Approaching Minor Keys, pt.1
Tuesday, January 26, 2010 at 11:37AM I've had many friends who have begun trying to play swing guitar after coming from a rock/pop background, not a modern jazz one. "Minor Swing" is a popular tune to start with, but many players without a jazz background can't figure out how to approach soloing over the chords.
Specifically, it's the minor pentatonic scale that is the backbone on much rock and blues that doesn't fit. The main culprit of this is the 7th scale degree (in Am, the G note) - it just doesn't fit over swing or early jazz minor songs. And there's good reason: the V7 chord.
Going back at least as far as Bach, classical music did not use the standard v chord of a mino key (key Am: A-B-C-D-E-F-G; a V chord based on this scale would be an E minor7: E-G-B-D). In classical music a V chord is always a DOMINANT 7 chord (in Am, an E7 chord: E-G#-B-D). There is pavlovian response to hearing the G# note it that chord, which demands that it be resolved to the A note.
With the G# note being so important, makes sense that the minor pentatonic scale doesn't fit with it's G natural note.
In classical and in early jazz and swing, they don't use the minor pentatonic scale, or the "natural" minor scale - which is just the normal notes of the key (in Am: A B C D E F G). Instead, they both use a minor scale with a raised 7th (in Am, a G# note). There are two minor scales that contain a raised 7th that are used extensively in early jazz and swing, the harmonic minor and the jazz minor.
The harmonic minor scale dates back to at least Bach, and has a particularly "European" sound (at least to my ears). It is a natural minor scale with a raised 7th (in Am: A B C D E F G#).
The jazz minor is comparatively younger, and has a more "American" sound (again to my ears). It is a natural minor scale with both a raised 7th, and a raised 6th (in Am: A B C D E F# G#).
By "American" and "European", I'm really getting at the distinction between the gypsy-influenced hot jazz of Django, and the less classical sounding playing of American swing musicians, like say, Charlie Christian. Charlie was more likely play more raised 6ths and feature them as an important note in his phrasing. Django was at least equally as likely to play either a regular or raised 6th, and perhaps more likely to play the regular 6th. American pre-bebop jazz harmony often voiced a minor i chord as a im6, which contains the raised 6th. But it should be noted that even if there is a raised 6th in the harmony, the soloist can also use the regular 6th, as Django did, even though it technically shouldn't fit.
In all harmony, some notes are "functional" in the sense that they are guide tones important to voice leading and chordal movement. Other notes are not, and there for they can be approached less strictly. The 7th scale degree is clearly a functional note, whereas the 6th scale degree is not. That's why you can often play either 6th with no problem, but that natural 7th just doesn't sound right.
Even modern jazzbos have a hard time approaching pre-bop minor key tunes. When Miles Davis released "Kind of Blue" in 1959, he ushered in a new era of modal jazz, specifically based on the Dorian mode, with "So What", being the chief example.
The Dorian mode is a natural minor scale with a raised 6th (like the jazz minor), but NOT the raised 7th (in Am: A B C D E F# G).. The sound of the Dorian mode is based on a minor7 chord as the tonic, and there for the regular 7th scale degree fits. Many modern jazzbos have forgotten the older-style sound of pre-bop, and just ignorantly play Dorian over everything. I avoid musicians like that like the plague.
As a early jazz/swing style musician, one should learn both the harmonic minor and jazz mimor scales like the back of one's hand. Part 2 will feature some musical examples.
Here are the scales in question with the i and V chords built on those scales.
Reader Comments (4)
Another marvelous article! One comment: can you edit in some double-spaces between paragraphs?
Very interesting topic Jonathan.
The difference in rhythm playing between gypsies and Americans from that era may very well be the reason for this (or this may be the reason for their style of rhythm playing). My understanding (though I'm not a gypsy expert) is that gypsies were far more likely to play straight up minor triadic chords in their accompaniment whereas Americans were more often playing m6 chords in accompaniment. Avoiding the nat6 in the chord gives the soloist more flexibility to "choose their 6th," because a chord which contains a 5 and a nat 6 is going to add some considerable dissonance when the b6 is also added in the melodic line. I suppose it's less noticeable if the am6 chord is voiced 5x4555 though as opposed to 577575 since the octave displacement of the nat6 in the former makes for less dissonance with higher b6 sounded in a melody on the B or G string. I think though that in either case the b6 can't be heard as a harmonic tone, only a passing or neighbor tone whereas the natural 6th has harmonic stability and can be heard as a part of the chord and requires no resolution.
On a different note, don't both Django and Charlie occasionally play b7's as an upper neighbor resolving to nat6 (makes me think of A-C-E-F# G-F#, G-F# with accents on G)?
Hey man, good article - I would argue that this is basic toolset for any jazz musician learning minor changes - save the modes for later, but get aquainted with the simplest, most direct materials first. Swing I think is an excellent training ground for any jazz musician, and naturally was the way everyone used to learn1
One point to add to this is that there is a big gulf between pre 1945 swing and post 1959 modal jazz! The players in between these periods were using very often the materials you describe for lines on minor chords. In fact, Barry Harris - widely regarded as the foremost living be-bop educator - talks about minor and major sixth chords, and raised sevenths in exactly the way you describe. The evolution from swing through be-bop and into hard-bop was actually pretty organic (especially in the latter case, because hard bop was a move back to more swing based music in a sense.) In Harris's case he worked with Coleman Hawkins for ten years. Transcribing classic solos by swing and be-bop influenced players like Dexter Gordon shows this I think really clearly - using chromatic approach tone and harmonic minor ideas on a ii chord in Fried Bananas for example (based on It Could Happen to You Changes).
I would argue from listening that Lester's solos and comparing to those of later players that the real revolution of be-bop is rhythmic rather than harmonic one, although harmonic innovations did occur (but many presaged by Art Tatum, Lester Young, Charlie Christian and Django for instance.) The fact that Epistrophy is alleged to have been a Charlie Christian no Thelonius Monk tune is fascinating in this regard. It sounds, well, really Monkish. But then some of Christian's harmonic ideas are extremely adventurous - for example his use of a A diminished 7th run on a E diminished chord in measure 7 of I Got Rhythm, not to mention the bizzare and brilliant way he resolves it. But however adventurous his harmony is, Christian always sounds to me like a swinger and not a be-bopper, in the same way as Django's post war recordings don't really sound like be-bop.
Good! I like it very much,but If you can add more video and pictures can be much better, I have never read such a lovely article and I am coming back tomorrow to continue reading. Monogram Vernis replica Louis Vuitton