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So what do YOU call this scale?
- Thread starter fretlessman71
- Start date
I think you nailed it. There is such a thing as a nonatonic blues. You’d have a nonatonic blues with the major third omitted, or as you say, a minor blues with a “major 7” added.
I’d listen closely to see if there are any major 3rds thrown in. If so, they are called hybrid blues scales or nonatonic blues scales.
Back when I was playing in public I used those scales all the time, particularly when the music moved to the IV. Not saying it was any good.
edit: re: your “double blues scale” comment— it’s a combo between major and minor blues, I suppose. I’d call it “hybrid”.
I hear you.
A prog band I was in back in the 70s used the term “Z-flat” for any weird scale or chord we were using whenever naming it was more challenging than we were interested in thrashing out.
Eventually we just abandoned standard nomenclature and went over to a homebrew chromatic notation using base-12 that eliminated the need for terms like sharp, flat, major, minor, diminished, etc. Everything was numeric. So instead of “major” for root-3rd-5th it was a 158; or instead of diminished being root-flat 3rd-flat fifth it was a 147. For chord inversions you just changed around the order of the integers in the “stack.”
Once you got used to it, it was easy to use. No more half-diminished yadda-yadda naming. Just numbered semitones sitting in stacks.
It worked for us at least.
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I don't know why, but I'd call it Gerald.
It's getting rather old, but it's a good scale.
It's getting rather old, but it's a good scale.
The Aebersold Scale Syllabus may not include every scale, but surely includes the most common ones:
And this scale in question aint in there. I’ve never heard a name for it.
And this scale in question aint in there. I’ve never heard a name for it.
This is what I thought of too. I think “Bebop Blues” would be a great name for this scale.
Abersold was supposedly the first to publish the “minor blues scale” in 1970.
I’m pretty sure it could easily have contained that added major 7th. I have TONS of respect for Abersold. I have met him. I have been to at least one camp.
It’s just that there are lots of other “blues scales” that could have been written down, right?
Right, we know there are variations on the blues scale. All I was getting at was this very widely distributed collection of common scales has no name/reference to the scale in question.
The OP's question, and the varied responses, is one of the reasons I drifted away from a need to name every scale-like figure I was playing or hearing. I tend to think of things as 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 (sometimes 9,11,13) and they are either natural, b or #.
Of course many names are handy common knowledge short hand: major , minor, melodic/harmonic minor, maj pentatonic, minor pent, blues, the MILLPAD modes... but at a certain point the shorthand names leave the sphere of common knowledge and you'll end up spelling it out anyhow
so in that sense your best bet may be 1,2,b3,4,b5,5,b7,7 or "minor pent plus b5, b7"
theory wanks (like me) will all ways show up and ACTUALLY its called the demented mellotronic bebop scale
but you can disregard us in favor or easier communication
Of course many names are handy common knowledge short hand: major , minor, melodic/harmonic minor, maj pentatonic, minor pent, blues, the MILLPAD modes... but at a certain point the shorthand names leave the sphere of common knowledge and you'll end up spelling it out anyhow
so in that sense your best bet may be 1,2,b3,4,b5,5,b7,7 or "minor pent plus b5, b7"
theory wanks (like me) will all ways show up and ACTUALLY its called the demented mellotronic bebop scale
but you can disregard us in favor or easier communication
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Understood— I mean to acknowledge the great service he has done and explore that he set the standard. It’s not just that we’re talking about the blues scales, we’re talking about the guy that first published them en masse.
I think it was a means for folks with European classical backgrounds to learn Jazz. He has to be one of the greatest musical educators of all time. He’s probably not the first to associate it with the blues, or be aware of it, but he’s been the most important educator associated with it and maybe the first to publish it at all.
Coltrane sometimes used one that used both major and minor 3rds, and another that had no 3rd at all. 14571, quadratonic? That’s an interesting scale with that huge interval, fun to improvise with. Jerry Bergonzi has authored a couple of books analyzing the use of pentatonics and related scales in jazz. There are many, call them whatever you like.
I studied music theory for five years at Manhattan School of Music and Mannes College of Music (double-bass major). These "extra" notes are passing tones, and not "part" of a scale per se. As such, these scales with additional passing tones do not deserve a name of their own. Any "name" that is given to them is the musical equivalent of "slang", and not the music equivalent of "the King's English". That said, call it what you want, but don't expect people who studied "legit" music theory to take the terms seriously.
Forget trying to name it, and just let people wonder what the heck they are hearing.
I see Abersold didn't list this one, either:
1, 2, b3, #4, 5, b6, 7, 1 one of my favourites.
I see Abersold didn't list this one, either:
1, 2, b3, #4, 5, b6, 7, 1 one of my favourites.
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That chromatic note(7) is called "bebop passing tone". Which is a term coming from the jazz music. Every diatonic scale that has a b7 in it you can play that passing tone and it becomes a 8-notes scale that fit perfectly in the standard time signature of 4/4. Very good for us also because you play all the chord tones on the beats or on the 1 and 3 in walking form.
So I would call it: The Bebop Blues scale ;-)
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I call it a blues scale with passing tones. No need to make it as difficult and complex as possible.
This is almost exactly what I was going to say. Pentatonic with a couple of passing tones. I gave up on scale names a long time ago…know your tonality/harmony and season with passing tones to taste.
Adding notes that aren't quite in the scale/mode you're playing is basically a model shift.. just less fancy than say SRV shifting between modes while playing the same root. Adding a chromatic run to a bass line in most cases is shifting from one mode to another for a note or two.
I often switch between a pentatonic minor and I think it would be natural minor for flavor. It's just a few notes difference and they blend well together.
No really. It's a model shift.
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