Playing in the Diminished: Jazz Bass Lesson from John Patitucci

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In this bass lesson, John Patitucci (artistworks.com...) shows you his secrets to sounding great when playing in the diminished. Find out more about jazz bass lessons with John Patitucci at the link! Learn at your own pace, get direct feedback on your playing when you submit videos.
People fall into making playing the diminished too obvious. It's kind of like telegraphing your move. Creating triads with the diminished help you do this better. The triad prevents you from sounding scale-y and more melodic.
This is only a small portion of John Patitucci's online jazz bass lessons that can be available to you at ArtistWorks.

[@DylanTaylor007]

had the privilege of studying with John at CCNY in 2003-4. He is a great teacher and a great guy. I am still learning from him through videos like this!

[@angusradley7515]

so damn fluent across the whole instrument, what an inspiration

[@mohammedtristen1094]

i guess Im asking randomly but does any of you know of a way to log back into an Instagram account..? I was stupid forgot the account password. I love any help you can offer me

[@ivansultanoff6719]

Superb demo John❤thanks

[@waynematthews8165]

'I'm playing diminished now!' :) Top player, big influence of mine.

[@davidchamberlain8910]

This is great. John Patittucci has a great way of demystifying things.

[@BlikeNave]

The diminished sounds are exciting- don't make them boring. I've been meaning to make a few videos on this concept, but quoting this video will get us all warmed up to the ideas ahead. The symmetrical diminished scale is more than just a 'diminished-7th chord' (C Eb Gb A [all three half-steps apart]) moving in minor thirds (believe it or not). I've long been a victim to this seductive symmetrical-idea + sound, but things are changing: "We're going to outline the diminished sound using only major and minor triads." "This is the way I want you to think about [C] diminished: ... C, Eb, F#, A: [the roots] are all just minor thirds [apart]... do a major and a minor third [triad] off of each of them." "Everybody learns these [major and minor] triads... this is why we learn them: because THEY BUILD OTHER THINGS that we didn't realize at first." With C Diminished... "We have a whole bunch of triads that we can use: (C maj, C min), (Eb maj, Eb min), (F# maj, F# min), (A maj, A min)..." "ALL THOSE NOTES are contained in the 'half-step - whole-step' [diminished] scale." ! ! ! ! "There's eight triads we can play around with! Instead of feeling like all we can do is...:" (cue the familiar sounds/theory) 3:30 - 3:48. (Zzzzzzzzzzzzz...) "That always used to drive me crazy- I hear somebody play diminished and I go 'hear we go, now we're playing diminished, oh, isn't that great. It's like... [cringe] After a while there's no creativity in it, it's just sort of 'spelling out a sound' with no musical end game." By "toggling around between these arpeggios... it's 'diminished,' but it's a 'sneaky' kind of diminished." It's the same bizarre, exciting, symmetrical diminished-soul; the same "diminished sound'- [but] fleshed out using triads." EXAMPLES: (4:27) The standard diminished sound [4 notes] (4:30) The complete diminished scale [8 notes] (4:37) The triad-approach POTENTIAL [8 triads simultaneously (OMG)] Amusingly, and on a side-note- this guy does what EVERY musician does when they want to make a musical point- which is that they play the example that they don't support in a way that's straight-forward and boring, then they play the example they DO support with character, style and energy (4:27 - 4:37), hahahaha. As for the diminished, this might just be me personally (maybe it's just my inner theory-snob coming out [sorry!!]), but these days I often have an distaste for the borderline-offensive CLICHE and OBVIOUS. This diminished approach makes it so that one of our favorite juicy scales "doesn't sound blatantly diminished... we're getting sneaky and skatin' around it." I mean... you can move in minor thirds when using this scale, you have to- really. But maybe we can move in NEW intervals that fit (tritone, 6th...) and with more diverse triads (maj/min instead of STRICTLY diminished)- that's all I'm sayin'. "Enjoy your diminished."

[@BlikeNave]

***** I wrote the comment to submit to a music community, as a focused-recap for anyone who didn't want to sit and sift through the entire video, especially if they didn't have any understanding about the diminished. I find it like a hand-holding script to anyone if they want to watch/read along and help them understand the video from a jazz/theory perspective.

