-)

You may have trouble with the F#-G resolution (which is VERY common), or maybe not. I used to be a dominant thinker, as it were, coming out of ii-V-I's. In the end I chucked out the dominant (cos of the F#o7 and Ebo7 chords in turnarounds if you must know), and now all resolutions are up for grabs over everything.

[Jonah]

by the way... originally coming from classical I used to think in terms of classical theory about it.. (functional tonality)

Basically...
alteration is lowering or raising scale tones
chromatism is a result of alteration. In a way chromatism is more abstract than alteration...

Then chromatism can be 'inside' - his is within a key - in this case alterations make new lead-tones, it's about tension/realease within a key

sometimes I call it modal chromatism... because I think any alteration without step for the modulation is a sign of modal thinking...


Or chromatism can be a part of modulation - in this case alterations are tones of the scale from another key...


But this too is very basic... analyzing real music many times I could not say for sure which kind of chromatism it is.. and I believe we should not... this ambivalence is what makes it art...


So this modal chromatism... being already on teh territory of modern music... to me this is what makes a basis for new scale... or scale interactions... on the level that makes it in a way more essential than functional tonality logics they had...

Sometimes I can clearly hear that the player's hearing is about weaving in some linear intervalic line as opposed to some another presumed intervalic line (even if behind it there's only triad or 7th chord - in this case you begin to hear this chord as kind of intervals stack together).... it depends much on phrasing accents and even arrangement maybe

[christianm77]

Anyway this stuff, while interesting, is all a bit OT.

[Durban]

Did you have that vid in mind when you posted?

not at all, i like your humour, probably the water im not that far from you,


sod the altered scale i use it all the time but not as an entire scale,

ps. Glen Campbell played altered scale in fourths on Wichita Lineman

[christianm77]

not at all, i like your humour, probably the water im not that far from you,


sod the altered scale i use it all the time but not as an entire scale,

ps. Glen campbell played altered scale in fourths on wichita lineman

did he?

[wolflen]

did he?

Christianm...check out Ben Monders version of W Lineman


I read most of all the post here..am I confused?? you bet..!!

[christianm77]

Christianm...check out Ben Monders version of W Lineman


I read most of all the post here..am I confused?? you bet..!!

I already have.

And then I nicked it.

Anyway exciting summary so far:

When did jazz musicians start using altered scale sound?
Definitely by mid 50s (Miles/Gil Evans), possibly earlier though the nature of bop lines makes this a little tricky to pin down.

When did jazz musicians start using the altered scale concept.
Mumble mumble Ravel mumble mumble Herb Pomeroy mumble mumble Tristano

It's pretty hard to track down.

[matt.guitarteacher]

.)I'm not sure if I've parsed this sentence correctly. Basically if I start seeing every chromatic chord or line leading to I as related to a dominant, I am going to run into conceptual problems with some common progressions.

They don't all have to be dominant approaches. That's just one option. Concepts around MM usage are not so much about JUSTIFYING or theoretically explaining why something MUST be as they are about laying out possibilities. I mean, there are certain outside notes which are just tradition. Blue notes or notes from other functional relationships etc.

One question you might ask about those blue notes might be "what kind of things COULD they imply harmonically?" Certainly not about ONLY playing altered or only viewing things from point of view of dominant approaches. Anyway, that's all OT. Sorry. Just addressing comments.

I was just trying to make the larger point that examples in history of things like #11 -type dominant references might be found in other places beyond just straight dominant cadences.

It's truly curious that altered is such a strong tradition in the music, without having a clear linear history, for those of us who are actually interested. (I would almost wonder If the use of it as a scale didn't come more chord patterns.)

I'd think it's either evolution in practice of Lydian dominant / tritone sub gumbo or....

General evolution of practices around harmonic minor melodic play.

The basic deal with this use of melodic minor is that it's nonfunctional and basically substitutionary. Extended runs of the entire scale in a linear way is kind of like saying "Why don't we go all 'sub' on this one? Or all negative space? Or all rest on this one? " Ha! :-)

[christianm77]

They don't all have to be dominant approaches. That's just one option. Concepts around MM usage are not so much about JUSTIFYING or theoretically explaining why something MUST be as they are about laying out possibilities. I mean, there are certain outside notes which are just tradition. Blue notes or notes from other functional relationships etc.

Of course. I feel like you are trying to justify the use of MM harmony etc. You don't need to with me. I use this scale.

I just don't perceive it as lying comfortably within the bop language. That's about developing some sensitivity to the sound and the pre-existing language of the music (and bop was still a major cornerstone of a lot of the '80s players. Plus everyone at college seems to have to study bop whether or not they like it.)

There's a lot of naunce in the use of scales and harmony which is not theoretic and is based on the music you have heard not theory.

