I'm a guitarist and this really opened up a whole new way of looking at diminished scales. We tend to be "patterny" as guitarists. I never "saw" those 4 major and minor triads.
This is awesome. Guitarist here, this channel has offered me consistent new ways to hear and visualize chord patterns options and voice leading movement. Thanks so much.
Adam thank you so much! This is a revelation. You decrypted the functional beauty of the diminished scale for me. What a gem this video is! What a treasure trove your channel is. Many thanks and love to you guys :)
Definite missing gem with this one. Thankful for social content platforms and amazing teachers like this to help fast track debunking unsolved music mysteries. For veteran cats like me these fresh simple perspectives glue together years of fragmented and missing puzzle pieces. Thank you sir.
For someone like me who no longer plays jazz in a live setting but continues to listen and learn, this has been MIND BLOWING!!!🤯🤯 This is truly a jazz improv/theory gem! I’m getting out my 🎺 and getting back in the game with your channel for real!
1. Choose a dom. chord 2. Travel a tritone and find a minor chord inv. from the 4 diminished chords of the chord in step 1. 3. Play a musical pattern with the 6 chord tones. 4. Resolve to a tonic chord a fourth below your dom. Chord from step 1. 5. Thanks Adam.
"Melt faces like Brecker" Well put. I heard Michael quite a bit, but one of the astonishing performances was with Elvin Jone's band at BlueNote. He's standing in Coltrane's shoes and not holding back, just absolutely going for it. Then joined by George Garzone, who was in a more tonal frame of mind that night, but still strategically outside. Antoine Roney, several others on stage. That should have been an album. Also heard Michael at front row of several "Tenor Summit" concerts at Birdland. Brecker, Liebman, Lovano in one of the incarnations. Liebman was inside the spirit of the piece, but Brecker was the most delicate voice. It was enlightening to see the thought behind every note. And he was always a gracious spirit. I've talked to Michael at his gigs, and he was always humble, and very self-effacing. But as Elvin said, "An absolute virtuoso." He had impact on how I think about music and where it comes from.
This is by far the best vid/tutorial I've seen on the diminished scales. You opened up the secret of applying them effectively. Much appreciated. Thank you.
I love how easily you break down the content vs. the function. Showing practical examples of how soloists think is crucial for student development especially if they have an ear for sound already
1:13 that shift to the up close shot with the 100% REAL dialog is where its at. I would love to see more cuts like this where you and peter are being 100 with us. LOVE THIS!
As a guitarist, I had this scale under my fingers, but the way I used it sounded so contrived and obvious, like the whole tone scale. Thanks for opening these doors.
Young Sir Most excellent from someone much older then you. You've got a very bright future. Thanks for sharing. Lol. One of the joys of music is that we can never know it all, but we can continue to learn forever. Smile. Sir Adam thank you.
As loath as I am to give up the secrets of Chromatic button accordion (you know, the non-piano right-hand that looks like a cash register), the brilliant thing about the layout is that those rows of buttons are the 3 diminished 7th arpeggios. So long story short, every one of these triad pairs, for all keys, can be done on CBA accordion using 4 triad shapes, simply sliding up and down the keyboard. The instrument almost seems to be created with this (not to mention most of Barry Harris’s teachings) in mind. And this video was a life saver for me because I was still restricting myself to the diminished scales, which , while still easy on CBA, aren’t nearly as musical as these. THANK YOU!
Along with so many others, I want to thank you for this incredible information. I have never really understood how to use the diminished scale tones outside of a diminished (or 7b9) chord and what you teach here is so cool! Thank you, Adam!
Aside from the great lesson, the "writing", i.e. the light comic tone, is beautiful. Now I gotta practice this stuff! Keep my home town safe for jazz, guys.
I learned the diminished scale and used it a lot over the years but… I never really studied the magic of it’s chordal content… that’s what makes this video fantastic! Thank you for this wonderful lesson!
Every time he said “so, all we have to do now is…”, I was like, “Yeah! That’s what I’m going to do!” And then, he would say, “No…that’s not what we want to do…” man, I’m a sucker.
Man, what a fantastic resource. Bought your harmony games course recently. An inspiration for me as a professional instructor. Wish music school was like this. Thanks!!
Within 90 seconds, you both brought up & wonderfully explored a concept that so many people don't get - there's not two diminished scales, there's just one symmetrical-shape scale that adds context to the music that's there (technically 2 exist in 12TET A440 temperament, but the shape is always the same) People think of the dim scale like it's dissonant but it's more of a game-changer - nice major stuff becomes nightmare music, whereas the right dominant chord becomes heaven with I Every other scale becomes wildly different things when split into modes - do that with the dim scale and you just get the dim scale (same with whole tone btw)
Amazing tutorial. I never really understood how to start to use these scales before. Great explanation looking at how they function over a dominant chord, really excellent.
