Back home again in Indiana (same chords) by Joey DeFrancesco is 10 min of chops. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9d8X3ZdsY18 some unrelated video..

My teacher often uses the analogy of cooking. Like a chef making a gumbo. The chef has to use a variety of ingredients. In some cases, very few ingredients will be enough, in some cases, more ingredients will be better. Too much of one thing won't be good. Often, there will be one ingredient leading the others (Lobster, Cabbage, etc..)
The analogy works well for me because both are an art ( It helps that I'm french ! )

That's why I'm going back to my first comment with simple guidelines :
- Sometimes long lines, sometimes short.
- Sometimes very long lines.
- Sometimes triplets, sometimes 16ths, sometimes 1/4
- Sometimes scales intervals, sometimes chords, sometimes chromaticism, sometimes leaps.
- Sometimes in, sometimes out.
- Sometimes soft, sometimes loud.
- Sometimes starts on 1, sometimes not. Same for ending.

etc...

As clear as it may sound, notice how few books touch on these topics? Notice how every book (and subsequently their disciples) talk about all the very complex ways to choose scales and chords. But few talk about the art of creating a solo?

But it just needs to be very focuses. Randy H. calls it target bombing. That's it, for a short while, forget everything else. Forget your left hand, forget scales and chords, and just focus on one of those bullets.

>> Well clearly you are correct. But it's too general to practice so I'm looking at possibilities of something more specific

As clear as it may sound, notice how few books touch on these topics? Notice how every book (and subsequently their disciples) talk about all the very complex ways to choose scales and chords. But few talk about the art of creating a solo?

You'll see on youtube people commenting on someone else's great solo: "Wow, what chords did you use?" As if it mattered. And the answer. "Just pretty much the blues scale".

So no, I don't think it's too general to practice. But it just needs to be very focuses. Randy H. calls it target bombing. That's it, for a short while, forget everything else. Forget your left hand, forget scales and chords, and just focus on one of those bullets. If you are working on Call and Response. Record yourself. Use Randy's chapter to guide you (or someone else on this). And see how you scored. How well have you master call and response? How much does your call sound like someone asking a question, for example.

Bird is a great example because, working from the omnibook for the last 2 weeks. I've been listening to a lot of Bird at 50% to 70%. My cousin came to stay with me for a month. She had never heard Bird before. For 1 month, she heard him at 50%. Great lines she thought. She was digging the language of bebop. Then I played the tune (Moose the Mooche I think) at 100%. She was shocked.
All the rules are there. The speed is only there to confuse us, and leave those with lack of listening experience out of the loop.

hey guys, something I've been working on lately:

Melodic minor scales

I love the sound of that scale and have been trying to put it into my playing. It doesn't fit any of the normal 2-5-1 chords, but I've found for any key you can incorporate several of the MM scales.

Say for C major, make the E into Eb. It can work as a 5 chord or as a C- maj7 (C Eb G B)

And if you flat the 6 and 7th, Ab, Bb, it would be the F melodic min scale, but works as a G7 alt.


I think the song Night in Tunisia uses it in the melody. Can't think of others at the moment.

Also an unusual one would be to raise the 4th and 5th, so F# and G#. It would be the A mm scale, but in the key of C it would be the #4,#5, which adds a cool diversion.

What I love most about the mm scale is harmony wise you can play any note in the scale to form a chord and it sounds good. There's no "avoid" notes.


Do you guys use it alot in your playing and if so where?

But for a long time, I've looked at a diminished scale as just a continuous scale and really didn't know how to play it well intervallically.

Chick doing that might be easy to spot. For example here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tB7EEpB-uoE&feature=related

There are dozens of arpeggio shapes you can get from the diminished scale, due to its symmetric nature. That is why it is such a wonderful scale for generating new and interesting voicings and harmonies.

Dozens? Wow -- I'm really far off then. I've only figured out a handful.

BTW - Playing a half-whole diminished over a dominant is one of those that are not easy to hear melodically. Although Chick seems to make more out of them. It's a little hard to hear the connection between two separate diminished chords that make up this scale. I hate playing it as a pattern but I don't know a way around it.

Hey Wiz, at the beginning of this thread, I did an exercise where I played Augmented triad patterns over each chord. Well to do that on ATTYA, you actually have to think about each Major chord as a Major/Minor. It was a nice little trick. Hard to apply though. It doesn't come naturally.

hey wee, could you give specific chords?

Like say on C maj7, if you add the #5, and start on that note, G#, C E G. It give that cool sound. It could also be thought of as an Ab maj7 #5. So same chord but can be used in several keys.

I think someone mentioned it before, but Bill Evans used it alot.

Well maybe dozens of voicings, maybe I was too enthusiastic with the arpeggios. let me see...

C7 diminished (1/2, 1 mode)
you can play C maj, C min, C7, Cm7, C dim, C dim7, C7 b9, C13b9, C7sharp9,

And then you can play all of those same arpeggios in Eb Gb and A over a C7 shell (due to the symmetry) so that makes 36 arpeggio shapes just for a C7 chord, and that is a far from complete list.
If each of those arpeggio shapes is turned into an upper structure chord on top of the C7 shell underneath with the different inversions of each arpeggio that makes over a 100 voicings just for a C7 type chord.
There really are an awful lot of possibilities.





Well its not that different from an altered scale, only with a natural 5th and 13th, but I do know what you mean - it's hard to sing it. The only thing I can suggest is to concentrate on a couple of the notes from the scale at a time and really explore how they go with the voicings you are using. And working on scale patterns can help as well as gradually you will absorb the sound more and more until you hear it more naturally.

Just found a new song that I really like. Keith Jarrett's version of "The Wind".

For some reason I never heard it before:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVWorRY6HGE

Hi JW, Many thanks for clarifying.
I’ve just tried the Cdim and the Edim scales.
With the C dim scale (hence also the Ebdim, Gbdim and Adim scales) I can clearly hear the #9.
With the E dim scale (hence also the C#dim, G dim and Bb dim scales) I can clearly hear the b9 and the b5.

Wow. That was incredible. I've never heard this before.