Super Locrian

[CEB]

Super Locrian is awesome.  It’s a life Alterered experience.   
 

Have a Great Day. 

[PianoMan51]

Just us old folks here. No place for a melodic minor.

[EricBarker]

I'm a fan of Platonic Minor myself

[Coker]

I prefer the catatonic mode.

[MathOfInsects]

Always use Incognito Mode. 

[stoken6]

P corinthian over K blunt demented.

 

Cheers, Mike.

[Legatoboy]

Modes are wonderful I have really got into them the past few years but straight Western Harmony is much more powerful in terms of modulation and harmony as my old piano teacher used to say to sort of temper my excitement about them .. they are wonderful things but I believe he was correct... just some perspective .. not to bummer the thread...  I do love using them myself now that I understand their usage better . . .  less power doesn't necessarily mean less beauty.... 

[JamPro]

Removing the scales from my eyes....Modes will cure what scales you.  When I was discussing scales with my guitarist friend, he threatened to smash his guitar on my head.  I asked him: "Is that a fret?"  We were in a cover band called "Duvet".  He was later arrested for fingering a minor.  I write my scales out on paper; but they are still tearable.  That music you heard coming from my office - Yeah, the printer jammed.  The famous composer warned others to not touch his sheet music: it was too hot to Handel.  And then Franz asked: "are you Schubert that?"  I confess: as a piano student, I was an ardent trill-seeker.  Theses jokes about modes are but a minor nuisance for a major scale.

[Coker]

But, all seriousness aside, the OP has gotten excited about the super locrian mode, and I’m in his camp.  I didn’t know what it was called, but using that C#m maj7 (as I think of it) over a C7 for jazz melodies is a beautiful thing, and fingering fits my hand very well for some reason.

[aronnelson]

21 hours ago, CEB said:

Super Locrian is awesome.  It’s a life Alterered experience.   
 

Have a Great Day. 

That was the first thing George Cables taught me! And Yes!!!!

[Docbop]

Makes you want to paint your Shell with all the colours.    

[Polychrest]

The lawn mode can be a good workout using a light-action manual.

[allan_evett]

Anyone else hear of the 'Lixian' scale?  A college instructor used that term to describe a C Mixolydian scale with F raised to F#, which would also be the chord scale for C7b5. 

A new favorite that I discovered earlier this year is the 'Mixolydian b6'. That came from a liturgical piece accompaniment I'd been reworking. The  resolution of the tritone is haunting. 

[Docbop]

11 minutes ago, allan_evett said:

Anyone else hear of the 'Lixian' scale?  A college instructor used that term to describe a C Mixolydian scale with F raised to F#, which would also be the chord scale for C7b5. 

 

When I first heard of that they called it the Overtone Scale  today commonly called Lydian b7.    The other scale that remember from then was the 8 Tone Dominant Scale now just called Half-Whole Diminished.     Back in 70's a lot of different names for things depending on region of the world you hailed from. 

[EricBarker]

1 hour ago, allan_evett said:

Anyone else hear of the 'Lixian' scale?  A college instructor used that term to describe a C Mixolydian scale with F raised to F#, which would also be the chord scale for C7b5. 

A new favorite that I discovered earlier this year is the 'Mixolydian b6'. That came from a liturgical piece accompaniment I'd been reworking. The  resolution of the tritone is haunting. 

 

Can we all agree that "Mixolydian" is an awkward and silly name for a mode? Especially since it shares very little tonal similarity to Lydian other than "being the next one up!" Couldn't it be the Spartan Mode, or some other Greek region?

[CyberGene]

It’s for the first time I learn that one of the most used (by me) scales is actually called “super locrian” 🤦🏻‍♂️ I always thought about it as the melodic minor that starts a semitone above the root of the corresponding 7alt chord…

[guzman]

There is a simple code I use for applying melodic minor over dominant 7th chords.  Which melodic minor to use depends on what position the dominant 7th chord is.

 

I’ll use the key of C for reference, since everyone likes the people’s key.

 

Dominant 7 13/b9 (almost always a V chord) - Play melodic minor down a whole step from the dominant chord root.  So for the key of C, the chord would be a G7 13/b9 - you would play an F melodic minor.