As a country player that learned theory the hard way while playing and still building lots of finer details of theory, understanding how jazz theory is utilized is amazing for playing. I can't stand talk about dominants and substitutions and so on, I just want to know how to use intervals well and how those face melting bebop solos actually work over scales while sounding like they're being completely random.
WOW WOW WOW WOW WOW WOW I was right on the cusp of really being able to improvise with the diminished scale. I could easily hear the jazzy sound of just the scale. But what you’ve explained here is so simple yet very profound. Thanks for the explanation. You’ve made it easy now just have to get it under the fingers
An interesting approach.Always like your videos. Another method is to not even think about the diminished scale at all and to just see it as (in this case) an F7 dominant scale with the scale degrees 1-b2-b3-3 #4-5-6-b7-8 . This way one can see how close it is to a blues type approach with a couple tweaks. A little off topic. I see many books talk about two diminished scales (1/2 step whole step or whole step 1/2 step) and it always seemed to me that it was easier to think of it as one scale starting on a different degree.
You can justify the 2 notes of the diminuished scale which are not in blues scale (b2 and 6) just by considering 2blues pairs at the distance of a minor 3rd (i.e. A + C blues scales). Then you'll have your complete A or C diminuished scale
@@tetraqartet6798 The 6 is part of many blues like 1-3-5-6-b7-6-5-3 . The b2 can be used in a displaced minor blues lick like this: 5-b7-8-b9(b2)-8-b7-5
Ah yes thank you! (I'm just starting to pick out the diminished chords and scales on the fretboard, i really like your way of thinking in terms of these little dominant cadences! Nice way to break it up and not, as you say, clinically climb up and down!)
Couldn't play along because its too early. Will do a little later today. I don't usually play exercises like these, but this seems like a good way to get these under my hands. I least I could follow it conceptually and by ear. Thanks!
Your channel is amazing. I love the way that you layout concepts that I’ve “known” about in refreshing(and familiar sounding) ways. I’ve been watching for about a week now, and I’ve encouraged my own students to explore it more deeply. Thank you for introducing me to Barry Harris. Somehow, I went to Jazz school and never heard his name. I’ve been delving into the video archives. Keep groovin’ ✌️
I just think about it in terms of chord tones or intervallicly (sp?). Over the V chord, you just add the b2, m3rd, b5, M6, b7. Thinking that way the chord and key don't require any thought, you just use those intervals. Per Robben Ford, come up with melodies using those intervals and you're on your way.
fantastic video! Wonder if you or any folks here have suggestions for effective ways of learning in all 12 keys. It seems to take me a long time to move into another key and repeat the ideas. Eventually I want to be able to just think in terms of where I am relative to the root, but I'm not sure if the snail's pace I go to figure these all out is worthwhile. A potential strategy: use a software like MuseScore to transcribe into different keys, then play them to get into muscle memory, later making more "intellectual sense" of what I'm doing. Grateful for any ideas. Maybe it is best to just do it the "hard way" that I mentioned, and perhaps write down what I played so that I can return to practicing new keys?
Dissonants, Extensions, Alternates OH! MY! Coltrane and Jimmy Page's Radioactive Solo, Tears for Fears Rule the World Solo... This is the STUFF right here. and the Term Melting Faces, I thought I was the only weird one saying such as that. Going from charting some 70 70's and 80's rock tunes into notes for myself in a matter of 3 weeks in 2009, which was a whole lot of major 6ths and 5th Pentatonics (Blues with and without Diminished 5ths), and then 5 years later working on 90's and 00's Rock it was so refreshing to run into sus2/9 (diminished 2nds) that were not mere passing tones. But chordal to the structure of the tunes. Stone Temple, Pilots Foo Fighters.... That explains the inherent darkness or emotional lethargy in the progressions and thus the tunes over all. But it was fun working with.
If you start the scale on C, C#,Eb, E etc. it appears very symmetrical on the keys. If you visualize the notes it's like a "M" shape followed by a "W" shape Each shape has 2 white keys and 2 black keys. Handy for non piano players (me) to play around with this scale and not get lost and play wrong notes. I think I stumbled across the triads hidden within at some point (noodling on a clavinet) but had no idea what to do with the discovery 😅
That’s one of the other (of the 3) diminished scales. The one Adam used in this video scrunches (technical , ha!) around the F, and the other one scrunches around the B. Fun to “see” these different shapes and how the visual and musical proportionalities work out. 🎹😊
I'm a guitarist and this really opened up a whole new way of looking at diminished scales. We tend to be "patterny" as guitarists. I never "saw" those 4 major and minor triads.
