It Is The Sound That Is Important! - Altered Scale

[@JensLarsen]

What do you use when improvising over Altered Dominants? 😎 5 Scale Exercises That Make It Easier To Learn Jazz: kzbin.info/www/bejne/kKKyentrm9-jj9k

[@paulsenn1281]

Thanks so much Jens. I watch your videos like they are a Netflix mini series, gripping drama, light humor, cameos by celebrities,great "action" scenes!

[@JensLarsen]

Haha! Thank you! You are so welcome!

[@edwardebel1847]

❤ Paul, I like that fact that you watch these videos and recommend them to me...get well soon and maybe see you later this summer. 😊

[@JeffSmith-di5rk]

That m7b5 down a whole step is for sure the easiest sub for me if I want the #5. Actually I'm trying to be more conscious of basic augmented triads and 7#5 arps on the chord's root...they're so powerful.

[@JensLarsen]

Go for it 🙂

[@davidkeller6156]

I had a teacher for a few months that taught me that but he never said it was the altered scale. He taught me, as you pointed out to, use a b6 melodic minor scale. One that I use also is a flat 2 7 chord arpeggio or flat 2 mixolydian scale.

[@JensLarsen]

If it worked then it worked 🙂

[@norbgrust]

Wow, thank you, Lars! Altered chords were really hard for me to handle, but I think this video could be a breakthrough.

[@JensLarsen]

Glad it was helpful!

[@robertpeveler9570]

For an altered “substitution” over D7, Cm7b5 is good - or as Barry Harris would call it, Ebm6.

[@JensLarsen]

Actually I think he would call it a half-diminished and not a substitution 🙂

[@robertpeveler9570]

@@JensLarsen OK! - you’d know. I just find that one easier to remember.

[@DenisChangMusic]

Nice video Jens! In my spare time I research the historic use of the altered sound in jazz. My research so far shows that Charlie Parker didn’t really use it. There are certain instances where one could argue it could be the altered scale. Off the top of my head, i think in Cherokee, there’s a moment where it can be kind of argued that it’s altered. He’s not playing the tones in a way that a typical bebop player nowadays uses it, and he’s mainly sparsely targeting a few key chord tones that one could argue are from Altered, but I think he was just thinking about voice leading. I think the altered scale as we know it today started to become unambiguously very very prevalent by the second half of the 1950s. So something happened in that decade… Also interestingly enough, at some point in the 40s, Django also started to prominently play stuff like Abm over G7. That’s definitely the Altered concept but not used in the way a bebop player uses it. I have no proof, but I kinda think he got it from classical music…. You can hear it extensively in a recording he did in rome in the late 40s (Improvisation on Tchaikovsky’s Pathetique). On a D7 chord, he plays Ebm a number of times.

[@JensLarsen]

Thank you! 🙂 Makes my day that you think so! That is interesting! I did indeed notice that Parker didn't really play altered, but it was there later with Wes and Joe Pass especially, but I have never found something that I would consider the origin of it. Maybe I should ask Ethan Iverson on twitter, he seems to know a lot of that stuff.

[@DenisChangMusic]

@@JensLarsen it’s in compositions like Hot House or Conception but in actual jazz improvisation, what I found was that it started to be unambiguously (keyword) used around the late 50s. Before that, it’s hard to tell.. since altered shares so many notes with diminished scale, and i do hear unambiguous instances of it than altered…

[@riccardoallocca4134]

Can't thank you enough for these videos Jens! Simply great!

[@JensLarsen]

Glad you like it, Riccardo!

[@retrogamerdave362]

I couldn't make my playing sound like jazz until I started using the altered sound in my ii-V-I progressions. That alone is probably the single most important "sound" I use besides bebop stuff

[@shipsahoy1793]

👍Thanks for this Jens. I think it's helpful the way you lay out the material. Always appreciate these directional nudges.😉

[@JensLarsen]

Glad it was helpful!

[@Euro.Patriot]

Is Heartaches a good track to get into jazz? I've been practicing it for awhile but it's hard because I'm going from barely able to read tabs to fingerstyle. The version I'm using was transcribed by patanobi on UG.

[@JensLarsen]

It is difficult to give too specific advice because everybody is different and at different levels, but maybe check out this post: jenslarsen.nl/how-to-learn-jazz-guitar-suggestions-to-begin-studying/

[@davidmiller4078]

Nice one Jens cheers greetings from Scotland

[@JensLarsen]

Glad you like it 👍

[@luissanoja9390]

Hey Jens, greets from Miami. Thank you for that, my approach to music has been for a long time about what I hear, since I don't have any formal training. It is interesting to think of that as a proper way of learning. Thank you for your videos 🙏🔥🎸

[@JensLarsen]

Great to hear!

[@Mats.Fagerberg]

Really useful and well explained!

[@JensLarsen]

Thank you Mats!

[@dividedwords]

@Jens: what would you say is the criterion (or criteria) for choosing between the altered sound and the h/w diminished sound, when improvising over the dominant chord in a major ii-V-i?

