For all 18 Scales and Exercises in all 12 Keys: www.jazzlessonvideos.com/pdf-packages Mouthpiece: use $10 coupon code CHADXSYOS at www.syos.co/en/shop/products/signature-saxophone-mouthpiece/chad-lefkowitz-brown-tenor
I was a serious musician on sax 30 years ago but I haven't played since. I forgot almost all the scales except maj, Cmin7, and C--. It's nice to see young people like jazz and play it so well. You are also an amazing teacher. Thanks for the videos.
Lots of time and energy working and raising a family. I played in the Air Force and college jazz bands in the 80's but it was hard to find the time to continue. I always thought one day.... now my son is the musician.
Great content. Chad's probably addressed it in another vid., but I'd argue it's more important to practice phrases (enclosures, iiVIs, turnarounds,...) & arpeggios (in all inversions) before scales when you're learning to improv. on a new tune. The latter being good for "playing the changes" or being able to weave through a tune playing the primary notes in the harmony (ex: F7b9 = A,C,Eb,F,Gb) . After commanding that (which can be time consuming), enclosures, & cool phrases then move onto applying scales to a tune for 'color' (ex: whole tone scale (or aug. triads) over dominate chords). Chad's a fantastic musician so listen to him, but the only scales I've been recently practicing have been the whole tone, diminished, & pentatonic scales after practicing phrases & arpeggios.
That’s without tonicization where you make each mode of every scale be the root (as he says at the outset,,as an independent scale in its own right ) so ex.a heptatonic 7 note scale has 7 modes or 7 scales once tonicized(,and overall 49 component harmonic chord-.scale degrees!.).If you do this,then,you have 6 alternative modes and their chords to play over a given chord as go to substitutes,,,they will all work in one way or other as extensions and colour notes or directly related substitute chords.Also when you tonicize,as is being done if consider every mode of the major scale or melodic minor as a scale in its own right ,then whilst it’s vertical aspects as chord harmony remain the same by this action,it’s scalar aspects as connections to those vertical chords are now modified revealing at minimum,interesting possibilities and sounds for deriving unusual chord progressions.That is why for a 7 note scale,there are not just 1 scale 7 modes,,,but in fact 49 functionally different combinations when you map the vertical to the scalar horizontal degrees. ie When C in major is tonic and root then the interval between notes 3&4 are a half step semitones.But if you tonicize G the mixolydian mode in C as tonic and root then the interval between 3 and 4 is now a whole step,,,and this has implications for cadences in the functional harmony.If you set up a 7 by 7 grid and tonicize the major scale by each mode then look at the vertical harmonies which remain constant but observe where they are in terms of scalar function(,ie what harmony and interval is now present between degree 6 and 7 or 3 & 4,1&2)you will find that there are indeed the uniquely different combinations I enumerate,and so,that many possible musical sounds implicit in the basic harmonic and scalar degrees of a single scale. The notes in the scale x themselves = n different harmonic scalar setups.
Love the way the scale is up on the board. it allows me to see patterns. When I play l, I generally don't think modes..when I study..it is a great way to think. Some thoughts on the alt scale. Starts 1/2 whole then whole steps. So as you said, this is called the dim whole tone scale. So an extremely easy way to do this on the keys. in C Pinky on C..then Bb Ab to the major third E then 1/2 whole scale to root E Eb Db C..The great thing about this method is the whole tone is a easy for the hand placement..that is descending.. Of course locian melodic minor ..that gets a little hard to explain.. I use it as a check..Now the easiest way to find it is flat every thing except the root. First the scale. C D E F G A B C C Db Eb Fb Gb Ab Bb C.. The first three notes are from dim scale and the last are the whole scale. Best for new learners is to practice the C alt scale first. There are severely ways to name the alt notes out..this has the b9 #9 #11 b13 b7..I play a C7 descending run hit the notes Eb Db etc. I might be doing a left hand boogie. Or other instruments could be playing..even a backing track..I learn by doing..I think all musicians learn that way.
