@@victoza9232 no I'm making a joke because why do you have to be so corny in the comments, just let people have their fun. Why you gotta waste everyone's time with hateful comments
@@AllegroFPS Seriously? You're calling ME corny, when the guy I was responding to had written the overused and CORNY, "I'm a simple man..." ? Why aren't you criticizing him, instead of feeling the need to step in and try to insult me with your "You're overused" comment? You don't see your hypocrisy, do you? And in what way was my comment "hateful"?
Heavy concepts simplified and the theoretical explanation. Great job. For those of us who didn’t go to music school, this stuff is gold. Stuff you can put to work on the gig (practice first!) right away. THANK YOU.
Thanks man, I really appreciate it! Making all of this stuff digestible and accessible for people that haven't gone to music college is absolutely what I'm trying to do across the channel!
You could also just thinking of it as the tritone of the 2 in a 251. For instance a 251 in C, would be D-|G7, the tritone of that would be Ab-|Db7. So over the G7 you could use either Ab- which is what the video is talking about or you could think of Db7 it ultimately creates the same effect.
Long ago I picked up a similar cheat code from guitarist Emily Remmler. She used the Major scale of the raised 5th in her turnarounds. So against a II-V-I in G, for example, she would pass through Eb Major against the V chord. Both Eb minor and Eb major work well here, as both F# (minor 3rd of Eb) and G (major 3rd of Eb) fall within the dominant scale of G. Very cool stuff.
Excellent! As someone who teaches, there is not enough educational content out there like this. It's inspiring to see! Oftentimes advanced topics are taught in overly and overtly complex (even convoluted) ways, when concepts like this can be distilled more simply without losing anything in the process.
Thanks, Amber, that really means a lot! I think the complexity in music theory/education can sometimes be a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy - someone gets taught it in a complex way, so they then teach it to others in the same complex way, and on and on it goes. Sometimes we all just need to step back and reassess things to spot other ways of thinking about it - there were years of me struggling with the altered scale before I realised this far simpler way of getting there!
I’ve been using the melodic minor a half step above the root of the dominant for quite a while(through sheer laziness 🤓), but I never thought of just using minor language. This is great. Thanks.
YES!!! That was enormously helpful. This reminds me of how it finally dawned on me that playing a minor pentatonic scale two steps above a major 7th chord captures a lot of the fun extensions. Subscribed!
Thanks Michael, so great to hear the video was helpful! That minor pentatonic tip is definitely a useful one, and one I'd actually completely forgotten about - thanks for the reminder!
Thank you! I suppose another maybe clearer way to explain for would be just to play a minor pentatonic starting on the third degree of the major triad. I’m jazzed (my apologies) about your channel. You just blew the doors off for me!
The scale comes from the minor chord on the 4th. Example A -> Dmi -> A Scale on the Dmi is D melodic minor, which translates to the "backdoor dominant" G7#11, leading to tritone substitute C#alt
Yes.. Extends or Extentions add tension and taking scale tones over a chord extending and using substitutions, makes one not think of scales but of chord tones with Extentions. Harmonic and Melodic Minors are perfect examples of moving a tone but staying in the JUICE of the chord
I suspect the altered scale was 'invented' at Berklee or somewhere similar (like the so-called 'be-bop scale'). It's certainly a scale and it contains all the possible alterations but I doubt many musicians actually thought of it that way. In fact until about 1955 I doubt they thought much in terms of scales at all. I've read quite a few biographies of the bop pioneers and they seemed to visualize mainly in chordal terms.
Great idea! Another way to think about it is in terms of tritone substitution -- if the chord is G7 alt, then D♭9 (chord, arpeggio, etc.) will sound great, or you could do a ii-V7 with that, which would be A♭m7-D♭9. The only note that is different between A♭ Dorian and G altered is the G♭ replacing the G natural. That G♭ plays an interesting role -- it would be the 4th of D♭ Mixolydian, so a note that is typically not held long when playing over D♭7, and as the enharmonic equivalent of the major 7th of G, it would be used in the G dominant bebop scale, also not a strong note there.
@@joshwakeham -- You've really got me thinking today. Another idea: We could play G minor pentatonic or G blues over the G7, then go to the A♭ minor pentatonic (or minor added sixth pentatonic) and then to A minor pentatonic (or C major pentatonic). That seems to make it even easier to remember and learn because it's just a chromatic modulation. Of course, that assumes that the G7 resolves to C.
@@ChromaticHarp -- I'm saying D♭9 or D♭7(9) NOT D♭7♭9. So I think we agree. The natural 9th of the tritone sub is the ♭13 or #5 of the dominant, so it works as an altered tone.
'Later-life (old) bass player here, who has struggled with jazz harmony for nearly 30 years. The light just came in and I'm delightfully blinded by it! This is a brilliantly illuminating post. Grateful! 🙏🏽
Thanks Rick, I'm glad you found it helpful! Joe Pass is someone I've not really checked out (guitarists are a bit of a blind spot for me in general), but it's great to know that this approach isn't limited to horn players!
