This isn’t really a jazz scale lesson. A lot of teaching and a lot of online discussions are about what scales to use on what chords, and of course it is important and also the topic of one of my most viewed videos: 3 Scales To Play Jazz
But in this video, I am going to talk about how we may be overemphasizing the scales and not thinking about what we really need and give you some examples of how a lot of the artists we admire may not be thinking in scales or modes that much, and what we should think about instead.
Focus on the song not the scales
When you are improvising you are playing lines that need to match the underlying chord sequence and relate to it. The scale you use will contain the chord, but sometimes it is not that important what else is in there.
First I am going to talk about how a lick or a solo follows the changes and then about how that makes some of the notes in the scale a lot less important.
Content:
0:00 Intro
0:11 Jazz Scales are not everything
0:30 Follow the examples of great players
0:43 How Solos Relate to the Chords
0:58 Example #1 – A lick that spells out the sound of a Gm7 chord
1:30 Why and how is it related to the chord
2:02 Example #2 – A Lick that uses the Gm7 with other chords
2:27 Hear the harmony without any backing
2:46 Splitting the Scale in Chord Tones and Extensions
3:14 Example #3 – Chord tones vs Extensions
3:48 Example #4 – Gm7 line that is thinking Chord Tones and leading notes, not just a Scale
4:17 Examples of Licks that are constructed only thinking chord tones and not the scale
4:31 George Benson Example and Analysis
5:02 How Pat Metheny suggest you work on this
5:39 Focus on the Chords and make strong melodies don’t worry too much about scales
6:06 What is important about a scale?6:19 Like The Video? Check out My Patreon Page!
How To Explore Scales in a useful way
If you want to see how you should approach scales in a way that you can use in music then check out this lesson:
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