Chapter: Jazz Scales

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.

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of possible scales. But there are only a few dozen in common use by jazz musicians, and only a handful that are essential. However, it can be enlightening to at least be exposed to all the different scales, and the sounds they produce. To help in this endeavor, this program can display and use your MIDI device to play, in any key, any of the scales it discusses. If you play an instrument that transposes, and wish to play along, be sure to set the appropriate key in the Transpose section of the Options menu.

Now, if you were to actually sit and try to learn all of these scales, and in all keys, you might never make it to the rest of the program. If you are using the Workbook feature to lead you through the program, then you have already seen a suggested path through this chapter. If you are not using the Workbook, I advise you to work through the major scale, blues scale, and harmonic minor scale, but then skip over the rest of the Music Theory chapters and move right on to the unit on Improvisation. These three scales will enable you to play over the majority of chord progressions you are likely to encounter, particularly if you use the diatonic approach discussed in the section on Using Scales in the chapter on Melody.

Except where noted otherwise, when the discussion under a given scale says it is used over a particular type of chord, this means use the scale with the same root as the chord. For example, if the discussion says that the dorian mode is used over minor seventh chords, it means that C dorian is used over Cm7, E dorian over Em7, Ab dorian over Abm7, and so forth, regardless of the key the piece might happen to be in.

Also, we use the terms mode and scale interchangeably at times. When we speak of Ab dorian, we mean a dorian scale that starts on Ab. We do not mean the second mode of the Ab major scale. The proper name for the latter scale is Bb dorian, since it starts on Bb. The Ab dorian mode happens to be the second mode of Gb major, but we refer to this scale as Ab dorian, not "the dorian mode of Gb". This is a continual source of confusion for beginning improvisors. Please review the section on Using Scales in the chapter on Melody if this is not clear. Examples are provided with several of the major scale modes to help reinforce this idea.

Copyright 2000 Outside Shore Music
Authored by Marc Sabatella

Chapter: Jazz Scales