The Nine-Note Scale.

[Christian Miller]

Yeah the avoid note stuff never really worked for me, but I get what you’re saying.

Where did you come across Stefon’s thing? Jordan?

yes! So I think Jordan might teach it slightly differently to Stephon (I think Jordan is finding a way to make it super accessible for guitar), but the basic principles are the same. It’s really a fantastic framework for understanding colour, and there are voiceleading implications too obviously.

They don’t talk about avoid notes but resolved notes and tensions, which is a more helpful terminology imo.

[Christian Miller]

Good stuff, very thoughtful, I've been down this road for the last 10 years or so, creating progressions with colouful chord voicings and playing over them with scales, with as you stated "fewer controversial notes a scale has the more of a colour scale it is". It's a very impressionistic approach, which I like, but it can easily result in excessive noodling.

Yes. I mean, it’s not black and white. But I think learning to use dissonance for its expressive effect is obviously an important part of being able to express yourself harmonically.

Harmonic movement in its general sense is the artful setting up and resolution of dissonance (itself a subjective thing) which can be on different levels - note by note, chord by chord, region by region, structural etc - this can be functional but it’s not limited to it. There’s also a lot to do with counterpoint here.

[pamosmusic]

yes! So I think Jordan might teach it slightly differently to Stephon (I think Jordan is finding a way to make it super accessible for guitar), but the basic principles are the same. It’s really a fantastic framework for understanding colour, and there are voiceleading implications too obviously.

Yeah the premise is one I really really identify with and relate to — strong melodic shapes used to make harmonic implication — but I haven’t gotten really deep into it all.

Jordan is a buddy and I oddly enough ran into him here before I ran into him in the real world … sort of.

I was subbing on a rehearsal for a friend’s recording date before I met Jordan and the friend handed me the guitar charts and all the chord symbols were scribbled out and this weird nomenclature was penciled in its place and I was like … what the hell?

And then maybe a year later I was hanging out with Jordan and he started getting real deep into his Stefon stuff and I was like AHA IT WAS YOU!

[wolflen]

This might be a different thread, but I would love to hear more about how you work on hexatonics.

My experience is mostly with triad pairs, but I’m not super fluent so it’s still in the phase where it’s a bit of a device.

When I work on 7-note scales, I just have lifetimes worth of material to work on. Pentatonic scales are a bit trickier but I’ve got more experience there. 6-note scales I don’t really have a handle on them. Do you work up facility in the same ways you do with a major scale, patterns or intervallic ideas?

I’m just curious.

I did read the rest of the post where you mention that you find yourself thinking more about chord tones anyway (me too probably, or at least chord shapes). So maybe you don’t work on hexatonics this way at all.

A intense study on the diminished scale will give you TWO hexatonic scales and embedded in the scale find close to 30 chords due to its symmetricial nature

there are only three diminished scales C Db D

here is the Db dim scale (it starts on the C note but it is a Db dim scale)

C Db Eb E Gb G A Bb C

this will work over C7#9--A7#9--Gb7#9--Eb7#9

Two Hexatonic scales

Eb E G A Bb Db

Gb G Bb C Db E

Note: the A7#9 chord has the notes Db G C which is a partial Eb13 chord so you have a tri-tone to work with here
you can use Eb dominant scales and runs against both chords as well as the hexatonic and diminished scales

hope this helps

[Christian Miller]

Yeah the premise is one I really really identify with and relate to — strong melodic shapes used to make harmonic implication — but I haven’t gotten really deep into it all.

Jordan is a buddy and I oddly enough ran into him here before I ran into him in the real world … sort of.

I was subbing on a rehearsal for a friend’s recording date before I met Jordan and the friend handed me the guitar charts and all the chord symbols were scribbled out and this weird nomenclature was penciled in its place and I was like … what the hell?

And then maybe a year later I was hanging out with Jordan and he started getting real deep into his Stefon stuff and I was like AHA IT WAS YOU!

haha amazing! But also - bad pad etiquette no?

[rintincop]

I'm with Barry Harris "add 3 half steps" = 10 note scales.
I think 3 scales: Major, Dominant (Mixo), and Melodic Minor.
I line build from there. Not from licks and transcriptions.

[AllanAllen]

There’s no empirical evidence to suggest that educational models such as VARK (visual, auditory, read/write, kinaesthetic) have any relationship to reality. That said the guitar is kind of visual instrument being as it is a plane rather than a line (like the piano). I remember doing a lot of diagrams like this… I got to the point where I just thought it would be better just to apply to the neck directly and cut out the middle step.

If you don’t write it out you won’t be able to sell your notes as a book down the line.

[Christian Miller]

If you don’t write it out you won’t be able to sell your notes as a book down the line.

im a bad businessman

[Christian Miller]

I'm with Barry Harris "add 3 half steps" = 10 note scales.
I think 3 scales: Major, Dominant (Mixo), and Melodic Minor.
I line build from there. Not from licks and transcriptions.

I feel I should mention the fact that Charles MacPherson said that he and Barry talked about learning heads by ear, but not solos.

otoh Barry seemed to have known more about the notes bird and Bud played on record than anyone. So obviously he knew the music.

So, I kind of think that idea of transcription where you analyses and cannibalise stuff for your own use is not what everyone did. Even Tristano. You sing the solos and internalise the music but you don’t necessarily put it through analysis, maybe?

I’m not saying it’s bad - Bird did it early on, and many great players use licks as a jumping off point. I also think it’s helpful for beginners. But after a point, you can dispense with it. Barry gives a great set of tools for generating idiomatic bop lines without the need for ii V I licks.