Tag Archives: lydian dominant

The Most Important Melodic Minor Modes In One Song

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Melodic minor is a beautiful and important sound in Jazz which you want to have in your vocabulary, but it can be a little difficult to internalize the melodic minor modes and really hear melodies with them so that you can use it in your solos.

In this video, I am going to show you a song that is pretty easy to learn that will teach you the 3 most important sounds you need melodic minor for. Don’t forget that practicing to use the scale in real music is the best way to make it a part of your playing

The Song

The song that I am talking about is the standard Bernie’s Tune, a basic AABA song, usually in Dm and with a bridge that is in Bb major. It is most famous from the recordings of Gerry Mulligan and Chet Baker, but it was written by the jazz pianist Bernie Miller.

The song is not that difficult and the theme is a great swinging melody using 3/4 phrases over the 4/4 meter.

 

Analyzing The Song

Analyzing The Song is pretty easy. In fact, it is really just a minor version of a very common song, but I will return to that later.

The song is in Dm (tonic chords) and it has a II V cadences to Dm at the end of the A-part. The Bb7 is a tritone substitute of E7 so that is a sub for the dominant of the dominant. The chord has an E in the melody so this is very clearly a Lydian dominant.

The bridge is just a few turnarounds in Bb major and a II V back to Dm.

Let’s have a look at where you can put melodic minor to use!

Tonic Minor – The Richest Minor Sound

The m6 and mMaj7 chords are used for the tonic minor sound. This is probably the best place to start when learning to use the melodic minor.

Since this is the sound of the root of the scale then it is easier to hear and get into your playing.

In this case for Dm, we have

D E F G A B C# D

And the diatonic arpeggios in the scale would be:

DmMaj7 Em7 Fmaj7(#5) G7 A7 Bø C#ø

For this chord then you can get a lot out of the basic diatonic arpeggios which is a little more tricky with the other sounds.

The arpeggios you can use would: DmMaj7, Fmaj7(#5), and Bø where Bø is, of course, the same note set as Dm6:

Bø: B D F A -> Dm6: D F A B

DmMaj7 could sound something like:

Fmaj7(#5) is the diatonic arpeggio from the 3rd of D, this sounds like>

and The Bø you could put to use like this:

Lydian Dominant

The next chord in the song is a Bb7 which here works as a tritone substitute for the dominant of the dominant, so Bb7 as a substitute for E7, the dominant of A7. And this chord is what makes it a minor version of a famous song in major, but I will get to that in a bit.

The scale that goes with this chord is F melodic minor, and there are some diatonic arpeggios that work well:

FmMaj7 Gm7 Abmaj7(#5) Bb7 C7 Dø Eø FmMaj7

Here the obvious options would be Bb7 and Dø

Bb7:

Dø:

They both sound great, but the arpeggio nails the Bb7 without really getting the #11 in there, and you can construct other arpeggios that really nail the sound of the chord with the #11 as well and there is a really easy way to do that.

Creating Arpeggios That Nail The Lydian Dominant Sound

This is pretty simple because all you need to do is to take the Bb7 arpeggio(play) and then replace the F with an E, which gives you a Bb7(b5) arpeggio

Bb7: Bb D F Ab → Bb D E Ab = Bb7(b5)

And for the Dø the same thing works, but now you get an arpeggio that is not really related to D and is more likely an E7(#5) arpeggio

Dø: D F Ab C → D E Ab C = E Ab C D = E7(#5)

With these you can make lines like this:

Bb7(b5) 

E7(#5):

 

Where to use Lydian Dominants

Lydian Dominants are mostly used to dominant chords that don’t really resolve. There are a few places where the use is maybe more habit than anything else.

Tritone substitutes: Bb7 A7 Dm7

Backdoor dominants: Fmaj7 Bb7 Cmaj7

V of V in major: Bb7 Bbm7 Eb7 Abmaj7

The Altered Dominant

The Altered Chord is the final sound melodic minor sound that fits the song. This can be used on the A7, and A7 altered is Bb melodic minor:

Bb C C# Eb F G A Bb, here it is written out with a C# instead of a Db because we are using it on an A7 chord.

