The Repository of Scales over Slonimsky..

[dhadleyray]

Would any of you "Musical Veterans" mind answering a question?

I've been wanting to play through Yusef Lateef's book "The repository of scales and melodic patterns" for awhile, but until recently, my treble clef reading has been slow. Although I can read it now, I wanted to know, how should I best utilize the book to "hear" what's on the page better and it's possibilities?

I don't want to just run the patterns without conscientious thought.

I've been playing for awhile, and studied with some players (ex. Peter Buckoke, Donald Rafael Garrett, Gerald Veasley..) so, I'm not unaware of basic theory.

So basically, what I'm asking is..

How would you maximize using this book?

I play electric bass, piano, and DB, although with varying degrees of success.

note: Someone suggested this book after I mentioned to them that Slonimsky's thesaurus wasn't doing it for me and I wanted a Jazzier take on it.

All "thoughtful and mature"commentary will be appreciated. If you've never read the book, let common sense prevail, please...

[rprowse]

Originally Posted by dhadleyray

Would any of you "Musical Veterans" mind answering a question?

I've been wanting to play through Yusef Lateef's book "The repository of scales and melodic patterns" .

Sorry, I've never seen this book, but a 'repository' sounds like something you put up your bottom. (Sorry about that)

I've spent years trying to get down to what are the important scales and this is where I've got to (hope this is of some use).
1) Major... obviously contains modes such as Dorian and Myxolydian. This covers all maj., min. & dom7 chords. I feel that it is important to practise the appegios (to the 9th. for each of these chords.)
2) Jazz Minor (really melodic minor ascending. Notes for C Jazz are: C D Eb F G A B C). Try playing C Jazz Minor over an F7 chord: gives you lydian dominant & C Jazz Minor over a B7 chord: gives you diminished wholetone.
3) Diminished scale (C D Eb F F# Ab A B C): there are only 3 of these scales. Works over diminished chord (obviously) and C dim works over B7, D7, F7 & Ab7 to give a 'b9' sound. Also works over m7b5 chords.

Sorry if I've gone on about something that is of no interest to you. It just seems to me that this is an easy and logical approach to breaking down the important scales used in jazz.

[Steve Clark]

Originally Posted by rprowse

Sorry, I've never seen this book, but a 'repository' sounds like something you put up your bottom. (Sorry about that)

I've spent years trying to get down to what are the important scales and this is where I've got to (hope this is of some use).
1) Major... obviously contains modes such as Dorian and Myxolydian. This covers all maj., min. & dom7 chords. I feel that it is important to practise the appegios (to the 9th. for each of these chords.)
2) Jazz Minor (really melodic minor ascending. Notes for C Jazz are: C D Eb F G A B C). Try playing C Jazz Minor over an F7 chord: gives you lydian dominant & C Jazz Minor over a B7 chord: gives you diminished wholetone.
3) Diminished scale (C D Eb F F# Ab A B C): there are only 3 of these scales. Works over diminished chord (obviously) and C dim works over B7, D7, F7 & Ab7 to give a 'b9' sound. Also works over m7b5 chords.

Sorry if I've gone on about something that is of no interest to you. It just seems to me that this is an easy and logical approach to breaking down the important scales used in jazz.

Nice summary of some ideas. Some new ones in there for me that I will get to woodshedding right now.

[Ed Fuqua]

"...maximize using this book."

Sounds great, but I still have no idea what you want. Generally when people say stuff like this, what they really mean is "What do I do to turn this stuff into actual music?"

Jim Stinnett has a great thing I like to quote, whenever somebody asks about approaching playing from the standpoint of learning more scalar vocabulary. He says that's like somebody who wants to improve their aim asking for more ammunition. You don't really need more bullets, what you need is to learn how to hit what you are aiming at.

Think of having a conversation with somebody. Do you need a dictionary? Does it make the conversation more substantive if you have a copy of the Oxford English or the Merriam Webster? It's the same playing music, the idea is to play in such a way that you communicate to the other players HOW and WHAT you are hearing. Not what notes are "supposed" to work or what spots on the fingerboard you have learned by trial and error, not patterns and phrases you have memorized the shapes of.