[@BlikeNave]

***** But if you are doing all that, then you likely know all about the diminished and music theory in general. The magic of the scale goes unnoticed by people just getting into theory and scales, so that's why I tried to elaborate as clearly as I could and walk less-experienced people through this rich but dense video. To us, sure it's easy to watch the video and pick up the key parts then move along, but to a novice most of this is hard to understand or follow. I just tried to give a concise outline for the critical bits of this video/topic for the people who could use it. :]

[@BlikeNave]

***** There never was a problem.

[@hahabass]

I've been trying to understand this stuff for years!!! Thank you.

[@fernandoanacletofirmino1518]

John Patitucci is the master!

[@paullwood9341]

WOW! Well bless my soul, I sure am glad I asked. Thank you John.

[@JesusChrist5000]

yeah the last thing you want to do is telegraph that you are playing in the diminished. People hate that!

[@travshorts]

JesusChrist5000 thank you good sir for a fine laugh!

[@2277DoubleBass]

This is great. Thank you John!

[@JaredPlane]

What a brilliant idea. I never would have thought of this! Thanks John.

[@mycofairbanks3321]

just went to my bass and realized what genius this is. Thx John

[@mattiameis3300]

I love this MAN!

[@lucianosorcinelli1690]

This was incredibly helpful! Thanks you

[@eduardosposito8052]

Great John!, Thanks a lot

[@carlitoscuba16]

now!!! this video needs to have 10M views & 1M likes at least.......this is the real deal

[@ElhermanoCristian]

Thank John!!! A present of God for us !!

[@vinlander8484]

Why does no one else mention dim in that context? It all makes sense now!

[@Hzfyld]

Thank you..

[@herve_jeanne]

Very inspiring, thank you John! I am surprised that you refer to the half-tone-whole-tone scale as the diminished scale, I always thought that the whole-tone-half-tone scale was the best suited for diminished, maybe because a Cdim is often a substitute for Ab7(b9) and in this case C-whole-tone-half-tone seems better suited for me. But from your examples I hear that C-half-tone-whole-tone sounds amazing, so thanks for this great idea & concept! Greetings from Germany!

[@ajptrois6671]

+Hervé Jeanne both the hw and wh versions are commonly referred to as the "diminished" scales, from what I've seen - I'm not sure if that's just a difference between english and non-english speaking countries though.

[@dizzzzler]

I'm with you Hervé. If one thinks of the diminished scale as a diminished 7th and the Dominant 7th Chords a half step below each note, instead of whole-half, or half-whole, it is a little more clear and in this case he is actually playing C# diminished (C#, E, G, Bb) and the roots of the Dominant 7th chords (A, C, Eb, F#/Gb).

[@lownessfunk4932]

I do like to telegraph what i play. As long as its musical who cares. Diminished chords/scales are beautiful. Sometimes i just cant understand when successful musicians put these limits on creativity.

[@Hulloder]

He's just presenting some ideas about making a new sound! Good things to apply to all our playing

[@irwinbbarry]

You the best man! Thanks.

[@guidoreichling6516]

Hab alles verstanden . Vielen Dank !

[@keithruddell1800]

for years whenever he says the word saxophone he crimps his left hand it's great

[@wallybrown4392]

Wunnerful John, you are so musical, and besides you are inspiring. You were the best bass player that I have ever played with. Maybe I will share a CD that we made at Maranatha in 1980 with Ron Tutt. :-)

[@foxybrown2]

It just matters what style of music you are trying to play Django played whole lot of diminished and it sounded great.

[@TheRE4Player]

But Django was the one who made it obvious kkkkkk

[@hahabass]

Enjoy your diminished!

[@deafprof]

Great lesson from the boss! :)

[@bobsabin]

Nice!

[@gabrielpreusse8421]

Thank you!!!

[@nunofaria1222]

Muito produtivo!

[@FenBerrell]

So lets say you want to use this trick for C diminished, could you play this licks over a minor ii-V-i to C?

[@tomd3098]

Over the ii and especially the V, assuming I understand your question correctly.

[@AxistubeToulouse]

cool !

[@artguevarra7997]

solid...

[@BeggarsAu]

That's a C# dim scale. The C and C minor triads John plays are outlining a dominant sound e.g. C7#9

[@aldebaran.carrasco.martinez]

Genius.

