Reinterpreting the Altered Scale

[ajrdileva]

Sometimes it is better to find a different point of view to understand a structure or scale we do not know very well.

I used the "Decoding the Circle of Vths" Chart and the mCircle free online software to reinterpret the altered mode.

Try using mCircle:
Enter Altered in the Sub-Structure. Altered is found in the database and it says it's a mode of the Melodic Minor Scale.
Enter the Melodic Minor in the Main structure.
Click on the "Load Sub & Find" button on the sub-structure side.

The result:VII (Altered is the 7th Mode of the Melodic Minor).


Another way to reinterpret: If you enter the Altered Scale as the Main Structure and the Melodic Minor as the sub-structure the result is: bII
So one can reinterpret the Altered Scale as Melodic Minor starting on the bII of the Scale
When practicing D Altered one can think of it as a Eb Melodic Minor Scale.

Also, if you look at the "Decoding the Circle of Vths" Chart, you will find the Altered Scale as the 7th mode of the Melodic Minor.

[mr. beaumont]

[derek]

So that diagram is just saying that Super Locrian is MM played a half step (aka bII) above your root? Maybe I am missing the point, but isn't that what everyone already says?

[musicalbodger]

So that diagram is just saying that Super Locrian is MM played a half step (aka bII) above your root? Maybe I am missing the point, but isn't that what everyone already says?

Exactly what I was thinking. Talk about making it more complicated than necessary.

[randalljazz]

[ajrdileva]

You guys are totally missing the point.
It is not reinterpreting the altered scaled the important question but the approach used to find the solution:

Let's say you want to improvise using a Major pentatonic over a Melodic Minor Scale (or a Im6 chord)

You can use the same approach:
In mCircle: enter Melodic Major as Main Structure and Major Pentatonic in Sub-Structure

Answer: Yes, and it is on the IV degree of the Melodic Minor.




or you want to find of you can use a min7b5 chord on top of the Lydianb7 mode: you see there's one on the III and one on the #IV (ONLY there's no other minor7b5 chords on lydianb7). So on a C7#11 chord you could actually play, improvise or accompany with a E-7b5 or a F#-7b5 and there are no other m7b5 chords


or you want to see if you can improvise over Lydianb7 combining major triads: You'll find you can use I and II (ONLY) there's no other major triads on lydianb7. So on a C7#11 could improvise using the C major triad or the D major triad, but no other major triads (If you want to sound really inside the scale)



There are endless possibilities using this approach. Structures and subsets, all the possible symmetric scales and limited mode scales, etc.

It is not making it more complicated, it is being thorough and finding all possible solutions. Of course it has to be one's ears that decided whether or not to use or how to use the results, or even to go against the results. But is a very different feeling when you play knowing where you are.

[musicalbodger]

So let's get this straight, ajrdileva. Is mDecks your website? If so, why don't you say that your here advertising your products?

I still maintain your toys are unnecessary for creating good improvised music and just make the creation of music much more complicated than it need be — although as an intellectual excercise it might be of interest if one was an anal retentive with few other interests in life.

Of course it has to be one's ears that decided whether or not to use or how to use the results, or even to go against the results.

So, why not use them in the first place?

[bruzzi]

Sometimes you guys make theory so difficult.Play What You Hear is very interesting and not tooo hard to understand. Think of Coltrane and Charlie Parker

[ajrdileva]

OK, yes I am part of mDecks. I wasn't trying to advertise though, just to share the concept we're working on, and get some feedback. The mCircle software is free to use and I think it is a very useful approach.

I must agree any software in music is a toy as you said but concepts and different points of views are always a good tool to grow as musicians.

Your ears can only go so far if you don't feed them with new stuff. Don't tell me the first time anyone tries to improvise doesn't sound like just playing pieces of a scale and once a player understands more about harmony and structures it completely changes the way they approach improv and the way they sound.

So let's get this straight, ajrdileva. Is mDecks your website? If so, why don't you say that your here advertising your products?

I still maintain your toys are unnecessary for creating good improvised music and just make the creation of music much more complicated than it need be — although as an intellectual excercise it might be of interest if one was an anal retentive with few other interests in life.
So, why not use them in the first place?

[mr. beaumont]

to the OP, I'm sorry or starting the shitstorm against ya-- it's just as I get older, I act more and more like my dog--if I can't screw it or eat it, I piss on it and walk away.

I'm positive there are tech minded folks who will devour this, many of them on this board, and I don't take your post as advertising, just as sharing an idea you were proud of and excited about.

[ajrdileva]

Coltrane and Parker were always studying their stuff. Not leaving anything at chance.

Do you think Coltrane solo over Gian Steps was just a result of only using his ears???? You can see all the stuff he was working on when he recorded the solo in his CD. All 1235, 1345 structures, pattern development, etc.
Don't tell me you thought these guys played everything buy ear!!! without practicing and analyzing their music before.

Any good musician is always thorough. Using your ears is just a basic tool that any improviser must have but it needs to be developed.

Theory is only difficult before you understand it. The first time you explain to a beginner what a C7b13 is they look at you like you're crazy and that is not even needed. (I'll just play a C triad and improvise using the C major scale with a Bb. That's what they'd probably think)

Sometimes you guys make theory so difficult.Play What You Hear is very interesting and not tooo hard to understand. Think of Coltrane and Charlie Parker

[musicalbodger]

ajrdileva
Thanks from clearing up where you're coming from.