@@joshwakeham Oscar Peterson said that Joe was a 'genius' - used to play alongside many of the greats in 1960s and 70s - well worth listening to for a slightly different type of sound. Keep up the great work 👍
Awesome lesson. I use this all the time on guitar and think of it as a major scale a flat fifth above the root of the I I'll resolve to or as the major scale a half step below the root of the V I want the altered tones on; same results. It basically gives me the b9,#9,b5,#5 along with the 3 and b7, leaving the "rogue" 7th degree, which is a great chromatic passing tone. I think of it this way because guitarists often think in patterns and it's a very easy way to quickly shift i/o of the altered sounds and I can dip into the altered if I want some triads and arpeggios from that scale. It's also very useful for getting all the outside note when playing over a major "vamp" in fusion, e.g. Amaj7, move i/o of D#/Eb major. Immediate options for something like an Amaj7, there's the A major scale, the D#/Eb major (tritone) and the side-slipping (aka "side-stepping") major a half step up and down from the key. That's a lot of sounds for just one chord. [I use the maj7 chord as an example because it can potentially be the most boring chord to play over for some musicians.]
Great nuanced explanation and great video production! :) It might be worth mentioning as well that, in so far as theory is an attempt to explain practice, when we use a tritone substitute we often start our melodic ideas on the tritone substitute's related 2 chord. For example if we use Ab-7 Db7 as a substitute for D-7 G7 our melodic line might start with Ab-7. In practice this can lead to a truncated cadence where the melody idea starting on the ii -7 chord (Ab-7) resolves before it gets to the sub V7 chord (Db7). This could result in Ab-7 dorian resolving directly to C major, C minor, C7 etc.). Another theoretical perspective would be that of modal interchange; substituting Ab dorian for Ab melodic minor (G altered) or visa versa. One example I've used in theory class is Woody Shaw using B ionian major material over F7 which implies a major 7 on that dominant (just like using Ab dorian over G7 does. It sounds great, especially functioning as a cadence upon its resolution - This could be explained theoretically as modal interchange (B Major for B mixolydian). In any case great content, insight and explanation - will be sharing with my students.
I feel like a lot of the best jazz musicians don't pick one way or the other to think about it, but have spent so much time understanding how it works that they have multiple ways to think about it and hence multiple perspectives to approach it from.
Altered scale works if you work from the harmonized arps that it contains. It's challenging as a melodic set, I feel. I work with the arps a lot. Your example here is on the naturally occurring ii chord of G altered, which is of course A flat minor. Try B flat minor as well! Or even B flat minor pentatonic and you get all the upper extensions without a bunch of half steps to worry over
Really great tip, thank you! Been experimenting with this for a bit and for the 3 most common altered dominants I'm finding in jazz standards - the b5, #5 and b9 - what is working best is the m7 arpeggio up a half step on a #5, and a m-7b5 arpeggio up a half step on the b5 and b9. Which simplifies things hugely. Really helpful!
Eb7b5 ( eb db g a) A7( a c# e g) so em7 ( e g b d ) is essentially playing the upper structure of the parent chord when the eb chord is thought of as being an A7 with an altered root. There is a transcription of Adderlys solo on straight no chaser where his brilliance in alternate arpeggios is shown. Great video here , I subscribed! Can’t wait to see more!
You're definitely right about them not thinking about not thinking about the scale when thinking about the sound it produces. I used it inadvertently for quite a few years.
This comes from tritone substitution. The tritone sub for G7 C is Db7 C and you can add the ii in front. You then don't bother specifically outlining the dominant so you get Abm7 C. Incidentally the exact altered scale can be seen as the first half of the half-whole diminished scale then the second half of the whole tone scale.
Apparently I often play so called 'altered scale' by I never new it's called like this. Instead, I thing of it as half an octave diminished and half an octave whole-tone.
I’m really impressed with the effort you put into your videos: b roll, manuscript, sound effects, different framings, cut aways etc. brilliant. I wish I had time to do that these days!! 👍🏻
The wrong note, namely the major seventh in a dominant, can be in the context of a major triad that has the root a major third above the dominant, and in the example you provided, the entire triad is even played. Dominants have a wide chromatic range, and your consideration is actually just one of the possibilities for thinking about altered dominants. The wrong note is not a wrong note but rather part of a chromatic alteration of the dominant. One can also think of it without chromatic alteration, considering the major triad a major third lower or a tritone lower than the dominant. Of course, the minor triad a minor second above is also an option. However, I also find the D7 a minor second higher interesting because it also introduces the raised seventh
Great video. Here's another way to look at it - for example: G7 is resolving to Cm. This is why you will play the Cm harmonic scale on a G7. And I think that's what they're doing, using both harmonic and melodic feel.
