You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Best of Season 6: Scales Part 2 (Advanced Scales)

Episode Date: May 12, 2020

And now, we bring you part two of last week's episode all about the best scale talk moments from season 6. Enjoy!On the calendar for Open Studio events today: at 3:00 PM EDT Adam continues his daily Guided Practice Session - this time on Facebook. And at 8:00 PM EDT, join Peter and Adam on YouTube for a live Listening Session - this week, it's Kenny Garrett's Songbook. To keep up on all the live events from Open Studio, check out this handy calendar - we're adding new events regularly so pop in to see what we've got in the pipeline.In light of the worldwide coronavirus pandemic, we understand that money is tight for a lot of people right now. That's why we've decided that for the duration of this crisis, we'll be running a Choose What You Pay campaign at Open Studio. Choose whichever course you want and then let us know how much you're willing to pay - that's it. For more info, click this link.Interested in more music advice? Go here to browse our catalog of jazz lessons and courses available for purchase. And be sure to check out our All Access Pass - every course from Open Studio on every instrument.Let us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel.Follow us on Facebook | Twitter | Instagram See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Okay, so the Lydian dominant is a scale based off of the melodic minor sound. It is. Is it? Okay, good. This is going to be another one, sort of like the altered scale, or award-winning altered scale, where we have two different ways of looking at it, but that might help some people. It's the fourth mode of melodic minor. So if we have our D-flat Melidian.

Melidian. Oh. We have our D-flat, Lidion dominant. It's based off of an A-flat melodic minor. So, in D. Ascending. A-flat. Oh, my gosh.

This classical, dude. Okay. So for D-flat, Lidium dominant, we have D-flat, E-flat, F, G-natural, A-flat, B-flat, C-flat, D-flat. So it's just like a dominant scale. Wait, you just called me classical and you said C-flat. Oh, because it is. Because it is. Get your mind around it, man.

So here's our regular dominant scale, right, with the G-flat. Yeah, so that's how I think about it. This is, by the way, because we're in D-flat, this is, I feel like we're advanced explaining right now. That's right. We're advanced splaining. We're both mansplaining and advanced splaining. Damn right. Okay.

So that's our regular dominant scale. Our Lidian dominant, we just sharp that force. We have a G natural here as you so eloquently just played. Now, would you normally hear, because actually what came out of the altered scale discussion in an episode, I think, that was great, was the different ways we think about it, the different ways that we hear that scale and sound. Yeah. And then different ways that that leads to us applying it in improvising. situations.

Which is so cool because we're not learning these so that we can have a theoretical mastery of it. We're not theory professors. It might seem like we are. But we really want to try to help connect you guys with different approaches to applying this to your improv. Yeah, that's right. And so, like, would you normally hear this as more of a Lydian scale with a dominant seventh or a dominant seventh scale with a raise fourth? I think of this as a dominant seven with a sharp a left.

That's the first way I think about it. Good. Yeah. But no, well, the first way you said was a melodic minor starting on. That's what it's derived from. Okay. But you'll most often use this in the case of like, again, if we're in the key of D flat here, or I guess G flat. D flat 7 sharp 11.

This is the chord symbol you might say. D flat 7 sharp 11. And that to me implies a Linian dominant scale. Right? Yep. So the first usage of this is actually as a dominant scale. I feel like this gets slept on a lot by people for using it as a dominant scale going to a one. So again, D-flat 7-11 to G-flat major 6-9 here.

It's a great way. It's kind of like your first step into adding some tension to your dominant scale. It's light tension. Pretty light tension. It's pretty light. But it does have that. Right? which is a nice leading tone towards the nine of the major.

It's almost like it's Thanksgiving dinner. Everyone's sitting down. You got all the relatives. You got Uncle Bob and Auntie Susie. And everything is just straight, no tension. And then there's just a little bit, which is like, so who are you supporting in the presidential election this year? Just a little tension.

Oh, Uncle Bob is adding some tension. Let's see what Aunt Kathy has to say. Yeah, you haven't fully blurted it out yet. Right. So, yeah, that's great. That's sort of level one is like your 5-1 You can use it as sort of your first step into altering a dominant chord Like a I like it because it's it's not as like sharp or as heavy as say if we were using an altered

like a like a fully altered you know Kind of sound Yeah It's not that thick it's not that That dark right it's more playful Yeah Can I jump ahead to maybe what is not level two? be a higher level, but I think it's an interesting one.