The diatonic chords:

BbmMaj7 Cm7 C#maj7(#5) Eb7 F7 Gø Aø BbmMaj7

Here the two main arpeggios that gives you the sound of the chord (C# and G) and some alterations are

Gø which gives you 3rd, b9, 7th and b13 :

Eb7 which is b5 7th b9 3rd:

The Gø is a little easier to use and sounds a little less harsh because it has the b13 (F) rather than the b5: Eb

Does It Really Fit?

With the Tonic minor and the Lydian Dominant, there are quite a few standards that clearly use those sounds, but that is less clear with the Altered dominant. In most songs, the sound on the dominant of a minor key is coming from the harmonic minor scale. This is also the case with Bernie’s tune which has an A7 arpeggio. The A7 arpeggio has an E which is a note that is not in the altered scale.

The altered dominant is really more of a reharmonization.

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Melodic Minor – How To Make Minor Blues Sound Amazing

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The minor blues is a great place to explore Melodic minor, and you can get a lot of very different sounds with it.

In this video, I am going to show you how you can use Melodic Minor on an A minor blues, the different colors that are in there, not only on the minor chords but also melodic minor modes like Lydian dominant and altered dominant sounds.

Let’s start with a solo chorus on the song and then I will down what is going and give you some variations and exercise to use in your own playing.

The backing track I am using in this video was made by Quist, and if you want to play over it then there is a link in the description to it on his channel.

Blues Licks With Melodic Minor

The first few phrases are sounding more like a blues phrase than a bebop line, and this is also an option with melodic minor.

The material I use is really just playing around the basic chord tones: Am6, which are great for sounding like blues, almost a BB king flavor. In the example I kept it a bit more plain with the phrasing, but you could also play the line with a few slurs and grace notes like this:

Here, I am mostly just using the Am6 or F#ø arpeggio, so if you take an arpeggio like this:

Notice that an Am6 arpeggio is the same as an F#ø arpeggio, so as you can see here, where F#ø is in fact an inversion of Am6 (and the other way around)

then you can work on making phrases that sound more like blues phrases, like this:

Making the phrases shorter, and a bit more focus on rhythm usually does the trick.

Another option is using double stops like this:

You Need To Know This For ANY Scale You Want To Use

Something I first want to also cover here that is extremely important and something you ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS want to check out for any scale you want to use in a solo: The Diatonic Chords!

You will see this coming back all the time in this video, and knowing them will give you 1000s of things to play.

For A minor Melodic we have these diatonic arpeggios:

You should check those out like this, but also in a position to really get these into your system 

You already saw how this was useful for the Blues phrases, let’s look at some of the other options we have using Diatonic Arpeggios

Beautiful Notes and Diatonic arpeggios

The next phrase in the solo is a combination of two arpeggios: Cmaj7#5 and Am6, both played descending.

This is, again, the Am6 arpeggio and then the diatonic arpeggio from the 3rd of the chord Cmaj7(#5).

The Cmaj7(#5) works great because it spells out the upper part of the minMaj7 chord and adds a 9th:

AmMaj7: A C E G#

Cmaj7(#5): C E G# B

(Secret) Altered dominant

The chord in bar 4 is a super-imposition, so I am adding a chord to the song that is not really there, and it is creating tension that then resolves a bar later.

In this case, I am adding an A7alt which then will resolve to the Dm6 in bar 5.

A7 altered is the same as Bb melodic minor, and the line is also clearly related to a Bbm shape.

This is because the Bbm over an A7 gives us some altered notes and the 3rd of the chord:

Bbm: Bb C# F

against A: b9 3 b13

The Line uses the Bbm triad and adds in a C which is a #9 on the A7alt.

Being Vague On Purpose But Sounding Great

The phrase on the Dm6 chord is a little less clear, but is a nice example of using a structure as a motif.

The first bar is a statement coming from an Esus4 triad, and this is echoed in the 2nd bar as an Asus4 triad playing the same melody.

