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Re: Scales
I'm with albertnt03. Before you can make much sense of the Demented Scale & the Frankensteinian Mode, you really need to nail the basic tools. I'd even go so far as to say that, while scales, arps, modes, melodic sequences, et al, have been my helpful friends for quite some time, - combined with good sense of time, the single most important element in any improviser's arsenal is melody itself, regardless of musical genre. Scales & sequences will not teach you this. I recommend getting the sound of all the intervals over the root note into your head & ears, & your fingers will surely follow. If you only get these things under your finger tips & not in your ears, you'll be less likely to be a musical sounding player, in my humble opinion.
That said, most of my fave "darker" sounds are as superimposed over dominant & altered dominant chords, but you're by no means locked into that - any ambiguous chord without a major or minor 3rd will allow anything your sick imagination can conjure. Probably my alltime fave over a static dominant chord is the Lydian Dominant Scale. This is the 4th mode of the Jazz Melodic Minor Scale. Basically it's Mixolydian Mode with a #11, & the way I see it on the fretboard is Melodic Minor up a 5th from the root (ex: E Melodic Minor over A7). A fave over an altered dominant is Melodic Minor up a half step from the root (ex: Bb Melodic Minor over A7#5#9), which is basically an altered dominant scale. But again, if you're playing over, say, an A5, with no 3rds, only your own ear can decide what is "right or wrong". If it sounds good, it is good. I'm also real partial to Whole Tone & Augmented sounds. I sorta burnt out on the Harmonic Minor Scale in the Neoclassical sense, but that's just me.
Here's sort of a dark sounding sequence that falls fairly easily under the fingers, over an A tonality. Even though it's composed entirely of alternating A & Eb major triads, it sounds twisted because Eb is a b5 substitution of A, & contains the #11, b7, & b9 of A. Try it with a triplet feel.
E ---------------------------------9-12--15(~17)-
B ------------------------8-11--10----------------
G -----------------6-9--8-------------------------
D ----------5-8--7--------------------------------
A ---4-7--6---------------------------------------
E -5----------------------------------------------
I have quite a few books for reference around here... I'm somewhat familiar with scales such as Enigmatic, Hirajoshi, Egyptian, Persian... - but I have never heard of the Islaamic scale!!! Maybe you're referring to Eastern microtonalities in general? Or is this the infamous bin Laden scale?! [img]graemlins/scratchhead.gif[/img]
I'm with albertnt03. Before you can make much sense of the Demented Scale & the Frankensteinian Mode, you really need to nail the basic tools. I'd even go so far as to say that, while scales, arps, modes, melodic sequences, et al, have been my helpful friends for quite some time, - combined with good sense of time, the single most important element in any improviser's arsenal is melody itself, regardless of musical genre. Scales & sequences will not teach you this. I recommend getting the sound of all the intervals over the root note into your head & ears, & your fingers will surely follow. If you only get these things under your finger tips & not in your ears, you'll be less likely to be a musical sounding player, in my humble opinion.
That said, most of my fave "darker" sounds are as superimposed over dominant & altered dominant chords, but you're by no means locked into that - any ambiguous chord without a major or minor 3rd will allow anything your sick imagination can conjure. Probably my alltime fave over a static dominant chord is the Lydian Dominant Scale. This is the 4th mode of the Jazz Melodic Minor Scale. Basically it's Mixolydian Mode with a #11, & the way I see it on the fretboard is Melodic Minor up a 5th from the root (ex: E Melodic Minor over A7). A fave over an altered dominant is Melodic Minor up a half step from the root (ex: Bb Melodic Minor over A7#5#9), which is basically an altered dominant scale. But again, if you're playing over, say, an A5, with no 3rds, only your own ear can decide what is "right or wrong". If it sounds good, it is good. I'm also real partial to Whole Tone & Augmented sounds. I sorta burnt out on the Harmonic Minor Scale in the Neoclassical sense, but that's just me.
Here's sort of a dark sounding sequence that falls fairly easily under the fingers, over an A tonality. Even though it's composed entirely of alternating A & Eb major triads, it sounds twisted because Eb is a b5 substitution of A, & contains the #11, b7, & b9 of A. Try it with a triplet feel.
E ---------------------------------9-12--15(~17)-
B ------------------------8-11--10----------------
G -----------------6-9--8-------------------------
D ----------5-8--7--------------------------------
A ---4-7--6---------------------------------------
E -5----------------------------------------------
I have quite a few books for reference around here... I'm somewhat familiar with scales such as Enigmatic, Hirajoshi, Egyptian, Persian... - but I have never heard of the Islaamic scale!!! Maybe you're referring to Eastern microtonalities in general? Or is this the infamous bin Laden scale?! [img]graemlins/scratchhead.gif[/img]
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