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Soloing, Scales & Modes A Shaw Thing Connecting Pentatonic Scales

A Shaw Thing Connecting

Pentatonic Scales
Posted on July 15, 2013 by Jason 13 Comments

Take (Any) Five: the great Woody Shaw

Mention pentatonics in jazz and people will probably immediately think of Coltrane and McCoy
Tyner. They might also think of trumpeter Woody Shaw, who developed pentatonic playing to an
incredible level. Woodys kaleidoscopic approach involved zipping across multiple tonalities on
each chord by using collections of pentatonics. First things first though for now, well stay within
the sound of the chord.
It is often taught that over any given chord we could use this, that or the other pentatonic. True
enough, but its better to say that we should use this, thatand the other pentatonic.
As Woody well knew (as did Trane and McCoy), you really unlock the potential of the pentatonic
sound by assimilating the pentatonic scales as sets or families and constantly combining them. (They
also realised that the structure implied by pentatonics is so strong that you can even deliberately play
the wrong ones and itll sound good. But as I said, thats for another day.)
A really useful quick way to remember which scales go with a minor 7th chord is to note that the
roots form a II-V-I-VI pattern (a turnaround) based on the root.

Were going to look at Cm7. The scales that go with this chord are:

Dm pentatonic (II)
Gm pentatonic (V)
Cm pentatonic & Cm6 pentatonic (I)
A pentatonic (VI)
The same scales also serve over Eb+4 the relative major (Lydian and Dorian are in the same
relative relationship as classical major and minor Ionian and Aeolian). Learning the two chords as
a pair is a very efficient way of practising, but be aware that each tone from the scales will have a
different effect in the context of the relative major.

THE EXERCISES

There are ways of connecting the pentatonic scales that fit over each chord by shifting just one note
at a time. The exercises shown below demonstrate two examples of this Ive marked the notes that
change to make things clearer. (Hopefully.)
Play through the exercises first with a Cm7 playalong, then with an Eb playalong, and keep your
ears tuned to hear the different effects of the tones in particular the A, which is the natural 6th in C
(Dorian) minor and the #4th in Eb (Lydian) major.
You can then take the exercise through the other keys, and use them as models to devise similar
ways of linking pentatonics over other chord qualities.
Ive occasionally had people say to me: Hey, youre the guy with the pentatonic book, right? I
didnt hear it in that last number. I can honestly reply by quoting Woody: Just about everything I
play is a pentatonic. (But Im constantly stringing bits of different ones together, sometimes inside
the chord sound and sometimes outside it.)
I seem to recall that Woody also once said something along the lines of: If you cant play
melodically with pentatonic scales you dont properly understand them. With any luck this article
will give you a good kick-start on that road.
PS If you really cant wait to get your outside stuff on, try doing the same exercise with C#m7 (and
E+4), then weaving between the two sets.

PLAY OVER Cm7 AND Eb+4

These
About ideas
these are
ads extracted from my book Pentatonic & Hexatonic Scales in Jazz.