Major Scale

This is a preview of the educational program A Jazz Improvisation Almanac which is under development for the Outside Shore Music Online School. Feel free to browse this preview and learn what you can from it. For a more completed product, though, check out the original freely browsable jazz textbook, A Jazz Improvisation Primer.

The major scale itself should be quite familiar to you by now. This scale is also known as the ionian mode. The chord generated from the root of this scale is a major seventh chord. For example, in C major, a Cmaj7 chord is generated:

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Therefore, this scale tends to be used over major seventh chords. The scale also generates a major sixth chord, and is thus an appropriate choice for those chords as well:

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The fourth of the major scale is dissonant against a major chord, so that note tends to be avoided, except as a passing tone or neighboring tone. Here is an example of a melody based on the C major scale, used over a Cmaj7 chord:

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The major scale may also be used over any chord that is diatonic to the key of the scale. For example, the major scale of the I chord may be used over an entire ii-V-I progression:

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This is how most musicians through the bebop era tended to play. If a series of chords was in a particular key, they would simply use the scale of that key over the entire progression. This results in melodies that are generally diatonic:

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However, the modern approach is generally to think of each chord individually and choose the best scale for that chord, regardless of the key of the piece as a whole. This may introduce non-diatonic notes. Whenever a major chord occurs in a progression, you may use the corresponding major scale, regardless of the key of the progression. For example, an F major scale may be used over an Fmaj7 chord. If the progression containing the Fmaj7 is in the key of C, this results in one note, Bb, that is not diatonic to the key, even though Fmaj7 is itself diatonic to the key of C:

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If a chord is itself not diatonic to the key, then there is no scale that will fit the chord and remain diatonic. The corresponding scale will always contain non-diatonic notes. For example, if an Emaj7 chord appears in the key of C, one would use an E major scale, which contains several notes not diatonic to C major:

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Copyright 2000 Outside Shore Music
Authored by Marc Sabatella

Major Scale