When did Jazz Musicians start using the altered scale?

[ragman1]

Sounds like curiosity is quite uncommon.

Which, of course, is a shame.

Well, Christian, never let it be said I don't take my own advice. I've been in touch with both Mark Levine and Dmitri Tymoczko. Mark (who I've already spoken to many years ago, friend of a friend) said he didn't know. He did say Bud Powell was using the half/whole diminished scale in the 1940s but that was about it.

Dmitri was more forthcoming and wonderfully helpful. I'm sure he won't mind if I simply copy his reply as it came in. I brought up Debussy in my email hence the reference to his book at the beginning. He also echoes Mark's thoughts on Bud Powell.

Hi there, thanks for the interest.

Check out Chapters 9-10 of my book ("A Geometry of Music") for some information on this topic.

I personally suspect that the harmonic minor explanation is part of the story, as I say in Chapter 10, especially if you consider the common "double neighbor" 5-b6-b7-b6-5 pattern which goes back to before Chopin. Add this double neighbor to the harmonic minor's V7 and you are pretty close to the altered scale -- it's just the replacement of scale degrees 1-2 with b2.

For me, Herbie Hancock is the guy who really plays a lot of altered scale in a consistent way. It's all over his playing. The other source here is the TTsub of the acoustic scale (#11, or C-D-E-F#-G-A-Bb). This is how it shows up in impressionism. You should check "Lydian Chromatic Concept" to see if it is in there.

I don't think Charlie Parker played it much if at all. There is altered-sounding stuff in Bud Powell, but usually kind of ambiguous and harmonic-minor-y.

I have a pet theory, which I can't prove, that McCoy Tyner was going for an "altered sound" but typically using pentatonics -- so trying to hit the main altered notes but using a pentatonic scale. He may not have explicitly thought in terms of altered sounds.

Jazz education probably popularized the idea and created more of a "common language" shared by many other jazz players. It was maybe more of an individual thing, used by some folk but not others, before the 1970s.

Hope that helps!

DT

[Hupia]

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)

I'm not sure if this is the same logic that was applied to what you found on Warne, but I remember reading an interview where he explains some of the concepts he used. One of them was stacking major 7th chords a perfect fifth apart... so like, over C major you'd get

CEGBDF#AC#, and so on. I actually tried that over a cheesy Cmaj7 backing track on youtube, and it sounds good. The #11th, which often stands out to me, feels very natural because you're logically leading to it, and even the C# sometimes.

I remember he mentioned the concept coming from Hindemith.

Again, not sure if it translates to what you're interested in... but maybe it's some sort of lead.

[destinytot]

...and some people are history nerds, like me :-)

Sorry, no cigar; culture, openness and inquisitiveness don't make you a nerd.

[christianm77]

I'm not sure if this is the same logic that was applied to what you found on Warne, but I remember reading an interview where he explains some of the concepts he used. One of them was stacking major 7th chords a perfect fifth apart... so like, over C major you'd get

CEGBDF#AC#, and so on. I actually tried that over a cheesy Cmaj7 backing track on youtube, and it sounds good. The #11th, which often stands out to me, feels very natural because you're logically leading to it, and even the C# sometimes.

I remember he mentioned the concept coming from Hindemith.

Again, not sure if it translates to what you're interested in... but maybe it's some sort of lead.

Yeah that scale is also discussed In the book I referenced. The C# works great if you have an F# in the chord also

[christianm77]

Which, of course, is a shame.

Well, Christian, never let it be said I don't take my own advice. I've been in touch with both Mark Levine and Dmitri Tymoczko. Mark (who I've already spoken to many years ago, friend of a friend) said he didn't know. He did say Bud Powell was using the half/whole diminished scale in the 1940s but that was about it.

Dmitri was more forthcoming and wonderfully helpful. I'm sure he won't mind if I simply copy his reply as it came in. I brought up Debussy in my email hence the reference to his book at the beginning. He also echoes Mark's thoughts on Bud Powell.

Hi there, thanks for the interest.

Check out Chapters 9-10 of my book ("A Geometry of Music") for some information on this topic.

I personally suspect that the harmonic minor explanation is part of the story, as I say in Chapter 10, especially if you consider the common "double neighbor" 5-b6-b7-b6-5 pattern which goes back to before Chopin. Add this double neighbor to the harmonic minor's V7 and you are pretty close to the altered scale -- it's just the replacement of scale degrees 1-2 with b2.

For me, Herbie Hancock is the guy who really plays a lot of altered scale in a consistent way. It's all over his playing. The other source here is the TTsub of the acoustic scale (#11, or C-D-E-F#-G-A-Bb). This is how it shows up in impressionism. You should check "Lydian Chromatic Concept" to see if it is in there.

