Using the Diminished Scale for a project I was assigned to do…

[Michael Bishop]

Hey Johnny,
My Instructor wants me to start applying what I’ve learned from our lessons of learning about Diminished Scales and Bebop Articulation–he teaches people about the Scales and then gives his students assignments to see if we can start incorporating them into our playing and will assess our playing/progress. I was asked to have a go at this song by Van Morrison of “Moondance” He gave us the liberty to also incorporate other things I have accumulated in my “arsenal” of Improvising but does want me to use the Diminished Scale. In using the alternating whole/half step interval of the Diminished Scale over a song that’s in a minor key (we use the half/whole step interval Diminished Scale over a song in a Major key) it seems like with this song I don’t wanna “overdo” it with the Diminished Scale, do I? I don’t wanna overthink this, just trying to keep it simple and create a ‘balance’ of things in my playing–I planned on using also the minor pentatonic scale, chordal phrases, and a few modal phrases too? He’s started to teach my about modes of the saxophone. I think I have to be careful how I use chordal phrases here in this song, I think they can sound ‘robotic’ if used in the wrong way. In starting to learn about these Diminished scales myself, I can see why Jazz players use them a lot in their playing. I have to have this project done by April 25th, hopefully I can upload it here for you to look at/provide your own insights before he assesses it in person!

[Anonymous]

Hi Michael – hows it going with the sax teacher? I hope he’s working concentrating on your tone/tuning/timing issues and not just teaching a load of theory?

If he isn’t then you need to take him aside and have serious one to one chat and reign him in. And tell him what you want to sort out, that’s what i do with my teacher.

I have to keep reminding my teacher that i’m really crap at something and i want to sort that out first instead of racing through lots of advanced scales etc…

Saying all that – looking forward to hearing some improvement in your playing !

[Michael Bishop]

@ Sxpoet: My Instructor is THE principal instructor with the University of Arkansas who teaches private lessons on his own too. He has taught my some pretty cool tricks using only the MP/reed and put it in my mouth, with no Sax at all, and tested my tuning against notes of the Piano, playing intervals, Arpeggios, etc. It takes a few minutes to get my embouchure muscles warmed up but after I that I play the notes in tune. It’s also great ear training too. He was saying this is a technique that brass players use all the time, but for some reason not may Sax players use it and it’s great because the Saxophone isn’t a perfect instrument and it’s not always in tune, so it’s up to us as the player to play in tune. I use this exercise all the time now as a warm-up before even starting any practice on the Sax itself.

[Anonymous]

JF’s daily practice routine does the same trick Michael, been doing that ever since i bought it over a year ago. If you can’t play a steady note on the mouthpiece itself, stands to reason you wont play a steady note when its attached to the sax.

Also teachers are no different to anyone else no matter if they are the proffessor of sax music playing on Mars. I don’t want to be pedantic, just saying there are good teachers and bad teachers with the same qualifications.

The pro that teaches me has a degree in music education & he’s spent his life playing the sax for a living. He doesn’t think much of teachers out of university with a degree who have never played a gig in their life and have spent the whole time teaching the sax.

I’m sure your teacher is doing a find job – can’t wait to hear your improvements on the sax – blow us all away man!!!

[Michael Bishop]

