For a Step-by-Step video guide + PDF workbook with 150+ minutes of video exercises and application through pentatonics in jazz improvisation, get instant access with code “PENT25” for $25 OFF at: www.jazzlessonvideos.com/pentatonics Use code "PENTETUDES" for $5 off "30 Pentatonic Etudes on Jazz Standards" by Chad LB! www.jazzlessonvideos.com/downloads
Wow, I have never seen such a clear but complete and concise explanation of this subject. Nathan, you are so good at what you do. I’m off to the races to get these under my fingers . once I’ve internalized these few , I’ll come back for the course .
00:07 Right from beginning, killer lines are being demonstrated with the power of pentatonic shifting. All the concepts in this video open up another world to using pentatonics. Keep up the great work.
Tony Rice was one of the most influential Bluegrass guitarists in the history of the genre, this is the kind of video I need to push boundaries like he did. He took the traditional sounds of American fiddle music and blended it with jazz
I remember messing around in A dorian realizing theres 3 pentatonics Am Bm Em you can hop around in and play inside the mode. This apllies to any mode and really helped me explore soundscapes and movement while i was trying to get one foot in the jazz door
i think there are a million ways to approach it. you do what works for you. I prefer to just take a little phrase I like and 12-key it, by itself or as a pattern, apply it to some tunes and not really think about the theory part unless i need to remember it later and write it down.
@@rehacemsapmazthe simple version is you shift a pentatonic scale up and down in a way you like over the chord and as it connects to what came before/after. Of course, judging what you do and don't like is where it can get tricky. I would say the most fundamental lesson here is this: things like the pentatonic scale have a consonant and familiar structure to them, so we can do wacky stuff with it without devolving into noise. That sorta thinking goes into MANY techniques, like how complex sounding polychords are often just two simple triads that fit together in a weird way.
Please validate me whether I got the concept of 'shifting with the common tone' correct (10:15). So after the first bar where Bb- pentatonic was used we encounter a wide variety of possible pentatonics to use in the second bar. According to the principle mentioned, we may take each note of Bb- pentatonic and pick up all the pentatonics which share them. Those which share Bb tone: C-, F-, G-, Eb- Those which share Db tone: C#-, F#-, Ab-, Eb- Those which share Eb tone: Eb-, C-, F-, Ab- Those which share F tone: C-, D-, F-, G- Those which share Ab tone: F-, C#-, Ab-, Eb- Altogether we got 8 pentatonics: C-, C#-, D-, Eb-, F-, F#-, G-, Ab-. So did I get it right, that after each following bar we will again have a choice, but this time out of 8 OTHER possibilities? And so on
Note: in a sense, the typical inside harmonies can actually be outside depending on established context. Even if you were consistently using interchange before and suddenly go diatonic, that can be the part that feels outside, especially if you were avoiding some of those diatonic notes or at least their function in the diatonic part.
This was an "ear-opener" from my side! I've always been looking for a way to expand upon my pentatonics, and now i have enough homework for a long time! This might be a dumb question, but is there a way to practise this as a bass player?
Dude...if you dont kick it in the music industry , you definitely can do it in an audio or video format...like a voice actor! Smooth! I subscribed for the music theory presented easily. ✌️
Je suis guitariste, mais tout est très bien expliqué et transposable à tous les instruments J'aurais tant aimé voir ce genre de vidéos quand j'étais jeune !...👍
The problem I have with jazz tutorials, either videos or books, is that ya’ll will use a chord as an example like a Major 7, and then add in other extensions. Like just say its a 9 chord? Before I had a really developed ear stuff like this would be really confusing.
I have often noticed very good sax players teaching techniques, like this fellow who, while demonstrating an exercise, read the lines and wondered what the process is that leads to off-paper fluency. Am I making a big mistake by trying to memorize practice room lines like he is playing at @7:50, getting frustrated, and never following through?
Thank God I play a concert pitch instrument, while it might be a pain in the ass (I have no clue how to do that) don't underestimate the value of transposing this music into bass clef yourself. Happy musicing!
