John Stowell
Actually, your honor, I ain't stole nuthin'! I just borrowed a little bit, which I'm tryin' to return, by way of the Universe!
Hey, I hadn't even heard of Master Guitarist & Educator, John Stowell until a few months ago, when my long time buddy, Prof. Dave King of the University of Music & Performing Arts in Mannheim, Germany (see post from 5/29/2013), took part in one of John's master classes which was given at the school and sent me some video links.
Needless to say, I was intrigued by Stowell's harmonic and scalar concepts; especially his ideas of mixing and integrating modes of Melodic Minor with modes of Major (e.g. C Dorian with Bb Melodic Minor), not necessarily a measure at a time, but fusing them together as one scale.
Then a few weeks ago, I was browsing around on David Valdez's standard setting jazz blog and found a short post from 2005 on the release of Mr. Stowell's "Jazz Guitar Mastery" (Mel Bay Publications), which contains some additional info as well as informative comments on Stowell's concepts.
So, needless to say, I found and ordered the book, which I received a few days ago. The thing about the small book, though, is the enclosed DVD.
What has intrigued me the most, is John's concept of mixing 4 different Melodic Minor scales (or keys) to substitute for a dominant (V7) resolving to a tonic (I) Major, minor or dominant chord.
Specifically, he mentions (over a C7, in order of least to most tensions) the Melodic Minor scale:
A Perfect 5th above (or P4th below) - G Melodic Minor (#11) - C Lydian Dominant
A Perfect 4th above (or P5th below) - F Melodic Minor (b13) - C Mixolydian b13
A whole step below - Bb Melodic Minor (b9, #9) -
C Dorian b2
A half step above - C# Melodic Minor (b9, #9, #11, b13) -
C Altered Scale
Those of you who have followed my posts here and have purchased my books, know that I've been sharing exercises dealing with 2 Melodic Minor scales per ii-V7
(eg. in C: D-7b5 = F Melodic Minor & G7 = Ab Melodic Minor) and their derivative pentatonics (b3 & b6).
The idea of doubling that number of possibilities over a single dominant chord, and mixing them up at regular or irregular intervals, gets my blood pumping.
However, I first found it necessary to translate this new way (to me) of looking at this concept in a way that I that made the most sense to me.
The downloadable pdf below contains 5 examples, using the four Melodic Minor scales mentioned above, as a sub for C7 resolving to some kind of F.
The 3 lines of chord symbols above the notation refer to the expression of ii-V7s resolving to F on three levels, with the order of Melodic Minor keys being G MM, Bb MM, F MM & C# MM (I switched the order of Bb & F MM from John's originlal list. The reason is explained below):
Line 1 - All 4 Melodic Minor scales as a sub for (V7) C7, added tensions listed.
Line 2 - The first 2 Melodic Minor scales as a ii7b5 (G-7b5) and the following 2 as V7 (C7alt).
Line 3 - 4 Melodic Minor scales, each a bar apiece, creating two sets of ii-V7's, E-7b5, A7alt (ii7b5, V7 in D) & G-7, C7alt (ii7, V7 in C).
The reason I switched the order of Bb & F MM from the original is that Bb MM is normally seen (by me, anyway) as A7alt (A altered scale) which could resolve to D-7b5 or mode vi (Locrian #2) of F Melodic Minor. In this case however, F MM generates a G-7 with a b9 (Dorian b2) leading to a C7alt (VII mode of C# MM), completing the ii-V7 in F.
It's really a great thing when some new info comes along and forces one to view things from a different perspective. That's what growth is all about.
Is that the sound of ice cracking?
Thank you, John!
Stay Tuned