[@JensLarsen]

Taste and context

[@dividedwords]

@@JensLarsen Perhaps this subject would make a good video? The 'context' part, at least.

[@JensLarsen]

@@dividedwords I suspect that is too vague for a video. Altered scale is already a bit too advanced

[@josdurkstraful]

For simplicity sake with beginning jazz players I often teach Over G Alt Ab and Bb minor triads to get the sound without too much trouble finding fingerings.

[@JensLarsen]

For simplicity's sake I would not teach beginning Jazz players altered scale 🙂 They need to hear it as well as finding the notes.

[@josdurkstraful]

@@JensLarsen Well, that's exactly what I try to accomplish: they learn to hear it (in order to hear it you need to learn to hear it) with an easy fingering and from there we have a starting point. With beginning jazz players I mean those who have learnt the II V I progression where we want to "turn up the dominant voltage" as I call it 🙂

[@JensLarsen]

@@josdurkstrafulI am not sure beginner and altered scale need to be in the same sentence. There are a lot of things to learn in between a II V I and altered dominants

[@josdurkstraful]

@@JensLarsen Of course, I see your point there. But it does no harm either.

[@JensLarsen]

@@josdurkstraful If you are only focusing on II V I's and throwing options at them without inserting this into real music then you are not really helping the student. I think it is a poor choice from a pedagogical point of view. Altered is quite a few steps down the list in terms of what is easy hear for a beginner, and it is so much more important to get them to play real music not just II V I loops.

[@nicolastouren4229]

Hey, great video thx ! Is the altered scale, the Mixolydian mode of the tritonic substitution ?

[@JensLarsen]

Thanks! They are related, but I would not describe it like that, modes and tonal harmony don't really work together. I usually say it is the same chord with a different bass note, I think that is a clearer description.

[@nicolastouren4229]

@@JensLarsen Thx master ! 🙏🙏🙏

[@timstok3280]

Thnx Jens❤

[@ethanbreault659]

sorry im late to subscribe. i learned my altered licks basics when i was 17, my mentor mentioned that to make an altered lick that i should take the lick of the II chord and move it up a minor third

[@JensLarsen]

Welcome! I would be a bit careful with overly simple rules like that 🙂

[@falsenotefest]

Super vidéo, magique, comme d'habitude je n'ai rien compris mais j'ai regardé jusqu'à la fin......la deuxième fois c'est mieux

[@JensLarsen]

Thank you! 😁

[@falsenotefest]

@@JensLarsen You are welcome, I'm always looking for the brilliant false note around which all the good ones always revolve

[@davidsummerville351]

Great episode

[@JensLarsen]

Thank you! 🙂

[@Ana_crusis]

As Emily remler put it it's just the melodic minor up a half step

[@timstok3280]

Hi Jens ,Tim from Canada Good Morning or night to you

[@JensLarsen]

Thanks Tim! It is mid-afternoon here 🙂🙂

[@tomcripps7229]

Thanks!

[@JensLarsen]

Thank you, Tom!

[@marsvinbob]

good job Lars. even me understood it that danse scales wood!!!!

[@JensLarsen]

Thank you 🙂

[@vivito-]

Muy bueno video !

[@JensLarsen]

Thank you!

[@SNMPSimamora]

awesome 👍

[@JensLarsen]

Thanks ✌️

[@MaromMan]

Great vid

[@JensLarsen]

Thank you!

[@dereklam6511]

By far the best altered scale explanation on the internet

[@JensLarsen]

Thank you 🙂

[@ianhenkel7157]

play it over 8 bars ... to fast ... good job pulling em in / robben Ford really uses this well

[@mer1red]

There is nothing wrong with starting with theory. The problem is the way it is taught. A good teacher will first let you listen to examples. Then draw your attention to certain spots. Then explain them. That's how I learned it. A major part of the educational process for theory is learning to recognize elements of what you hear. It's all about listening. A course that uses only pen and paper or a blackboard is a bad one. The beginning of the video reinforces the misunderstanding of what theory is

[@falsenotefest]

I am myself very happy that one of Jens' videos begins with the importance of sound, of the feeling of music. Listening to Miles at the Isle of Wight in 1970 makes understand the importance of sometimes being able to forget theory.

[@mer1red]

@@falsenotefest My point is that Jens does in fact the same thing as what happens in good theory teaching. So the beginning of the video is misleading and not necessary. And the result of that kind of training is indeed that you forget theory, the same way you speak your mother tongue correctly without thinking about the grammar.

[@reginaldparker3248]

My question in the G diminished scale G A Bflat, C Dflat Eflat Fflat Gflat, where on the guitar fret board is the Fflat? 😊

[@oluwatobiadegoke13]

Fflat is E

[@JensLarsen]

Yes, F flat is the same as E

[@vishnaiva]

Where is Cflat with Gb major scale etc...

[@JensLarsen]

@@vishnaiva ?

[@ianhenkel7157]

just use harmonic minor stop fing around

[@JensLarsen]

Is it okay if we don't let your skills and taste limit the rest of us? 😁