In jazz combo I asked for a bass clef version and was told to learn to read treble clef. I thought that was so unfair because he gave Eb and Bb versions. Even though it’s just shifting everything up I still find it hard. Full disclosure I’m not that great at reading bass clef….
Either the I or a IV can be a Maj7 in a major Scale so in a vacuum it can be viewed as either Ionian or Lydian. At 2:30 he defines it as the I chord, so in context it is C Ionian (= C Major Scale) here
Do people really use this ? This is so much to think about, is this really what jazz greats are thinking about ? And also a key question would be rules of thumb for what outside pentatonic to play over what chords?
People don’t think about all this stuff when they improvise. At least not in terms of letters or visual diagrams. Can’t remember which one of the greats said something like: forget your complicated scales and chords, it’s just a sound man! I love theory and use it a lot to analyze a song so I know what will sound good. Music has too many possibilities that sound weird if you don’t constrain with some rules. But the way I understand the greats play is: know the rules, know the song (which is a subset of the rules), practice, and when it’s time to play, you let go of the framework and feel it, groove with it. The rules and the song become baked into your muscle memory and you get to direct what happens at a high level without thinking about all the details. You also choose moments where you break the rules, or maybe “move off the beaten path”. To walk off the beaten path, you either have to signal the rest of the band to give you space, so that your playing can sound good carrying most of the emotion, you plan it all together, or you plan an alternate route to resolution in advance that doesn’t throw the band off. This is how I think of it at least, and I’m no pro. I’ve just heard or read about how pros think. I’m sure there are pros that approach things differently.
Yes. great players think about all this stuff, a million times over, until it becomes a subconscious tool for self expression. Sky is the limit, and maybe even the sky wont stop true creatives
Pat Martino, has a whole book on this idea. Using relative pentatonics to improvise over Jazz chord changes. Some even refer to it as the Pat Martino Method! Jazz players and classical players learn all relationships via chords scales and chromatics. They are the 'geeks' of the music world. That's why they're so musically versatile. Jazz players practice these concepts again and again until they become part of their vocabulary. But you have to understand music is relative in most cases. A guitar player might just learn the shapes and how to use them over the changes, then apply those changes and shapes to the 12+ keys. Different musicians will have different approaches. But the bottom line is practice....practice....practice.
the idea is to learn it so well you don't have to think about it, like learning to drive so you can get around faster. after a while you're not thinking about operating the car anymore, you're just doing it while your mind is on more important things. with jazz it's like getting the mechanics mastered so you can express your inner self on a higher level, and you can drop back into "theory thinking" anytime just like you can go back to focusing on your pedals and steering while driving. but the point is to transcend the theory.
@jazzlessonvideos, In the example on the screen at the 23 second mark, how is that a F# pentatonic with an A natural? The notes are actually an A pentatonic...
Regular musical motion done via the pentatonic scale. Instead of chords you do parts of scales. And you choose via which sounds best to you. You do this all the time probably, just never so bluntly. Like you could replace any part with Phrygian, but it will be "tighter" because the intervals are closer and there's more notes to go through, Honestly you're only using pentatonics to keep that space between the notes. You don't even have to Heck, this is just how you do chords. But with something else.
Nice video. Too advanced for me... At some point, it becomes a competition of bending musical technicality that it no longer sounds pleasing.. I mean, it's not noise or bad sounding it's not as harmonically pleasing as a sleek solo by Michael Brecker. Same as some people might prefer a Slayer dissonant guitar solo over a Mark Knopfler solo.. 😇
Coltrane did pentatonic shifting. Michael Brecker emulated Coltrane with pentatonic shifting. Brecker’s genius was how he could use pentatonic shifting to weave in and out of the harmonic structure with blazingly quick, fluid melodies. The etudes are not meant to be “solos” but are used to develop technique and the ear to use pentatonic shifting in a creative way.
> I mean, it's not noise or bad sounding it's not as harmonically pleasing as a sleek solo by Michael Brecker. It's literally a harmonic technique he uses all the time. > Slayer dissonant guitar solo What is dissonant about Slayer? Your idea of what sounds dissonant will shift as you experience more harmony.
