You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - All About Scale Note Choices - #41

Episode Date: October 22, 2018

In today's episode of You'll Hear It, Peter and Adam answer Micro from Italy's question about scale note choices. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Excuse me, sir. Yes, sir. We realize that you have a choice among scale notes, and we appreciate you flying with the You'll Hear It Podcast. Oh, thank you. I'm Adam Mace. And I'm Peter Martin. And you are still listening to The You'll Hear It podcast.

Oh, daily jazz advice coming at you. What do you mean still? Well, we have a lot of return listeners. We have a lot of new folks, but I just want to say a quick thanks to everybody who listens in and sends us emails and sends us messages. We love you all, and we couldn't do this without you. You know what? And I want to just say thanks to even all the people.

people that haven't rated or reviewed or sent anything in. That's all good, too. Even those folks? Yeah, man. You know what it is? They're taking a little time, little 10 to 12 minutes out of their day to be with us, and that's beautiful. So today we're talking about scale note choices.

We have a speak pipe, a voice message from Mirko. Milko. He's Italian. Let's hear it. Hi, guys. I'm Mirko from Italy. First of all, thank you for what you're doing. I love the podcast.

And I lost count of how many stars. I should give you but let's say seven because it sounds good. I was wondering if you could make an episode about the scale modes and their applications. Like, do you think of them about I want this kind of vibe so I'm going to use this mode? Or do you let chord changes guide you to which mode you have to use? Or I don't know, if you could just talk a bit about it. Thanks. Nice.

Yeah, it's a good question. Yeah, it's a great question. And I think, well, so I think there's two parts that he's saying, you know, do we do we use the chord changes to guide to which scale to choose and then to make choices within that scale, I think, is part of it? Or do we go straight to what the scale is? And I would say both at different times, you know, depending upon the situation. I think that when you're learning and depending on like where you are and you're,

development, it's very important to kind of break it down by chord. And then later on, it gets a little more advanced when you're looking at maybe whole progressions and possibly even taking one scale or a couple scales and floating them above that, which is a great thing. But we're working all that in together. And for, you know, a lot of times it comes down to a stylistic thing and whether, you know, how quickly the chord changes are moving. I mean, if you're going like one, two, one, two, one, two, three, for doon-deen, do-dean, do-dean, and each one of those is two beats for a different chord. I'm just all diatonic.

Yeah, man, you're not thinking about, I mean, you shouldn't be, because if you're thinking about a different scale for each one of those, even if you can keep up with that, you're not going to be making choices. No. They're going to be making choices on you. They're going to make choice on you, yeah. But, you know, having, I don't know, is that kind of the way you see it? This is a process, I think that's the important part.

And if you don't know what scales go over what chords or what your options are for scales over what chords, you have to learn that first as much as possible so that you have the language, you know, because at a certain point, once you sort of get to a higher level, you're not thinking about that at all. Right. You're literally just thinking about the sound, the shape, the themes that you're working with, and you have all these options available to you for each chord, and you're not really even thinking about the chord because you know that sound, that shape. You're literally just dealing with sounds at a certain point.

Right. But you can't get those sounds unless you really do the work, practice running, the scales over the chords and understanding the differences between them. Yeah, yeah. And I think that certain scales, there's the harmonic component to them, that harmonic vibe that they reflect when you play them in certain ways that is so important. You know, we always talk about not just running up and down scales and we don't. It doesn't mean we don't sometimes.

I mean, I know that I will say over like a, a five chord that's extended maybe for a measure, a couple measures, that's like a big alteration. And say I'm using the altered scale over that. I may only play over that and do kind of scale fragments, maybe some shapes and things or whatever. But it almost becomes the choices of how to do that become based upon how I want that tension to come out,

which is really a harmonic thing. But I'm using melodic improvisation within that framework. So yeah, I'm not necessarily thinking C altered scale, but I am thinking of zones and shapes and things that fit into that. Yeah, yeah. And that's a powerful thing. I almost think sometimes, especially in more traditional styles, and I don't mean like totally like beginnings of jazz ragtime traditional.

I just mean more like, say, you're playing a solo piano ballad of a standard, that when you get to certain chords, you almost have to do certain scales. Not necessarily one scale. You have choices, and I know we're talking about scale, no choices within scale, so you have several scales sometimes. But sometimes depending on what you played before, you only have one really choice of scale. You set yourself up. Yeah.

I mean, unless you're a genius. I mean, if you're like Herbie Hancock and you can come up with some other scale for another like non-courts. Inventing scales on the fly. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, we all do that and try to do that, of course. But I mean, how it sounds is important. And normally that's going to bring more attention in.

And so if you're doing that at the right time, then that becomes a good choice. But you're still within a scale area. And then you're making choices based on, I think, more melodic concept. as opposed to just technical scale. Yeah, I guess the answer to Mircos' question is, yes, like you are making choices about the modes, but you're not thinking about it like that is what we're saying. You're thinking about it in terms of a broader concept.

Now, when you practice this and you're a beginner, you're an intermediate player, you need to practice this thinking about the modes over the chords. Right. No one gets out of here without knowing a little bit of what notes sound good over what chords. Exactly. That's just, that's what we do.

And that becomes a big part of the note choice, I think. Right. So you know you have the choices of the whole scale. But not all those are the right choice. Not all those. And not at that time. At that time. I mean, any one of them at some time.

