3 spicy sounds in Stella by Starlight

[00:00:01][music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] >> Two very interesting exotic scale ideas or sounds that you can try over Stella.

[00:01:55]Um, the first one I'm going to talk to you about is that dreaded major seven with the fourth in the melody.

[00:02:04]It's not necessarily a major seven, but it is a B flat major.

[00:02:08]>> [music] >> Now, what I think is going on there is it's that little hangover from the chord before, either [music] a E flat minor or an A flat seven.

[00:02:20]Uh, there's a there's a little >> [music] >> It's from that sound, which is like an E flat minor going to E flat major. That's called a minor plagal cadence.

[00:02:32]>> [music] >> Beatles used it all the time.

[00:02:37]>> [music] >> You could even call the Beatles cadence if you want to, but there's Bach did it, Chopin did it. I mean, a lot of people did it before the Beatles, but anyway.

[00:02:49]So, if you put those two sounds together, instead of saying I'm in E flat minor and then all of a sudden I'm in regular B flat major, I think if you bracket those two sounds together and think of them think of it as a special resolution.

[00:03:03]It really fits this sound.

[00:03:09]So, that flat six is a is a memory, just like the four is a memory.

[00:03:15]>> [music] >> It's like an explicit memory, you know.

[00:03:21]That's [music] the tension and that's the resolution.

[00:03:24]But, overall the sound is this.

[00:03:27]It has that flat six in it.

[00:03:30]And the four, right? So, if you put them all together, it's borrows the notes from E flat melodic minor, but you're in B flat major. So, you could say it's a mode of E flat melodic minor.

[00:03:44]It's commonly known as B flat mixolydian flat six.

[00:03:49]Although Mick Goodrick calls it Aeolian major, and I like that.

[00:03:54]It's funny enough, I wonder if he he realized he could have owned the scale mixolydian flat six. But anyway, he >> [music] [music] >> So it sounds like this.

[00:04:18]Yeah.

[00:04:20]>> [music] >> So All right. So that's one.

[00:04:30]The other one is um happens a lot in in other standards, too. So imagine you have at the the end, the last the last uh 251.

[00:04:41]C half diminished, [music] put that that G flat in the melody.

[00:04:48]F seven flat nine.

[00:04:52]Still that note in the melody.

[00:04:54]>> [music] >> And it resolves to the fifth of B flat.

[00:04:58]So it's got this like flat six to to five. Um Now if you put all those together, you got [music] the major seven.

[00:05:20]Uh if you would if you played the major seven on B flat, then it's kind of the same sound mixolydian flat except for it's major major scale with a flat six.

[00:05:28]It's known as harmonic major.

[00:05:36]>> [music] >> So with that in mind, you can use that as a thought experiment to other things you can um reharmonize with it.

[00:05:45]>> [music] >> So you can over that whole 2 5 1 you [music] can improvise with E flat major scale and flat 6.

[00:05:57]No, sorry. Harmonic major.

[00:06:02]>> [music] >> Now, if you don't want to work on getting the muscle memory of that [music] completely new scale you can figure out licks, you know, over [music] the 1 chord, the 2 chord, the 3 chord or something.

[00:06:18]Even triads.

[00:06:25]>> [music] [music] >> Here's a cool lick I worked out.

[00:06:37]Let me try that again.

[00:06:38]>> [music] [music] [music] [music] >> Anyway, some kind of exotic sounds that I think um will add some depth to your playing and you know, if you want to break out of um just your typical major scale ideas, that's uh these are two spicy ways to try them out. Now, you don't have to but generally I think um I enjoy listening to players that add that kind of spice in their playing.

[00:07:32]They're very tonal. It's like hyper tonal. You know, these these sounds I'm talking about, they're seven note sounds. They're not they're not cramming cramming in chromaticism, but it's the chromaticism is basically because it's a borrowed from another scale.

[00:07:46]Uh so it still has a a very compelling sound because it's sticking to a tonal environment. Seven notes is easy to keep track of in my opinion. If you start adding more notes and being chromatic, that's another aesthetic, which is can be beautiful. It's just a a different sound.

[00:08:04]Um now I I just I'm just a fan of tonal environments. Just maybe not the boring ones all the time. Okay.

[00:08:13]Actually, here's a third one I should mention.

[00:08:16]The very top.

[00:08:19]>> [music] >> What's written is this E half diminished >> [music] >> with the fourth in the melody, and then it goes to an A7. That that that note that note in the melody then becomes the root of this A7.

[00:08:33]Now, this is a slightly spicier two-five than you might be used to.

[00:08:39]Um really what what the composer intended is notes borrowed from D harmonic minor.

[00:08:47]Mm evident by sometimes there's >> [music] >> a B flat diminished major seven, >> [music] >> which is still fits that tonality. So, with that in mind, if if you if you get to know the modes of harmonic minor, the one Here's the two. If you play it as a [music] half diminished, that's fine, but it's also got a natural six in that sound. So, you can voice it as a fully diminished as well.

[00:09:15]And it happens to have a four in the that sound.

[00:09:18]>> [music] >> That mode See, I like I like naming the modes cuz then it tells you the all the characters in that play.

[00:09:25]This one The second mode of harmonic minor is called Locrian natural six.

[00:09:33]So, it tells you all the possible ways you could voice it. You could voice it like a have to be diminished [music] like the chart says. Or you can do a fully diminished, or you can do this fully diminished with a fourth in the melody. I like this one.

[00:09:46]That's [music] it's basically looks like an A major with a flat two, but it's got E in the the bass.

[00:09:54]>> [music] >> So, all those modes of D harmonic minor you can do >> [music] >> You can even do this weird one like um >> [music] >> That's the Plants [music] vs. Zombies chord.

[00:10:26]>> [music] >> Five.

[00:10:30]>> [music] >> The six is fascinating, the flat six.

[00:10:34]If you just do 1 3 5 7 it's a major 7, but it's also got a sharp four, a sharp two, and a six, which means you can voice it as a fully diminished.

[00:10:43]And [music] it's got the major seventh in there. So, that's why Yeah, and then >> [music] [music] [music] [music] >> Okay.