I don't think Charlie Parker played it much if at all. There is altered-sounding stuff in Bud Powell, but usually kind of ambiguous and harmonic-minor-y.

I have a pet theory, which I can't prove, that McCoy Tyner was going for an "altered sound" but typically using pentatonics -- so trying to hit the main altered notes but using a pentatonic scale. He may not have explicitly thought in terms of altered sounds.

Jazz education probably popularized the idea and created more of a "common language" shared by many other jazz players. It was maybe more of an individual thing, used by some folk but not others, before the 1970s.

Hope that helps!

DT

Heh nice one!

DTs words on the subject confirm what I already suspected to some extent

[DonEsteban]

I didn't read every post of this tread, so if this is redundant I beg your pardon upfront.

I think a frequent misconception is that the altered scale is derived from (the underlying scale of) a dominant 7 chord - it is not.

The altered scale is derived from the chord on the fifth step of a natural minor chord. It is meant to solve a century old problem - the problem that the natural minor has no dominant chord on the fifth step. Historically there are different solutions, harmonic minor being one of them.

Explanation in short form, key is A, first in major:

In major keys the tritone interval of the dominant chord has two leading notes, the 3 (dom) leads to the the 1 (root) and the 7 (dom) leads the 3 (root)

A major scale
A B C# D E F# G# A B C# D E F# G# A
Resulting Dom. chord E7:
E G# B D
Leading notes: The G# leads to A and the D leads to C#

In Minor keys it's not that easy. The key now is A minor, nice key, but we need a dominant chord on the E (Dominant meaning we need a tritonus interval and leading notes back to the root, see above)

To achieve that lets lower the root note of the key - the note A - half a step, it's of no big use anyway as long as we are on the (to be ) dominant chord:

White keys of the piano (A minor):
C D E F G A B C D E F G A B C
1 note altered:
C D E F G Ab B C D E F G Ab B C

Cool, we have a dominant chord E7 (make the en-harmonic math yourself). But now we have that awkward minor third in the scale between Ab and B, well, lets get rid of that and lower the B half a step too.

White keys of the piano (A minor):
C D E F G A B C D E F G A B C
2 notes altered:
C D E F G Ab Bb C D E F G Ab Bb C

Resulting dom. chord E7
E G# B D

Tadaaaa.... We have a tritone, E7 chord, and
tadaaaa ..... we have an extra leading note leading to the root (A)!

And we have, what today is commonly known as "Altered Scale". Tadaaaa.... again... :-)

You can find examples for that in the entire music history since the Renaissance. That means, the "Altered Scale" is absolutely no new concept. At what point in history and who started to speak of an "Altered Scale" is unknown to me.

Spelling it like it is common today (with a b9, #9 b5 etc.) and herewith implying that it is derived from the dominant chord of a major key is misleading to say the least.

Happy Weekend!


(PS. parts of this text are from one of my scripts, hence the educational form)

[Durban]

did he?

did not know you played WL it very cool christiann like .


I just was really messin again he did not play altered, but Glen was a monster player and he could play
anything. He looked a bit a square but respect.

Theres a vid of him playing a jazz fusion thing on a Strat in ireland phewwwwwww.

[ragman1]

Well, I've been thinking. The tritone, of course, goes w-a-y back in time. Seems to me that, especially on a guitar, that instead of playing, say, a rather boring Db7 arpeggio, sooner or later someone would simply play the ii of the Db7. Stands to reason.

The Abm idea is a lot more fun than the Db7 arp. We also know that just because it's a Db7 does NOT mean you can happily play the Gb major scale. But play the Abm6 and, et voila, you've got lines... and the altered scale sound.

Makes sense to me.

[christianm77]

Well, I've been thinking. The tritone, of course, goes w-a-y back in time. Seems to me that, especially on a guitar, that instead of playing, say, a rather boring Db7 arpeggio, sooner or later someone would simply play the ii of the Db7. Stands to reason.

The Abm idea is a lot more fun than the Db7 arp. We also know that just because it's a Db7 does NOT mean you can happily play the Gb major scale. But play the Abm6 and, et voila, you've got lines... and the altered scale sound.

Makes sense to me.

See above. I haven't yet found evidence that people were using melodic minor on the tritone in this way during the bebop era although it would seem obvious to us.

Abm6 also belongs to D harmonic minor btw. The natural seventh thing also gives you the 9. Lot of people miss that one.

Also belongs to the Db dominant scale.

This sound is not specific to the altered.