There's an additional minor language fountain that's often heard over dominants: the IVm - So when you have a ii-V-I with Dm - G7 - Cmaj7 you can play IVm = Fm7 over the G7. It adds a b9, #11, b13 if you go for dorian or natural 13 if you go for melodic minor. As it's the II of the backdoor II-V to Cmaj7 it also comes from a tonal spectrum (the dark side) that people associate with resolving to Cmaj.
@@joshwakeham There's more possible framings apart from backdoor ii-V regarding why this sounds good which I've thought of and think too little folks talk about it! Your video is great cause it brings this minor language forward as a concept. These are the 2 other ways why Fm sounds good over G7: (1) It's a bit like playing the same material you'd play over the parallel minor but over the major II-V. So If you have a Dm7-G7-Cmaj7 the parallel minor would be Am -- so Bm7b5 - E7 - Am. What would you play over E7? Right, altered -- so F melodic minor! (2) There's this whole thing about negative harmony that Jacob Collier brought up - the negative harmony version of G7 would be Fm6!
Great explanation. Simple explanations are so helpful. There is always such a challenge in an improvisers brain try ing to express ideas fast yet having a smooth tonal center at any given moment. Thanks look forward to hearing more!!
i remember when kevin bales taught all of us students at UNF these scales and the basis of using them in the common licks and language throughout jazz improv. major breakthrough in noodling through altered chord resolutions especially
@@joshwakeham basically bringing the scale down to six notes made everything easy in a duple time system. Same thing with diminished scales being eight notes or bebop scales at eight notes Seven note scales are lousy for eighth notes in typical jazz time signatures
As a jazz beginner who has not played anyone else's solos very much, attempting to get my fingers and ears to invent a decent solo over a 251, this bit of info, particularly the minor triad bit, produced some great sounds. Thank you
Finally some one comes up with the correct interpretation and the easiest. But instead of learning from books learn by transcription. Books are great to use after one has transcribed. The books are there to help explain what the source material is for the great melodies played by the great players. Then one can use that knowledge to find one´s own original voice.
Thanks for the tip! Somehow, I picture truly great players using a simple, yet logical technique, (like the minor scale 1/2 step up from the dominant) rather than the altered "rocket science" approach. I'm going to use this immediately.
I have messed with this scale a lot, and it rarely sounds right starting or thinking from the "g" root of the scale (if resolving to C/cm) it sounds GREAT thinking in terms of Am ... I guess its is because of the way it pushes you to think in terms of note choice and then resolution . Could also play D7#11 or think in those terms
I’m a jazz keyboardist, and this was a really cool explanation of the altered scale and different sounds in jazz people love but don’t know what they’re actually hearing.
I did a postgraduate degree at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance here in London, studying under Jean Toussaint and Julian Siegel mostly. The main thing I learnt there was HOW to learn - I'm still getting lots of the stuff under my fingers. Everything else has just been a case of learning by transcribing and trying to keep my eyes and ears as open as possible!
lol, i took music theory in high school and we learned that the altered scale worked over 7#9 chords one day. i went to my rock band practice later that day and tried to play the altered scale during my solo over foxey lady. me and my bandmates then dubbed it: 'the all-turd scale.'
😂 we've all tried that before! I remember clearing the dance floor on a wedding gig years ago by trying out some 'cool' altered lines. I quickly learnt my lesson on that one!
I think if you want to get a little hip and outside on a dominant 7#9 chord in a modal or blues setting, the half step whole step diminished scale is probably going to be your best bet. Think Chick Corea, Michael Brecker, Scott Henderson ect.
You dumb classical robotic musicians need to stop analyzing jazz from theocratic dogma...bottom line..master your scales , understand rudimental licks, understand standard forms of rhythm changes,blues forms and blues changes, ballads and standards, understand coloring or embellishing via tritone subs of the sixty scale tone chords ..transcribe/transpose to master articulation....and get these under your fingers , no jazz cat talks or thinks this garbage you are spilling on the fly....
That’s how I was taught to approach C7alt… just a half step up and make it a minor 7 chord so using dorian. It also works too because the 5 of the minor chord is the tritone sub (G-7 / C#-7 or F#7 / Fmaj7). I also found some of the greats just treat a diminished chord (Co7) like a minor 7 chord too (C-7).
Yeah that relationship between the m7 a semitone up and the tritone sub is such a useful thing to know! I haven't come across the diminished to minor thing before, that's a really useful tip!
@@joshwakeham Yeah I just came across it like how you came across this topic: through listening to the greats. I think there’s too much over complicated information and when you listen to the greats they’re doing something as simple as just playing dorian over an alt chord in this case. Because of that I appreciate these type of videos that reference the greats (not that there isn’t a time and place for some of those more modern scales etc).
If memory serves me correctly the Dexter example you show and the second Bartley part are just different ornamentation of the opening lick to Cry me a River. Stitt, Coltrane, Pepper Adams, tons of people play it in any key imaginable. I enjoy it honestly. Also the diminished and altered lines in that second Bartley snippet absolutely slap! So seamlessly weaved.