Thanks sooooooo much for sharing this knowledge to an old jazz student! Your video tutorial was really easy to follow, both aurally and spiritually. I had to subscribe! Thanks again...you have made this musician much better!!!.
Hey, Q: How do you get a ROCK GUITARIST to stop playing? A: Put some sheet music in front of him! Q: How do you get a CLASSICAL VIOLINIST to stop playing? A: Take away her sheet music! Q: How do you get a JAZZ SAXOPHONIST to stop playing? Play a song that uses only one scale!
Chad, make sure you raise the 6th on the last scale. I believe it was still showing the C Phrygian instead of the second mode of the Bb melodic minor scale. Great video!
Alberto Toro thanks, Alberto! You’re absolutely right. That was an error made by the video editor when copying the scales from the PDF for the video graphics. Last scale is C Db Eb F G A Bb
@@ChadLefkowitzBrown Yes, I noticed that too. Unless I'm completely mistaken, not only is the graphic wrong but I think you played the same scale for both the Phrygian and Dorian Flat 2. Aside from this, awesome stuff. Love your work!!
Fair play Chad, I purchased some of your books already from your website and they're a fantastic resource. Very well explained as usual. Also, I've checked out your playing and it's fantastic. Rgds, from a Big Irish Fan!!
It's difficult to get into scale practice without succumbing to "overworking" (ie spending 2 hours of practice JUST playing scales). I've only gotten serious about learning what I need to know the last month or so, but I think I have it worked out in my head. I'm firstly a guitarist and I wasted so much time learning modes, where all I wanted to do was play like jazz guys from the 40s/50s. I did actually find a way eventually (Barry Harris' approach to me was only one that works) but it honestly took me years of false starts etc. This time, my intent is to truly learn the major scale inside and out in all 12 keys. This should give framework to learn minor (although I'm aware that thinking of A min as simply C maj from the 6th is a dangerous way if thinking). Finally, once I know the three diminished scales (which are enough to explain most phrases up to bebop era jazz) I think that's enough to just move forward and try to incorporate what I learn into transcribing etc. Does anyone see any pitfalls in this approach?
Love how you’re standards pdf package matched so well with the songs. Most of the songs I knew, but even after listening to the melody and then playing your solos, I almost immediately could here these standards within your solos. Not sure how you pull it off, since a lot of solos go far away from the melody
I understand your logic in including the most common scales used but two of the most practical scales left out are the harmonic minor which is very useful in minor 2-5-1 progressions and the different types of bebop scales. I see that one of the scales is a mode of the harmonic minor but in its root form it simplifies the minor 2-5-1 progression. Pentatonics and Blues scales can be argued may not be as important but they can be very useful to a beginner just getting started. Also Augmented scale was left out.
P Marati hello! Here’s my answer to a similar question from “bguit” on this video a few weeks that should help clear this up: “I’m glad you brought this up and perhaps I’ll address this in a future video, but for now, here’s the reasoning behind not including those scales: The purpose of this video is to provide all the scales that a player needs to know, and the only scales a player really “needs” to know are the scales that correlate to the chords written in jazz compositions. For instance, there are no chords that are built or structured off of a blues scale, pentatonic scale or bebop scale. A professional jazz pianist or guitarist always builds chords with more than just the 1-3-5-7 chord tones. They typically add the 2 (or 9) and 6 (or 13) based off of the scale that matches with the chord type. Therefore, as an improvisor, it’s very important to be able to solo using the full scale that matches with that chord. A useful practice device, and one written in my PDF package, “4 Tune Learning Exercises on (applied to) 20 Jazz Standards” is to solo diatonically (using scale notes) on a standard, and a musician can only do that if they first know every scale that matches with each chord written on the standard. A blues scale is a very useful device, but is not “needed” in order to understand a chord’s matching scale, because it does not specifically “match” to any chord written in jazz composition. In other words, a blues scale is not used as the basis for a pianist or guitarist’s voicing of a chord, nor is a pentatonic scale or a bebop scale. The bebop scale is also a useful device for improvisation but just barely utilizes the more comprehensive concept of “approach notes” which I have two PDF packages on in order to fully practice that concept. To me, the bebop scales have always been an easy technique for a teacher to give an intermediate student, but the bebop scale ends up just being too much of a shortcut to really be useful in improvisation, whereas fully practicing the concept of approach notes will really make a player’s abilities develop dramatically.”
