Soloing "outside" the tonic questions.

[thndrstk6]

So my instructor had me solo the other day and said that I was doing
good except I should mix it up by playing "outside" scales over the
existing key. He said it's used mostly over V7 chords. He suggested
shifting up a half step, down a half, up a 5th, and to try and use
augmented and diminished scales over the V7 chord. I also know you can
use melodic and harmonic minor scales too.

I'm having troubles getting it to sound right. I've seen and heard other
jazz guys do it and is sounds great but I'm having troubles.

Could someone please explain how to properly play "out". Thank you!

[narud]

Originally Posted by thndrstk6

So my instructor had me solo the other day and said that I was doing
good except I should mix it up by playing "outside" scales over the
existing key. He said it's used mostly over V7 chords. He suggested
shifting up a half step, down a half, up a 5th, and to try and use
augmented and diminished scales over the V7 chord. I also know you can
use melodic and harmonic minor scales too.

I'm having troubles getting it to sound right. I've seen and heard other
jazz guys do it and is sounds great but I'm having troubles.

Could someone please explain how to properly play "out". Thank you!

have you picked up mark levine's jazz theory book yet. rather than just saying "use these scales", theres examples of lines from albums. transcribe the out stuff that you like and analyze whats going on. that will get you "sounding right" a lot faster than anything else imo.

[onlyclave]

V is where the fun is. There are no wrong notes, only alterations.

[MarkTAW]

V7 - what's the next place you go after that? I right? I is home. I is boring. Or more to the point, I is satisfying only to the extent that V7 produces massive anxiety in the listener.

It's your job to make sure that V7 is explosive. V7 is that moment in the movie where the hero throws all the rules out the window & decides that they have to violate everything they've ever stood for, or everything their friends are expecting them to do to get the job done and "cross the streams" or put down the targeting computer and "use the force Luke."

Then I is the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man/Death Star (imagine a Stay Puft Death Star! How awesome would that be?) exploding and everyone cheering and that Peck guy being covered in marshmallow fluff and Darth Vader spinning off into space.

It sounds like your protagonist has been playing it safe & may not be up to the challenge of facing Gozer the Gozerian.

And what Narud said - if you know some guys that do this well, transcribe what they've done & figure out why it works.

[thndrstk6]

Well I like how Hadrien Feraud plays out. But I want to know the theory behind it and
know what and why I'm doing it rather than just noodling with tritones and chromatics.

Do most guys just shift the scale shape around? Maybe up a fifth or down a half step?

[Raiven]

On a V7 chord you can get away with playing almost anything on top of it.

Spend a while with a V7 chord and play every interval from root chromatically up the the octave and see how it sounds against it and which ones you like the sound of and if there is any that sounds horrible to your ears but you can resolve nicely.

[Hoover]

Originally Posted by MarkTAW

It's your job to make sure that V7 is explosive. V7 is that moment in the movie where the hero throws all the rules out the window & decides that they have to violate everything they've ever stood for, or everything their friends are expecting them to do to get the job done and "cross the streams" or put down the targeting computer and "use the force Luke."

Then I is the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man/Death Star (imagine a Stay Puft Death Star! How awesome would that be?) exploding and everyone cheering and that Peck guy being covered in marshmallow fluff and Darth Vader spinning off into space.

It sounds like your protagonist has been playing it safe & may not be up to the challenge of facing Gozer the Gozerian.

Best. Post. Ever.

[MalcolmAmos]

Learn something every day - that's what is so great about music, there is always something to learn.

Point of interest. How much time will you have with that V7 chord? Satriani once said, and I paraphrase; "It's OK to go out, but be back in for the 6th note." If you are still out and the rest of the guys have moved on .......

I've got some of Satriani's sheet music will be looking at how he does this.

Thanks, interesting string.

[azureblue]

you're not thinking music. Or else you're just riffing, and that is what scalular playing does for you. If you want to play "outside" then play an outside melody. If you don't hear an outside melody in your heard, then play an inside one first. If you can't create an inside melody in your head, then you need to listen more.

A good exercise for this is to take a melody from a similar tune, and alter it to fit over a different set of chord changes.

Think melody, not scales and riffs.

[narud]

Originally Posted by thndrstk6

Well I like how Hadrien Feraud plays out. But I want to know the theory behind it and
know what and why I'm doing it rather than just noodling with tritones and chromatics.

Do most guys just shift the scale shape around? Maybe up a fifth or down a half step?

if you like what he plays, have you transcribed his stuff yet and analyzed what he's doing? someone could tell you to treat the V chord in a major ii-V as a V7#9#5 chord and play altered dominant , but then what are you going to do with that musically? if you dont really hear that sound, youre going to sound like your noodling. transcribe the stuff you like and see how they make the academia work.

[thndrstk6]

narud, I got that book. Very cool book. Very helpful and insightful. I guess what I wasn't
getting is the whole "in-out-in" thing. I was just out then in(ish).

