Superlocrian on the dominant!

viz

Jazzers will obvs know this, but playing the notes from the altered, or superlocrian, scale while the V chord is playing gives you instant jazz. Especially when resolving to a major tonic (I) chord. 

Example:

In a jazz blues in A, you’d be noodling around the blues box on the 5th fret; then when it goes to E, instead of playing notes from the E Dominant scale you’d want to play E altered (aka E superlocrian). 

It’s called the altered scale because it has the same notes as in E major, but every note (apart from the E itself) is lower by one semitone. E F G Ab Bb C D E. Instead of E F# G# A B C# D# E. 

(The scale is also called E superlocrian and is the 7th mode of melodic minor ascending. In this case F melodic minor - F G Ab Bb C D E F - but starting and ending on the E.)

Characteristics of this sound: 

the E: obviously it has the root note of the V chord. It’s jazz not just mistakes. 

the F: a minor 2nd - juicier than the major 2nd of normal dominant. 

The G and Ab: you get a minor and a major 3rd. Like in the hendrix chord. Nice. 

The Bb: oooo there’s no perfect 4th and no perfect 5th - you get the one in between. Causes extra tension and release when you resolve to the A tonic chord. 

The C: oooo it’s got a minor 6th not a major 6th like in normal dominant. That’s the minor 3rd of the Tonic, so when it resolves to the A chord, you get a nice movement. 

The D - that’s the normal b7 you get in normal dominant.


Nice eh? 

There’s a quick cheat for accessing it on the guitar because the notes are a little alien. What you do is, you’re on fret 5 playing minor penta over the A chord and D chord. When the E chord arrives, you slip up a fret on the B string, so the following frets:

B string: 5 (slip up) 6 8 9 8 6 (slip down) 5
then G string: 7 5
D string: 8 6 5
A string: 8 7 5
E string: 8 6 4

and on the top E it’s 6 8 10. 

No idea why I’m mentioning this but it might open up a whole new palette of colours for you

ArchtopDave

I suspect the above will be better than Senakot at clearing a number of constipated guitarist’s bowels out this morning.  

viz

Relaxative jazzzz

GuyBoden

Years ago, I remember practicing all the modes of the melodic minor scale, in all 12 keys, in all positions.Then applying it to songs.

Months/Years of practice, but it does improve your fretboard knowledge.

beed84

GuyBoden said:

Years ago, I remember practicing all the modes of the melodic minor scale, in all 12 keys, in all positions.Then applying it to songs.

Months/Years of practice, but it does improve your fretboard knowledge.

Summit to do I suppose.

viz

Some of the modes are more useful than others, obvs, such as the 4th, 5th and 7th (as well as the 1st obviously). I think practising them as you describe, Guy, is really helpful, even if it's got limited practical use, because it increases your overall awareness. Not that I've got that level of stamina!

octatonic

viz said:

Some of the modes are more useful than others, obvs, such as the 4th, 5th and 7th (as well as the 1st obviously). I think practising them as you describe, Guy, is really helpful, even if it's got limited practical use, because it increases your overall awareness. Not that I've got that sort of stamina!

+1.

I think you have to approach these melodically when it comes to the application.
 
Ripping up an altered scale at Petrucci speeds is just pointless because it becomes a wash of notes.
Look at what Robben Ford does with a few notes well placed.
It is mind bogglingly good.

beed84

octatonic said:

viz said:

Some of the modes are more useful than others, obvs, such as the 4th, 5th and 7th (as well as the 1st obviously). I think practising them as you describe, Guy, is really helpful, even if it's got limited practical use, because it increases your overall awareness. Not that I've got that sort of stamina!

+1.

I think you have to approach these melodically when it comes to the application.
 
Ripping up an altered scale at Petrucci speeds is just pointless because it becomes a wash of notes.
Look at what Robben Ford does with a few notes well placed.
It is mind bogglingly good.

Yeah, he mostly plays in and out of various pentatonic scales with some diminished stuff. Like you say, it's amazing how he manipulates so few notes to sound so good.

KevS

OK firstly I apologise to any Theory Wizards who know all of this and for any wrong nomenclature.. 

Some stuff is maybe obvious,but it leads to other things..

Hopefully everything is understandable and doesn't come across as a Jumble..



The way I think..The Lydian Dominant is a Tritone away from the Super Locrian..
So if you use Lydian Dominant a Semitone above the 1 chord,you get an inversion of the Scale that is easy to locate....
It gets to the point you can hear when you need to use it,,it is such a potent recognisable sound....

If you look at a C7 shaped E7  root at the 7th fret,
This could be a V Dominant Chord in an A Minor Blues.. 

If you change the root from E to B flat but keeping the rest of the chord the same,yes change fingers..

You get a B flat 7 Flat 5 chord..You can use that as a substitute for the E7..

Flat II instead of V..Also known as a Sub V....I hear this used in Jazz a fair bit..

There is the Home Chord for reference for your Lydian Dominant.. B Flat.. 