@@ChadLefkowitzBrown Thank you for taking the time to write this thoughtful reply. I appreciate your videos and enjoy your music very much. I look forward to seeing more of your great content!
Scales from a common root (while understanding modes) has always seemed "easier" to me-or, at least less to think about on the fly. I'd assume others' mileage may vary, as they say!
I think one factor that makes them expensive is their popularity. They're the most popular wind instrument in several music genres. But imo Trumpet is really cool. I try to play both and I find the trumpet to be way more difficult but perhaps more rewarding to progress on!
so everything was either a mode of the Major, Melodic Minor, or Harmonic Minor; or Diminished, or Whole Tone. If you're practicing all of your diatonic shapes with major, melodic minor and harmonic minor then your ears and fingers can work together to find the sound you want. thinking in "modes" is just an "equation" that is not the "equation" that you use and it's not any more work unless it means switching how you think about it. 17 scales is way to many if it's really just 5 with some modes... am i over-thinking or under-thinking this?
Without paying much attention to steps..which is my check..I make Cdim7 then up a whole step to Ddim7. Those are the notes on the piano. Writing the notes down..like this may help. C D Eb F Gb.. Notice. every other note is a minor third ..eg C-Eb..D-F...etc..The whole half naturally occurs because we are going up by a dim 7 a full step up..I dont play sax but music is related. This may help some viewers.
I'm not sure if it's said here and I might be wrong but there is an error at 16:00, there should be natural a in c dorian b2 scale, right now its shown with flat a on screen.
as a bass player starting to learn sax, it looks so hard to memorize all scales and fingering on sax, almost impossible! on the bass you got to learn once and just move the shape around. INSANE
Johnny As a bass player of about 40 years and a sax player for about 9, best advice... Be easy on yourself and accept your progress. The cool thing about sax (except super altissimo) you get two octaves with exact same fingering👍
I'm having this dread at the minute. I took all my years as a guitarist for granted. Learning 12 different fingerings for ONE scale is really tricky. I managed to do it in about a month of practicing them constantly (having known none beforehand), so now what I'm trying to do is think of intervals while I'm playing them to try and get the arpeggios down
OR: Another valid approach: 7 chord/modes are from the Major, 7 are from Melodic minor, 2 are from diminished, one is from WT and one from harmonic minor. IMHO, important to know the source for these chord/modes rather than just that they are “hip”. These modes were all invented long before jazz and the composers who invented them always thought of them in relation to their parent key. I think that’s an important thing for people to know.Also how/why modes like alt and hw dim resolve to the 1, etc. Btw, many, including Lieb andBrecker, play 6th mode of melodic minor as one of the two main modes for -7b5.
Enjoying working with your material on approach tones and enclosures. I'm 72 and am experiencing a loss of muscle control in my embouchure. Are there exercises to do to help this? And is there someone who has some medical expertise in this?
Chad, I bought your scale book last night. It's fantastic. Love the idea of learning all of these scales from the root and not having to relate the modes back to their parent scale. I know you need to have a cut off somewhere, so you came up with your top 18 scales for jazz. A person above mentioned the major and minor pentatonic and blues scale, I sort of get why you left those out, but what are you thoughts on the Bebop scales?