I don't think it's a cut and dried issue anyway. For instance when did musicians start using the ascending melodic minor form when descending? And when did the notes become harmonic tones not merely scale steps - that's the real question actually, because modern mm usage is based on that concept.

[PMB]

Which, of course, is a shame.

Well, Christian, never let it be said I don't take my own advice. I've been in touch with both Mark Levine and Dmitri Tymoczko. Mark (who I've already spoken to many years ago, friend of a friend) said he didn't know. He did say Bud Powell was using the half/whole diminished scale in the 1940s but that was about it.

Dmitri was more forthcoming and wonderfully helpful. I'm sure he won't mind if I simply copy his reply as it came in. I brought up Debussy in my email hence the reference to his book at the beginning. He also echoes Mark's thoughts on Bud Powell.

Hi there, thanks for the interest.

Check out Chapters 9-10 of my book ("A Geometry of Music") for some information on this topic.

I personally suspect that the harmonic minor explanation is part of the story, as I say in Chapter 10, especially if you consider the common "double neighbor" 5-b6-b7-b6-5 pattern which goes back to before Chopin. Add this double neighbor to the harmonic minor's V7 and you are pretty close to the altered scale -- it's just the replacement of scale degrees 1-2 with b2.

For me, Herbie Hancock is the guy who really plays a lot of altered scale in a consistent way. It's all over his playing. The other source here is the TTsub of the acoustic scale (#11, or C-D-E-F#-G-A-Bb). This is how it shows up in impressionism. You should check "Lydian Chromatic Concept" to see if it is in there.

I don't think Charlie Parker played it much if at all. There is altered-sounding stuff in Bud Powell, but usually kind of ambiguous and harmonic-minor-y.

I have a pet theory, which I can't prove, that McCoy Tyner was going for an "altered sound" but typically using pentatonics -- so trying to hit the main altered notes but using a pentatonic scale. He may not have explicitly thought in terms of altered sounds.

Jazz education probably popularized the idea and created more of a "common language" shared by many other jazz players. It was maybe more of an individual thing, used by some folk but not others, before the 1970s.

Hope that helps!

DT

Nice work, ragman. Another guy worth checking out as a link might be pianist/arranger, Clare Fischer (composer of 'Pensativa'), a harmonic genius and huge influence on the young Herbie Hancock.

[pcjazz]

From a Barry Harris point of view the scale you are discussing is the minor six diminished scale a half-step above the root of the dominant, i.e. the tritone's minor or "important minor" of the tritone (where "important minor" is the minor on the fifth of a dominant chord). This scale contains the b5, #5, b9 and #9 of the dominant along with its 1, 3, 6 and b7.

Dominant: C7
Tritone: Gb7
Tritone's minor: Db Eb E Gb Ab A Bb C
Relative to C7: b9 #9 3 b5 #5 6 b7 1

The minor six diminished scale contains the notes of a minor sixth chord plus the notes of the diminished chord on the seventh degree of the scale. I like to think of it as combining the harmonic and melodic minors.

As I understand Harris's teaching Bud Powell liked to use this scale over dominants resolving up a fourth or down a semitone.

[ragman1]

I also think that a lot of these harmonies were players imitating what chords were doing. Chromatic approaches add to the flavour of a piece - i.e. in a G blues you'd use a Db7 before the C7. And the Db happens to be the G tritone. And if you were going to use a Gm line over the C7 then, by jove, why not play an Abm line before it?

Makes sense to me. See, I'm not convinced that early hands-on players really thought in theoretical terms when they played, they just kind of fooled around with stuff and found these nice ideas. Possibly the heavier bebop types post-Parker got into it as the music became more complex but a lot of these players were still copying their heroes from records etc. They didn't go to no conservatory!

[ragman1]

Another guy worth checking out as a link might be pianist/arranger, Clare Fischer (composer of 'Pensativa'), a harmonic genius and huge influence on the young Herbie Hancock.

Absolutely, good idea. Thanks.

[ragman1]

Sheer genius...

He could swing too

[christianm77]

From a Barry Harris point of view the scale you are discussing is the minor six diminished scale a half-step above the root of the dominant, i.e. the tritone's minor or "important minor" of the tritone (where "important minor" is the minor on the fifth of a dominant chord). This scale contains the b5, #5, b9 and #9 of the dominant along with its 1, 3, 6 and b7.

Dominant: C7
Tritone: Gb7
Tritone's minor: Db Eb E Gb Ab A Bb C
Relative to C7: b9 #9 3 b5 #5 6 b7 1

The minor six diminished scale contains the notes of a minor sixth chord plus the notes of the diminished chord on the seventh degree of the scale. I like to think of it as combining the harmonic and melodic minors.