This is too much complicate, so so complex. Your language and tricks are only for the pro, not for common players. When we listen to you, the only thing we want to do is to put the sax in the trash, because it is impossible to do your exercices, your advices, etc . Simple players are not able to reproduce what you say
For a Step-by-Step video guide + PDF workbook with 150+ minutes of video exercises and application through pentatonics in jazz improvisation, get instant access with code “PENT25” for $25 OFF at: www.jazzlessonvideos.com/pentatonics
Use code "PENTETUDES" for $5 off "30 Pentatonic Etudes on Jazz Standards" by Chad LB!
www.jazzlessonvideos.com/downloads
“The modern sound” is now at least 60 years old! It’s still awesome
Music matters :)
it's okay i guess. I'm trying to unlearn it personally.
Modern is a dated period already, so it makes sense. Contemporary would be actually new stuff
Wow, I have never seen such a clear but complete and concise explanation of this subject. Nathan, you are so good at what you do. I’m off to the races to get these under my fingers . once I’ve internalized these few , I’ll come back for the course .
00:07 Right from beginning, killer lines are being demonstrated with the power of pentatonic shifting. All the concepts in this video open up another world to using pentatonics. Keep up the great work.
Tony Rice was one of the most influential Bluegrass guitarists in the history of the genre, this is the kind of video I need to push boundaries like he did. He took the traditional sounds of American fiddle music and blended it with jazz
I remember messing around in A dorian realizing theres 3 pentatonics Am Bm Em you can hop around in and play inside the mode. This apllies to any mode and really helped me explore soundscapes and movement while i was trying to get one foot in the jazz door
i think there are a million ways to approach it. you do what works for you. I prefer to just take a little phrase I like and 12-key it, by itself or as a pattern, apply it to some tunes and not really think about the theory part unless i need to remember it later and write it down.
Thank you for this amazing video. I have earned so much from it.
This might be one of the most important videos in the first steps of any improvisation studies. Thank you very much!
its too hard to understand for me 😭😭
@@rehacemsapmazthe simple version is you shift a pentatonic scale up and down in a way you like over the chord and as it connects to what came before/after. Of course, judging what you do and don't like is where it can get tricky.
I would say the most fundamental lesson here is this: things like the pentatonic scale have a consonant and familiar structure to them, so we can do wacky stuff with it without devolving into noise.
That sorta thinking goes into MANY techniques, like how complex sounding polychords are often just two simple triads that fit together in a weird way.
@@Gnurklesquimp2 i feel like this video is not for starters someone need to guide me to start jazz im so lost in theory i play guitar btw
Very good. Extremely professional and informative. You are a groovy teacher.
Great tutorial! Pls continue😊💙
Thanks - this sets out the basic tools very well and in an easy to follow manner. Then there are huge possibilities you have outlined here. Good one.
great information. playing outside sounds "righter" if you just use pentatonics and voice lead
that i think will help a lot - many thanks
Please validate me whether I got the concept of 'shifting with the common tone' correct (10:15). So after the first bar where Bb- pentatonic was used we encounter a wide variety of possible pentatonics to use in the second bar. According to the principle mentioned, we may take each note of Bb- pentatonic and pick up all the pentatonics which share them.
Those which share Bb tone: C-, F-, G-, Eb-
Those which share Db tone: C#-, F#-, Ab-, Eb-
Those which share Eb tone: Eb-, C-, F-, Ab-
Those which share F tone: C-, D-, F-, G-
Those which share Ab tone: F-, C#-, Ab-, Eb-
Altogether we got 8 pentatonics: C-, C#-, D-, Eb-, F-, F#-, G-, Ab-.
So did I get it right, that after each following bar we will again have a choice, but this time out of 8 OTHER possibilities? And so on
Yes, that’s pretty much it
Note: in a sense, the typical inside harmonies can actually be outside depending on established context. Even if you were consistently using interchange before and suddenly go diatonic, that can be the part that feels outside, especially if you were avoiding some of those diatonic notes or at least their function in the diatonic part.
As a guitar player this has been so informative.
I have been using inside a little but now I understand it better.
I got some practicing to do.
Thank you for the great content, Nathan!
01:16 - mind. blown
This video was very informative awesome teaching
Wow, that was a good video. As someone who is working through the Jerry Coker Patterns book, I can see how all this works.