Guitarists - play a G7 on the top for strings at position 3, then raise the fifth and flatten the 9th. The chord you then 'see' looks like an Abm6. I was playing over Abm on a G7#5b9 long before I knew anything about the altered scale, but maybe not so obvious to piano and horn players
WOW! I play the guitar, and this opened up the door to altered sounds in a way I havent seen before! Playing written music is difficult on guitar, because of the many ways you can play the same note. Transposing however, can be done very easy, by just moving the scale shape you are playing up and down the fretboard. Minorscales in first position are extremly logical. And I think that is the the explanation of the minor pentatonic syndrome that has been haunting modern guitar music since the 60s. Heawy metal is built up totally around minor modes. Yngwie Malmsteen is the perfect example. So any old metal fan (or guitarist, for that matter) has tons of minor material planted in their DNA. I cant believe I haven't seen this before! The B-minor scale in first position (the second example) is one of the most common metal shapes there is. And minor blues ballads. "Blue Jeans Blues" with ZZ-top for example. After A minor and E minor I guess. So now, the difficult part when playing altered sounds became the easy thing. Thanks!
Hi Niklas, I'm so glad the video was helpful! I'd never considered the easy transposition on guitar to be part of the reason for 'minor pentatonic syndrome' but it is definitely a good point that you make! Hopefully this will make repurposing all of that minor stuff into altered language a lot easier for you!
I'm a simple man, I see Pat, I click.
That's really overused, dude.
@@victoza9232 You're overused
@@AllegroFPS So, what you’re saying with that childish comment is that you’re not very bright.
@@victoza9232 no I'm making a joke because why do you have to be so corny in the comments, just let people have their fun. Why you gotta waste everyone's time with hateful comments
@@AllegroFPS Seriously? You're calling ME corny, when the guy I was responding to had written the overused and CORNY, "I'm a simple man..." ? Why aren't you criticizing him, instead of feeling the need to step in and try to insult me with your "You're overused" comment? You don't see your hypocrisy, do you?
And in what way was my comment "hateful"?
Heavy concepts simplified and the theoretical explanation. Great job. For those of us who didn’t go to music school, this stuff is gold. Stuff you can put to work on the gig (practice first!) right away. THANK YOU.
Thanks man, I really appreciate it! Making all of this stuff digestible and accessible for people that haven't gone to music college is absolutely what I'm trying to do across the channel!
Thanks for the high quality analysis. I appreciate because I only went to business school. At 80 years old, I love learning what I can about music!
You could also just thinking of it as the tritone of the 2 in a 251. For instance a 251 in C, would be D-|G7, the tritone of that would be Ab-|Db7. So over the G7 you could use either Ab- which is what the video is talking about or you could think of Db7 it ultimately creates the same effect.
Long ago I picked up a similar cheat code from guitarist Emily Remmler. She used the Major scale of the raised 5th in her turnarounds. So against a II-V-I in G, for example, she would pass through Eb Major against the V chord. Both Eb minor and Eb major work well here, as both F# (minor 3rd of Eb) and G (major 3rd of Eb) fall within the dominant scale of G. Very cool stuff.
That's another great tip if you want to avoid the #11, thanks for sharing!
Cool! Never thought of that, but it makes sense as the V of Abm.
Wow, this man earned the hell out of this like a subscribe. You put your heart and soul into this art for years and it shows!
Thank you so much - you have no idea how much that means to me!!
Excellent! As someone who teaches, there is not enough educational content out there like this. It's inspiring to see! Oftentimes advanced topics are taught in overly and overtly complex (even convoluted) ways, when concepts like this can be distilled more simply without losing anything in the process.
Thanks, Amber, that really means a lot! I think the complexity in music theory/education can sometimes be a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy - someone gets taught it in a complex way, so they then teach it to others in the same complex way, and on and on it goes. Sometimes we all just need to step back and reassess things to spot other ways of thinking about it - there were years of me struggling with the altered scale before I realised this far simpler way of getting there!
A succinct, concise & well formulated reply, nice piece of prose to. Many Thanks.👍🎶🎶🎶🎷
As a guitarist, this sounds super helpful! can't wait to try it out
Let me know how you get on with it!
Super ideas Sir. I'm on my way to try all these. Thanks.
I’ve been using the melodic minor a half step above the root of the dominant for quite a while(through sheer laziness 🤓), but I never thought of just using minor language. This is great. Thanks.
Clear and concise as ever, even I (sort of) understood it.
4:44 **(w/ a 9th & also a maj7. W/rest of the context it kinda implies B melodic minor despite not having the 13 in that run)
YES!!! That was enormously helpful. This reminds me of how it finally dawned on me that playing a minor pentatonic scale two steps above a major 7th chord captures a lot of the fun extensions. Subscribed!
Thanks Michael, so great to hear the video was helpful! That minor pentatonic tip is definitely a useful one, and one I'd actually completely forgotten about - thanks for the reminder!
Thank you! I suppose another maybe clearer way to explain for would be just to play a minor pentatonic starting on the third degree of the major triad. I’m jazzed (my apologies) about your channel. You just blew the doors off for me!