I would suggest that most people, when they first improvise, want to have fun, express and enjoy themselves. To expect a greenhorn, unless they are already well versed in theory, to understand the concepts you are talking about or even the nomenclature is way off mark. You are making it an intellectual excercise when jazz is, at its most basic, an emotional statement.

I understand why you would want to use your method if you were already an experienced improviser and were looking for something different to spice up/extend your playing but, surely, if you're that competent, you're going to work it all out for yourself. Your point about Coltrane and Parker, et al studying and working out their own concepts reinforces my point.(Hasn't Pat Martino done something similar with his ideas and diagrams.) To fill an inexperienced head with so much esoteric information when there are all the basics of scales/chords/arpeggios, that many already find hard to grasp if this forum is anything to go by, is just muddying the waters further rather than clarifying things.

...but concepts and different points of views are always a good tool to grow as musicians.

As a boring and constant proponent of open minds and fresh ideas, I agree with you.

Theory is only difficult before you understand it.

But, to place too much information/theory in front of a beginner is more likely to be a turn off than an encouragement.

[ajrdileva]

How would I know this is a forum for beginners??

Sorry, I thought some people here knew there stuff, at least some of them sound like they do!

Thanks for your more respectful post, this time...

ajrdileva
Thanks from clearing up where you're coming from.

I would suggest that most people, when they first improvise, want to have fun, express and enjoy themselves. To expect a greenhorn, unless they are already well versed in theory, to understand the concepts you are talking about or even the nomenclature is way off mark. You are making it an intellectual excercise when jazz is, at its most basic, an emotional statement.

I understand why you would want to use your method if you were already an experienced improviser and were looking for something different to spice up/extend your playing but, surely, if you're that competent, you're going to work it all out for yourself. Your point about Coltrane and Parker, et al studying and working out their own concepts reinforces my point.(Hasn't Pat Martino done something similar with his ideas and diagrams.) To fill an inexperienced head with so much esoteric information when there are all the basics of scales/chords/arpeggios, that many already find hard to grasp if this forum is anything to go by, is just muddying the waters further rather than clarifying things.

As a boring and constant proponent of open minds and fresh ideas, I agree with you.
But, to place too much information/theory in front of a beginner is more likely to be a turn off than an encouragement.

[musicalbodger]

ajrdileva
I didn't say that this is a forum for beginners, but there are a lot of beginners here trying to sort out what it's all about. The reason I mentioned beginners being overwhelmed by your complicated methods is that you stated in a previous post,

The first time you explain to a beginner what a C7b13 is they look at you like you're crazy and that is not even needed. (I'll just play a C triad and improvise using the C major scale with a Bb. That's what they'd probably think)

I therefore presumed you are aiming this at beginners.

[Goofsus4]

Yep, Pat Martino is all about this stuff. When I first opened this thread, that's the first thing that struck me. Pat's got diagrams and hypercubes that bisect the harmonic fabric of time and space with sonic vectors that resolve to the frequency of gnat's wings oscillating in multi-phasic overlapping quavers of resonance and all that.

Pretty cool stuff for the geeks, not so much for most other musicians. But I must confess that I can totally geek out on stuff that I know so well that I've become bored with the typical application of it myself. You reach a certain stage of mastery in anything, and then you have to figure out ways to keep making it fresh again or you just have to quit I guess.

[derek]

- it's just as I get older, I act more and more like my dog--if I can't screw it or eat it, I piss on it and walk away.

This may very well become my new sig line. Words to live by.

[musicalbodger]

Yep, Pat Martino is all about this stuff. When I first opened this thread, that's the first thing that struck me. Pat's got diagrams and hypercubes that bisect the harmonic fabric of time and space with sonic vectors that resolve to the frequency of gnat's wings oscillating in multi-phasic overlapping quavers of resonance and all that.

Surely they're intra-phasic interleaving quavers, or have I completely misunderstood his concept?

[musicalbodger]

Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
- it's just as I get older, I act more and more like my dog--if I can't screw it or eat it, I piss on it and walk away.

This may very well become my new sig line. Words to live by.

I won't be calling round to see you guys, then!

[Aristotle]

If you guys are posting those funny cartoons to say the circle-diagram thing is too hard to follow...
yeah, it is. It's one or two dimensions more than my head can hold.

There is some paper floating around on the internet about Pat Martino substitutions. Loaded with these crazy circle diagrams. Reminded of some old toy, with two plastic circles, one with holes moving around inside the other. You'd put your pen in one of the holes, move around in circles, and get this drawings that looked like alien gyroscopes. I understand that a 12-point circle and be divided up into even thirds and fourths, but I never got even one good melodic idea from it, and don't believe that moving "roots" in minors thirds sounds better than moving roots in major thirds because of how the crazy diagram looks.

When I try to improvise single-note lines, I ask myself what would Ella be skatting, and play that. Doodley-dee-dah. B-dip, bop, da-dah-da

Sometimes I know what the chord-scale relationship is, and sometimes I just get dragged along by where the medlody wants to go and catch up with the chart chords down the road.

[JulezMJ]

ajrdileva
I didn't say that this is a forum for beginners, but there are a lot of beginners here trying to sort out what it's all about. The reason I mentioned beginners being overwhelmed by your complicated methods is that you stated in a previous post, I therefore presumed you are aiming this at beginners.

Quit squabbling..Enjoy jazz!

[bass2man]

gnat's wings oscillating in multi-phasic overlapping quavers of resonance???.....Damn....I've been practicing gnat's wings oscillating in multi-phasic overlapping SEMI-quavers of resonance.....no wonder my scales start in one key and end in little brown clouds of nothingness...