Posted on December 31st, 2008 at 5:29 pm by admin
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The hipster has just demonstrated another sound that I am quite fond of. For a given tonality, (say C dorian), try alternating between three key centres a major third apart, (say C dorian, E dorian, Ab dorian).
This kind of suggests the “Giant Steps” sound, which is:
Ebmaj7 F#7 | Bmaj7 D7 | Gmaj7 Bb7 | Ebmaj7 (Descending in major)
Same kind of idea, but ascending in minor…
Cm7 | B7 | Em7 | Eb7alt | Abm7 | G7alt | Cm7
The result is a sound of harmonic dislocation that I find quite pleasing in certain contexts. As ever, its important to judge the correct moment to use and idea, and to try and integrate it into whatever has taken place before and after it.
Rather that thinking in terms of shifting key centres, it is also possible to construct artificial scales out of these symmetrically displaced triads. The combination of Cm, Em and Abm triads yields this interesting scale combination that contains interesting patterns of intervals. Once again, used sparingly, this could be the source of some interesting tonal colours (pianists will have to think about the role of appropriate chord voicings and how they could be used in this context).
C Eb E Gb G Ab B
GEEK MOMENT - this scale is the same if you use C, E and Ab major OR C, E and Ab minor triads…)
The combination of three major triads a maj 3rd apart is also called the augmented scale, and has been described in “The Augmented Scale In Jazz” by Walt Weiskopf and Ramon Ricker.
This opens out a whole new spectrum of harmonic possibilities that were mapped out by Nicolas Slonimsky in “A Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns”. Whilst I am only vaguely familiar with the book itself, I occasionally try to apply some of these ideas when improvising.