Welcome to "Mastering The Bebopscales"

Purpose

The purpose of this website is to provide exercises to make the bebopscales work for you. If you are interested in practicing bebop-inflected lines, this is just your site.

GOALS

Flowing/legato playing

The idea of this is to help you sound more fluent, more flowing, more bebop. The frequent use of chromatic tones made the beboppers sound more fluent than the bigger intervals used during the swing era, where arpeggio’s ruled the improvisations.

Smaller, chromatic intervals are hard to hear at first. For beginning musicians hardlyeasy, but as you practice it more, you’ll get more adept. Charlie Parker came to this additional chromaticism through long hours of study and he commented on his studying habits a lot. Analysing the music, listening to classical music and practicing as he did, he became –if not the inventor- the hero of bebop music.

You should listen to bebop-players a lot (not only Parker, but also Miles and moreadvanced modern players like Yusef Lateef and Coltrane) to hear how they flowedthroughout their improvisations. Yet they tended to phrase very carefully,emphasising some notes, ghosting others. They sound legato, but never dull.

Playing fast

Charlie Parker played fast, unbelievably fast, like lightning. Whether you will be ableto play as fast is only up to you and how many hours you are prepared to study.Amateurs like myself will probably never play as fast as Bird, but still, you can do a great jobs on slower tempos. Think of yourself as Miles on the Prestige-albums. Slower than Bird, but Bebop bebop bebop...

It will make you play fluent double-time lines and still sound meaningful. Noscalerunning as you’ll hear a lot of beginners do, but clear and fast beboplines.

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Playing changes fluently

Playing bebop is also about connecting the chords. In Swing there was a lot ofarpeggiating going on, Bebop emphasised the use of chromatic tones and landing the chord tones on the strong beats. If you use the rules of thumb in these exercises, it will make you easier to connect the chords in the harmony. Listen to what Charlie Parker did on all of these great bebop-tunes and standards. He nailed the changes right there.

Sounding mainstream

If you practice these exercises, you will eventually sound Bebop. Revolutionary in the40’s, mainstream (in the jazzworld) today. Though this is true, you just might like bebop and want to infuse your playing with bebop-elements.

You should also remember that the great geniuses of modern jazz (Coltrane, Miles,Steve Coleman) worshipped Charlie Parker and came to their revolutionary musicthrough and after the thorough study of bebop.

Will this make you more reactionary, will you become old-fashioned. I don’t believe it. It will turn your ear and your playing to the intricacies of bebop. You should keep an open eye to the really modern players (Steve Coleman, probably seen in thirty years as the Charlie Parker of the 21 century). Even if I don’t like –esthetically- what goes on in modern jazz (John Zorn, Threadgill) and am more moved by mainstream, I am always open to the great revolutionaries of this music.

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What do I like? If i were to take four albums to a deserted Island

Kind of Blue (Miles Davis)

Gnu High (Kenny Wheeler)

Any recording of the Keith Jarett trio

Any recording of the European Quartet of Charles Lloyd

Pretty lame, hé?

.Last changes: 04 februari 2003.[EmailProject]

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