Checking out sus4 triads is under-estimated but very much something you want to do to have some more options, just like you want to explore the diatonic triads and arpeggios of the melodic minor scale.

The Lydian Dominant

The final cadence in a minor blues is a V chord and then also the tritone substituted dominant for that chord.

In Am that is E7 and the tritone substituted dominant for this: F7.

In the solo example, I playing the F7 as a Lydian dominant, which is a very common scale choice for a tritone substitute, and I use the altered scale for the E7, so both of these sounds are rooted in melodic minor, and two of the most common sounds you need to know.

For an F7, the Lydian dominant scale is the same set of notes as the C melodic minor, and I am using the Ebmaj7(#5) arpeggio combining it with a trill.

Ebmaj7(#5) is a good way to have a melody with many of the important notes in the chord:

Eb G B D

b7 9th #11 and 13th.

The Altered Dominant

The E7 altered is also a melodic minor sound, being the same set of notes as F melodic minor.

The line is in this case based around a few notes of an F minor triad and then a Dø arpeggio.

The m7b5 arpeggio on the b7 is a great arpeggio for getting the sound of an altered dominant across with the

Dø : D F G# C – b7 b9 3rd b13

Here I am resolving it to the 9th on the final tonic chord and also combining these with the maj7 and the maj6 to really get that rich tonic minor sound

A Great Arpeggio Combination

In the final, bar I am using a combination of an Abmaj7(#5) and Fm triads for the altered chord, again using some of the same structures to get that sound across on the altered dominant.

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My secret arpeggio and 3 places I use it!

Sometimes it is great to look beyond the diatonic arpeggios for some rich or more colorful sounding arpeggios.

This video is about one of these arpeggios that I really use a lot for melodic minor, altered or Lydian dominant sounds.

Finding the arpeggios

Usually we find arpeggios by stacking 3rds in a scale, but in some cases we can get some really great sounds by building chords in other ways.

The arpeggio I want to talk about in this lesson is the dom7th(#5) arpeggio. The A7(#5) is shown here below:

Where does the dom7th(#5) chord belong?

There are a few places where you can construct this arpeggio.

It is of course found in the whole tone scale, and a can be constructed in both harmonic major and minor.

In this lesson I will focus on it in the context of melodic minor. Purely because that is where I use it the most.

The dom7th(#5) can be found in two places in the melodic minor scale.

If we take the A7(#5) as an example then it can be found on the 5th degree of D melodic minor:

And also on the 7th degree of Bb melodic minor:

Using the arpeggio

If we look at the A7(#5): A C# F G  then it is worth noticing that it is in fact an A augmented triad and an A.

The fac that the augmented triad is a part of the arpeggio is probably one of the reasons why it is so useful for a lot of different chords in melodic minor. The augmented triad sound is a big part of the melodic minor sound. Just think of an DmMaj7 where the upper part of the chord is an augmented triad.

The Altered dominant

When using the arpeggio on an altered dominant we have two options.

The altered dominant in this case is a Db7alt. The two dom7(#5) arpeggios we have available are then A7(#5) and C#7(#5) (or Db)

In this example I am using the A7(#5). If we relate the A7 arpeggio to a Db root we get: A(b13) C#(root) F(3rd) G(b5). So there is a lot of color in the arpeggio.

The Abm7 line is a descending Bmaj7 sweep arpeggio followed by a small turn with a leading note on before the root.

On the Db7alt the line is really just the A7(#5) arpeggio adding a B to resolve to the 3rd of Gbmaj7 in bar 3.

Tonic minor

In the second example I am using the line on a tonic minor chord. The A7(#5) related to D would be: A(5), C#(Maj7), F(3rd), G(11).

The first bar is really just a simple Dm line with a leading note under the root. The 2nd bar is coming from the A7(#5) arpeggio that finally resolves to the 9th(E) of Dm6 (or DmMAj7)

Lydian Dominant

The Lydian dominant example is using a IV IVm progression in F major. In this case it is in fact II bVII I that is being used, but the main idea is of course subdominant, subdominant minor to tonic.