This is awesome. Guitarist here, this channel has offered me consistent new ways to hear and visualize chord patterns options and voice leading movement. Thanks so much.
Adam thank you so much! This is a revelation. You decrypted the functional beauty of the diminished scale for me. What a gem this video is! What a treasure trove your channel is. Many thanks and love to you guys :)
I love the idea of learning scales in their context of resolving to something, instead of just scales by themselves.
Definite missing gem with this one. Thankful for social content platforms and amazing teachers like this to help fast track debunking unsolved music mysteries. For veteran cats like me these fresh simple perspectives glue together years of fragmented and missing puzzle pieces.
Thank you sir.
Amen
I absolutely LOVE when you break the fourth wall!
You already know what the student is thinking or rather assuming you should do to apply this scale!
Sir, where have you been hiding all these years! Best video on diminished scale EVER!!!
For someone like me who no longer plays jazz in a live setting but continues to listen and learn, this has been MIND BLOWING!!!🤯🤯 This is truly a jazz improv/theory gem! I’m getting out my 🎺 and getting back in the game with your channel for real!
1. Choose a dom. chord 2. Travel a tritone and find a minor chord inv. from the 4 diminished chords of the chord in step 1. 3. Play a musical pattern with the 6 chord tones. 4. Resolve to a tonic chord a fourth below your dom. Chord from step 1. 5. Thanks Adam.
"Melt faces like Brecker" Well put. I heard Michael quite a bit, but one of the astonishing performances was with Elvin Jone's band at BlueNote. He's standing in Coltrane's shoes and not holding back, just absolutely going for it. Then joined by George Garzone, who was in a more tonal frame of mind that night, but still strategically outside. Antoine Roney, several others on stage. That should have been an album.
Also heard Michael at front row of several "Tenor Summit" concerts at Birdland. Brecker, Liebman, Lovano in one of the incarnations.
Liebman was inside the spirit of the piece, but Brecker was the most delicate voice. It was enlightening to see the thought behind every note. And he was always a gracious spirit.
I've talked to Michael at his gigs, and he was always humble, and very self-effacing. But as Elvin said, "An absolute virtuoso."
He had impact on how I think about music and where it comes from.
This is by far the best vid/tutorial I've seen on the diminished scales. You opened up the secret of applying them effectively. Much appreciated. Thank you.
I love how easily you break down the content vs. the function. Showing practical examples of how soloists think is crucial for student development especially if they have an ear for sound already
1:13 that shift to the up close shot with the 100% REAL dialog is where its at. I would love to see more cuts like this where you and peter are being 100 with us. LOVE THIS!
As a guitarist, I had this scale under my fingers, but the way I used it sounded so contrived and obvious, like the whole tone scale. Thanks for opening these doors.
Young Sir
Most excellent from someone much older then you.
You've got a very bright future.
Thanks for sharing.
Lol.
One of the joys of music is that we can never know it all, but we can continue to learn forever.
Smile.
Sir Adam thank you.
As loath as I am to give up the secrets of Chromatic button accordion (you know, the non-piano right-hand that looks like a cash register), the brilliant thing about the layout is that those rows of buttons are the 3 diminished 7th arpeggios.
So long story short, every one of these triad pairs, for all keys, can be done on CBA accordion using 4 triad shapes, simply sliding up and down the keyboard.
The instrument almost seems to be created with this (not to mention most of Barry Harris’s teachings) in mind.
And this video was a life saver for me because I was still restricting myself to the diminished scales, which , while still easy on CBA, aren’t nearly as musical as these.
THANK YOU!
Video production, content, humour, Rhodes, everything perfect!!! Thank you :)
Along with so many others, I want to thank you for this incredible information. I have never really understood how to use the diminished scale tones outside of a diminished (or 7b9) chord and what you teach here is so cool! Thank you, Adam!
Bro, imma be honest I got my bachelors but this was a masterclass man...I didn't understand it to this depth till now, Thank you so much!
Aside from the great lesson, the "writing", i.e. the light comic tone, is beautiful. Now I gotta practice this stuff! Keep my home town safe for jazz, guys.
I learned the diminished scale and used it a lot over the years but… I never really studied the magic of it’s chordal content… that’s what makes this video fantastic! Thank you for this wonderful lesson!
Thanks!
This is a wonderful reference and resource. The tritone sound it releases is the best.