Personally, I'd use them to help keep the door shut while I worked on ear training.

[damonsmith]

Originally Posted by Ed Fuqua

"...maximize using this book."

Sounds great, but I still have no idea what you want. Generally when people say stuff like this, what they really mean is "What do I do to turn this stuff into actual music?"

Jim Stinnett has a great thing I like to quote, whenever somebody asks about approaching playing from the standpoint of learning more scalar vocabulary. He says that's like somebody who wants to improve their aim asking for more ammunition. You don't really need more bullets, what you need is to learn how to hit what you are aiming at.

Think of having a conversation with somebody. Do you need a dictionary? Does it make the conversation more substantive if you have a copy of the Oxford English or the Merriam Webster? It's the same playing music, the idea is to play in such a way that you communicate to the other players HOW and WHAT you are hearing. Not what notes are "supposed" to work or what spots on the fingerboard you have learned by trial and error, not patterns and phrases you have memorized the shapes of.

Personally, I'd use them to help keep the door shut while I worked on ear training.

Again, I am mostly with Ed. I have never really understood this business of forcing scales over chords. If you know the melody, the form and the changes, including understanding the harmonic tension of the given chord progression you just need to have an understanding of the varying degrees of consonance and dissonance, understand how chromatic lines work and then USE YOUR EAR AND IMPROVISE.

What is your natural response to the SOUND of a Gmaj7 chord?
What we can do is train ourselves to hear other options natually, but unless you are playing Xenakis, the gig is no place for algebra.
So practice that stuff, get it in your ear, mind and hands and see if it comes out or not. If not it was still a great exercise.

[dhadleyray]

Originally Posted by Ed Fuqua

"

Personally, I'd use them to help keep the door shut while I worked on ear training.

Look guys,

If you play enough, you'll "hear" things to play on your own anyway. I'm not reading this thing for just patterns to play. I want it to make me think differently. I already do ear training and whatnot. I want to understand "his" way of thinking. I've already gone through a phase of playing patterns at a million miles an hour over with the metronome in the background. I've played through Charlie Parkers omnibook, because I wanted to see what he was doing. I've transcribed Ron Carter and Paul Chambers, but that was to learn how to play BASS. I'm trying to improve other angles of my playing.

I studied music in college, and have been told (last week, in fact) by a graduate of the Royal College of Music (pianist) that I know my chords better than anyone he's worked with. I work hard at the piano on voicings.

I wanted to change or shake up the way I thought about what I played over those chords. While soloing/walking, you really don't have time to think about scales and stuff. So I'm trying to think about it now.

Brother Yusef is a great musician and educator and I wanted to see how "he" looked at it.

I don't transcribe solos, I only do that with walking patterns. I may be wrong, but I don't want to think of playing a supportive line over chords as the same as soloing. I relinquish timekeeping responsibilities more when soloing.

rprowse, thanks for the post... I'm aware of what you said, but thanks for saying it!

[Ed Fuqua]

Well, let's see:
If you play enough, you'll "hear" things to play on your own anyway. I did not find it to be so. In fact, I had about 15 or so years of "playing enough" and I was still speaking gibberish whenever I put my hand on the instrument. It wasn't until I started working with my teacher Joe Solomon that I started understanding the difference between vocabulary and intent.