Yes! Also build a minor pentatonic on the major 7th degree…for instant Lydian flavor…
@@ChromaticHarp WHOA. That is KILLER. Music just pours out when you get that lydian flavor. THANK YOU!!! Fun to vamp over Bbm7 and BM7. SO GOOD!!!
@@michaeldmytriw1047 Yes! That’s a cool Vamp!
The scale comes from the minor chord on the 4th. Example A -> Dmi -> A
Scale on the Dmi is D melodic minor, which translates to the "backdoor dominant" G7#11, leading to tritone substitute C#alt
Yes.. Extends or Extentions add tension and taking scale tones over a chord extending and using substitutions, makes one not think of scales but of chord tones with Extentions. Harmonic and Melodic Minors are perfect examples of moving a tone but staying in the JUICE of the chord
I suspect the altered scale was 'invented' at Berklee or somewhere similar (like the so-called 'be-bop scale'). It's certainly a scale and it contains all the possible alterations but I doubt many musicians actually thought of it that way. In fact until about 1955 I doubt they thought much in terms of scales at all. I've read quite a few biographies of the bop pioneers and they seemed to visualize mainly in chordal terms.
Great idea! Another way to think about it is in terms of tritone substitution -- if the chord is G7 alt, then D♭9 (chord, arpeggio, etc.) will sound great, or you could do a ii-V7 with that, which would be A♭m7-D♭9. The only note that is different between A♭ Dorian and G altered is the G♭ replacing the G natural. That G♭ plays an interesting role -- it would be the 4th of D♭ Mixolydian, so a note that is typically not held long when playing over D♭7, and as the enharmonic equivalent of the major 7th of G, it would be used in the G dominant bebop scale, also not a strong note there.
Yeah that is another great way to think of it!
@@joshwakeham -- You've really got me thinking today. Another idea: We could play G minor pentatonic or G blues over the G7, then go to the A♭ minor pentatonic (or minor added sixth pentatonic) and then to A minor pentatonic (or C major pentatonic). That seems to make it even easier to remember and learn because it's just a chromatic modulation. Of course, that assumes that the G7 resolves to C.
Natural 9 on the SUB FIVE is better NOT b9
@@ChromaticHarp -- I'm saying D♭9 or D♭7(9) NOT D♭7♭9. So I think we agree. The natural 9th of the tritone sub is the ♭13 or #5 of the dominant, so it works as an altered tone.
@@mbmillermo I’m sorry Mike, I thought you wrote b9 my bad!
'Later-life (old) bass player here, who has struggled with jazz harmony for nearly 30 years. The light just came in and I'm delightfully blinded by it! This is a brilliantly illuminating post. Grateful! 🙏🏽
I'm so glad you enjoyed it!
This sounds really simple and nice! Thank you so much for demystifying that. Can’t wait to try it out
Teally helpfull. Joe Pass and Stan Getz follow this approach as well, with a very strong sense of melody, which makes it great.
Thanks Rick, I'm glad you found it helpful! Joe Pass is someone I've not really checked out (guitarists are a bit of a blind spot for me in general), but it's great to know that this approach isn't limited to horn players!
@@joshwakeham Oscar Peterson said that Joe was a 'genius' - used to play alongside many of the greats in 1960s and 70s - well worth listening to for a slightly different type of sound. Keep up the great work 👍
Epic thank you for this!
wonderful! Thank you!!
Really interesting explanation here Josh and I like how thinking in this way makes it really easy to get these interesting sounds in your solos. Cool!
Oh wow, thanks so much Nigel! That really means a lot coming from you!
Awesome lesson. I use this all the time on guitar and think of it as a major scale a flat fifth above the root of the I I'll resolve to or as the major scale a half step below the root of the V I want the altered tones on; same results. It basically gives me the b9,#9,b5,#5 along with the 3 and b7, leaving the "rogue" 7th degree, which is a great chromatic passing tone. I think of it this way because guitarists often think in patterns and it's a very easy way to quickly shift i/o of the altered sounds and I can dip into the altered if I want some triads and arpeggios from that scale.
It's also very useful for getting all the outside note when playing over a major "vamp" in fusion, e.g. Amaj7, move i/o of D#/Eb major. Immediate options for something like an Amaj7, there's the A major scale, the D#/Eb major (tritone) and the side-slipping (aka "side-stepping") major a half step up and down from the key. That's a lot of sounds for just one chord. [I use the maj7 chord as an example because it can potentially be the most boring chord to play over for some musicians.]
Best explanation I've seen on this topic. Thank you
Great nuanced explanation and great video production! :) It might be worth mentioning as well that, in so far as theory is an attempt to explain practice, when we use a tritone substitute we often start our melodic ideas on the tritone substitute's related 2 chord.
For example if we use Ab-7 Db7 as a substitute for D-7 G7 our melodic line might start with Ab-7. In practice this can lead to a truncated cadence where the melody idea starting on the ii -7 chord (Ab-7) resolves before it gets to the sub V7 chord (Db7). This could result in Ab-7 dorian resolving directly to C major, C minor, C7 etc.).
