Friday, June 14, 2013

Modern Jazz Line #24 - Harmonic Minor over Dominant - Creative Improvisaiton

Sheet Music:  Modern-Jazz-Line-24-Harmonic-Minor-over-Dominant.pdf

I wanted to write a line this week that used the Harmonic Minor scale over the V7 chord.  You'll notice all the notes used over the dominant chord in this week's example come from the Harmonic Minor scale.  There are a couple of options to consider when choosing what mode of this scale to use when improvising over dominant chords.

The most common example, first used by be-bop musicians like Charlie Parker and Bud Powell, is to simply use the Harmonic Minor scale based off of the minor i chord relative to the V chord.

For example:
G7 - C Harmonic Minor
G7 is the V chord in the key of Cminor.  This would be the fifth mode of the Harmonic Minor Scale.
G Ab B C D Eb F or 1 b9 3 4 5 b13 7

I decided to go a different route and use the seventh mode of the Harmonic Minor over our dominant chord.

For example:
G7 - Ab Harmonic Minor
G Ab Bb B Db Eb E G or 1 b9 #9 3 b5 #5 13

Remember to sing and play slowly at first.  Once you feel comfortable with this line in all 12 keys you can try improvising using the 7th mode of the Harmonic Minor scale on your favorite tunes.

You may want to watch my Introduction to Modern Jazz Lines 21-30 before continuing with this lesson.

You can find my complete collection of Modern Jazz Line "How to Improvise" playlists below.  You may want to review these lessons before continuing with the series.  They will give you an excellent introduction to voicing and improvising over the ii-V-I progression.

Modern Jazz Line #1-10 - The "ii-V-I" Progression
Video Jazz Piano Lesson Playlist (YouTube)
Sheet Music Collection for Jazz Piano Lesson (1-10)
Blog Posts for Modern Jazz Line #1-10

Modern Jazz Line #11-20 - The Tri-Tone Substitution
Video Jazz Piano Playlist (YouTube)
Sheet Music Collection for Jazz Piano Lesson (11-20)
Blog Posts for Modern Jazz Line #11-20

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