Amazing, life changing tutorial! Subbed!
This is great
I love this video ! Thank you so much !
Excellent! Awesome! Thank you!
This was an "ear-opener" from my side! I've always been looking for a way to expand upon my pentatonics, and now i have enough homework for a long time! This might be a dumb question, but is there a way to practise this as a bass player?
Awesome video, thank you…!
Is the pentatonics course available in a bass clef version…?
i like your artwork.
This good, well presented, information. Thanks.
I have to say; this is way better than I originally thought. I've got some practicing to do. Thanks again.
Dude...if you dont kick it in the music industry , you definitely can do it in an audio or video format...like a voice actor! Smooth! I subscribed for the music theory presented easily. ✌️
Simple way a guitarist might look at this is dom7 chords a minor 3rd apart are all essentially the same. Diminished harmony stuff.
I can't work on this kind of stuff for very long either. It would drive me nuts!
Je suis guitariste, mais tout est très bien expliqué et transposable à tous les instruments
J'aurais tant aimé voir ce genre de vidéos quand j'étais jeune !...👍
Pareil 🎸😉
Thank you so much this great lesson
Good stuff!
You can do the same thing but with the melodic minor scale based on the v.
This is gold
Gold!
The problem I have with jazz tutorials, either videos or books, is that ya’ll will use a chord as an example like a Major 7, and then add in other extensions. Like just say its a 9 chord? Before I had a really developed ear stuff like this would be really confusing.
COOL!
Good theme!
Why does actual chad look like the most chad person to ever chad
I have often noticed very good sax players teaching techniques, like this fellow who, while demonstrating an exercise, read the lines and wondered what the process is that leads to off-paper fluency. Am I making a big mistake by trying to memorize practice room lines like he is playing at @7:50, getting frustrated, and never following through?
you should memorize the degrees of the scale you're playing so you won't have to follow the page but rather what you understood. 1 b3 4 b7 5 4 b3 1.
Great info, thanks, liked and subscribed.
Any chance you have a bass clef version of this?
Thank God I play a concert pitch instrument, while it might be a pain in the ass (I have no clue how to do that) don't underestimate the value of transposing this music into bass clef yourself. Happy musicing!
In jazz combo I asked for a bass clef version and was told to learn to read treble clef. I thought that was so unfair because he gave Eb and Bb versions. Even though it’s just shifting everything up I still find it hard. Full disclosure I’m not that great at reading bass clef….
Wouldn’t the chord/scale for CMA7 be C Lydian?
D pentatonic over CMaj7 is not “outside”
Either the I or a IV can be a Maj7 in a major Scale so in a vacuum it can be viewed as either Ionian or Lydian. At 2:30 he defines it as the I chord, so in context it is C Ionian (= C Major Scale) here
I get this easily on a theoretical level....it's the applicability that stumps. Practice practice
I recognise the irealpro app piano
Imagine if frank marino of mahogany rush learned this. Man's made a whole career using the the minor pentatonic scale
imagine rock player learning music theory is wild
I'm just a Bass player, but enjoyed the lesson anyways
You can create chords with pentatonics, on guitar i like playing pentatonic chords shifting 😂🎸🎶🎵
Do people really use this ? This is so much to think about, is this really what jazz greats are thinking about ? And also a key question would be rules of thumb for what outside pentatonic to play over what chords?
People don’t think about all this stuff when they improvise. At least not in terms of letters or visual diagrams.
Can’t remember which one of the greats said something like: forget your complicated scales and chords, it’s just a sound man!
I love theory and use it a lot to analyze a song so I know what will sound good. Music has too many possibilities that sound weird if you don’t constrain with some rules. But the way I understand the greats play is: know the rules, know the song (which is a subset of the rules), practice, and when it’s time to play, you let go of the framework and feel it, groove with it. The rules and the song become baked into your muscle memory and you get to direct what happens at a high level without thinking about all the details. You also choose moments where you break the rules, or maybe “move off the beaten path”.
To walk off the beaten path, you either have to signal the rest of the band to give you space, so that your playing can sound good carrying most of the emotion, you plan it all together, or you plan an alternate route to resolution in advance that doesn’t throw the band off.