Whoooaaa never knew diminished can be soooo beautiful and still easy to understand, one of best diminished lesson ever, thankyou so much
Years ago, I discovered these dominant 4-noters to remember diminished scales…. Very helpful, Adam! Also loving the major minor triads.
Every time he said “so, all we have to do now is…”, I was like, “Yeah! That’s what I’m going to do!” And then, he would say, “No…that’s not what we want to do…” man, I’m a sucker.
😅
😇😀yes
Man, what a fantastic resource. Bought your harmony games course recently. An inspiration for me as a professional instructor. Wish music school was like this. Thanks!!
This is some of the best music tuition I've seen on TH-cam, absolutely phenomenal lesson 👌👌👌
Thanks for clearing away the diminished debris. Gold!
Merci beaucoup ! Quel cadeau! Thank you so much ! Such a great gift!
you have one of the best mthods for teaching on here! love your work!!
Nice Adam! I really love the major to minor triad pair sound. Keep up the great work!
This is amazing. Being able to crystallize the theory to make it practical is such a huge help. Also, the video editing is great in this.
Thanks to you, I can easily understand things that I cannot understand. thank you with all my heart...
I am very gratefull for your lessons. Greetings from Poland!
The editing is great in this video.
Within 90 seconds, you both brought up & wonderfully explored a concept that so many people don't get - there's not two diminished scales, there's just one symmetrical-shape scale that adds context to the music that's there (technically 2 exist in 12TET A440 temperament, but the shape is always the same)
People think of the dim scale like it's dissonant but it's more of a game-changer - nice major stuff becomes nightmare music, whereas the right dominant chord becomes heaven with I
Every other scale becomes wildly different things when split into modes - do that with the dim scale and you just get the dim scale (same with whole tone btw)
Simply Amazing!!!! Nothing else needs to be said.
This is a great reframe for dim scales. Can’t wait to get home, shed and shred!
This is the best educational music video I have seen in a long time! absolutely love this!
What an angel you are. Thank you
How to harmonize the diminished scale has long been a mystery for me- Thank You Sir!
I really like thinking of this as a dominant resolving to its tonic; makes much more sense to think of this functionally.
I've always found the concept of triad pairs quite nebulous but this makes it much easier to understand - thanks for this video!
Brilliant, my friend. You've taken me into new tonal territory. Thank you.
You're a bloody genius mate
Absolutely loved this lesson Adam! And that Rhodes tone just wow
melt melt :-)
This is sooo informative and then also FUN to watch! I'm super happy to have found this resource and i'm considering taking the course!
Impeccable explanation. So happy to have found your content
an eye opener - love it. thank you!!
Now I got it formatted. My eighteen months of piano study have yielded this poem, Piano Lessons
Amazing tutorial. I never really understood how to start to use these scales before. Great explanation looking at how they function over a dominant chord, really excellent.
As a country player that learned theory the hard way while playing and still building lots of finer details of theory, understanding how jazz theory is utilized is amazing for playing.
I can't stand talk about dominants and substitutions and so on, I just want to know how to use intervals well and how those face melting bebop solos actually work over scales while sounding like they're being completely random.
Next level presentation!
This is pure gold Adam.. Got me started
Michael brecker at Newport jazz festival ❤️❤️
On the third listen to this I went from "yeah so" to "holy crap, this blows my mind". Wow.
Very helpful insights! 🤘
This was awesome. I love using diminished triads.
This video connects these ideas here with George Garzone’s ideas about the chromatic triadic approach
WOW WOW WOW WOW WOW WOW I was right on the cusp of really being able to improvise with the diminished scale. I could easily hear the jazzy sound of just the scale. But what you’ve explained here is so simple yet very profound. Thanks for the explanation. You’ve made it easy now just have to get it under the fingers
An interesting approach.Always like your videos. Another method is to not even think about the diminished scale at all and to just see it as (in this case) an F7 dominant scale with the scale degrees 1-b2-b3-3 #4-5-6-b7-8 . This way one can see how close it is to a blues type approach with a couple tweaks. A little off topic. I see many books talk about two diminished scales (1/2 step whole step or whole step 1/2 step) and it always seemed to me that it was easier to think of it as one scale starting on a different degree.
You can justify the 2 notes of the diminuished scale which are not in blues scale (b2 and 6) just by considering 2blues pairs at the distance of a minor 3rd (i.e. A + C blues scales). Then you'll have your complete A or C diminuished scale
@@tetraqartet6798 The 6 is part of many blues like 1-3-5-6-b7-6-5-3 . The b2 can be used in a displaced minor blues lick like this: 5-b7-8-b9(b2)-8-b7-5
Ah yes thank you! (I'm just starting to pick out the diminished chords and scales on the fretboard, i really like your way of thinking in terms of these little dominant cadences! Nice way to break it up and not, as you say, clinically climb up and down!)