E.g. 7b5 on VI is quite a skronky sound compared to say V7b5... It's a bit more out. Try it.

III7b5 is OK - Parker uses it in a minor key, just not on a secondary dominant, but then he uses b9 on VI7b9 which you don't hear in swing much - and so on.

Nuance, details, and so on. This stuff interests me. I'm not saying it's a right or wrong thing.... I mean that's childish. Parker is not better than Prez, Trane is not better than Parker etc. They have their own voice...

Anyway, maybe I don't like VI7alt because I haven't heard it much. But the more I play it, the more I hear and the more I like it. Could become a thing. Maybe a bit Monkish?

Charlie Christian thought natural 9ths sounded great on minor key dominants. Parker liked the b9 better. And so on.

Of course - the argument might also be, why focus on the MM? Everyone uses it. Maybe to be personal in your approach it might be better to ignore it and use something else instead - but that's another thread.

One question you might ask about those blue notes might be "what kind of things COULD they imply harmonically?" Certainly not about ONLY playing altered or only viewing things from point of view of dominant approaches. Anyway, that's all OT. Sorry. Just addressing comments.

I was just trying to make the larger point that examples in history of things like #11 -type dominant references might be found in other places beyond just straight dominant cadences.

Possibly... The most obvious source for this note is stuff like the bII7 chord. Any other ideas?

It's truly curious that altered is such a strong tradition in the music, without having a clear linear history, for those of us who are actually interested. (I would almost wonder If the use of it as a scale didn't come more chord patterns.)

Is it though? People be using all kinds of stuff on altered dominants circa 1950s. The altered is in there, but it's not yet the 'go to' scale on altered doms AFAIK.

Pomeroy says 'this is the scale' at Berklee, and it does indeed become 'the scale' perhaps? Berklee influence was far and wide and it sounded as Herb was an influential teacher. A large proportion of the important jazzers of the past 40-50 years were at Berklee.

I'd think it's either evolution in practice of Lydian dominant / tritone sub gumbo or....

Hard to say. Not much Lydian Dominant going on in the 40s really, at least not with the #11 as a harmonic tone.

Need to transcribe more stuff to get a real sense of it though in the 50s.

General evolution of practices around harmonic minor melodic play.

The basic deal with this use of melodic minor is that it's nonfunctional and basically substitutionary. Extended runs of the entire scale in a linear way is kind of like saying "Why don't we go all 'sub' on this one? Or all negative space? Or all rest on this one? " Ha! :-)

Well, yeah, it's non functional the advantage of the melodic minor is that there are no bad sounding notes when chords are taken singly. That opens a lot of doors over isolated chords. If I am playing non functional harmony I will reach for sounds that blend with the chords. Otherwise I have to understand it somehow in terms of functions etc which really doesn't work on some charts.

(But the MM is not the only scale that has this quality.)

A lot of people write this stuff anyway because they went to jazz college, learned what the professors taught, took at face value, passed the classes, and that's what they know. Others have a more individual approach, and some people are history nerds, like me :-)

[PMB]

The endgame stuff is basically the idea of the chromatic scale being your reference, but that's not really a starting point for education. You have to start somewhere, and limitations help .Altered probably works a lot better organizationally than many other things for addressing outside tones in the beginning.

I think the point that Christian's making here, Matt is that these things become prescriptive rather than descriptive at some point. That's always a fine line in education - just about everything should come with a caveat. We so often accept these things at face value and pass them on without checking their veracity.

I'm reminded of the 1980s film, "The Ploughman's Lunch" where the main character explains to another that the ploughman's lunch (bread, pickles and cheese) rather than being British traditional fare, was invented by the Cheese Board in the 1950s to get people eating their products in pubs.

[christianm77]

Succinctly put PMB. 'Face value' is the key phrase.

I play with people who teach at conservatories. Sounds like curiosity is quite uncommon.

The Ploughman's Lunch comparison is hilarious.

[PMB]

Succinctly put PMB. 'Face value' is the key phrase.

I play with people who teach at conservatories. Sounds like curiosity is quite uncommon.

The Ploughman's Lunch comparison is hilarious.

Having trained in composition and musicology at one of those conservatories, I can confirm that a lack of curiosity can come from both sides of the lectern.

[matt.guitarteacher]

A lot of people write this stuff anyway because they went to jazz college, learned what the professors taught, took at face value, passed the classes, and that's what they know. Others have a more individual approach, and some people are history nerds, like me :-)

Christian, you protest too much with your feigned disdain for academia. You must, in fact, be a closeted jazz college graduate yourself.

Where else could you have picked up obvious, jazz-snob lingo like "skronky"?

Own up. ;-)