Tag: Blues scale

Piano day (1h)

  • Improvisation
    • Major blues scales in all keys (over dominant chords in shell voicings)
    • Cycling 5ths: Lesson 12 / Exercise 1 from “Jazz Improvisation for Keyboard Players” (Mixo scales over dominant chords)
  • Left hand
    • Stride bass (exercise + analysis) — from “Jazz Piano — The Left Hand” by Riccardo Scivales

Piano day (1h)

  • Improvisation
    • Minor blues scale in all keys over minor 7th chords in shell voicings
    • Major blues scale in all keys over dominant chords
    • Alternating minor & major blues scales
  • Jazz voicings
    • Dominant to minor (quick recap)
    • Dominant to major (quick recap)
  • Comping
    • Mixo & minor blues over dominant to minor transition (I — IV)

Piano day (1h 20m)

Took a little break in practice because of o lot of production tasks going on, now back again.

  • Improvisation
    • Minor blues scale over minor chords (shell voicings) in all keys
    • Major blues scales over dominant chords in all keys
    • Alternating minor and major
  • Jazz voicings
    • Recap: minor to dominant, dominant to major

Observations

Even 2-day break feels hard. Although I do play piano a lot during my production and recording sessions, stopping to practice the new theory material results in losing momentum, and this is not cool. So, the takeaway here is to practice no matter what, even if there are only 30 minutes.

Piano day (1h)

  • Improvisation
    • Quick recap of the blues scale in all keys (2-octave runs over minor shell chords in LH)
  • Modes
    • Chords of the Dorian mode: cycling progressions around 12 keys w/ voice leading (using shells)
      • i — IV7
      • i — v
    • Cycling Phrygian progressions
      • i — bVI▵7

Piano day (2h)

  • Jazz voicings
    • Dominant to major (2 versions)
    • Dominant to minor (2 versions)
    • II — V — I — IV’s in all major and parallel minor keys
  • Comping
    • All By Myself (Irving Berlin)
      • Voice leading / minimum movement
      • Some improv in passing chord scales (when I was able to find it quick enough)
  • Improvisation
    • Cool stuff: nine tone scales in C & F (WOW that was huge)
    • Minor blues scale in C through Ab (comping with minor and dominant shell voicings in LH)
    • Combining nine tone and C + F minor blues over I — IV progression. Crazy

Observations

Synthetic scales are absolutely awesome. They may sound harsh at first (especially if you play them over a wrong chord type, e. g. nine tone over minor, whereas it apparently works better over augmented), but they are such a great material that helps you enrich your vocabulary and break out of the stuff you’ve been using for ages! Just like Todd Johnson says in his masterclasses, scales and patterns are the “templates of digesting the new harmonies”. Exactly that.  The more ways to alter your scales you’re comfortable with, the less time you spend lost in the dark when improvising.