The line on the Gm7 is first encircling the root of the chord and then ascending a Gm7 arpeggio with an added A. 

The Eb7 bar is first the A7(#5) arpeggio followed by Bb and C to resolve to the 3rd(A) of Fmaj7. The ending is tagget with a small pentatonic turn.

Make you own lines with these arpeggios

The examples I went over here are of course only a glimpse at a quite vast amount of options available with this arpeggio.

The best way to get this arpeggio in to your playing is to use it in different situations in songs that you already know so that you can explore the sound of the arpeggio. 

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Lydian Dominant Licks – The Best Modern Arpeggios and Structures

In the Lydian dominant sound you can access a lot of cool sounds and you can put it to use in modal situations, blues, tritone subs and IV minor chords. This video will give you some new ideas and non diatonic arpeggio structures to add to your Lydian dominant ideas. I will use 3 Lydian Dominant Guitar Licks to demonstrate how great the arpeggios work in the context of this sound!

You can use the Lydian Dominant Scale as refreshing and surprising sounds besides the fact that you need for some of the chord progressions you will keep running into in jazz standards and originals.

The Scale and the chord

All the examples in this lesson are using an A7(#11) as the Lydian dominant. The Lydian dominant scale that goes with this chord is the 4th degree of the E melodic minor scale as shown here below:

The first Lydian dominant example – The Gmaj7(b5)

The first example is using two non diatonic arpeggios and a triad pair.

The diatonic arpeggios in E melodic minor are EmMaj7, F#m7, Gmaj7(#5) A7, B7, C#m7b5 and D#m7(b5). Basically the arpeggios you get by stacking 3rds in the scale.

But besides those you can also construct other chords in the scale. One of those is the Gmaj7(b5) which is what I use as the first 4 notes of this example. From there it continues with another non diatonic arpeggio: the A7(b5). After this I continue with a very common triad pair with A and B major triads. This is a very common triad pair to use for melodic minor. The triads are played in 2nd inversion.

Crazy arpeggio ideas – Drop2 and diatonic sus4 arpeggios

The first arpeggio in the second example is using a Drop2 version of the A7(b5) arpeggio. The line continues with a Bsus4 triad.

The combination of Bsus4 and A7(b5) voicing works as one large arpeggio structure. If you want to learn more of this approach you can do so here: Crazy Arpeggios

From the Bsus4 arpeggio the melody continues by moving up to the next diatonic sus4 triad: Asus#4.

The last part of the line is coming out of a G augmented triad idea.

Using them as Tritone dominants or as an altered chord

The previous example resolves to a D#, which you can directly interpret as an Eb, the 5th in Abmaj7. It is important to keep in mind that these lines can be used as tritone dominants or altered scale ideas as well.

Sweeping maj7#5 arpeggios and add some Quartal ideas!

A great arpeggio for the Lydian dominant sound is the maj7#5 arpeggio. For an A7(#11) this is a Gmaj7#5, which I am using as the opening statement in the 3rd example. From here the line continues with an F#m7 arpeggio. 

The 2nd bar is combining two Quartal arpeggios. First from G that you might recognize as an A7(13) chord. From here it continues with the one from C#. Together these two spell out an A7(9,13) sound.

The line ends on a D#. This is also an example of a line that would make a great Eb7alt or tritone guitar lick.

Summing it up

I hope you can use these ideas with some non diatonic arpeggios and quartal arpeggio ideas to expand on your own Lydian dominant vocabulary!

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Lydian Dominant licks

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5 Great Jazz Licks You Need to Know With The Dominant 7thb5 arpeggio

The dom7th(b5) chord is a great sound to use in your solo. Since it isn’t really diatonic to any scale then we often forget to use it as a dominant arpeggio. In this video I am going to demonstrate 5 great ways to use this arpeggio on different chord types.

Here you will learn how it works for several chords and several sounds like the altered scale, the diminished scale and a few more melodic minor sounds!

Lydian Dominant

The Lydian dominant is a dominant with a #11. One way of playing that chord is to play it as a dom7th(b5).