Another theoretical perspective would be that of modal interchange; substituting Ab dorian for Ab melodic minor (G altered) or visa versa.
One example I've used in theory class is Woody Shaw using B ionian major material over F7 which implies a major 7 on that dominant (just like using Ab dorian over G7 does. It sounds great, especially functioning as a cadence upon its resolution - This could be explained theoretically as modal interchange (B Major for B mixolydian). In any case great content, insight and explanation - will be sharing with my students.
Maaaan, you are such a good teacher! Thank you so much for posting this. ❤
Great tutorial, really made it easier for me.
Thank you ❤
I feel like a lot of the best jazz musicians don't pick one way or the other to think about it, but have spent so much time understanding how it works that they have multiple ways to think about it and hence multiple perspectives to approach it from.
Genius. Thank u. I’ve been searching for a practical thought process to get the altered sound
I'm so glad you like the concept - it makes the altered sound so much easier to achieve!
Thank you!!!
The jazz greats worked out ways to not work hard . Now, their secrets are exposed. I wish i new this 20 years ago. Amazing
Altered scale works if you work from the harmonized arps that it contains. It's challenging as a melodic set, I feel. I work with the arps a lot. Your example here is on the naturally occurring ii chord of G altered, which is of course A flat minor. Try B flat minor as well! Or even B flat minor pentatonic and you get all the upper extensions without a bunch of half steps to worry over
Wow this just opened up a lot of possibilities in my brain thank you
Hi Josh, really eye-opening. That makes it much easier to come up with cool lines. Thank you!
No problem, Nestor! Thanks for watching!
1:57 the face of the alt chord resolving!!! Freakin hilarious!
Awesome!
Really great tip, thank you! Been experimenting with this for a bit and for the 3 most common altered dominants I'm finding in jazz standards - the b5, #5 and b9 - what is working best is the m7 arpeggio up a half step on a #5, and a m-7b5 arpeggio up a half step on the b5 and b9. Which simplifies things hugely. Really helpful!
Oh man, thinking about arpeggios/simpler shapes is a great way to get into the more complex sounds. I'm a huge fan of that way of thinking!
Eb7b5 ( eb db g a) A7( a c# e g) so em7 ( e g b d ) is essentially playing the upper structure of the parent chord when the eb chord is thought of as being an A7 with an altered root. There is a transcription of Adderlys solo on straight no chaser where his brilliance in alternate arpeggios is shown. Great video here , I subscribed! Can’t wait to see more!
Thanks for the tip - I'll check that out that solo!
Sounds good. Easy way to think about it.
You're definitely right about them not thinking about not thinking about the scale when thinking about the sound it produces. I used it inadvertently for quite a few years.
Very nicely explained, thank you.
Bravo!
Wow...very nice explanations!! Thank you!
What a great video, and what a great channel!
great man! i will try this aproach. the triad itself sounds amazing. btw very entertaining video and "performance".
Your video is really very good as you make a very good point and demonstrate it as well .
enjoyed. liked. subscribed. will definitely practice.
very cool! picked up your books as well
Thank you so much! I hope you enjoy them!
Love your tone. Excellent advice
Really cool. Clearly explained.
This comes from tritone substitution. The tritone sub for G7 C is Db7 C and you can add the ii in front. You then don't bother specifically outlining the dominant so you get Abm7 C.
Incidentally the exact altered scale can be seen as the first half of the half-whole diminished scale then the second half of the whole tone scale.
Yeah that's right!
Great lesson as usual Josh. Bought your Dexter Book. Fantastic read, full of useful info.
Thanks! I'm so glad you enjoyed the book!
Very clever, useful lesson.
Apparently I often play so called 'altered scale' by I never new it's called like this. Instead, I thing of it as half an octave diminished and half an octave whole-tone.
so glad i found this simple method.
Awesome tutorial!!!
Thanks Jeff!
Thanks for the video Josh.
Thanks for watching, Scott. I hope you found it helpful!
I’m really impressed with the effort you put into your videos: b roll, manuscript, sound effects, different framings, cut aways etc. brilliant. I wish I had time to do that these days!! 👍🏻
Oh wow thanks, Jamie! That means a lot!
@@joshwakeham you had me at the Patrick Bartley thumb though! 👍🏻🤣
@@GetYourSaxTogether that's what got me.
Thanks for this. I’ve been thinking something similar, but the way you put it made it all so much easier. Brilliant.
Fabulous insight, as a guitarist I will certainly be trying to incorporate this great sound. Thanks 😊
Glad you enjoyed it!
Great video man
so useful, thanks!