 

If the dominant 7 is altered in these positions - III7, V7, VI7, VII7 - Play melodic minor up a 1/2 step from the dominant chord root. So for the key of C, this would be:

E7 (alt) - F melodic minor

G7(alt) - Ab melodic minor

A7 (alt) - Bb melodic minor

B7 (alt) - C melodic minor

 

If the dominant 7 is a #11 in these positions - II7, V7, (and any non-diatonic 7 chord) - Play melodic minor up a 5th from the dominant chord root.

So for the key of C, this would be:

Db7#11 - Ab melodic minor

D7#11 - A melodic minor

Eb7#11 - Bb melodic minor

Gb7#11 - Db melodic minor

G7#11 - D melodic minor

Ab7#11 - Eb melodic minor

Bb7#11 - F melodic minor

 

Also, for III7, V7 and VI7 dominants, you can play a diminished scale up a half step from the dominant chord root.

So for the key of C, this would be:

E7 - F diminished scale

G7 - Ab diminished scale

A7 - Bb diminished scale

 

This is a quick and easy formula - at least for my brain.

[ElmerJFudd]

I prefer the pie-a-la mode, quite honestly.   🍰 🍦 

[CEB]

For what it's worth, I listen to this podcast with these two players from St. Louis.  I love the way Peter Martin plays.  These guys give me some good practice ideas when I am looking for something new to work on or feel like I'm in a rut.

 

Here is one of their discussions from a 2-3 years ago I really enjoyed.

 

[CyberGene]

@guzman yeah, exactly how I do too. But I’ve internalized them so much I don’t even think them anymore, I just play the proper scale. 

[El Lobo]

I use the chromatic scale in all my playing. 

[GovernorSilver]

Open Studio's videos are pretty solid.

 

They mentioned dominant to minor chord transitions as one application of altered scale.  I've seen other instructors covering this as well.

 

But Adam Maness's Jazz Scales for Beginners course introduces a different set of exercises for dominant to minor transitions.  The course was released at a more recent time than the altered scale YT video - maybe Adam found something that works more effectively with students.   

 

Of course there's no absolute right or wrong.

 

 

[Docbop]

2 hours ago, GovernorSilver said:

Of course there's no absolute right or wrong.

 

Can I get an Amen from the congregation!!!!

[UnderGroundGr]

Phrygian dominant fan here...

[Al Quinn]

Love Super Locrian! First learned it from Herbie recordings with Miles (Seven Steps to Heaven I think). At first it seemed crazy with all the altered notes but once I realized that by thinking of it as it related to the tritone substitute dominant it became so simple: the altered notes became scale tones with just one altered note — the #11. It went from crazy to simple by just changing my perspective. Of course, the ultimate goal is to know it, in which case there’s no thinking. Just the sound of the notes.

[ElmerJFudd]

4 hours ago, El Lobo said:

I use the chromatic scale in all my playing. 

This is a more provocative notion than the length of the statement suggests.  Especially for players who think harmonically more so than scalular.   There are many ways to theoretically explain why something sounds good.  

[CyberGene]

19 minutes ago, Al Quinn said:

the altered notes became scale tones with just one altered note — the #11.

Yeah. When I’m notating 7alt chords I always have a little crisis of whether I should strictly follow the jazz prescription of denoting b9, #9, #11 and b13 or just use the enharmonic tritone 7#11 chord to spell it out cleanly and much more readable. 
 

For instance, I had to recently notate an Ab7alt and there’s a pure A there that’s actually the b9 and thus should be notated as bbB 😀 (double-flat B)

 

But if you just look at it as the D7#11, then it’s just an A. But then it’s not harmonically correct…

[stoken6]

Harmonic theory gets squirrelly in the "far reaches of the circle of fifths".

 

Cheers, Mike.

[Theo Verelst]

Melodic means blues ladder up plays the 6th snd 7th different from going down. Like with chords wuth additions, at some point there are scales with different name and meaning with the same notes. Harmonic balance, classical (e.g. "pure" intervals) melodic elements, and inversion of chords and bas usually are more important noticable elements tgan far fetched chords or scale names. Also: how does a scale fit a chord, or a transition.

 

T

[Legatoboy]

Study be-bop with my teacher we went briefly through some simple substitution scales at 1st.  he said on any Dominant 7  you can play the diminished scale a half step above the root of the dominant  you are playing .. the diminished scale is  a 9 note scale but actually very close to super Locrian in it's 1st 4 notes.... the tritone notes will be missing though but it is also an effective substitution on I have found over any dominant and very close to a Super Locrian in feel and tension ...