The pentatonic scale goes deep!

[Tim Toberer]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-XfPrfbtno
the Bobby Mcferrin video he references https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ne6tB2KiZuk

[J D Sauser]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-XfPrfbtno
the Bobby Mcferrin video he references https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ne6tB2KiZuk

HA! You follow that guy too, huh!

I don't think of "scales", but I still listen to his teachings and others' and pick up the "sound" and hunt for it off chord positions.

... J-D.

[Michael Kiese]

Jerry Bergonzi has a great book on pentatonics. Covers a lot of that stuff as well.

https://www.amazon.com/Inside-Improvisa ... 197&sr=8-1

[Tim Toberer]

HA! You follow that guy too, huh!

I don't think of "scales", but I still listen to his teachings and others' and pick up the "sound" and hunt for it off chord positions.

... J-D.

This one explains the use of diminished chords in jazz better than any book or video I have seen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbSdISP ... myCfh00BEp

[Nic Neufeld]

I spent a number of years learning sitar and surbahar and have a special place in my heart for the five-note "audav" or pentatonic raags...each one has a very distinct character because of the skipped notes. A few of my favorites:

Bhupali SRGPDS 1 - 2 - 3 - 5 - 6...major pentatonic
Durga SRmPDS 1 - 2 - 4 - 5 - 6...has a more neutral sound due to the skipped 3rd
Hamsadhwani SRGPNS 1 - 2 - 3 - 5 - 7...wistful sound with a huge (hard to play!) jump from the 5th to maj 7 on fast runs!
Malkauns SgmdnS 1 - b3 - 4 - b6 - b7....darkest sounding one of these...the skipped 5th can sometimes get me disoriented to where the root is

Here's an example of Hamsadhwani by my teacher when he was a young man: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2l_drF-ilW0

And to bring it to steel guitar, here is Vishwa Mohan Bhatt playing raag Durga. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeweeypDx_8

[Tim Toberer]

I

And to bring it to steel guitar, here is Vishwa Mohan Bhatt playing raag Durga. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeweeypDx_8

I kind of forgot about these guitars. I want one!

I realized that when I am the most relaxed improvising, I am basically using the minor pentatonic and major pentatonic together. The result when adding chromatic passing tones is something that more resembles jazz than blues or rock and roll, but it still isn't jazz. I struggle with more complex chord changes and altered harmonies.

When I try to improvise with 7 and 8 note scales like the modes and bebop scales, I just can't manage all the options. This is my problem with traditional jazz methods including the less traditional, Barry Harris melodic method which relies heavily on using the Bebop scales.

I am finding that it is easier to think of 4 note arpeggios, triads and recently discovered Willie Thomas whose method uses "pentatonic pairs" as the main skeletal system to build lines. Things are starting to click a little!

[J D Sauser]

HA! You follow that guy too, huh!

I don't think of "scales", but I still listen to his teachings and others' and pick up the "sound" and hunt for it off chord positions.

... J-D.

This one explains the use of diminished chords in jazz better than any book or video I have seen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbSdISP ... myCfh00BEp

That video does a great job of explaining diminished harmony in a musical, practical way. For me, dominant harmony, pentatonics, and the so-called hexatonic “blues scale” (really just pentatonic plus one note) are all closely related to dominant chords—and by extension to what I tend to think of as the diminished system.
Things really started to fall into place for me through Barry Harris’s idea of the “family of four chords.” The notion that any one of the three diminished arpeggios can substitute for four different dominant chords, all a minor third apart, was a bit of a light-bulb moment. Adding the half-step below each note of the diminished arpeggio gives rise to those four dominants, and that, in turn, explains the familiar half-whole / whole-half diminished scale.
Seen that way, the classic dominant, its tritone substitution, the back-door dominant, and even the tritone sub of the back-door dominant are no longer separate ideas—they’re all part of the same structure. From that perspective, any dominant chord potentially has four different resolutions:

– the “standard” one a fourth above,
– the tritone resolution a half-step below,
– the back-door resolution a whole step above,
– and the most remote one (the back-door’s tritone) two whole steps below.

What I also find interesting is that this framework explains the origin of three of the four altered tensions commonly used on dominants—the b13/#5 being the odd one out.

I’ll be the first to admit this is hard to convey clearly in words. I’m actually working on a graphic/video presentation, because I think this stuff really needs to be seen to be grasped intuitively.

All that said, instruments like vibraphone or piano naturally lend themselves to linear, scale-based thinking. On pedal steel, though, I tend to agree with something Paul Franklin has said in his courses: we’re essentially playing a “one-finger” guitar, and the instrument is laid out more in chords than in scales. While it’s true (as Barry Harris often reminds us) that scales generate chords, once those chords are physically laid out on the instrument, trying to reverse-engineer everything back into scales can become unnecessarily complicated.

Personally, I’ve had more success focusing on chord tones, degrees, and the intervals between them—training my ear for specific colors and learning where those sounds live on the instrument. Over time, that builds usable “pockets” for each sound, rather than abstract scale patterns.

I think Tim Collins strikes a nice balance here. He clearly understands scales and linear thinking, but he consistently ties them back to chord tones and function. Some of what he presents is fairly advanced, and when it doesn’t quite land, it often reveals a small gap in the foundation—something worth addressing before moving on.

Just my perspective, offered for discussion rather than as a prescription.

— J-D