On Sat Oct 3, at SaturdayOct 3 10:34 AM, Haroldo Mauro Jr. wrote:
At 9:51 -0400 03/10/09, Christopher Smith wrote:
On Sat Oct 3, at SaturdayOct 3 9:03 AM, Haroldo Mauro Jr. wrote:
I also do not use the chord scale theory as a basis for
improvisation nor in my playing neither in my teaching, simply
because I think good melodies are made of chord tones plus non-
harmonic tones, and those can be either diatonic or cromatic
ones. Not all notes of a melody need to be from the "chord
scale". Also, there is no time in improvisation, specialy when
chords change fast, to play a full scale for each chord; and
picking up scale tones at random won't work either in building a
good melody.
If you say that good melody notes can be diatonic or chromatic
ones, then you use chord scale theory. Chord scale theory only
tells us which notes are more likely to be considered as
"diatonic" rather than "chromatic" and gives us an easy way to
practice them. After a while, we just know them and don't worry
about it much any more.
Christopher
Unless I'm mistaken, chord scale theory says if you are in Cmaj you
use C major scale for CMaj7, dorian mode for Dm7 phrygian for Em7,
lydian for FMaj7, etc. What I say that all diatonic non-harmonic
tones for all those chords come from the C major scale. You build
your improvisation with chord tones from those chords plus passing
tones, neighbooring tones, scale runs, whatever... from the C major
sale only, or cromatic notes. To say that the phrygian mode gives
me the diatonic notes for the Em7 chord in Cmajor is redundant,
don't you think?
Harold
I don't know about "redundant", but it gets a lot more useful when
talking about the kinds of chords we were discussing. What scale is
considered to be "diatonic" on an Fm chord in the key of C major? F
melodic minor is a good one, but there are cases to be made for F
dorian, C harmonic minor (starting from F, of course, if we are
talking about chord scales) and that weird scale I don't know the
name for, like an F lydian but with A flat.
On Bb7 in Cmajor it is a split between using a passing E or passing
Eb, and chord scale theory helps up with these less-obvious choices
(it depends on context.)
We were particularly talking about m7(b5) chords, which on a II chord
in minor work nicely with locrian, but as a VI chord in minor or as a
II chord in MAJOR might be better with locrian maj2.
Christopher
Sorry, on your original example again, it depends on context. E
phrygian on Em7 might seem obvious in the key of C, but what about
bar 3 of Satin Doll? E Dorian is a perfectly playable scale there, on
that chord, and we aren't even into Freddie Hubbard territory yet. I
still think there is a lot of chord scale theory that can help us.
_______________________________________________
Finale mailing list
Finale@shsu.edu
http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