Sure. Would be, this is a funny way to think about it, but melodically, I would use this a lot. B, major seven, with a raise fifth, and then also up to the 11th. I mean, to the 9th. What? Yeah. Okay, so we talk about the jazz arpeggio, right? Right.

Which is one, three, five, seven, nine. Right. I mean, like, over like a C-7, it would just be C, C, E, G. B-flat-D but it could be anything or it's just a one or three or five and a seven and a nine

and so like that shape because I use that so much so a lot of times I'll hear things melodically that's like an arpeggio device it's an arpeggio device right so you're not buying it no I am buying it because you know when we talked about even like a

yeah yeah yeah that kind of thing no when we talked about the altered scale I use that shape and that applies here as this is an A flat, you know, melodic minor, it could be a G7 altered. It could be a D flat 7 sharp 11.

Yeah. That shape, it's a very similar thing. Just arpeggiating the main chunks of the chord. You think of it like is a B arpeggio. That's interesting. Yeah, and it's more like kind of hearing it because the thing with arpeggiating it like this and then moving up, it's kind of the natural way you would move up, you know, as part of your line. Man, you really went in the weeds on this early.

I did. I know. That's why I said. I'm skipping ahead a couple. a couple but YouTube's a fickle crowd if you don't get to it pretty early they're like bam you know but again it's more even more in the weeds because it's like we're

using D flat so you said B Arpeggio it's really C flat you know what I mean Oh come on man I know I know But also I like the arpeggiated concept and especially the jazz arpeggiated concept with the 7th and the 9th because that reveals to your ears more than anything Try it Parrish you know because this was a term I didn't even know what that meant until recently

I never really thought about it but I was always hearing those kind of things. Triads being some of the most kind of not dominant as a dominant scale but just dominant sounding elements to how we put together melodic improvisation. We'll get there. We'll get there. Let's go over more of the

functions of the Lidian dominant. Ways you can use it, ways that it's mostly used. So we're going to do this two steps ahead? One step back. Two steps ahead? I like it. Well, let's try to go stepwise. Let's try to do that first. Hey, I'm a little jacked up on my green smoothie here, man. So the most common way you'll use that. Like I said, you don't sleep on using

it as an alteration for a five chord. But the most common way that most jazz musicians use Lydia dominance is for something like a five of five, for, you know, a dominant chord, a secondary dominant chord to make it a little bit more airy, a little bit less of a gravity like a tonic dominant or a dominant. So in the context of a tune, if we take a tune like Our Love is Here to Stay. So that first core, right, that G7 in the key of F, we're in the key of the key of we're going to get out of key of C flat in the key of F we have a G7

now this is a perfect opportunity where you can use the Lydian dominant that it's based off of the D melodic minor but it's that raised fourth dominant scale on on G we had some listeners from our

and just just you know that F major raised fifth major 7 not a pride geo you're talking about yeah exactly. That sound is really what you hear a lot of jazz musicians going for. And then from there, you can go to the five.

So it works great as a scale to use over a five of five. A five of five being like in a two five one, making the two instead of Dorian like a dominant. And you would use that Lidian dominant. More often than you would use just a straight mix of Lidia. Yeah, and I love that the way that you'd explain it on this tune because the five of five or the two in this case, It almost, you can see how it works better by how this sounds.

Like if you go to the five, that's okay, but it doesn't really, even though it leads up to the nicely, I don't know, it just works better here. You've got choices on the five. You can go with some other alterations or you can go kind of suss and then, you know. What sounds really good, which you'll hear in a lot of like string arrangements or whatever is when you have this Lydia and Domino on the two, right, you have this a arpeggio on the top. And then when you go to the five, you do an altered thing. Yep. Right? So the a arpeggio on top becomes an A flat.

Yep. You know? Love it. So the next level of using a lillian dominant is, again, on a secondary dominant context. But it's really on what we're going to call a cycle of dominance. Think the bridge to rhythm changes, right? Where we have D7, G7, C7, and then F7. That's a perfect time to dominate your lyrgyll.

and dominant. Yeah, so there's a couple of ways that you can use the diminished scale. The first way... Wait, I thought we're talking about what the hell it is. Not the how the hell do we use it? Oh, okay, sorry, it's an octatonic scale. It's an eight-don't scale, right? Okay. And it's a...