I want to understand "his" way of thinking. Then transcribe him, that will do FAR more for your understanding than reading exercises. I especially recommend the "Tristano" procedure of transcription - get a half speed recorder (or software, I heard that the newest update for MediaPlayer has the ability to change the speed without affecting pitch) and first learn to sing the solo at half speed, with ALL the nuances - vibrato, slurs, staccato articulation, dynamics etc. - until it sounds like Yusef coming out of your mouth and lungs. Then do the same thing at full speed. By the time you get to the point that you want to pick up your bass (or pen to put it on paper) you are much deeper inside the mind of the improviser than you would be reading vocabulary exercises. Again, think of the difference between having a conversation with Harold Pinter or just reading a bibiliography of what he had read.
And on that note
I don't transcribe solos, I only do that with walking patterns. I may be wrong, but I don't want to think of playing a supportive line over chords as the same as soloing. I relinquish timekeeping responsibilities more when soloing.
The same musical intent and wit that informs your walking line should also inform your solo line. And vice versa. It's not about walking patterns, it's about creating a quarter note melody. And if you want to get inside someone's musical "head", there's no better way than to take off their playing, solos AND accompaniment. I also shudder at the phrase "relinquish timekeeping resposibilities". Rests are notes, too, and the fact that you are not playing a steady stream of quarter notes should NOT mean that the time disappears (or, more accurately, that somebody else is supposed to take care of it). We all should be able to stand up there by ourselves and communicate what we are hearing without leaning on anyone else for time or harmony.

While soloing/walking, you really don't have time to think about scales and stuff. So I'm trying to think about it now.You shouldn't be thinking at all, you should be responding to your immediate aural environment.

Look, guy, you can do anything you want. All I am saying is that it STILL sounds like you want a dictionary to give you ideas. I'm saying that's not the best way to get there; there's plenty of places around that you can hear what I sound like. If you decide I'm full of ****, so be it. All I can do is lay out what my experience is and where that experience has gotten me.

[dhadleyray]

Hmm... Point taken. Thanks..

[rprowse]

Originally Posted by Ed Fuqua

Think of having a conversation with somebody. Do you need a dictionary? Does it make the conversation more substantive if you have a copy of the Oxford English or the Merriam Webster? It's the same playing music, the idea is to play in such a way that you communicate to the other players HOW and WHAT you are hearing. Not what notes are "supposed" to work or what spots on the fingerboard you have learned by trial and error, not patterns and phrases you have memorized the shapes of.

Ed, to be honest, I suspect that you have had more relevant experience and clearer thoughts on this subject than me. I read and take careful note of what you say.
Don't forget though that a dictionary helps with vocabulary. When you hear a word that you don't know the meaning of, where do you go? To me a scale is like choices in vocabulary. It gives me options that will work in the 12 tone music system. It allows me to use my brain (when practising, and not on a gig) to top up what inate musical ability I possess.
It is true, I do not possess musical genius. But, just as when I write, I use all the knowledge and tools available to me. I do not use a dictionary in conversation, just as, if I try to think about scales on a gig, I'm in big trouble.

[Damon Rondeau]

I think anything that gets you deeper and closer into your own music -- anything that can get you into a place where you're not thinking, you're making music -- is a good thing. Scales, and the whole notion of this scale over that chord, don't really do it for me but I gotta admit too that I'm a slave to the arpeggio and my little passage ways that connect them. I could use some new light, new angles and who knows, maybe an excursion to Scale Land would be just the ticket to light up some new ideas. I can see how they might help a person hear new sounds but then again, learning some fresh new tunes can do that too. I know too that when I hear sax players or guitar players or any other of our more naturally speedy colleagues running scales in their solos it leaves me pretty cold. Gibberish is a great word for that kind of "music" in my dictionary.

Over the years I've known his TB persona, though, FOGGIE has been totally consistent and articulate on this whole topic. To move it away from the vocabulary/dictionary/conversation analogy and into another old chestnut comparison: if it smacks at all of paint-by-numbers, FOGGIE'S agin it.

[rprowse]

Originally Posted by Damon Rondeau

I think anything that gets you deeper and closer into your own music -- anything that can get you into a place where you're not thinking, you're making music -- is a good thing. Scales, and the whole notion of this scale over that chord, don't really do it for me but I gotta admit too that I'm a slave to the arpeggio and my little passage ways that connect them. I could use some new light, new angles and who knows, maybe an excursion to Scale Land would be just the ticket to light up some new ideas. I can see how they might help a person hear new sounds but then again, learning some fresh new tunes can do that too. I know too that when I hear sax players or guitar players or any other of our more naturally speedy colleagues running scales in their solos it leaves me pretty cold. Gibberish is a great word for that kind of "music" in my dictionary.

