Japanese In Sen Scale

Scales And Modes | No comments

john coltrane art

The Japanese In Sen Scale was made popular in jazz by John Coltrane and McCoy Tyner. The In Sen scale is sometimes called the Japanese pentatonic scale and it is found naturally in the major scale and the melodic minor scale. For example the E In Sen scale can be found in C major scale and D melodic minor scale.

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Dominant 7#9 Arpeggios

Arpeggios | No comments

This lesson will look at the dominant 7#9 arpeggio. The dominant 7#9 arpeggio is a five note arpeggio made up of the root, third, fifth, flatten seventh and sharp nine. You can use the dominant 7#9 arpeggio for playing over 7#9 chords.

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Blue Bossa Chord Progression

Standards | 7 Comments

pat martino guitar

Blue Bossa by Kenny Dorham is a great jazz standard to play over and contains a very nice chord progression that is suitable even for beginners. Blue Bossa is usually one of the first jazz standards that people learn to improvise over. Blue Bossa is written here in the key or C minor. There is only really one A section to this tune. It starts in C minor and modulates up a half step to Db major. Once you have learned the melody and chord changes to Blue Bossa you will need to know how to improvise over it.

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Dominant 7b5 Arpeggios

Arpeggios | No comments

So far in our series of articles we have looked at the most common arpeggios and how to use them in your jazz playing. We will continue this tour of arpeggios by taking a look at the dominant 7b5 arpeggio. The dominant seven flat five arpeggio is an obvious candidate for playing over 7b5 chords and it contains four notes, the root, major third, flat fifth and the flat seventh.

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Dominant 7b9 Arpeggio

Arpeggios | No comments

The dominant 7b9 arpeggio is really only ever used to play over a dominant 7b9 chord. The dominant 7b9 arpeggio contains five notes and is build from a dominant 7 arpeggio and an added b9 note. The 7b9 chord is fairly common in jazz and so getting to know the sounds of the dominant 7b9 arpeggio can be really useful.

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Dominant 7 Apreggios

Arpeggios | No comments

We have been looking at all the important jazz arpeggios you will need to know over the last few weeks and now it is the turn of the dominant 7 arpeggio. A jazz improviser needs to know the basic arpeggios to allow them to outline the harmony of a chord progression when improvising. You should always try and learn the basic arpeggios major 7, minor 7 dominant 7 and minor 7b5. Once you have learned these basic arpeggios your ability to play over chord changes will improve dramatically. The dominant 7 arpeggio contains four notes and as you would assume it can be used to play over dominant chords. Using arpeggios in your solos is a really important skill that will get you away from simply just running up and down the scales. By using arpeggios in your solos to outline the harmony, you will greatly improve your ability to play over changes convincingly.

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Slash Chords

Chord theory | 4 Comments

Slash chords are fairly common, especially in piano music, and most people initially get scared at the sight of them, wondering what on earth they are and how they can play over the things. In this article I will explain to you what a slash chord is and how you can use slash chords in your own playing. A chord like G/B is an example of a slash chord voicing and it simply refers to a G major chord with a B as the bass note or “G over B”.

Piano players quite often make use of slash chords when creating smooth bass line movements and guitarists can do the same, using slash chords to create smooth walking bass lines.

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