What is octetone? Oh, eight-notes scale. I just... I know. I demonstrated what it was. So, but to get even further, so it's a very symmetrical scale. The way that we're going to start by talking about it is what we call the half-hole diminish scale.

And the reason why it's called that is because it's a series of half steps and then whole steps. And then it just repeats that pattern until it goes back to the start. So if we're starting in C, it's C, D-flat, E-flat, E-natural, F-sharp, G, A, B, flat, C. And the eight-note part of the scale, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, and then the ninth is you're repeating the octave. Right. And so if we were then to start this on D-flat, it's not, it's not that.

That would be a whole half. Right. It's a whole different scale. Same intervals. Right. Half note or half step, whole step, half step, whole step,

until it repeats. And then it does it one more time with D. Yep, right? And then that's it. Because once it gets to E flat, it's the same pattern as it was in C.

It's in fact the same notes. It's diatonic. The same notes. Exactly the same notes. And so if you take the keys that we're in here, it creates a diminished chord. If you skip a note, now we have this diminished seventh chord.

But do not diminish the value of that. F, sharp, A, right. So the sound is the most important part. And it sounds very ambiguous. It sounds like it's not on solid ground, this chord. It is not. It's transitional. It's the part of your story when you're leading to something else,

but you've got some choices, but you want to kind of leave a little bit of suspension with the audience. I mean, like, this is the actual usage of it, but this is also the sound of the thing. That's right. That's why I used to old school, like 70s television be a lot of people. Right. You know, like going to the commercial break.

That was unresolved. It was unresolved. It's got that sound built into it. The chord and the scale even more so, because you've got all those different possibilities that are within that half-hole diminished. So in improvised music, we use the diminished scale as a system of tension. And we do this most often, actually not on a diminished chord, but most often we do this on a dominant seven chord.

with alteration. That's exactly what we were doing in the intro. We were doing a C-7, flat-9, sharp-11. I think I played this voicing, C-E-F-sharp, B-flat. I don't know what you were playing,

but it's really a C-7-13 because the A-natural is in there with a sharp-11 and a flat-9 sharp-9. Yeah. So that doesn't really matter. That sounds more complicated than what it actually is.

If you know this scale, you can use this. So say if we're going to F, and we have what is commonly referred to as a 251 cadence. Right, over the C7. Ah. Right, we can use that to resolve down the F. It sounds like a great.

It's a bunch of leading tones. Exactly. It's a series of leading tones, as a matter of fact. Like, it's endless the uses of the scale as a tension builder to release later. And that's all built into the scale. Yeah. And that's even just playing it as a scale.

Which is how we almost never play it. Exactly. That's the funny thing about it. So now we know what it is. And just to kind of reiterate that there's three of these. I think, you know, this is something that's not, it's commonly understood, but you have to really think about how you're going to apply this to your playing and to your learning and really internalizing the scale to have success with it. Yeah. Like there are literally just three of these scales that you need to learn.

And by learn, I mean, if you're a pianist, really getting them to your hands, if you're a trumpet, getting the finger, you know, for your particular instrument to really know them. But you want to be able to hear when it starts to repeat. so the C half hole, you want to think about hearing it. Right. You know, that same diminished pattern or diminished, fully diminished chord, so that when you start here,

you're hearing that same, because it is a symmetrical, octatonic type of scale, that you're hearing those same intervals as you move through that on the micro and the macro level. One thing that unlocked this for me on dominant seventh chords, and I've since shared this with some of our Open Studio students, and they were very enthusiastic about a light bulb moment for them, is you can think about this.

In jazz, we have what's called the tritone substitution, right? So if I have a C-7 chord, you can substitute that with the seven chord from a tritone away, in this case, G-flat, right, which is like a half-step movement to our F-cord, right? So I like to think about this as sometimes as a C-7 going down, and then a G-flat-7 going down. Right? So it's like the top half of a C-7 and the top half of its tritone sub G-flat 7. That, to me, growing up with tritone subs, just unlocked how easy this could be. Well, and that's the magic of an eight-node scale compared to all the seven-note scales that we learn and all the modes of the major scale is how this can interplay with rhythm because you've got one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, and then you're right there.

Whereas if you're doing even like an altar scale, which would kind of work good. One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, one. And now you're already into the next octave, you know. And it's fine. But it's just a different kind of usage. And the thing I like to do with that, and I love that too. I used to kind of hear it like that.

