Using the Fifth to create tension/relieve it with the tonic & other key notes.

[Michael]

Hi Johnny,
As I work more and more on applying your lessons, there’s a few very distinct things that I’m noticing and it has to do with certain notes/degrees of the scale just seem to lead really well to other notes. For example, I’ve noticed how I can use the fifth to create a lot of tension, but when I do this it seems like only the tonic really “relieves” that tension. In this scenario, it seems like it’s best used for some kind of “big ending”. I can create a slightly weaker amount of tension with the 4th, but it’s not as tense as the fifth. If I’m going to use the 4th, it feels like, to me, that it would be better to do so in the middle of my Improvisation somewhere and leave the fifth for “that big ending”. In working on using these Blues Scale with my Blues Brothers Instrumental that I was working on tonight, to me it just feels like the fifth doesn’t “want” to go anywhere other than the tonic, but with the tonic (1st) I can go virtually anywhere. And then I’m really seeing how the flat 7 sets up the 4 chord really well like you’ve talked about in your book. I’m not sure what it is, but to me it just seems like there’s certain notes of these Blues Scales that naturally lead better into other notes within the scale, am I thinking correctly?
In any case I tell you…I’m REALLY liking this stuff. The more I play it, the more I love it 🙂

[john]

yes you’re starting to understand it. the more you experiment the more you’ll see/hear these things. they’re not new, it’s just the way it is and it’s up to us to use them to help in being good improvisors. you’re at the stage where you should experiment and even over-think for a while as it sinks in.
later it will become almost 2nd nature and you won’t be thinking about it as much, it will just come out of your horn….or should I say “you”

[Anonymous]

well done Michael, most songs when you listen to them are drawn to one note, soon you will be able to listen to a song and name the key it is in.

Sometimes you can take any part of a tune, hum the note in that part of the tune, and then start huming all the notes below it, at some point you will stop, and quite often that names the 1st note on the scale

[Michael]

That’s a great point Johnny that you say about later it will just come out of “you” because we use the Saxophone and those Blues Scales to express ourselves. We can think of all kinds of things, licks/riffs, playing a certain way, and so on but without a rock-solid understanding of just how these Blues scales REALLY work, I think that it’s virtually impossible to truely express ourselves and “bring it to life” I guess you can say. I think if anyone whose in Killer Blues like I am right now, it’s just not enough for us to “memorize” a few exercises and think that we know this stuff….no way and that’s what I was saying the other day. That’s why I say I’m going to end up being in your Killer Blues for a little while longer than even what I, myself, initially had thought—the more I broke it down and learned about it, the more I realized that I had to go beyond merely memorizing a few things if i really wanted to get the full benefit out of your book. My goal is just to be able to pull it out and use it “at will” or like 2nd nature like you say. It’s getting there…very slowly anyway LOL

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