Gnarren six The Continuous Scale Exercise 3 ‘ow should you practice transforming scale notes into melodic sequences? A method called the continuous scale exercise prepares you for this. Ina continuous scale exercise you connect the scale notes. | from whatever chord you are playing to the scale notes of the following chord. We'll use the first eight bars of Victor Young's “Stella By Starlight” as a working example of this technique. Figure 6-11 shows a set of chord changes for the first eight bars of “Stella,” along with the appropriate scale for each chord. Figure 6-11 Eo ATalt 6th mode of G melodic minor ‘7th mode of BP melodic minor c-7 F7 2nd mode of Bb major 5th mode of Bb major F-7 ab? b ; 2nd mode of Eb major 8b halt-stepiwhole step diminished scale eb abyitt ‘1st mode of Eb major 4th mode of £b melodic minor ‘As you go through a tune like "Stella," ask yourself what type of harmony each chord is derived from. Major? Melodic minor? Diminished? Whole tone? The parent scale (from major, melodic minor, diminished or whole-tone harmony) is listed below 4 each bar. If you don’t have the melodic minor mode numbers memorized yet, let's review them: minor-major is I, sus? is ll, lydian augmented is Il, Lydian dominant is 1V, half-diminished is VI, a Learn them together in each key as a family. 120Azalt From Scates ro Music Identifying the right scale tells you what notes will sound good with each chord. In real life you have 2 good deal more freedom to interpret chord symbols. You could reharmonize on the spot and change G-7, C7, FAto Go, C7*9, FAM, for instance.'° While you're first learning how to use scales, however, its a good idea to think of chord symbols as scale specific. That is, interpret each symbol literally, and think of each chord as implying only a single scale—for now. c-7 F7 be : che fe s , | ab7'9 cba ab7 htt ¢ rs + ; bh be w+ Look at figure 6-12. Ea, the first chord in bar 1 of “Stella,” is from the sixth mode of the G melodic minor scale. Let's not start on E, the root, of the chord—that'’s too easy. Arbitrarily starting on G, the 3rd of Ea, we walk up the G melodic minor scale in quarter notes, G, A, Bb, C. The chord in bar 2, A7alt, is the seventh mode of the Bb melodic minor scale. What would be the next note after C—the last note in the first bar—that belongs to A7alt and its scale? It's Db (enharmonically Cf), the 3rd of the A7alt chord. That becomes the first note in the second bar. The line continues up the Bb melodic minor scale, Db, Eb, F, G. ‘The chord in the third bar, C-7, is the second, or Dorian mode, of Bb major. What would be the next note after G—the last note in the second bar—that belongs to C Dorian? It's A, and the line continues upward. So you don’t have to read a whole bunch of ledger lines above the staff, we'll reverse directions on C above the staff on the third beat of that bar, and descend. 10 Weill explore reharmonization in Chapters 13 and 14, 121Cuaprer Six The last note in the C-7 bar is Bb. Continue descending into the F7 bar, starting with A, the next note that belongs to the F Mixolydian mode, and so on through the rest of the changes. Reverse directions on the G below middle C so you don’t have toread ‘too many ledger lines below the staff. ‘As you descend the EbA chord in the seventh bar, you expect an Ab, from the Eb major scale, rather than the A that is shown. I've substituted A, because Ab is the “avoid” note on an EbA chord. As you practice this exercise, raise every “avoid” note. This means raising the 4th on all major chords and the 11th on all unaltered dominant chords. In real life, you won't, always want to do this because “avoid” notes are not “bad” notes. But practicing this technique now trains you to watch for opportunities to reharmonize chords, ‘When you try this exercise yourself, you can adjust the point where you start and where you reverse directions to the range of your instrument. Don't expend too much effort trying to play extremely high or low notes. When you come to a bar with two chords, play ‘only two notes per chord, instead of four. The beauty of this exercise is twofold: 1) It trains you to start each new scale wherever the last chord dropped you off, rather than jumping back to the root, which is too easy. 2) Most important, you learn how to link the scales together. You'll get experience in creating long flowing lines. Practicing this exercise also equalizes the importance of each note in every scale, and helps you get rid of “root bias,” or always thinking of the root of a scale frst. Remember that your goal is to internalize scales as, an available pool of notes, to be played in any order. 