Abstract

The Art of Improvising: The Be-Bop Language and the Dominant Seventh Chords

Highlights

  • We exclusively deal with the dominant seventh chords, starting from a fundamental extended “sentence”, built around the major triad that immediately gives birth to three further sentences

  • In the Be-Bop language, the dominant seventh chords are very often replaced by diminished chords (Parker, 1978) built on the third, the fifth, the minor seventh, or the flat ninth

  • Let’s provide just a couple of useful examples

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Summary

Introduction

We exclusively deal with the dominant seventh chords, starting from a fundamental extended “sentence”, built around the major triad that immediately gives birth to three further sentences. The peculiarity of the method lies in the fact that the attention of the improviser is always focused on the triad. On this subject, we reveal in advance that the above-mentioned peculiarity apparently loses its importance when the (minor) seventh and the ninth are introduced. The integrity of the method can be effectively preserved by learning to locally focus the attention no longer on the major triad, but rather on the minor one placed a perfect forth higher (with respect to the root of the dominant seventh chord we are considering). We will discuss this particular in the “Final Remarks and Conclusion” section

Cataldo 182
Learning to “See” the Major Triad
Cataldo
Introducing the Ninth
Final Remarks and Conclusion

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