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RE: Scales [was RE: Mathematics, Prime Numbers, & Looping with the EDP]



I love that tune!! I downloaded it from your website a while back and
listened to it on my flight for business. Thanks for the Excel
sheet...very useful.

Yeah, the melodic minor is loads of fun. My favorite is to play it using
John Stowell's (international jazz guitarist) method, where you play it
a half step above, whole step below, fourth above, or fifth above a
dominant chord. Each variation produces a different number of the
altered intervals of the dominant chord - b5, #5, b9, or #9. The half
step above version produces all four alterations. So if you play a
G7alt, then play the melodic minor scale a half a step above
that....very hip, man.  Or just play a G13 or something, and let the
scale add the alteration by itself.  The cool thing is that you can
morph scales. Over a dominent, make the first part of your improvisation
using the first half of the mixolydian mode on the tonic of that
dominant chord, then morph into the melodic minor a half step above the
dominant.  It's slick.

I just reminded myself of a definition of jazz that I've seen multiple
times in jazz history books, what makes jazz, jazz:

- Alteration (like altering the 5 and 9 intervals of a dominant chord
- Coloration (like adding a 9, 11, or 13 to a straight dominant 7
- Syncopation (like how jazzers like to play on the e's and a's, rather
than on the downbeat, etc
- Improvisation (we all know about that)

Swing or swung used to be in there, but that left with new forms of
jazz. Now we "swunk" man.  You dig? :)  Good grief, I'm sleep
deprived....getting giddy now.

Kris


-----Original Message-----
From: loopdelightml@nosuch.biz [mailto:loopdelightml@nosuch.biz] 
Sent: Wednesday, June 22, 2005 6:35 AM
To: Loopers-Delight@loopers-delight.com
Subject: Scales [was RE: Mathematics, Prime Numbers, & Looping with the
EDP]


I once made this excel sheet for someone, where you can pick a scale and
a root key and it calculates all pitches for you.
http://nosuch.biz/scales/scales.xls
The sheet is protected and only the things displayed in a red font are
the ones you can change.
The sheet also calculates MIDI-Numbers for Note On.

Note that the scale names probably are a bit idiosyncratic. If you know
better names for them, let me know.

Just now, Krispen's mail about " evil twin of the dom7 " came in!
There you got the real names for those scales!

Thanks a lot Krispen, really juicy stuff you posted there!

The Jazz melodic minor (and shifted siblings) is one of my dearest. I
guess I've been using it too much for practicing, so I can't get it out
of my head anymore.
E.g. this example is entirely in the
Db mixolydian b6 mode (if that's what you'd call it):
http://loopersdelight.com/LDarchive/200409/msg00160.html

What totally fascinates me about this particular one is that it sounds
like a minor scale even though you have the major 3rd right in there.
Only by flattening the 6th it gets that minor twist. Love it.

Bernhard
http://nosuch.biz