122Frow Scates to Music Pick some tunes from any of The New Real Books or The World's Greatest Fake Book and go through them as we did on “Stella,” playing the appropriate scale for each chord. Look for tunes with at least a sprinkling of #11, b9, #9, alt, @, #4 and #5 chords. ‘As you practice, you'll soon start to internalize the appropriate scale for each chord. Notice how your reaction time improves. It might take you ten seconds at first to think “Ba is the sixth mode of D melodic minor." Get your reaction time down to three seconds, one second, a half-second, a tenth of a second, until "Ba =D melodic minor” becomes an automatic reaction. Some teachers use flash cards to help their students associate chords with the right scales. You don’t even need your instrument to practice this exercise. As an example, think of all the alt chords around the cycle of fifths, linking each one appropriate melodic minor scale: "C7alt is from Db melodic minor, F7alt is from F# melodic minor, By7alt is from B melodic minor,” and so on. You can do this in the shower or when you're driving on the freeway (but don’t miss your exit). Vary the exercise by playing eighth notes, as in figure 6-13. Notice the raised “avoid” note on the F7 chord. Note also that we've reversed directions in the middle of the A7alt chord. Reversing directions regardless of where you are in the bar is a necessary skill. Figure 6-13 : Eo aralt c-7 123Figure 6-14 Eo ATalt c-7, i Figure 6-15 Eo Aralt cy, Figure 6-16 Eo Azalt c-7 F7 by 124From Scates ro Music igure 6-17 c-7 F7 i Then play eighth notes broken into 3rds, both ascending and descending, as in figure 6-14. Now play 3rds, alternating up and down, reversing directions, as in figure 6-15. And play triplets, as in figure 6-16. Then play triplets made up of a step and a skip within the scale, as in figure 6-17. The sixth bar of “Stella” includes a 8}7"® chord. 78 chords are from the half-step/whole-step diminished scale. The first two bars of figure 6-18, contain a line of ascending 3rds on the B+7¥9 chord. Note that they are all minor 3rds. Minor 3rds occur naturally throughout diminished scale harmony. Why? As you learned in Chapter 3, the interval between every other note of a diminished scale is a minor 3rd. The third and fourth bars of figure 6-18 include a line of arpeggiated triads on the same 879 chord. Note that they are all diminished triads. As you learned in Chapter 3, diminished triads occur naturally throughout diminished scale harmony. Figure 6-18 ab7'9 125Cuarrer Six Figure 6-19 Eo Azalt bem Eo Azalt Eo Avalt D-6? Whatever you play on the Ea chord in the first bar of “Stella” can be transposed up a minor 3rd and played on the A7alt chord in the second bar. This technique works no matter what phrase, lick, pattern, or voicing you play for Ea. Figure 6-19 shows three examples of this idea—licks in the right hand, voicings in the left hand." 1 Again, note that some of the piano voicings are rootless. 126Frou Scates ro Music Why does this work? Because half-diminished and alt chords are from melodic minor harmony, and everything within a particular melodic minor tonality is interchangeable since there are no “avoid” notes. Eg is from G melodic minor, A7alt is from Bb melodic minor, Bb melodic minor is a minor 3rd above G melodic minor, so you can repeat whatever you play up a minor 3rd. You may be thinking that you're playing Ea, A7alt, but on a much more more profound level you're playing G melodic minor, followed by Bb melodic minor. Whenever you have a lla-V7alt, anything you play on the @ chord can be repeated up a minor 3rd on the alt chord. Remember to think key, not chord. Repeating something transposed up a minor 3rd (or any interval, for that matter) creates a sequence that moves in parallel motion—also called parallelism. Parallelism adds structure and cohesion to your solos. Some of the sequences we've gone through are very musical, and might sound good in a solo. If you played sequences all of the time, however, your playing would sound pretty mechanical. till, a part of an otherwise more lyrical and free-flowing solo, sequences can add structure and organization to your playing. Be inventive and make up some sequences of your own. Masters of the Sequence Imost all the great jazz musicians at times play sequences when they improvise, but a few are acknowledged masters of the device. Joe Henderson, Herbie Hancock, Freddie Hubbard, John Coltrane, George Coleman, Lee Morgan, and Wayne Shorter all fall into this category. 127