Thanks guys!

[MarkTAW]

Originally Posted by MalcolmAmos

Learn something every day - that's what is so great about music, there is always something to learn.

Point of interest. How much time will you have with that V7 chord? Satriani once said, and I paraphrase; "It's OK to go out, but be back in for the 6th note." If you are still out and the rest of the guys have moved on .......

I've got some of Satriani's sheet music will be looking at how he does this.

Thanks, interesting string.

True, but you have a half a dozen or more times to develop the ideas throughout the song. You don't necessarily want to go nuts the first time around.

Music is all about both meeting & subverting expectation, and doing it different the next time around does that.

Originally Posted by azureblue

you're not thinking music. Or else you're just riffing, and that is what scalular playing does for you. If you want to play "outside" then play an outside melody. If you don't hear an outside melody in your heard, then play an inside one first. If you can't create an inside melody in your head, then you need to listen more.

A good exercise for this is to take a melody from a similar tune, and alter it to fit over a different set of chord changes.

Think melody, not scales and riffs.

Agreed, but also think harmonically too. What will enhance the next chord? What will highlight the transition and make it sharper, or what will hide the transition and make it smoother. Can I bring some of this chord into the next chord or v.v.? and so on.

[Chris K]

Originally Posted by azureblue

you're not thinking music. Or else you're just riffing, and that is what scalular playing does for you. If you want to play "outside" then play an outside melody. If you don't hear an outside melody in your heard, then play an inside one first. If you can't create an inside melody in your head, then you need to listen more.

A good exercise for this is to take a melody from a similar tune, and alter it to fit over a different set of chord changes.

Think melody, not scales and riffs.

+1, but I also agree with MarkTAW about thinking harmonically.

On top of that, excercises 'out of scale' might show new melodic perspectives. So those excercises do help. But they shouldn't become cheap tricks, as Azureblue pointed out mercilessly.

Nonetheless, here comes another one, just to fill up your (and my ) creativity gaps. A very nice out-of-scale-into-another-one is to play in the scale of which the root note is a majord third away (up or down, as you like it), from the key of the song, or, during a temporary modulation, from the key you modulated to.

Why this works is theoretically explainable, but who cares

[JimmyM]

This is why I'm firmly on the side of learning how to solo by using chords and thinking chromatically and not scales. Scales say to me, "Use these notes ONLY." Chords/chromatics say to me, "Here's a few reference points, but don't feel limited to only them." Plus people who use scales usually sound like they're running scales, which is blah sounding.

OTOH, learning how to go for the outside notes that still sound good is tough. Transcribing solos that sound like what your teacher wants out of you is a good way to go.

And listen...don't be afraid to lift pieces of solos you like off of records. Don't lift the whole thing, but I have often made people think I know what I'm doing by stealing licks off records occasionally. Everybody steals. You just have to make it your own and not just be a complete thief about it.

[phxlbrmpf]

Thing is, you can use pretty much any notes you want over any chord provided that you don't place them on the "heavy" beats and play a bunch of chord notes on those instead. After that, it's up to you how you fill the spaces in between. The most important thing about playing "outside" so it will still sound musical to the average listener is to know when to go back "inside". I agree that the V7 chord lends itself pretty well to experimenting due to the tension it creates.

[Hoover]

Originally Posted by JimmyM

"Here's a few reference points, but don't feel limited to only them."

When I studied composition with Lee Hyla he introduced me to the concept of Privileged Pitches...those are the notes that, for whatever reason, carry more weight than others. There may be traditional functionally harmonic reasons why those notes carry weight, or there might be completely non-traditional methods by which you've imparted those notes with more importance than others. As either a composer or an improvisor it's your duty to establish an audible hierarchy so that when you arrive at the Privileged Pitches the listener hears that as an important event.

[Danny Fox]

Originally Posted by MarkTAW

V7 - what's the next place you go after that? I right? I is home. I is boring. Or more to the point, I is satisfying only to the extent that V7 produces massive anxiety in the listener.

It's your job to make sure that V7 is explosive. V7 is that moment in the movie where the hero throws all the rules out the window & decides that they have to violate everything they've ever stood for, or everything their friends are expecting them to do to get the job done and "cross the streams" or put down the targeting computer and "use the force Luke."

Then I is the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man/Death Star (imagine a Stay Puft Death Star! How awesome would that be?) exploding and everyone cheering and that Peck guy being covered in marshmallow fluff and Darth Vader spinning off into space.

It sounds like your protagonist has been playing it safe & may not be up to the challenge of facing Gozer the Gozerian.

And what Narud said - if you know some guys that do this well, transcribe what they've done & figure out why it works.

GENIUS! Gozer the Gozerian always plays spanish phrygian on the V.

http://www.myspace.com/bassmandannyfox