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Supportact said: [my style is] probably more an accumulation of limitations and bad habits than a 'style'.
Supportact said: [my style is] probably more an accumulation of limitations and bad habits than a 'style'.
Time, effort and a huge amount of patience being the short answer
I can't remember where I heard about using the minor pentatonic up a minor 3rd from the root of a dominant chord. Most likely it was from a Don Mock book as he liked this kind of approach, or very possibly in Guthrie Govan's Creative Guitar book (who probably got it from Don Mock anyway?)
If you look at a given shape for A Super Locrian, you'll find C minor pentatonic hidden in there (amongst lots of other treats), which is why its fair game. It's the same relationship in every key, G minor pentatonic is in E Super Locrian etc etc.
But it's about knowing the fretboard in a deeper way too. I just know I can and where to play the minor pentatonic a minor 3rd above a given Dom7 (or Alt7th) chord to get an Altered sound. It becomes instinctive after a while of hard yards.
With regards to your second point... it depends. Usually it's over some sort of Dom7 (9th or 13th) or Alt (7#5, 7#9 etc) chord usually acting as V. Like @viz says, I also used it going from chord I7 to IV7 (momentarily treating A7 to D7 as a V7 - I7) in bar 4 of the blues. But tension can take place over any chord, for any length of time, it just depends on the skill of the improvisor in making it work and the ear of the listener in how much they can tolerate. John Scofield is a master at getting so far outside, really twisting the ear and then bringing it back home. But that is really hard to make work.
Having a deep understanding and feeling for form is a big thing too. Start off small, the last two beats of bar 4 of a blues, play two notes of Super Locrian (or Min Pent a min 3rd up) on beats 3 and 4 of that bar, connecting to a chord tone in the next chord. Then do the same but with 4 notes over the two beats (quavers/8ths). Gradually draw this out over the entire bar. You've got to hear this stuff too though, it won't always sound very good at first but your ear will begin to latch on to where you want the alterations and where to resolve.
I've been there myself, and it's a place I think one needs to go, as it's difficult using chord tones. You (well, I did, certainly) end up spending a lot of time exclusively on chord tone island. But it REALLY grinds my gears when I hear/read people complaining about scales and the Pentatonic scale in particular. My Pentatonic scale is the same as yours, it's how we use them that makes us individuals. Scales are never the problem, they are tools to realise sounds. The problem lies with the individual and their creativity (or lack of).
It's funny actually, I've been exploring using the humble major scale as a means of creating tension without even needing to worry about Melodic Minor Modes or Pentatonics. As long as the phrasing, rhythm and direction is strong, anything goes.
- Over the Dm you play Am penta (D Dorian feel)
- Over the G7 you play Bbm penta (G superlocrian)
- Over the C you play Bm penta (C Lydian feel)
So you just slide up from fret 5 - 6 - 7 on your minor pentatonic shapes. You have to be careful to stick to the pentatonic notes - some of your traditional extra notes like the b5 in the blues scale don’t work here, and it’s surprisingly hard to avoid playing them!
That Bbm penta is 3 frets up from the G, as @Brad is describing.
Supportact said: [my style is] probably more an accumulation of limitations and bad habits than a 'style'.
When I’m playing, I can hear it and can venture off the island a wee bit. But as mere/pure theory, it gets dizzying at times. I have a tendency to look at everything at once.
Yeah that's a good one too, nice as the shapes move up chromatically. As you say, gotta be careful with the phrasing mind...
This throws the pattern somewhat, but I like to play the Minor Pentatonic up a tone over the ii chord, really gets the Dorian sound with the 6th that is otherwise missing when playing the Pentatonic off the 5th.
Supportact said: [my style is] probably more an accumulation of limitations and bad habits than a 'style'.
Doing a fair bit of thinking and planning your ideas now, will lead you to using stuff with greater freedom further down the line and it will be more spontaneous. You'll be improvising in a more considered, rather than possibly haphazard way, but it won't feel contrived. Balance it out between prepared stuff and just going for it (to work that part of the brain). However, the hard yards have to be put in, no doubt about it!
Supportact said: [my style is] probably more an accumulation of limitations and bad habits than a 'style'.
So, as I vaguely understood initially, the BH chromatic scale is a way of playing chromatics that always places chord tones on strong beats. If we’re not careful when using chromatics, there is always the risk of a line being off, due to the placements of chord tones and chromatics in relation to tones and semi tones of a given key. That’s why we have enclosures on certain beats etc as they line up the chromatics in a coherent way. Same with the BH chromatic scale. Once it’s under the fingers it’s a brilliant, logical way of always being able to put lines together that are rhythmically and melodically tight with beat placement every time.
The trick is to use fragments of the BH chromatic scale along with other devices… intervals, scale tones, arpeggios, pivots etc.
Bear in mind, Barry Harris was a be-bopper, so I highly suspect he would’ve approached this differently in terms of thinking and playing… as in not thinking Super Locrian. I’d imagine he never used that name or thought in those even if he was using that scale (although I could very well be wrong!)
So for me, I see it as a different thing to using Super Locrian over the V chord. Here, we have to get the ‘sound’ of it in our ears (like say, Dorian, Lydian, etc) and while any of the notes of Super Locrian are fair game over the V(Alt) chord, the principles are the shared. But that’s just a universal approach to improv. Where they differ is that WE need to find logical ways of resolving to the next chord when using Super Locrian, whereas the Barry Harris chromatic scale does it for us.
You could say Barry did the work so we don’t have to
I’ve only been dabbling in jazz — both listening and trying to play a few things — just long enough to realize that there are so many subgenres and that I really only enjoy and want to emulate some of them. I think I just learned that bebop is one of those jazz subsets; basically I like old stuff or new stuff that pays homage to old stuff. I like Thelonious, Wes, Joe Pass, Grant Green, early Miles, Paolo Fresu, Kessel, Farmer, Evans. Jobim’s Waves is probably my favorite jazz album ever so far. I don’t totally care about shreddy fusion jazz like Matheny, and that’s the kind of stuff where I hear scales being played in my mind’s ears rather than a targeted note being hovered over until just the right moment. I fully anticipate that this is just my novice take on the matter and I hope to be set straight and redirected sooner or later, but my understanding is my understanding and where I inevitably must begin from.
Given that you referenced "chord tone islands" above, I think I'm correct about Barry Harris, because this conceptualization rings a bell with me.
Be mindful that all those guys you like, knew and played scales. Scales are never the issue IMO and the BH chromatic scale is based on scales after all. It's not something that exists on it's own, but it can stand on it's own of that makes sense? But if the Harris approach as you understand it, gets you where you need to go, then run with it.
This in abundance. Rhythm is king and without good phrasing, all the right notes still won't sound right.