In the first example I am using the arpeggio on a bVII dominant which is one of the very common Lydian dominants. The progression I am using is in the key of C major and it is a IV IVm I type progression.

On the bVII I am using Lydian dominant scale which is F minor melodic over a Bb7 in the key of C.

The scale is shown in example 1: 

The Bb7(b5) arpeggio in this position could be played like this:

The progression in C is Fmaj7, Bb7 to Cmaj7. The line on the Fmaj7 is first a chromatic run from E to G and then a line based on the arpeggio from the 3rd of Fmaj7: Am7. The line continues to the Bb7 where it ascends from Bb to Bb in the arpeggio and via the Ab and F resolves to the 5th(G) of Cmaj7.

Dominant from the diminished scale

The diminished scale also contains the arpeggio. In this example I am using a II V I in C and since the dominant is a G7 we have a G7(b5) available.

Notice that the G7(b5): G B Db F is the same as a Db7(b5): Db F G B

The Diminished scale that fits on the G7 is shown here below:

The G7(b5) (or Db7(b5) arpeggio in this position could be played as shown in example 5:

The line on the Dm7 is in this example starting with a trill on the 3rd and then continues up an Fmaj7 arpeggio. From the E it descends down to the b5 of G7 and continues up the arpeggio to B. From the B it continues with an Ab and an E to spell out a first inversion E major triad. The line then resolves to the 9th(D) of Cmajor.

The dominant sound of a G7 from the diminished scale could be written as a G7(13b9b5). The line spells out this sound with the G7(b5) combined with the E major triad. E major over a G yields E(13), G#(=Ab, b9) and B(3).

Altered Dominant

If we look at G altered. G Ab Bb B Db Eb F G, you can see that it is possible to construct a G7(b5): G B Db F. This means that the G altered dominant is also a great place to put this arpeggio to use.

The G altered (or Ab melodic minor scale) is shown in example 7:

The Arpeggio in this position could be the same as in the previous line, shown in example 5.

The II V I line with the altered dominant is making use of an Fmaj7 shell voicing followed by a chromatic pasing note and an chromatic enclosure resolving on the 3rd(B) of G7.

On the G7 the line is the ascending G7(b5) arpeggio from B to B. This is followed up by a 2nd inversion Eb major triad.The combination of the G7(b5) and the Eb major triad spells out a G7(b5b13#9) in total which is a great combo for an altered dominant. 

Tonic minor

From the previous example we know that the Melodic minor scale contains a dom7th(b5). One place where we can use this is on a tonic minor chord. In this example I am using an F7(b5) arpeggio (as shown in example 9) over a Cm6 chord.

The line starts with a small melody using an augmented triad followed up with a scale fragment. In the second bar the line is a F7(b5) (or B7(b5)) played in a sequence. It resolves to the Maj7(B) of C.

The Lydian Augmented or Lydian #5 sound

Another sound that we can apply the arpeggio to is the Lydian Augmented sound found in melodic minor. In this case I am using it on a Cmaj7(#5).

The scale that fits on this is A melodic minor:

The D7(b5)/G#7(b5) arpeggio that is found in this scale could be played like this:

The way I am using the Lydian Augmented chord in the progression is a as a suspension of the tonic. This means that the progression is a II V I, but the I is suspended by first a Imaj7(#5) and later resolved to Imaj7.

The Dm7 line consistst of an Am7 and an F major triad. On the G7 I am using a strict C major or G mixolydian sound. This yields a melody that spells out a fairly basic G7 sound. This is first resolved to a Cmaj7#5 where the line consists purely of a D7(b5) arpeggio that then resolves to the 5th(G) of Cmaj7. 

 Other places where you can experiment with the dom7th(b5)

The arpeggios that are found in scales but not build by stacking 3rds can be a very useful way to introduce specific sounds. The Dom7th(b5) sound is also great if you have a dominant for an extended period of time. This happens in the beginning of a Blues or the Bridge of a Rhythm Changes.
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5 Great Licks with dom7thb5 arpeggios

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