I never thought about it. And when you mentioned it, that C7, F-sharp 7, that really started to make sense in terms of the construction of dominant scales and how they apply to this half-hole because that's really the function of what we're using it over that kind of chord, so it makes sense. Exactly, right. And that way you can use it for any tritone sub.

Like, it works on the F-sharp 7 or G-flat-7 just as well as it does on C-7. Yeah, and another cool thing about that going through, so if you think about the C-7, F-sharp 7, you can also think about... Right. All the way, so C-7, E-flat-7, F-sharp. Yep.

A. We're playing the same. Exactly. A, great minds think alike. That's right, yeah, yeah. But, and then these are kind of the most basic ways we're doing it. the actual function of it, well, the usage of it is a lot of time, same kind of cluster of notes, and we love to look at clusters on the piano.

But how are you going to mix it? Take a shape and turn into some music instead of just a scale. So now you're getting into the real advantage of the diminished scale, and that's shapes. Because it's symmetrical. What the hell is the real advantage of a diminished scale? The hell it is, it's these symmetrical shapes. Because this scale is broken up into four equal parts, essentially,

there's four different, if you find a shape that fits those notes, notes, you can take it up or down in minor thirds, and it'll work. Like, I think on our intro, I was playing something that I love to play over this, which is like, it's like a major and minor triad, right? So here I have an A, major triad, and minor triad. Right? So I have C-sharp C-A-E. And it's four-note set like we were doing before, which is nice.

I can move this then down in minor third. So here's the A, now F-sharp, which is A-sharp, A-natural, F-sharp. C, then E flat. Yep. And then C itself. Like those four note shapes are so easily moved around. And then as always that you were starting to play around with this, you know, just change up the order.

Then you're going to get into some places so you're not just running from top to bottom. It's endless. Like you can do like whatever. Yeah. Like whatever you want to make of those. shapes, but I think as pianists especially, the shape thing can unlock this because once you sort of get that in that mode of minor thirds, you find these shapes that work in the scale and you can literally just start practicing, transposing them up and down in minor thirds.

And just to show how much the rhythm matters, these are, you know, these are all kind of examples of four note, two plus two, four note, rhythmic things that would be 16th note, eighth notes, whatever, when you start to play with three note, whether it's triplets or still layered over the ankles. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Broken fists. Yeah. And combining them and stuff,

the diminished scale really shines there too as well, especially over this half hole. Okay, so you're going to start on C, and then you're going to go... Good place to start. The way I like to think about it, and I think this is where I learned it,

because I remember hearing it, but I didn't know the name of it, but it was like a diminished scale. All the way up to here. Did you know that? Yeah, I can see that. Oh, now you see it. I just don't think about it.

Well, so you know this will be good. I'm going to say the way I see it, and then what it is is for those of you. But it's not a diminished scale. It is not. It starts like a diminished scale. But that's kind of easy because, you know, it's got those same alterations that a diminished scale would have flat 9, sharp 9. And the third, it's a major scale, if you will, dominant major scale. So you've got half step, whole step, half step.

And then I actually like to think about it from that point on as a whole tone scale. Yeah, I see that too. Man, you're looking like you never thought about it this way, which is great because the cool thing about any scale is like pick the way that it makes sense to you. There's no one right way. We are not theory nerds here. So how do we use this? How do you use this mostly in your playing? Where do you put in the alternate scale?

Well, this is such a transitional thing like we were demonstrating at the beginning. It's unstable, but it's leading somewhere. I think the obvious place is probably to a minor, but it's certainly not the only. Yeah, that's how I think of it too. it's a great alter dominant going to a minor chord. Yeah. So here the C-7 altered leads to it. Yeah, sorry, go ahead.

It'll lead to an F minor. To an F minor, right. And I think the thing you mentioned before about the G-flat, structurally being like the G-flat 13-sharp 11. Same thing, slide down to like an F-minor 11. Totally. Now, you can use it to a major. It doesn't sound bad to a major, you know what I mean?

Right, right. It's kind of a little bit more of a dramatic sound. Because it's so further out from a major, right? They has that A-flat, the C-7-0, and that G-flat, as opposed to, like, the half-hole, which has an A-natural, which is why that leads more, I think, comfortably to a major. Yeah, and so I think it's more usage if you want it to be a little bit unexpected or a little more of a traditional. One thing to think about with this scale in general is it's got more tension, I would say, again, depending on how you use it, but if everything else is kind of the same,

I would say it has more tension leading to a major than a diminished half hole would be leading to a major. So in other words, if you've got... As opposed to... Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because you have less tones, you have less scale tones in common with the tonic that you're going to, actually.