There's no like bad note for any situation. Right. But how did Miles Davis always pick the most magical note for every situation? You know what I mean? Like he understood that. And look, the bottom line is especially when you get into so-called mold playing and when when there's a lot of space involved, you know, you're basically looking at the advanced level at the chromatic scale as being your choice. at all times. Because you can figure out how to make that work. Yeah. You know, and yeah. Yeah, but you can't also just always play like that or it's going to sound like you don't know

how to play over changes, you know. And I think that those choices, you know, to your point about when you're practicing, that you're being a lot more conscious. And that's our opportunity to learn about which notes sound good in different situations within the scale. So yeah, you're running up and down the scale, but you're also practicing them in thirds, broken thirds, broken fifth. So you're starting to set up patterns of usage of these scales, but actual real life situation. So not all that's going to sound good, but that's okay. You're kind of cataloging that, and that's as much as the technical thing as getting it in your ears, kind of what works. So when you get that situation, you'll be like, bam, I know how to make the right choice. And it is situational. You know,

you could play a diminished scale over a major chord if you wanted to. Yep. But you shouldn't probably do that on the very first measure of your solo. That's a, that's a, that's a tension building or attention-releasing point of your solo. That can happen. Anything can happen. It's your solo. You can't say it's a wrong choice, but it might not be a wise choice. I might not want to hear it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But no, there's, you know, like you said with the chromatic cell, you have all these choices, really at a certain point available to you, but the master knows how to put them in to be the most emotionally effective, to be the most musical in terms of really getting what you're trying to convey to your audience out at the right time. Yep. Yeah, yeah.

And then, you know, I think it's too as important to think about, don't ever think about scales, when you have different choices of scales to use over a particular court, let's say, you know, a major, just a C major. You know, obviously you have the major scale, and then you have the Lidian scales, probably sort of the next level that you go, one note different, just that sharp fourth.

So, you know, you learn both of those, but learn how that changes from major to Lidde, because a lot of times we like to use those in setting up our melodic improvisation going back and forth. So you want to learn the difference. And to do it in a progression is good because then you're only changing one note at a time. You can't necessarily go from C major to diminish. I mean, you can, but that's a lot more advanced to be able to hear what that difference.

You need to eventually hear that too. But start with the dominant scale to a major scale. There's one note different. Like how does that sound different? How can you play around with that different? Because after you get pretty good at, say, your choices over just a C major scale, you kind of like, I kind of like some more choices.

So as much as you can talk about passing tones and minor third or dominant seventh or whatever, it does become a thing of shifting to other scales and then shifting back. That's right. And also in that similar vein, what matters is context to, you know,

a lot of these things you can't just drop in on their own. You have to set them up as we were talking about or they're setting something else up. And that's when you really start thinking about colors and shapes and sounds as opposed to just like, plug in, you know, Dorian scale here. Okay, if you're not on YouTube, you can't see Adam's using his robot hands.

So let's talk about some actual ways that you can maybe work on this, on getting these modes into your head and getting these modes in your fingers. One thing that I always go back to and actually read this really cool post by Ethan Iverson, friend of the show, who was talking about, you know, tunes that with like a lot of changes that go all over the place are actually easier than, say, like, a rhythm changes. Right. Which stays a little more diatonic. And things happen kind of fast.

Yep. And there's not as much contrast between the changes. I got to read that article. I totally agree with it. It was like, oh, yeah, that's totally. Yeah, makes sense. So I always kind of go back to rhythm changes in my practice. If I want to practice running modes or whatever,

because we do have these options over the major chords, over the dominant chords. You know, you have all those secondary dominant. it's in the bridge. You know what I mean? So there's a ton of, a ton of choices. Yeah. And I would say practice rhythm changes slowly, start in B-flap, but go to all 12 keys and really try to vary the modes, figure out what modes sound good next to each other, figure out what scales you don't know, and then work on those in those keys. Because when you get in the moment, the ones you don't know, you're just not going to play. Yeah. If you can't play an F-sharp dominant scale, you know, reliably, you got to, can Peter do it?

Okay, Peter Martin can do that, obviously. Bam. But if you can't, now you know, and that's something to work on for the next few weeks. And that's when you get into that really good, you know, meat and potatoes kind of, or, you know, tofu and collard greens. Kind of area of, like, concrete things to practice. Everyone's always asking. It's like, what should I practice? I feel, you know, lost in these different things.

It's like, keep a catalog of just those basics, you know? And then when you're feeling a little lost or don't know, you know, you've got some concrete things you can knock out. Totally. That's totally true. But my advice is start with rhythm changes for running scales. You know, if you try rhythm changes in A-flat, you're going to be wide open of like, oh, there's a lot I can't do. You know what I mean? Right, right, right. I remember the first time I tried that, it was tough. So, yeah, got anything else for that?

No, I was just going to say thank you for the question. and everybody can go to you'll hear it.com. Definitely. You know, and you can leave a question, you can leave a comment. What if they wanted to express their love of you'll hear it in a physical way on their person at some point?

That'd be a tattoo. And we don't. Oh, we offer you'll hear a tattoos? No, we don't. You're on your own and we need approval of our logo, copyright, 2018. What do you talk about a physical? Oh, a t-shirt.

A t-shirt. That's right. I finally have one. Did I tell you, you'll hear a t-shirt? I got two. Somebody gifted me I did not get the cassette I got the

Because I'm still like convinced That's a thing But we'll see No I got the traditional logo And I got a long sleeve Because we're coming up to fall I gotta get a long sleeve Maybe if someone wants to give me

An extra large Maybe so Long sleeve I would be Although I'm actually this evening I'm going to the southern hemisphere And I was thinking Oh I'm gonna bring my But maybe it's not winter there anymore

It's kind of spring Yeah yeah So I'm going to Brazil So I don't need my It's spring in Brazil You know Wow Oh, that's right.

No, no, no. They do that the same time we do. Yeah. Carnival is, yeah, spring. For what, they don't, they're not drumming even in the spring. Oh, no, they're getting ready. They're getting ready, believe me. They're just not going buck wild yet.

I got it. Cool. Well, until tomorrow. You're here?