Couldn't play along because its too early. Will do a little later today. I don't usually play exercises like these, but this seems like a good way to get these under my hands. I least I could follow it conceptually and by ear. Thanks!
Oh yeah ! this is amazing sounds great on guitar
Awesome Adam!! 7 STARS!!!
you are a genius!
Your channel is amazing. I love the way that you layout concepts that I’ve “known” about in refreshing(and familiar sounding) ways. I’ve been watching for about a week now, and I’ve encouraged my own students to explore it more deeply.
Thank you for introducing me to Barry Harris. Somehow, I went to Jazz school and never heard his name. I’ve been delving into the video archives.
Keep groovin’ ✌️
Yooo the quality of the video itself is even getting better I love this!@
Diminished scale (Octatonic) is also the core of the Alpha Chord.
As a guitarists you are beginning to give me ideas
The best tips for diminished ever ;-)
Thank you a million for sharing this!
I’m a guitar player and I’m subscribing!
Good teacher
This video is amazing! I think it takes the right approach on how to learn music in general and shjould be used as a gold standard
Thank you very much Adam.
Thanks!
Works nicely with the altered scale as well.
Wtf my mind has been blown - gonna be using this all the time
I just think about it in terms of chord tones or intervallicly (sp?). Over the V chord, you just add the b2, m3rd, b5, M6, b7. Thinking that way the chord and key don't require any thought, you just use those intervals. Per Robben Ford, come up with melodies using those intervals and you're on your way.
Do you mean the b2 etc, of the V chord or the key you’re playing in?
Some great insight into diminished chords.
This lesson is gold. There's a strong relation to Barry Harris' work, but this is so much easier (for me) to digest.
I love this channel!
Awesome stuff Adam
Thank you for sharing your knowledge 🙌🏼
fantastic video! Wonder if you or any folks here have suggestions for effective ways of learning in all 12 keys. It seems to take me a long time to move into another key and repeat the ideas. Eventually I want to be able to just think in terms of where I am relative to the root, but I'm not sure if the snail's pace I go to figure these all out is worthwhile. A potential strategy: use a software like MuseScore to transcribe into different keys, then play them to get into muscle memory, later making more "intellectual sense" of what I'm doing. Grateful for any ideas. Maybe it is best to just do it the "hard way" that I mentioned, and perhaps write down what I played so that I can return to practicing new keys?
What a great lesson - thank you!
Dissonants, Extensions, Alternates OH! MY!
Coltrane and Jimmy Page's Radioactive Solo, Tears for Fears Rule the World Solo... This is the STUFF right here. and the Term Melting Faces, I thought I was the only weird one saying such as that.
Going from charting some 70 70's and 80's rock tunes into notes for myself in a matter of 3 weeks in 2009, which was a whole lot of major 6ths and 5th Pentatonics (Blues with and without Diminished 5ths), and then 5 years later working on 90's and 00's Rock it was so refreshing to run into sus2/9 (diminished 2nds) that were not mere passing tones. But chordal to the structure of the tunes.
Stone Temple, Pilots Foo Fighters....
That explains the inherent darkness or emotional lethargy in the progressions and thus the tunes over all. But it was fun working with.
Thank you, Adam. this is very very helpful. greetings from Argentina
If you start the scale on C, C#,Eb, E etc. it appears very symmetrical on the keys. If you visualize the notes it's like a "M" shape followed by a "W" shape Each shape has 2 white keys and 2 black keys. Handy for non piano players (me) to play around with this scale and not get lost and play wrong notes. I think I stumbled across the triads hidden within at some point (noodling on a clavinet) but had no idea what to do with the discovery 😅
That’s one of the other (of the 3) diminished scales. The one Adam used in this video scrunches (technical , ha!) around the F, and the other one scrunches around the B. Fun to “see” these different shapes and how the visual and musical proportionalities work out. 🎹😊
Excellent, excellent work in so many ways. Thanks, man :)
The tones you demonstrated at 6:30 are used heavily in the later seasons of Star Trek deep space nine
Amazing lesson 👏👏👏
Great lesson!!! Huge thanks for that 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼
This was great, thank you
where was this when I was in college ....could've saved 15 years ...wow bro
Absolutely flames 🔥
Wow Adam. Thank you!
Hey man, such a great way to teach this material. Thanks for the videos!
Love your new setup
Adam, this is great stuff..thanks so much !
really good insight, and well presented