@ sxpoet: that’s awesome Johnny does that, not many teachers show it. Once you understand this yourself, it’s kind of mind blowing that not more teachers are sharing it. My Instructor taught it to me, as he put it to me, as a means to “enhance” my playing v.s. having problems with my tone. You simply CAN’T play Altissimo if you have tone problems and blantantly told me to never, ever stop using Altissimo in my playing….or the Blues 🙂 I’m just really, really happy that he’s stepping in to help me resolve the recording problem that I’ve had, which he did it free of charge to me. As he would personally tell you, for the most part, this is the problem I’ve had… Any pro player like this is going to always find something you have to work on, lots of it resolves around things we didn’t know about before.
On a side note, don’t let names like “Bebop Scales” and “Diminished Scales” scare you into thinking it’s too technical to learn, it’s mostly the names that scare us 🙂 In reality, if you know you’re Major/minor scales and understand the differences between half/whole steps, then you wouldn’t have a problem picking up these Scales. A Bebop Scale is nothing more than a Major Scales with an added chromatic of a flat 7. So if you’re in the key of C, that means C, D, E, F, G, A, Bb, B C–that wasn’t too hard, was it? 🙂 Diminished Scales are nothing more than alternating intervals of whole/half step or half/whole step. We use the half/whole step Diminished Scale in Major keys and the whole/half step in minor keys. So if I was playing in C over a Major Scale, it would be C, Db, Eb, E, F#, G, A, Bb, and C. If i were playing in C minor it would be C, D, Eb, F, F#, G#, A, B, and C. The great news about these scales is that there’s only 3 of them that you have to learn because the tonics that are minor thirds apart share the same Diminished Scale. So to play and Eb Diminished I would simply invert the chord above and play from Eb to Eb using the scales above…presto, there’s your Eb Diminished Scale, just apply the rule of using the half/whole scale over a Major Scale and a whole/half scale over a minor scale. Same goes with Gb and the A because they share the same Diminished Scale too, so just play the Scale above starting from A to A, Gb to Gb and you have 4 Diminished Scales right there. C#, E, G and Bb all share one Diminished Scale, D, F, Ab, and B share one Diminished Scale. So just apply the rule above of playing at whole/half steps over a minor key and half/whole steps over a Major key and there you go, you have all of your Diminished Scales. Like I mentioned above, there’s only 3 Diminished Scales to learn (technically 6 if you account for the whole/half scale and half/whole scale difference). From that point they all just become inversions C to C, Eb to Eb, Gb to Gb, and A to A. Do the same thing with the 2nd Diminished Scale, C# to C#, E to E, G to G and B to B. And finally, do it again with the last Scale D to D, F to F, Ab to Ab and B to B. There you go, you have all your Diminished Scales, nothing to it. It’s the name more than anything that sounds technical.

[Anonymous]

i think you will find you can actually have tone problems and still play altissimo – i certainly did, depends on what your understanding of tone is. I think what you meant to say is you cant play altisimmo without being able to play overtones.

You’ve come a long way since lasr year, i can remember you asking JF if music theory was a waste of time, when you were in mexico. lol
Do you still think it is a waste of time?

[Anonymous]

Michael, the last time I saw something this worrying with so many scales, I gave it a diminished head in Bb!
(Pickaxe handles are useful tools for reformatting snakes)

I’ll concentrate on just playing my sheet music, though even there we have to watch out for the segno and-a-coda!

[Anonymous]

If you stick to playing sheet music like me, you’ll end up playing everything wthout really knowing whats gone into to the sheet music in terms of scales & theory. But if you start writing your own music and improvising, then you it helps if you know the scales & theory otherwise you could end up playing a whole load of rubbish – like playing 3 bar blues instead of 12 bar blues etc… unless you are like the beatles and can’t read sheet music and create some if the worlds best songs

[William Cingolani]

Great posts. Michael My first sax instructor was the band Major for the University of Ark marching band. It was all classical. I wish I still had the music book we were using. .http://fulbright.uark.edu/departments/music/ensembles/band/ Fulbright was still a Senator. I had an old Conn sax. I bought from a music store in Little Rock going out of business sale. It was 1968. As the years passed and brown suitcases, railroad yards, and dumpy little towns along the stem back when the world was new I made my way to Johnny’s site. I do pay attention to scales and concentrate on tone, the sheet music melody and some times often times embellish the notes on the sheet music or whatever sounds good. Pedro Infante often sounds as good as Linda Ronstadt’s “Canciones de Mi Padre” or “Cama de Piedra” Thanks to JF I’ve come a long way from those first lessons by the Music Major from the U of A. I did get a B in the course. That was 1968. Now it’s 2016, let’s rock ‘n roll.

Anybody have an idea when the MB mouthpieces might arrive

[Anonymous]

Sxpoet – I hhhope to be playing like you!!! After playing the MP for an hour yesterday I put it on the Alto and hit an F# for the first time yippeeeeee!
I spent the next ten minutes warbling E – F – F# – F – E – F – F# etc. Doesn’t it sound great when you hit a new high note for the first time? Now I have to concentrate on making it predictable, then I’ll move on to the more difficult G. Yeah, the theory is confusing, but reading here and there one can’t help but learn. My first priority is solid, predictable, notes throughout the whole range with good tone, everything else can wait.

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