anything from anywhere

Although a bit tongue in cheek so to speak, the concept of playing anything from anywhere is perhaps one of a jazz players ultimate mantras and long term goals. Why? Well, simply that we as jazz players might aspire to project our favorite colors and ideas from any of the 12 pitches of the chromatic scale. The long term goal is to eventually explore and exhaust ( ? yea sure ) all of the resource. Like John Coltrane did? Yep. So, all of the chords, in all of the keys and all of the various scales from any pitch? Yep, part of the trick I think is to not be in too much of a hurry, unless ...

Anything form anywhere huh? So, thinking chords, the pitch C is the root of a C chord, and also the major 3rd of an Ab chord, also the 5th of an F chord etc. A common tone? Cool with this? Spelling chords and that the pitch C can assume many places within the chords? Cool, read on. Let's do the chords first. Example 1.

the pitch C can be
the major 7th of a Db maj 7 chord the blue 7th of D 7 the maj 6th of Eb major 6 the +5 of E 7 the 5th of an F chord the b5 of a Gb maj 7b5

continued..

the pitch C can be
the sus 4 of G 7 the 3rd of Ab maj 9 the blue 3rd of A min 7 the 9th of a Bb 9 chord the flat 9 of a B 7 b9 the tonic / root of C min 11

Here is the sound of the above chart. Example 1a.

any1a.TIF (42734 bytes)

Thinking linear, horizontally or scalelike, the following possibilities emerge. Example 2.

the pitch C can be
the major 7th of a Db major the blue 7th of D Mixolydian maj 6th of

Eb Lydian

 the min 6th of E harmonic minor the 5th degree of F melodic minor the b5 of a Gb / C diminished scale

continued..

the pitch C can be
the 4th of G Dorian the 3rd of an Ab whole tone scale the blue 3rd of A minor pentatonic the 2nd of Bb Lydian b7 the b9 of a B half tone /  whole tone diminished scale the root of C natural minor

Musical realization of the above symbols at 140. Try to read read along with the notation during the playback. Example 2a.

any2a.TIF (23678 bytes)

Of course, the pairing of pitch with musical color in the above ideas are my own choices, there are lots of other choices for each degree right? For in reality, the pitch C can be the minor 3rd of any of the family of minor scales built on the pitch A yes?

So, get anything from this page? I like to organize my practice time using this "anything from anywhere" idea, looking for neat ways to morph one color into another, oftimes using a common tone as in the examples here to tie it all together. As time permits, perhaps complete the following workbook type exercise creating any of our melodic resources from any of our 12 pitches of the chromatic scale. Example 3.

the pitch is the ___ degree of scale / chord spell out the scale / chord pitches
C is the 1st degree of a major triad -
C is the 2nd degree of a major scale -
C is the 3rd degree of minor scale -
C is the  3rd degree of major chord -
C is the 4th degree of a Lydian scale -
C is the 5th degree of a minor triad -
C is the 6th degree of a pentatonic scale -
C is the b7th degree of a V 7 chord -
C is the maj 7th degree of chord -
C is the octave degree of minor scale -
C is the b 9th degree of chord -
C is the maj 9th degree of scale / chord -
C is the sus 4 degree of chord -
C is the aug. 11th degree of chord -
C is the 13th degree of chord -
C is the # 15th degree of a major scale -
C is the root degree of a diminished scale -
C is the root of an augmented scale -
C is the 3rd of an augmented chord -
C is the b5th degree of a V 7 chord -

Cool huh? More than one workable answer for a few of the entries. So nice that our system of musical resources is such a perfect looping of the pitches eh? So ...

Where to next?
review new ideas
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"Success is oftentimes more attitude than aptitude."