This is how I think of it at least, and I’m no pro. I’ve just heard or read about how pros think. I’m sure there are pros that approach things differently.
Yes. great players think about all this stuff, a million times over, until it becomes a subconscious tool for self expression. Sky is the limit, and maybe even the sky wont stop true creatives
Pat Martino, has a whole book on this idea. Using relative pentatonics to improvise over Jazz chord changes. Some even refer to it as the Pat Martino Method!
Jazz players and classical players learn all relationships via chords scales and chromatics. They are the 'geeks' of the music world.
That's why they're so musically versatile.
Jazz players practice these concepts again and again until they become part of their vocabulary.
But you have to understand music is relative in most cases. A guitar player might just learn the shapes and how to use them over the changes, then apply those changes and shapes to the 12+ keys.
Different musicians will have different approaches. But the bottom line is practice....practice....practice.
the idea is to learn it so well you don't have to think about it, like learning to drive so you can get around faster. after a while you're not thinking about operating the car anymore, you're just doing it while your mind is on more important things. with jazz it's like getting the mechanics mastered so you can express your inner self on a higher level, and you can drop back into "theory thinking" anytime just like you can go back to focusing on your pedals and steering while driving. but the point is to transcend the theory.
👍
A Black preacher with some pure common sense!
and that's unusual? 🧐
I like the F major pentatonic whilst in C major 😢
Donn Lee??? donna lee :)
Transcribe Woody Shaw.
@jazzlessonvideos, In the example on the screen at the 23 second mark, how is that a F# pentatonic with an A natural?
The notes are actually an A pentatonic...
PatrickMahomes
“This technique where we shift pentatonics is know as pentatonic shifting” 😂 idk why I found that so funny
Regular musical motion done via the pentatonic scale. Instead of chords you do parts of scales. And you choose via which sounds best to you. You do this all the time probably, just never so bluntly. Like you could replace any part with Phrygian, but it will be "tighter" because the intervals are closer and there's more notes to go through,
Honestly you're only using pentatonics to keep that space between the notes. You don't even have to
Heck, this is just how you do chords. But with something else.
Well, guess I'll go burn my instruments now
Didn't know Patrick Mahomes knew his theory
Now I know why everyone sounds the same today
i love your comment!!! i was thinking the same thing for years
Everyone sounded the same during Parker's time. Same before that.
there's very few true originals, and a near infinite number of imitators.
The answer is... awful 🙂
Can't hear you
It's that sound that it terrible to the ears 😅😅😅
Nice video. Too advanced for me... At some point, it becomes a competition of bending musical technicality that it no longer sounds pleasing.. I mean, it's not noise or bad sounding it's not as harmonically pleasing as a sleek solo by Michael Brecker. Same as some people might prefer a Slayer dissonant guitar solo over a Mark Knopfler solo.. 😇
Coltrane did pentatonic shifting. Michael Brecker emulated Coltrane with pentatonic shifting. Brecker’s genius was how he could use pentatonic shifting to weave in and out of the harmonic structure with blazingly quick, fluid melodies. The etudes are not meant to be “solos” but are used to develop technique and the ear to use pentatonic shifting in a creative way.
Nah nothing’s stopping you from sounding good with a particular musical tool. ie skill issue
> I mean, it's not noise or bad sounding it's not as harmonically pleasing as a sleek solo by Michael Brecker.
It's literally a harmonic technique he uses all the time.
> Slayer dissonant guitar solo
What is dissonant about Slayer?
Your idea of what sounds dissonant will shift as you experience more harmony.
Bunch of bs 😅
This is too much complicate, so so complex. Your language and tricks are only for the pro, not for common players. When we listen to you, the only thing we want to do is to put the sax in the trash, because it is impossible to do your exercices, your advices, etc .
Simple players are not able to reproduce what you say
Get to practicing!
Can definitely make more beginner/intermediate-friendly content in the near future. Thanks for your input :)
Cope
Bro is hopeless 💀
you're looking for the wrong tutorials then
It just doesn't sound good to me. This is where jazz took a wrong turn imo 🫤