There are lots of other little moves I have discovered you can use to change the sound of a 12 Bar,,,but they are not Super Locrian / Lydian Dominant.. 

If you use a Minor 6 Chord as the One Chord,play Melodic Minor On That..

Use a Minor 6 Chord as the IV chord..Use the Harmonic Minor of the 1 Chord..In the Harmonic Minor..has various 


Or the idea stripped bare with no backing using the Super Locrian / Altered..

Play Root Melodic Minor as the I Chord.. ....A Melodic Minor

Play Root Harmonic Minor as the IV Chord.......A Harmonic Minor..

Play Semitone up Lydian Dominant as the V chord........B Flat Lydian Dominant..

Just play the Scales not the Chords.....Can you hear the chords that should be there..

It sounds like a very 1940's and later.. Jazz Blues..
It really has that Darker sound..



So much pivots of the fact that if you turn the V chord in a Minor Blues to a Major by sharpening the chords third..,,that the flatted seventh becomes a Major Seventh of the root scale,,Instead of a Minor Scale you now have Harmonic Minor..

This Means on the V 7 chord you are playing Phrygian Dominant..Also Called Phrygian Spanish in some books etc....


Now off that major 7th note you can play Diminished 7th and Augmented Arpeggios..
You can also of course play E7 sharp fifth arpeggios on the V chord..


These ideas seem to repeat in music so much..You get to the point you instantly hear / recognise what is going on


The Harmonic Minor Also gives you use of the Flatted VI chord..T

his can be a Minor 6 Chord..A Major Sixth also a Major 7th etc.

.I guess also a Major 7 sharp 11..Like the McGeoch Christine Chord..

Also like a movable Min 6/9 with no root etc..Top of a root 6 So many inversions..It's one of those shapes..  F maj 7 sharp 11..D min 6 / 9 ..G 13.. It's just a different root note..  


I would not call myself a Jazz musician,but I have found out how to use a lot of Jazz type things in my Blues Playing..

I love Monk,Miles,Coltrane etc..I listen to that stuff for pleasure at home..Big band stuff too,for enjoyment,not study,but it seeps in through osmosis..

Cranky

I hope this is helpful and not just distracting psychobabble.

I have a hard time with pure scales on the fretboard.  I keep track of where I am in a song and on the fretboard if I can think in terms of tonal relationships.  In other words, chords.

(It also definitely helps to remember that E superlocrian is a function of F melodic minor, as those basic chords are easy enough to remember.)

So I find it helpful to think less about the scale of notes and more about the triad possibilities that we already know.  I haven’t had the chance to mess with it yet, but I will drone an E7 chord (or loop a slow progression with E7 in it) and play with some voice leading that involves the various chords of E superlocrian:

E half diminished  (maj6)
F minor (maj7) (maj6)
G minor 7 (maj6)
Ab7 (maj6) *edit augmented*
Bb7 (maj6)
C7 (b6)
D half diminished (b6)

And here are analogous chords of A Ionian:

E7
F# minor 
G# half diminished
Amaj7
Bmin7
C#min7
Dmaj7

So, I will practice picking different target notes from A Ionian and see how the different triads from E superlocrian affect the sequence of tension-to-resolution.  I guess my target notes would be A, C#, B and/or G# (are there tritone possibilities in there?  I have a hard time keeping track of those.)


Thanks for this thread, Viz.  You always bring things to light.  Literally a guru.  I hope I’m not casting any shadows over it.

Cranky

^^^ sorry, I was just going over this in my head and realized that I’d forgotten the augmented third of the melodic minor scale.  The Ab7 should be an augmented Ab.

Cranky

alright, @viz.  I think I remember you saying something about melodic minor scales a while back.  I think it was that, in the case of F melodic, the E diminished and the E augmented chords together comprise the whole scale (save for the F itself, I guess)? So, is that an effective consolidation here?

viz

Nice work Cranx! And thanks for pointing out that the scales aren’t the music, just like the alphabet isn’t the book and the tins of paint aren’t the painting. The point of practising scales isn’t to be able to play scales fast, it’s to understand the musical possibilities within the notes. 

Good memory btw! The E(dim) and E(aug) form F harmonic minor (sans F).

Cranky

^^^ thanks, viz.  I started practicing harmonic and melodic around the same time so I get elements of them confused.  Just one semitone difference . . . more tension to play with is all.

viz

Yeah, harmonic minor obviously refers to chords and melodic minor refers to tunes. So in harmonic minor the 6th is left natural, as per natural minor (because it’s not in the 1-3-5 chord, so it just stays unaltered), whereas in melodic minor it’s raised because the augmented 2nd (between an unraised 6th and a raised 7th) was thought to be clunky, melodically-speaking. 

Cranky

Got to practice a bit this evening.  It’s definitely easy to get too much tension and has thus been great to focus on a target note and work on some enclosures leading up and down to that note.  I tried playing Ab7, Bb7 and C7 progressions and it was too much “weird notes at once”.  The tension needs to be built with intention.  