Hi Rob, what's your thoughts on the layout? I've bought the Approach Notes and the Warm-up .pdf's (bass clef) and the content is good but on the Approach Notes, the layout is poor, squashed up, spread out, exercises duplicated and missing. The Warm-up is much better but has some material from the Approach Notes with the same problem copied across. Also the ex's don't complete on the same page, making printing more of an issue.
Excismos Hello! Sorry to hear this! Could you send a message to our website? I believe these issues have all been addressed in our revised version of that PDF which my assistant can send to you right away.
@@excismos8056 the scales are laid out one key per page so that works great. The exercises are two exercises per page so printing should be fine. There are literally 445 pages, (12 pages) of scales, the rest are exercises. I think a table of contents would be helpful to make it easy to jump to the different scales exercises. But one could just do a search in the pdf for the chord that relates to the scale they are working on and that will move them to the proper page.
Interesting that harmonic minor itself didn't make the list. I definitely get it. The whole reason harmonic minor exists is to give the fifth mode its leading tone. It makes sense then to focus on the 5th mode of harmonic minor.
Quick nitpick, around the 16 minute mark when the Dorian b2 scale is on screen, it shows an Ab, when it should be an A natural Regardless, this video is crazy helpful
I grade Chad's video my all time high of 95%.. not 100 % percent due to his OMITTING the : Jack Daniels Boilermaker/descending "oops! flatted 2nd, 3rd, & 4th-dominant chord clasher scale
I was searching for something to work on piano and benefic for my saxophone learning (when it's too late to play sax, and suitable for a beginner like me :)) ... I bought this pdf and it's a great one !
Considering the context of one instrument, the saxophone, if we separate the concept of "fingerings" from "scales", I count 41 different fingerings when considering all keys. 18 scales. 7 are modes of the major scale. 7 are modes of the melodic minor scale. 2 scales are diminished. 1 scale is whole tone. 1 scale is a mode of harmonic minor. 7 + 7 + 2 + 1 +1 = 18 Learn all major scales = 12 fingerings. Learn all melodic minor scales = 12 fingerings. Learn all diminished scales = 3 fingerings Learn all whole tone scales = 2 fingerings Learn the 5th mode of harmonic minor in 12 keys = 12 fingerings 12 + 12 + 3 + 2 + 12 = 41 As you learn those 41 fingerings, learn how to apply them in context. Telling students to learn 41 fingerings is a lot less daunting than telling them to practice every song and every scale in every key. It's even better if students are guided by a quality instructor who will tell them which fingerings and keys to learn first in a progressive manner along with song choices. I wish more instructors took this practical approach.
If you're a guitar player, you only have to know maybe 2 or 3 efficient patterns/fingerings per scale, thanks to the nature of the instrument. Plus we all have our devices and licks. major scale = 3 patterns/fingerings melodic minor scale = 3 patterns/fingerings diminished scale = 3 patterns/fingerings whole tone scale = 3 patterns/fingerings harmonic minor scale = 3 patterns/fingerings +/- 15 patterns/fingerings max. That's not bad. It may be an overly simple way of conceptualizing the work, but it's a lot less daunting, and it feels much more within reach.
I looked through the comments, but didn’t see anyone else ask this - but, no harmonic minor scale? Did I miss that? Also, what about the “double harmonic minor” or “hindu” scale made popular by Woody Shaw? - C, C#, E, F, F#, A, Bb (upper half of F harmonic minor and upper half of Bb harmonic minor).
Looking for advice: how do you incorporate these scales exercice in your practice? Personally, after long tone and overtone (5min), I , play 2 scales a day, going trhough the pdf ( ex:Cmaj7, C#maj today, Dmaj7, D#maj7 tomorrow etc...), not looking to the notes. Should I do differently ? Thanks
Just bought the PDF. My question is always... how do I know what scale to play over a change. Is that covered? For example if I see F7b5 what scale applies? Thanks for this video and covering every key in the book.
