Lesson N4:

The dominant Bebop

scale

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Welcome to this lesson about the bebop scale. I would like to start
playing for you some examples of how the bebop scale can sound. Please
grab your guitar and play with me the following music fragments.
Example 1:

Example 2: Inspire from John Coltrane’s improvisation on ‘Oleo”

Example 3: Inspired from Wes Montgomery’s improvisation on “I will

Remember April”

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Example 4: Second chorus of John Coltrane’s improvisation on Take the
Coltrane:

Keeping the chord tones on the beat.

To keep the chord tones on the downbeat while playing eight-notes
lines, jazz players often add a passing tone to a major, Mixolidian mode
or minor scale. This is a very effective routine: Most of the scales (and
their relative modes) you play have seven notes, if you add a passing
note and if you start a scale with a chord tone on the downbeat, you will
have also the other chord tones on the downbeat.
Example 5: C “Bebop dominant” scale.

As you can see in example 5, if I add a passing note between the root
and the b7 of a Mixolidian scale, all the notes on the downbeat are chord
tones.
In this lesson we will study the bebop dominant scale, obtained adding a
passing tone between the root and the b7 of the Mixolidian scale.

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The bebop dominant scale works very well when starting from any of
the chord tones: the root, the 3rd, the 5th or the 7th of the dominant chord.

Learning the fingerings of the bebop dominant scale

We will play together now a study routine that will enable you to hear
and visualize the relation between the dominant seventh arpeggio and
the bebop scale. Please grab your guitar and play the following study
routine with me:
Exercise 2: C7 in second position, fingering 2-4.

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Exercise 3: C7 in second position, fingering 1-3.

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Exercise 4: C7 in second position, fingering 4-1.

Assignment 1:
Repeat the routine shown in exercise 1, 2 and 3 (Root, Arpeggio, scale
and phrase) up the neck using the following fingerings:
• 2-4 low E (7th position)
• 1-3 Low E (8th position)
• 1-4 (10th position)
• 4-2 (12th position)

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Assignment 2: Testing your knowledge of the fingerings.
We will now test how familiar you are with the fingerings you just
learned: Play the following music fragment using only the third position
(index finger on the third fret) for the first six bars (C7 till the Db7) and
the fourth position for bars 7 till 12 (Gb7 till G7).

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Assignment 3:
Improvise on a jazz blues, using the bebop dominant scale on the
dominant chords. When improvising on a dominant chord, start every
phrase from the third of the dominant chord, as indicated from the whole
notes on the upper staff.
For the sake of clarity I will demonstrate how this assignment could
sound. Please grab your guitar and play with me the following exercise.
Exercise 5:

Harmonic applications
As you heard in the previous examples, the C dominant bebop scale can
be used on a Gm7 chord and, eventually, on Em7b5 chord as well. Try
the examples and exercises of this lesson also on these chords

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Adding some chromatics to the bebop scale: Enclosures
Very often in jazz the bebop scale is used in combination with a
chromatic approach to the chord tones. The next examples demonstrate
this technique. Please grab your guitar and play with me the following
examples:
Approaching chromatically the root of the C7:

Approaching chromatically the fifth of the C7:

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Approaching the third of the C7:

Assignment 4:
Improvise on the following chord progression using the bebop dominant
scale.rdStart every phrase from the root of the first chord (G) resolving to
the 3 of the second chord (E). For the sake of clarity I will demonstrate
how this assignment could sound. Please grab your guitar and play with
me the following exercise.

Combining the Bebop scale with arpeggios.

The C dominant bebop scale is often used in combination with the

following arpeggios:
• Em7b5= Play a half diminished arpeggio starting from the third of
the dominant chord.
• BbMaj7=Play a Maj7 arpeggio starting from b7 of the chord.
• Bb dim= Play a 7th diminished arpeggio starting from 3rd, 5th and
b7 of the dominant chord.

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Examples:
Combining the C bebop dominant with Bb dim arpeggio:

Combining the C bebop dominant with BbMaj7 arpeggio:

Combining the Bebop scale with other scales:

The C dominant bebop scale can be used in combination with other
scales such as the:
• Diminished scale
• Altered scale
• Whole tone.
Examples
Combining the bebop dominant scale with the diminished scale:

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Combining the bebop dominant with the altered scale:

Combining the bebop dominant with the whole-tone scale:

Assignments 5:
Improvise on the following chords using the bebop dominant scale and
the various techniques you have learned in this chapter. Start each
phrase from the note indicated next to the chord symbol:
• C7, Start from the Root.
• C7, Start from the 3rd.
• C7, Start from the 5th.
• Eb7, Start from the 5th.
• Eb7, Start from the 3rd.
• Gb7, Start from the 3rd.
• Gb7, Start from the Root.
• F7, Start from the 5th.
• F7, Start from the 3rd.

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• F7, Start from the Root.

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