Also, B isn’t making much sense as a target note, but targeting A, C# and E is making sense.

viz

I don’t personally think in terms of harmonising that superlocrian scale, or the chords from it. I just think of the E chord and variations thereof:

So in our example, we’re in A, and we’re looking for a good E chord to play in order to resolve to the A. The A is the tonic, the E is the dominant, and we’re looking to play a dominant-tonic cadence, aka V-I cadence, aka perfect cadence. And we’re hunting for juicy dominant chords. 

There are lots of variations of the dominant cbord, from bread-and-butter, to stilton with walnuts and onion marmalade. 

The bread-and-butter chord would simply be an E major triad, E G# B. To complete the V-I cadence, the E goes up to the A; the G# also slips up to the A, and the B splits, going down to the A, and up to the C# (which is the A’s major 3rd). It’s very basic and uninteresting. 

Next we have the E7. It’s a “dominant 7 chord” because the E is the dominant, and in that position only for a major triad, is the 7th minor. And as, in the diatonic series, dominant is the only major chord with a minor 7th, it’s given that special name, dominant 7 chord. The tension is created because, as before, the G# slips up to the A, but now there’s a D, which slips down to the C#. That downwards semitone slide is more effective than the B going upwards a tone.

Next we have four main altered E chords which are nice and spicy: Like Dom7, they each have the 1,3 and 7, the E, G#, D, but other notes are brought in to create more tension. These notes are all variations of the 2 (or 9) and the 5. We can have:

E7 b5 b9
E7 b5 #9
E7 #5 b9
E7 #5 #9

Or we can miss out one of the notes, like:

E7 #9 (the Hendrix chord)
E7 b9 (dunno its name but I call it dim7 above dom)

Anyway, in the standard E7 chord (ignoring the 5) we already had an E, G# and D; the four altered 2s and 5s happen to complete the E superlocrian scale - they give the F, G, Bb and C. So maybe it’s helpful to think of the superlocrian scale as an outcome of those chords, rather than being the starting point. It’s the set of notes that work over any of those chords. 

To hear how they sound, I’d play them as follows:

E7 #9 (Hendrix chord): 07678x. We all know and love this one. It also happens to sound cool as a tonic chord, but remember we’re using it as a dominant chord to resolve to an A. It has that juxtaposition of a major 3rd and a minor 3rd. I call it an E7 b10 for that reason, and also because it makes people rather cross. 

E7 b9: 07676x. Love this one. Soft and tragic. It’s a blessed relief when it resolves to the A major. It’s also very common in an A minor piece. When you include the 5th it’s actually F(dim7) sitting on an E, hence why I call it dim7 above dom. Gorgeous. 

And the fuller chords: (I’m swapping the 9 and 5 in my naming convention because of the order they’re stacked on the guitar. And also because the 9 is really a 2).

E7 b9 b5: 076766 (barring the 6th fret).

E7 #9 b5. Not particularly common. Probably best played as 076786 but I don’t play it much if at all

E7 b9 #5. 076768. Like the E7b9 above, this is very gorgeous and has the added impact of a minor 6th, which is fantastic. Very similar to Phrygian Dominant. 

E7 #9 #5: 076788 (or x7x788 for a lighter version). This is my favourite, I love the minor 3rd / major 3rd juxtaposition, and I love that raised 5th (which I hear as a minor 6th). 

That all seems pretty complicated but you get used to them. The sounds are very specific:

The #9 can be thought of as a minor 3rd, so it’s quite bluesy. The minor and major 3rd combo is often used in blues, like when you do a minor pentatonic and bend that third up. 

The b9 is very close to the root and provides a clashing juxtaposition but also a very sad and beautiful one.

The #5 is part of the augmented chord and sounds, to me, very minor and sad. It’s basically a minor 6th in all but name so that’s why. 

The b5 is the stilton / walnut / onion marmalade tritone and tastes fetid and gnarly. Love it. 

And when you combine them you get a fusion of those flavours. 

viz

Here’s a bloody brilliant demo of those four chords (though he’s resolving to A minor, and he calls it a 3-6 cadence in C, rather than a 5-1 cadence in A minor but it’s the same thing). 

Do watch this, it’s mandatory viewing! 

https://youtu.be/VowsMEUvryY?feature=shared

Brad

A nice little trick to get that Altered sound over a Dom7 without having to worry about names or formulae, is to play the Minor Pentatonic a minor 3rd above the root of the Dom7 chord. 

For example, playing C Minor Pentatonic over A7 gives all the alterations b9 #9 b5 #5 and the b7. 

I did a rough and quick blues (simple changes) below to demonstrate, using C Minor Pentatonic in bar 4 for the move to the D7 and G Minor Pentatonic on the E7 in bar 12. I also snook in Bb Minor Pentatonic in bar 4 at some point too.

Brad

Same concept, different vibe… more of a bluesy, funky, fusiony type thing. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GeuVZ2oWb4

viz

smoothly done!