Phil Woods will often use the minor major 7 arpeggio a semitone up, ie Abm(maj7) over G7
Thank you,Joshua🌹🌹⭐🌹🌹
The wrong note, namely the major seventh in a dominant, can be in the context of a major triad that has the root a major third above the dominant, and in the example you provided, the entire triad is even played. Dominants have a wide chromatic range, and your consideration is actually just one of the possibilities for thinking about altered dominants. The wrong note is not a wrong note but rather part of a chromatic alteration of the dominant. One can also think of it without chromatic alteration, considering the major triad a major third lower or a tritone lower than the dominant. Of course, the minor triad a minor second above is also an option. However, I also find the D7 a minor second higher interesting because it also introduces the raised seventh
Great stuff, thanks!
Once you alter a dominant chord you can use ANY alteration. Strong melody or things like triads and good resolution is key.
Very true!
Convinced me, you have. Thank you for your teaching.
Thanks for watching, Paul. It's great to hear you enjoyed the video!
Great video. Here's another way to look at it - for example: G7 is resolving to Cm. This is why you will play the Cm harmonic scale on a G7. And I think that's what they're doing, using both harmonic and melodic feel.
Yeah the harmonic minor is definitely an underappreciated sound - I'm very guilty of ignoring it sometimes!
Never thought of thought. Great scale for a dominant #5.
Excellent Video!
Short version: play the minor chord a semitone up from the root note when on a dominant chord
This is enormously helpful. I've heard this in Cannonball's playing but had no idea how to get the sound...until now!
There's an additional minor language fountain that's often heard over dominants: the IVm - So when you have a ii-V-I with Dm - G7 - Cmaj7 you can play IVm = Fm7 over the G7. It adds a b9, #11, b13 if you go for dorian or natural 13 if you go for melodic minor. As it's the II of the backdoor II-V to Cmaj7 it also comes from a tonal spectrum (the dark side) that people associate with resolving to Cmaj.
Yes! Dexter does this loads, but I hadn't thought of it in relation to the backdoor ii-V! Thanks for the enlightening comment!
@@joshwakeham There's more possible framings apart from backdoor ii-V regarding why this sounds good which I've thought of and think too little folks talk about it! Your video is great cause it brings this minor language forward as a concept. These are the 2 other ways why Fm sounds good over G7: (1) It's a bit like playing the same material you'd play over the parallel minor but over the major II-V. So If you have a Dm7-G7-Cmaj7 the parallel minor would be Am -- so Bm7b5 - E7 - Am. What would you play over E7? Right, altered -- so F melodic minor! (2) There's this whole thing about negative harmony that Jacob Collier brought up - the negative harmony version of G7 would be Fm6!
Great explanation. Simple explanations are so helpful. There is always such a challenge in an improvisers brain try ing to express ideas fast yet having a smooth tonal center at any given moment. Thanks look forward to hearing more!!
Wow, this is an awesome thing to sound more hip, and it works right away! You can just do it immediately and it sounds great
i remember when kevin bales taught all of us students at UNF these scales and the basis of using them in the common licks and language throughout jazz improv. major breakthrough in noodling through altered chord resolutions especially
Oh man that sounds like an enlightening lesson!
@@joshwakeham basically bringing the scale down to six notes made everything easy in a duple time system. Same thing with diminished scales being eight notes or bebop scales at eight notes
Seven note scales are lousy for eighth notes in typical jazz time signatures
It's great. Thank you very much
Thanks for watching, it's great to hear you enjoyed the video!
Good lesson! Thank you!
As a jazz beginner who has not played anyone else's solos very much, attempting to get my fingers and ears to invent a decent solo over a 251, this bit of info, particularly the minor triad bit, produced some great sounds. Thank you
I'm so glad it was helpful!
Thanks for sharing!! It helps a lot!!!
Thanks for watching, it's great to hear the video was useful!
Amazing video!
Thanks so much!
congrats for the excellent video! very good explanation, won a new follower.
Thanks, Fran! It's great to hear that you enjoyed the video!
Finally some one comes up with the correct interpretation and the easiest. But instead of learning from books learn by transcription. Books are great to use after one has transcribed. The books are there to help explain what the source material is for the great melodies played by the great players. Then one can use that knowledge to find one´s own original voice.
Thanks Bob! Transcribing really is the only way, at least to start with, you're right.
Thanks for the tip! Somehow, I picture truly great players using a simple, yet logical technique, (like the minor scale 1/2 step up from the dominant) rather than the altered "rocket science" approach. I'm going to use this immediately.
love superimposition!
This is an incredible video. Thanks for opening my eyes to this!
Thanks Patrick, that means a lot!
Wow, brilliant stuff.
I have messed with this scale a lot, and it rarely sounds right starting or thinking from the "g" root of the scale (if resolving to C/cm) it sounds GREAT thinking in terms of Am ... I guess its is because of the way it pushes you to think in terms of note choice and then resolution . Could also play D7#11 or think in those terms
Thanks 🙏🏼, music thinking must be easy just to create beauty ❤
Great video as ever, sir. I won't lie; this is challenging stuff but I always find your explanations engaging.
Thanks Francis. Sadly I couldn't think of a way to include the moka pot in this one!
