The Altered Scale is kind of broken

[Bobby Timmons]

An aspect of playing over dominants, including alt that just occurred to me - how many beats is the chord likely to last for?

Two? Four? At what tempo? Too long and it's going to sound like a tonic seventh chord, or something.

So, when someone decides to play the alt scale, how many notes are we likely to be talking about?

Would 8 notes be about average? Maybe fewer? Four?

The alt scale is a pool of 7 notes -- how many of them are going to be used, on average?

R 3 b5 #5 b7 b9 #9 --- three of these are chord tones. In Cmajor, the dominant is G7, which contains R 3 b7. So, the alt-ness of the scale is in the other four notes, as juxtaposed over the vanilla G7.

The audience will hear the first three (R 3 b7) in the bass and comping chords.

Making it sound "alt" really takes three notes. Bb Ab and Eb.

So, if the whole thing is going to last 4 beats or two beats, you can, as an exercise, include those 3 notes and supplement them with G7 chord tones, or Cmaj tonal center (white keys) notes or whatever else sounds good to you..

What you don't want to do is to try to play all 7 alt scale notes every time the chart, or the non-musical part of your brain, shouts " play alt!".

You can displace how long you use a tonality in regard to the chords beneath. So you can use an altered idea for longer if the chord technically only lasts a measure or half.

[Lionelsax]

A lot of people who study jazz don't listen to jazz, when you talk about with them, the only thing they can do is talking about theory, analysing a lonely chord without understanding what's really happening.
They are just repeating what they taught them again and again like if they were giving a conference.
That makes me smile, it's like if they were playing at "who's got the longer" against horses.
A lot of fun !
They don't realise how ludicrous they are.

Fifth page !
I love making friends !

[Bobby Timmons]

Ur mad at theory.

[Christian Miller]

Ur mad at theory.

the kraken awakes!

[Christian Miller]

Do you think sometimes cowboys secretly play 7b9sus4 chords?

aren’t most of the guitarists in Nashville Berklee grads?

[BigDaddyLoveHandles]

aren’t most of the guitarists in Nashville Berklee grads?

We should stop judging cowboys.

[Boss Man Zwiebelsohn]

We should stop judging cowboys.

Isn't (Wasn't?) Bruce Forman working part-time as a Cowboy?

[emanresu]

It works as well as any other device, you just have to work the crap into your playing using specific exercises if it's not going. Just run the scale, make up little patterns, make up ideas, put them to time on just a 2-5-1, apply them in a song slowly, apply them in a song in time.

I do the "all by ear" thing. Can't "make" something happen if it doesn't feel natural.
Not saying that it cant be. Just that 30 years of white keys is hard to push aside.

[Bobby Timmons]

Then use ur hear to hear the greats using devices. :P Imo it only benefits your musicality if you can execute the fundamentals.

[Boss Man Zwiebelsohn]

Then use ur hear to hear the greats using devices. :P Imo it only benefits your musicality if you can execute the fundamentals.

Are you sure you want to start this discussion again? No offence meant, although this is a tough one: I get the impression that you simply cannot imagine that there are people who are hearing better than you.

[emanresu]

Then use ur hear to hear the greats using devices. :P Imo it only benefits your musicality if you can execute the fundamentals.

I'm inventing a bicycle here. Not a tractor

[emanresu]

Btw. We need a thread like "i like the alt scale so much but it makes my solos sound too complex! pls help."

[rpjazzguitar]

Another way to hear it ...

Record or loop Dm7 G7 Cmaj7. Slowly.

Then, over the Dm7 play the notes of Am, A C E. That will sound like Dm9.

Over the G7, play a Db13 arpeggio. That could be as simple as xx3446, played one string at a time. If you want, wiggle your pinkie to get xx3444. That's the sound of Galt.

Then, over the Cmaj7 play any combination of white keys, but don't lean on the F.

If you want, you can then play something like A7b13 as a quick turnaround back to the original Dm7. And, you can play the alt sound over it by running an Eb13 arpeggio.

[pauln]

I've been grinding the alt scale for months now, hoping that it would pop up in a solo some way or another.
No luck
Raised 6th and 7th force themselves when solving to minor. But naturally, no luck whatsoever with alt.
Feels like I should try harder!

alt scale is a tryhard scale!

See if changing perspective from alt to LD opens things up.
The LD may be explored by placing its tonic on the roots of
progression degrees b2, 2, b3, 3, 4, b5, b6, 6 and b7. Good
constraint for initial testing and integration is to arp up from
the LD's major third and scale down from its sixth. The LD
contains within it the diminished, augmented, and most of
the whole tone, which means as you hear and grasp the LD
it brings along innate reference to these other sounds, too.

[Bobby Timmons]

Are you sure you want to start this discussion again? No offence meant, although this is a tough one: I get the impression that you simply cannot imagine that there are people who are hearing better than you.

If you think the greats didn't use devices then you can't hear. I don't care if others want to go on an all ear crusade, but using fundamentals worked for the majority of the greats, and that's what my teacher who is a great tells me to do, so that's what I'll do.

[Bobby Timmons]

I'm inventing a bicycle here. Not a tractor

You mean re-inventing the wheel? :P

[emanresu]

You mean re-inventing the wheel? :P

Yeah, we invent bicycles here.

[Lionelsax]

I'm surprised nobody talked about pentatonics, I'm sure a lot of people think of pentatonics when they build other scales, it's what I would do if they were my main vocabulary.
I missed at least three or four pages, maybe someone has already posted diagrams and tabs.
Let's wait !

[BigDaddyLoveHandles]

I'm surprised nobody talked about pentatonics, I'm sure a lot of people think of pentatonics when they build other scales, it's what I would do if they were my main vocabulary.
I missed at least three or four pages, maybe someone has already posted diagrams and tabs.
Let's wait !

Uh, reply #5: The Altered Scale is kind of broken