I am posting this thread on the Classical section of this messageboard as I think there will be a broader range of people who can possibly answer my question.
Yesterday I started to transpose Andrew Hill's composition "Pumpkin" for a tenor saxophonist friend and then sat about looking at how the harmonies might be employed as a basis for improvising on the piano. In jazz the more interesting chords are dominants, especially when you add "accidental" notes such as flattened 9th's etc which help to make the tonal centre more ambiguous. This is really good fun and I love the idea of being able to play "outside" the structure of a given chord. Dominants are very good for this as are other chords which are non-diatonic such as half-diminished.
The problem with "Pumpkin" is that the music consists largely of minor chords. Here you have the option of paying Dorian scales or you can use the melodic minor scale but it is clear that Hill intended to use the modal scale and not the latter option. The tune is structured AABA and the first 6 bars of the tune consists of a G minor with a D in the root. (I.e. an inversion.) The bridge consists of four E flat minor sixths followed by a C minor before there is an option of dominant chords in the last three bars of the B section. This effectively means that there is a lot of minor chords here.
It is also possible to omprovise intervalically and constructs triads on the Dorian scales. Unfortunately the triads for a G minor, for example, are B flat and C which all fall in the key of F major. This means that there is little colour when you improvise on these chords.
Does anyone know of other ways to improvise on these minor chords or how to employ substitutions so that there is more interest?
Thanking you in anticipation.
Cheers
Ian
Yesterday I started to transpose Andrew Hill's composition "Pumpkin" for a tenor saxophonist friend and then sat about looking at how the harmonies might be employed as a basis for improvising on the piano. In jazz the more interesting chords are dominants, especially when you add "accidental" notes such as flattened 9th's etc which help to make the tonal centre more ambiguous. This is really good fun and I love the idea of being able to play "outside" the structure of a given chord. Dominants are very good for this as are other chords which are non-diatonic such as half-diminished.
The problem with "Pumpkin" is that the music consists largely of minor chords. Here you have the option of paying Dorian scales or you can use the melodic minor scale but it is clear that Hill intended to use the modal scale and not the latter option. The tune is structured AABA and the first 6 bars of the tune consists of a G minor with a D in the root. (I.e. an inversion.) The bridge consists of four E flat minor sixths followed by a C minor before there is an option of dominant chords in the last three bars of the B section. This effectively means that there is a lot of minor chords here.
It is also possible to omprovise intervalically and constructs triads on the Dorian scales. Unfortunately the triads for a G minor, for example, are B flat and C which all fall in the key of F major. This means that there is little colour when you improvise on these chords.
Does anyone know of other ways to improvise on these minor chords or how to employ substitutions so that there is more interest?
Thanking you in anticipation.
Cheers
Ian
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