Hi Victor, thanks for getting the PDF! Yes, the master scales sheet in each key has a chord symbol over every chord, and each section of an exercise is headline with the chord! :) P.S. F7b5 = F7#11
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I DON'T need 18 scales in EVERY key to improvise in a satisfying way. . .Because I DON'T need to improvise in EVERY key. . .I really DON'T. . .Go ahead and be proud that you can improvise in EVERY key. . .I'll be happy to improvise in the keys I enjoy and be very satisfied!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Great overview! and love the fact that you leave out the mode thinking. But as a guitarist I really feel that you have left out pentatonics scales and the blues scale :-)
bguit thank you!! I’m glad you brought this up and perhaps I’ll address this in a future video, but for now, here’s the reasoning behind not including those scales: The purpose of this video is to provide all the scales that a player needs to know, and the only scales a player really “needs” to know are the scales that correlate to the chords written in jazz compositions. For instance, there are no chords that are built or structured off of a blues scale, pentatonic scale or bebop scale. A professional jazz pianist or guitarist always builds chords with more than just the 1-3-5-7 chord tones. They typically add the 2 (or 9) and 6 (or 13) based off of the scale that matches with the chord type. Therefore, as an improvisor, it’s very important to be able to solo using the full scale that matches with that chord. A useful practice device, and one written in my PDF package, “4 Tune Learning Exercises on (applied to) 20 Jazz Standards” is to solo diatonically (using scale notes) on a standard, and a musician can only do that if they first know every scale that matches with each chord written on the standard. A blues scale is a very useful device, but is not “needed” in order to understand a chord’s matching scale, because it does not specifically “match” to any chord written in jazz composition. In other words, a blues scale is not used as the basis for a pianist or guitarist’s voicing of a chord, nor is a pentatonic scale or a bebop scale. The bebop scale is also a useful device for improvisation but just barely utilizes the more comprehensive concept of “approach notes” which I have two PDF packages on in order to fully practice that concept. To me, the bebop scales have always been an easy technique for a teacher to give an intermediate student, but the bebop scale ends up just being too much of a shortcut to really be useful in improvisation, whereas fully practicing the concept of approach notes will really make a player’s abilities develop dramatically.
I've been playing the guitar and piano I'm 69 I've been playing them all my life and I know where the chord tones are and the rest I just feel it I can't memorize all this crap it turns my brain to the mush
Or Sequences of Masters - what they play when they play fast? For example Art Tatum,Michael Brecker ,why? Because they are not guitarists :) and their solos skirted the limitations of the guitar constructions BUT the idea is not about playing their sequence as fast as they do just slowly discover and understand and analyze step by step how they thought about playing while building a fast phrases :) or something about "creative and improvisational techniques musicians use for style, phrasing, solo development, and motivic improvisation" Recently I started listening Post-Bop,because of "strange" weird harmonies and melodies. Post-Bop Language is my new goal. By "weird" in Post Bop I mean: non-functional progressions non-diatonic chords non-traditional chords polychords and unavailable (in other genres) extensions. There is any chance for videos about Post Bob/how to talk in this dialect?
Pentatonic too. If you wanna go farther there's harmonic Major, and the 4 (non-whole-tone) Augmented scales. But yeah, Major, Melodic min, Harmonic min, Diminished, Pentatonic pretty much does it.
Thanks for the video, Chad! I noticed a lot of your video closely follows the structure and content of the Jamey Aebersold scale syllabus, minus some scales. Just out of curiosity, is there a particular logic to ordering the scales in this way?
I think the video describes the logic of order: starting with the scales that match the most common chords in jazz, then scales that match major chord variations, dominant chord variations, minor chord variations, and sus chord variations.
so can you use the half/whole only on minor 5-1s or only on major 5-1s? And when would you use Whole/Half as opposed to Half/Whole? As aren't they the same scale but shifted down one degree? Im a highschool student so sorry for not knowing haha
and are these scales only restricted to the chords he puts up there or can you use them to imply harmonies on other chords? I believe a lot of players use the H/W on dom7ths i think to make it sound "out" and stuff
