My first melodic minor lick

Continuing with my battle to unveil the secrets behind the altered scale, I came up with the lick of this post.

I was trying to develop new ideas in a mix of notes that came to my mind with the geometry of the scale. Then this lick started to get shape, but wasn't sounding dominant but minor though.

I then remembered that the altered scale has exactly the same of the melodic minor scale half tone upper. In my case, I was practicing over the notes of G altered, which has the same notes of Ab melodic minor. I shifted all the notes half tone up, just to make it over the key of minor A, instead of the odd key of minor Ab.

The result can be seem in the picture below. However as I'm very bad in transcribing the notes to the score - specially the time intervals - I put an audio sample in this post, just to make sure I'm expressing myself more clearly and I'll not forget the lick later.

One interesting aspect of this lick is regarding the time division. Instead of starting playing in the first sixteenth  note straight away, there's a small pause in the begging. So instead of something like counting the four time intervals per whole time (like 1, 2, 3, 4), I started it from the second or third (like 2, 3, 4, 1, where the 1 is in the first interval of the next bar if I can say that). Ok this is a bit confusing, even for me, there are some nomenclature I don´t remember and on the top that it my English is not good enough to express what I want now. Hopefully the audio will speak for itself.

Melodic minor lick - audio

The audio quality is not good, but can give you an idea. 

Lick over dominant 7(9♭)

The last couple of days I have been trying to practice over the II - V - I cadence of chords, training both chord and scales. There is one particular scale that I really wish I could master. I find particularly challenging to apply such a scale. I'm talking about the altered scale.

It is a very rich scale in terms of sonority but when I play it note by note it sounds really odd to my ears - maybe that's why I personally find it difficult to use. This scale is mainly used over the dominant chord, and sounds very jazzy. I like to play metal solos but I'm stuffed to listen to pentatonic scales, for years I've been trying to add a little bit of fusion to my metal solos, I think it adds much more colour and tension to the sonority.

The altered scale is composed by the intervals: 1 - 2♭ - 2# - 3 - 5♭ - 5# - 7m. In some texts the 2# (which is the 9#) is written as 3♭. Although they refer to the same note, I prefer to emphasize its augmented ninth nature over a minor third. All the notes of the altered scale truly reflect some of the possible combinations a dominant chord can has:

V7(9♭) - V7(5#) - V5# ...

I've written two licks over the chords G7(9♭) and C7M. When I wrote the first one I was thinking in the very close relationship that the V7(9♭) chords have with diminished chords. If you play 7(9♭) chords every whole and a half tone you will notice that the sound you get is very similar to the one produced by a sequence of diminished chord - example:

G7(9♭) - E7(9♭) - C#7(9♭)
Fº         -    Dº      -     Bº

... and as diminish chords (include here 7(9♭) chords) are symmetric, you can substitute one by another.

So coming back to the topic, the first lick starts with the notes of the diminished scale (ascendlinging) and come back descending in the scale using the notes of the C#7M arpeggio (or the notes of Fm7 if you wish) - and yes the I#7M chord can prepare the I7M.

Play this sequence over the chords G7(9♭) - C7M

The second lick is totally constructed over the altered G scale. The last note is the major 7 note of C.

The same sequence of chords can be used here. Additionally the C#7M chord can be used like a passing chord before C7M.

II - V - I - Part one of many

This is probably the most famous sequence of chords in contemporary western music. It can appear simple and ordinary but when we start using this sequence to prepare all the chords in the (or minor) scale chord progression (borrowed chords) things start to get interesting.

But today I want to share a experience I had this afternoon whilst practicing this sequence of chords II - V - I in the scale of C major - one drawback here is that as my second post about music I'm jumping from intervals to a more ??? I wouldn't say complex but a little bit advanced example. But soon I will write about chord progression etc. 

Back to the topic I was looking some chords that can be used in this sequence and I was amazed to notice how similar they are.

One of the sequences I was trying is composed by: IIm6 - V7(5#)- I7M.

What I want to point out is how similar the chords IIm6 and V7(5#) are . Let's have a look.

Dm6

G7(5#)

C7M

In this sequence Dm6 has the role as subdominant, G7(5#) is the dominant whilst C7M is the tonic.

Let's look others coincidences now. If we look the chord Bm7(5b):

Bm7(5b)

If we compare it with Dm6 we have exactly the same chord (unfortunately the m6 chord I chose for this example omits the 5th note A in which case would make both chords exactly the same). So we can exchange one by another - and bear in mind that this doesn't apply only for this example.

Now lets look the Dm6 chord I chose. If we compare it with a normal G7 we have almost the same chord!

G7

This is really what fascinates me about music, everything seems to be connected.

Other interesting observation can be done if we take the Dm6 chord used here and change F in the 3th string by G# we get D^o. As any diminished chord is symmetric every 1 tone and a half, walking to the next symmetric position ascendingly we have F^o. Hummm, so we can play F7M - F^o - Dm6 and finally C7M. In this case, if I'm not wrong, F^o and Dm6 are doing the same job as subdominant chords as II degree.

I think I'll stop for now, but before, one more sequence I had practiced today - using the chord shapes used here - not all:

Dm6 - G7(5#) - Bm6(5b) - C9

Intervals

New blog, fresh new posts and this is my first about music. I was looking some old stuff I wrote when I was on my early 20s – at that time I was really engaged with my music studies – and I think in this first post it would be good to write about one of the most fundamental elements in music : Intervals.

As the only instrument I play is the electric / acoustic guitar, I will have the tendency to use this instrument for some examples, but I believe this post can be used by any kind of instrument.

When we are talking about intervals we are always considering two notes. When we play one note (any) followed by a second note, we get a characteristic sound. This sound results from the difference between these two notes. That difference can be measured. Like we can measure distance in meters or feet, in music the measurement unit is called Interval.

The minimum distance between two notes is half a tone. In the guitar half tone is represented by one fret. Two frets are equivalent to one whole tone. So if we take the note C, play it followed by E, for instance, what we get is a ascending distance of two whole tones and a descending distance of four tones.

However the intervals are not named as “2 and a half tone interval”, “three whole tone interval” and so on. More important than know “how far” is one note from the other is to know how does it sound!
Lets talk about sensation, feeling. If we play the notes C followed by E we have a characteristic sound. If we play D followed by F#, we get the same interval and the same sound, I mean, the same feeling, the only difference is that it will have a slightly higher register.

Let’s give name to our intervals now. Every Interval (forget the distance and keep in mind the sound they produce) has a “name” and that name represents a typical sound, independently of the key we are playing. To know the interval we will always use the first note as the reference. Also the first note is considered to “calculate” the interval. Once again taking as example the notes C and E, the interval they produce is major third – if we start counting whole tones from C to E we get: C – D – E, three notes.

The interval between D and F#: D –E – F#: 3 notes, major third. Now the interval between E and G we get: From E to F# one whole tone but from F# to G half tone. In this case we still have an interval of third, but minor third. Between the notes G and A we have on tone, this characterizes the interval of major second.

There’s a table that can help memorizing then. But again one very important thing about intervals, is the sound of each one. We can find “relaxing intervals” like Perfect fifth, Perfect fourth (try to play the sequence C – G (5^th) – C – F (4^th) – C – E (3^th). Sad intervals like Minor sixth: try the sequence C – G# (minor 6^th) – C – G (5^th). And also more tense intervals like Augmented Fourth (C – F#).

Before finish I just want to point out that this material doesn't follow music theory in all of its formalities. It also may be a bit imprecise in some definitions, so consider it just as a start point.