That's right. Because... Whereas the diminished has that... What is that? The fifth becomes the nine. but it's not in that which is cool and that's kind of why you can decide

and you know if you have like a C 13 sharp 11 which I always think of that the Vince Guraldi he loves that chord that's not where you would use this no because the A natural exactly yeah yeah

so let's talk about some common ways that you can play over this like this is a perfect example of a scale that I don't really play it in a linear way at all like just straight No. It sounds kind of weird to me like that. So I think one of the most common ways, like how I got into it was this kind of thing.

Right, that lick there. Again, in C-7, E-flat, C-A-flat, E-natural. And that's really that second part of that jazz arpeggio of the D-flat minor major 7. Again, the D-flat melodic minor harmony. And then another variation, I thought that's what you played at first, be, right, to a B flat instead of a C.

Right, right, right. You could also do D flat. Yeah. Like, those all sound pretty good. The thing about the E flat, C, A, A, flat, E natural is now we have a D-flat minor major broken chord, yeah, nine. And you can actually, this, I think this scale works really well in seventh chords. Yeah, yeah.

Broken sevens. Broken seven. Yeah. So I do recommend practicing, like if you start on the root of this on C, you get immediately you get a C minor 7 flat 5. And then you get after that, you get that D flat melodic minor. You get some really interesting note combinations as you work your way up. I think that's a great way to start. And then you get that lick that we were talking about.

Yeah, yeah. And then remember when you're doing the seventh, and look, if you're kind of new to this, start with broken thirds and then maybe broken fifths. And then broken sevenths. But for all those, you're going to want to think about, I think as soon as you kind of get them in your fingers, no matter what instrument you play, guitar, whatever, singing, is to break them up as you're learning it

so you don't get too locked into. So in other words, yeah, you have different patterns with those four notes. Because it forces your brain. It forces really your ears to hear, see, because you hear before you feel. Come on that. And then,

it can get quite advanced quite quickly. That's right. You know if you want to simplify it, you know what you can do. But those are actually things you could use. That's not simplifying it. No. But if you wanted to... What's the name of the episode?

Advance. Advanced. Well, I think pretty much all the applications of the altars scale are fairly advanced at this point. One of the things that works really well are triad pairs on this. Specifically, again, on the C-7, we have the G-flat and the A-flat. Yeah, nice. Yeah, and then you've also got... That really locks in that altered sound to me.

Yeah, yeah. And then if you think about some of the, like an E augmented, which is really any of the A-flat, E, or C, and then with the F-sharp, that works nicely. That's a great triad thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. With the F-sharp major, you mean? Yep, F-sharp major, E, E, augmented.

Yeah, so E, A-flat, C, and then G-flat, B-flat, D-flat. Ooh, that's good. That's so good. But back to that, A-flat, G, One thing that I think for piano specific things, or even to the major, you hear that all the time. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yep.

That's an A flat triad going to a G flat triad going to that F. Good voice leading, a lot of tension, but great resolution. Awesome. So you mentioned something before, which I would agree with and I think kind of would be borne out in the way that a lot of people play. Not a lot of, you know, just straight scale playing all this. But one thing that I'll do is, let's get away from C. It's higher to C. Agreed, agree.

So if you go to D, kind of a little flurry. I call them flurries because this is what you're doing. I know what you're doing. Yeah. So you're skipping some notes. It's a little bit of a shape. I did some of this in the 30-day. I did one of these, at least, in the 30-day, all keys challenge.

Yeah, yeah. It was very challenging. I realized how much I rely on sort of patterns in certain keys. But obviously, they work in all keys. They just feel awkward if you have a lot. None of them. So what he's talking about specifically is on the piano, there are keys that fit really nicely, like this thing in D with the E-flat melodic minor or the D altered scale. And I'm just skipping one note, actually.

But it's kind of where you start to, you know. Are you skipping the A-flat? That's the only one, exactly. It just rolls off the piano hand super nicely. And it's not necessarily... It's not actually any easier than just playing the scale, but... There's something about skipping that note. It does, yeah.

It does. It's a six-note thing. It makes it even. Even if you kind of, you know, mix it up and go back or whatever, that's the general pattern. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's great.