As I understand Harris's teaching Bud Powell liked to use this scale over dominants resolving up a fourth or down a semitone.

Sure that's more a chordal thing more than a linear thing though as 6 dim scales are used to create harmonies rather than scalar lines - but yes that is certainly a thing ablest certainly counts, if Bud did actually use that.

In improvisation BH has the important minor tritone. No reason why you couldn't use a minor scale on that and no reason why the scale couldn't be melodic.

In terms of linear improv BH concentrates heavily on options using the dominant scale AFAIK

These scales are all included in Barry Harris teaching as options, but the question is were they used?

Also the useage of Barry's scales is somewhat different to modern cst in that not all scale tones are considered equal in the way that mm harmony considers them... this is actually quite a big deal.

[christianm77]

Nice work, ragman. Another guy worth checking out as a link might be pianist/arranger, Clare Fischer (composer of 'Pensativa'), a harmonic genius and huge influence on the young Herbie Hancock.

Cheers pmb, I feel like we are homing in on it:-)

[matt.guitarteacher]

Also the useage of Barry's scales is somewhat different to modern cst in that not all scale tones are considered equal in the way that mm harmony considers them... this is actually quite a big deal.

Interested in this. Don't know the specifics. Don't want to derail too much but would be interested in an example of bh usage like above.

[PMB]

The lack of 'avoid' notes in the melodic minor gives its modes a greater equivalence than we find within the major scale. With that in mind, perhaps the 'Ravel' (altered) scale is a misnomer. What I'm hearing in Ravel's pieces is the MM in any one of its other modal guises, such as the 5th mode (mixolydian b6) that opens the 2nd movement of Ma mère l'oye:

[pcjazz]

Interested in this. Don't know the specifics. Don't want to derail too much but would be interested in an example of bh usage like above.

One place to start might be the transcription and analysis of BP's solo on "Nice Work If You Can Get It" at p.168 of Guthrie Ramsey's book, The Amazing Bud Powell. In fact that entire chapter is worth reading if only to show what a mistake it would be to underestimate the intellectual powers of the bebop pioneers. Sure, they came up in the music and learned a lot on the bandstand but they were clearly thinking, experimenting and practicing towards what they understood to be a new thing (which was not cst!). I don't suggest that they necessarily used the nomenclature BH later devised to describe what they were doing, but that doesn't subtract from what looks to me like systematic informed invention. Just listen, for example, to Monk's practice tapes, hours and hours working over a standard tune --- these have been released on cd by his son.

[christianm77]

The lack of 'avoid' notes in the melodic minor gives its modes a greater equivalence than we find within the major scale. With that in mind, perhaps the 'Ravel' (altered) scale is a misnomer. What I'm hearing in Ravel's pieces is the MM in any one of its other modal guises, such as the 5th mode (mixolydian b6) that opens the 2nd movement of Ma mère l'oye:

Yes I did read about that

Also ravel uses diminished scale as well

[christianm77]

One place to start might be the transcription and analysis of BP's solo on "Nice Work If You Can Get It" at p.168 of Guthrie Ramsey's book, The Amazing Bud Powell. In fact that entire chapter is worth reading if only to show what a mistake it would be to underestimate the intellectual powers of the bebop pioneers. Sure, they came up in the music and learned a lot on the bandstand but they were clearly thinking, experimenting and practicing towards what they understood to be a new thing (which was not cst!). I don't suggest that they necessarily used the nomenclature BH later devised to describe what they were doing, but that doesn't subtract from what looks to me like systematic informed invention. Just listen, for example, to Monk's practice tapes, hours and hours working over a standard tune --- these have been released on cd by his son.

Thanks! I had no idea monks practice had been recorded, what an extraordinary resource.

I'll check out the book. Nice work is a terrific tune, and a real work out for dominants, to my shame I don't really know buds recording.

[pcjazz]

[QUOTE=christianm77;760147]Thanks! I had no idea monks practice had been recorded, what an extraordinary resource./QUOTE]

The Transformer - Thelonious Monk | Songs, Reviews, Credits | AllMusic

[matt.guitarteacher]

Maybe off-topic , directly. But this is inspired by this conversation.

No activity for a while on this one anyway . Anyway, interested in anyone else's thoughts on this.

Hobbyist ramblings:

[christianm77]

I'll watch your vid when I am able.

TBH I thought this is one of those unusual threads that came to a satisfying conclusion and gave me some interesting new info.

Nice one chaps.

[rintincop]

Well what's the answer to the thread's question?