@@joshwakeham Well, I couldn't find the words to mask my disappointment!
Spot on....Bach was never wrong. Jocking aside, this concept is natural to me but your explanation is money.
Was it Ron Carter that said bebop is basically Bach with swing? Whoever it was, they weren't wrong!
Really helpful - simplifies my thinking and improves my playing.
I’m a jazz keyboardist, and this was a really cool explanation of the altered scale and different sounds in jazz people love but don’t know what they’re actually hearing.
Thanks, it's great to hear you found it useful!
@@joshwakeham man I’ve got to know where did you get your education? Very interesting stuff my friend
I did a postgraduate degree at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance here in London, studying under Jean Toussaint and Julian Siegel mostly. The main thing I learnt there was HOW to learn - I'm still getting lots of the stuff under my fingers. Everything else has just been a case of learning by transcribing and trying to keep my eyes and ears as open as possible!
lol, i took music theory in high school and we learned that the altered scale worked over 7#9 chords one day. i went to my rock band practice later that day and tried to play the altered scale during my solo over foxey lady. me and my bandmates then dubbed it: 'the all-turd scale.'
😂 we've all tried that before! I remember clearing the dance floor on a wedding gig years ago by trying out some 'cool' altered lines. I quickly learnt my lesson on that one!
I think if you want to get a little hip and outside on a dominant 7#9 chord in a modal or blues setting, the half step whole step diminished scale is probably going to be your best bet. Think Chick Corea, Michael Brecker, Scott Henderson ect.
wow, that sax sounds fantastic.
Cannonball line is thinking more like tri tone sunbstitution Ab minor to Db 7#11 lydian dominant. That's the vocabulary.
Yeah that's definitely another great way to think about it!
but it's also the ii chord in A altered scale. Either way works
You dumb classical robotic musicians need to stop analyzing jazz from theocratic dogma...bottom line..master your scales , understand rudimental licks, understand standard forms of rhythm changes,blues forms and blues changes, ballads and standards, understand coloring or embellishing via tritone subs of the sixty scale tone chords ..transcribe/transpose to master articulation....and get these under your fingers , no jazz cat talks or thinks this garbage you are spilling on the fly....
That’s how I was taught to approach C7alt… just a half step up and make it a minor 7 chord so using dorian. It also works too because the 5 of the minor chord is the tritone sub (G-7 / C#-7 or F#7 / Fmaj7). I also found some of the greats just treat a diminished chord (Co7) like a minor 7 chord too (C-7).
Yeah that relationship between the m7 a semitone up and the tritone sub is such a useful thing to know! I haven't come across the diminished to minor thing before, that's a really useful tip!
@@joshwakeham Yeah I just came across it like how you came across this topic: through listening to the greats. I think there’s too much over complicated information and when you listen to the greats they’re doing something as simple as just playing dorian over an alt chord in this case. Because of that I appreciate these type of videos that reference the greats (not that there isn’t a time and place for some of those more modern scales etc).
The thing with Dorian is it uses a major 7 with the chord and skips the root.
If memory serves me correctly the Dexter example you show and the second Bartley part are just different ornamentation of the opening lick to Cry me a River. Stitt, Coltrane, Pepper Adams, tons of people play it in any key imaginable. I enjoy it honestly. Also the diminished and altered lines in that second Bartley snippet absolutely slap! So seamlessly weaved.
Yeah both are classic bits of vocab for sure!
So useful😂😂😂😂😂i am going to follow you right now❤❤❤❤❤🎉
Guitarists - play a G7 on the top for strings at position 3, then raise the fifth and flatten the 9th. The chord you then 'see' looks like an Abm6. I was playing over Abm on a G7#5b9 long before I knew anything about the altered scale, but maybe not so obvious to piano and horn players
Super simple
The way you explained it
WOW! I play the guitar, and this opened up the door to altered sounds in a way I havent seen before! Playing written music is difficult on guitar, because of the many ways you can play the same note. Transposing however, can be done very easy, by just moving the scale shape you are playing up and down the fretboard. Minorscales in first position are extremly logical. And I think that is the the explanation of the minor pentatonic syndrome that has been haunting modern guitar music since the 60s. Heawy metal is built up totally around minor modes.
Yngwie Malmsteen is the perfect example. So any old metal fan (or guitarist, for that matter) has tons of minor material planted in their DNA. I cant believe I haven't seen this before!
The B-minor scale in first position (the second example) is one of the most common metal shapes there is. And minor blues ballads. "Blue Jeans Blues" with ZZ-top for example.
After A minor and E minor I guess. So now, the difficult part when playing altered sounds became the easy thing.
Thanks!
Hi Niklas, I'm so glad the video was helpful! I'd never considered the easy transposition on guitar to be part of the reason for 'minor pentatonic syndrome' but it is definitely a good point that you make! Hopefully this will make repurposing all of that minor stuff into altered language a lot easier for you!
@@joshwakeham It sure does. Works great! Thank your for replying. Allt the best!
Mind blown!