Over the years I've known his TB persona, though, FOGGIE has been totally consistent and articulate on this whole topic. To move it away from the vocabulary/dictionary/conversation analogy and into another old chestnut comparison: if it smacks at all of paint-by-numbers, FOGGIE'S agin it.

Yes, arpeggios are great.
I don't know FOGGIE, but he sounds very wise.
My dad was an engineer and I think that I inherited his 'how does this all fit together?' genes.
I actually love studying the system of music and believe that all tones are equal.
There are only 12 tones and, if you remove the C major notes (thinking in the key of C), you're only left with five others.
So, I suppose that the interest is going to come more from how these sounds are combined.
The painting analogy is a good one. How red do you want your red to be?
In New Zealand the telephone 'dial tone' is a concert G. For some reason, most of the appliances in my house (dryer, fan, dishwasher) seem to be tuned to a 'G' tonality when they are running. Supermarket scanner beepers all seem to be tuned to Eb. The bell at my school is Ab. Perhaps I leave home in the key of G and, when I go 'out', I get bombarded by too many minor 9ths and minor 6ths (augmented 5ths).

[glivanos]

I've heard that the dial tone of a phone is an F.

I never tested it. Is it true?

Originally Posted by rprowse

Yes, arpeggios are great.
I don't know FOGGIE, but he sounds very wise.
My dad was an engineer and I think that I inherited his 'how does this all fit together?' genes.
I actually love studying the system of music and believe that all tones are equal.
There are only 12 tones and, if you remove the C major notes (thinking in the key of C), you're only left with five others.
So, I suppose that the interest is going to come more from how these sounds are combined.
The painting analogy is a good one. How red do you want your red to be?
In New Zealand the telephone 'dial tone' is a concert G. For some reason, most of the appliances in my house (dryer, fan, dishwasher) seem to be tuned to a 'G' tonality when they are running. Supermarket scanner beepers all seem to be tuned to Eb. The bell at my school is Ab. Perhaps I leave home in the key of G and, when I go 'out', I get bombarded by too many minor 9ths and minor 6ths (augmented 5ths).

[rprowse]

Well, It's a G down here.. I've never been to the US of A. Maybe your dryers run a little slower ( in F also) up there.
Come to think of it, maybe lots of countries have their dial tones tuned to different notes. Maybe the dial tones of NZ, USA, Canada, Fiji, Samoa & New Caledonia combine to make a blues scale.
Scary stuff, I wonder if we get the tonic?

[shwashwa]

i think my dial tone here in the us is 2 tones, an f and a = major 3rd.

[rprowse]

Do they alternate? F-A-F-A or do they sound together?

[Don Higdon]

Originally Posted by glivanos

I've heard that the dial tone of a phone is an F.

I never tested it. Is it true?

It was true. Some years back, it was one pitch, F. During a lesson, my teacher went over to the telephone to check my pitch.
Now, it's F and A, as reported by Shwashwa, and if he'd fill out his profile, we'd know where. It's voiced as a major third.
rprowse is a Kiwi, and assuming they use A440 in New Zealand, they have chosen a higher pitch, perhaps to compensate for being down under.

[rprowse]

Originally Posted by Don Higdon

It was true. Some years back, it was one pitch, F. During a lesson, my teacher went over to the telephone to check my pitch.
Now, it's F and A, voiced as reported by Shwashwa, and if he'd fill out his profile, we'd know where. It's voiced as a major third.
rprowse is a Kiwi, and assuming they use A440 in New Zealand, they have chosen a higher pitch, perhaps to compensate for being down under.

Yes Don, we do use A440.
So, if we got the two phone systems together, would it be like an F/G chord or an Fadd9?
ps. G is great for a quick bass tuning check.

[rprowse]

...anyway, I reckon that you've only got your phones tuned to F because it makes it easier for the horns.

[Ed Fuqua]

FOGGIE, ce'st moi.

Fuqua = Fuqhorn= Fuqhorn Leghorn = Foghorn Leghorn=Foggie

C'est une fog idee, n'est pas?

[Damon Rondeau]

Well, if you're going to put it like that I'd have to say it's a frog idee.