[@mikeroadblock]

Wow!!!

[@zacharyserleth492]

so is he resolving to C or to F? Cdim over G7? or Cdim over B7 headed to E?

[@polynesianguitar1851]

C13b9 to F

[@mdsoulsounds]

John's a bad cat! BUT, it sounds also "telegraphed" when even using the variety of major/minor triads. Playing lines which are imaginative washes away the mechanical sounding.

[@666aftershave]

hulk meets saul goodman

[@waynematthews8165]

Can't the flat seventh be used on every arpeggio too?

[@carlitoscuba16]

Super Hero 🦸‍♂️

[@AnthonyOnBass]

When I was trying to find the triads on my own, I actually found ten triads: did I do something wrong?

[@stefanomorbidelli8878]

If you also count the diminished triads, you have 12.

[@georgevorres5240]

@@stefanomorbidelli8878 there are 8 diminished triads on each scale

[@skineyemin4276]

He really is a truly great player and one can always learn something from Patitucci, but, he's one of those post Chick Corea fusion cats that always seem to (sometimes) minimize the original bebop idiom and the degrees of its influence. Also, if you listen to Herbie Hancock's brilliant solo on his 1973 "Chameleon" track, you will hear a lot of double diminished runs throughout his whole solo to which Patitucci was referring and slightly mocking near the top of this video clip. He is a bad dude.

[@AdrianoGiffoni]

Confratulations

[@RealDiaz]

At risk of sounding like I didn't do my homework, where in the hell is a Cmajor triad in a C diminished scale?

[@kscbass]

If you build a diminished scale using half/whole steps you get: your first note is C, then half step is D flat, then whole step E flat, then half step F flat (or E natural), and so on. The notes in a C diminished scale are C-Db-Eb-E natural-F#-G natural-A-Bb. You can see that in the C diminished scale you can find the notes that are in a C major triad (C-E-G), C minor triad (C-Eb-G), Eb major triad (Eb-G-Bb), Eb minor triad (Eb-Gb-Bb), Gb major triad (Gb-Bb-Db), Gb minor triad (Gb-Bbb-Db), A major triad (A-C#-E), A minor triad (A-C-E).

[@RealDiaz]

kscbass Thanks! I figured it out minutes after posting this, lol. I had forgotten that there was a half/whole as well as a whole/half. I was referencing the whole/half when I posted. Cheers!!

[@TheDarmardar]

kscbass thanks, makes perfect sense, this is easy to understand, is a great idea, and works really well.

[@RealDiaz]

TheDarmardar Yaaayy!!!!

[@maxdavidsonchannel]

Yeah but, when is this really useful, I mean with what kind of harmonic background is this applicable?

[@ronanmcmanus5328]

+D Gee. Thanks for replying here. Could you please elaborate a little on this. I mean, if playing for example a jazz blues in F with mostly dom7 chords would I choose the Edim scale as a starting point?

[@incapacitaterd]

When you're playing a diminished chord. He's showing us a deep way to play a melody over a diminished chord without just getting all half-steppy. Really a way to weave melodies onto a diminished chord with small parts you already know.

[@ToddSmith1]

“If we realize that the C diminished……… has an E natural......and a G so it has a C triad......” help me...There was an old New Orleans bass player who said “grab any old note as long as it swings” I’m jus hon do dat

[@SeerTrulth]

Either way, if you consciously DECIDE to play "diminished", you are contriving the deal anyway. No way around it, BUT, if your soul is singing the part on your bass, no such mechanical attempts to make an impression exist. Let the music show your soul's song, and forget all this false projection of knowledge.

[@SeerTrulth]

PLAY THE SOUNDS and NOT THE THEORY OR THE IDEAS. There is no creativity in music when you contrive scales and theoretical avenues. Period.

[@SeerTrulth]

Good arguments, friend. I hear you, too. I'm a conservatory grad and second-chair viola in an orchestra, BUT in my spare time I play bass and tenor and guitar for fun, and the sentiment I render here is my current vibe on music and musical life. I hear you, though. I just feel that one can "sing" the same things after one's hands learn the pathways. I totally don't need theory to help me plan my improvs, but the use of theory helped me practice dexterity into place. Great argument, though, and I appreciate your input and balance.