What are the methods to choose the right scale/mode to play over a dominant chord?
Whilst I understand how to voice upper structure chords, knowing the right scale to play over it has always been a challenge.
Secondly, is it better learn specific riffs and runs rather than playing scales in a diatonic fashion (which rarely occurs in music). Other than improving technique and familiarity with a key, I find playing a scale ascending and descending doesn’t improve improvisation skills. As a classical pianist, it has taken me a long time to play major and minor scales at 100bpm. On top of this, there are pentatonic, blues, diminished and dominant scales which make learning scales even more overwhelming.
I hosted a couple of seminars in April which focused on improvisational techniques using the diminished scale and the altered mode. These 2 scales can be used effectively for scale runs over dominant chords.
Diminished scales are great because there are only 3 scales to learn which can each be used over 4 different dominant chords. Check out the seminar above for more information.
Yes scales can be somewhat limited from an improvisational standpoint. However, if used sparingly the above techniques can be very powerful, but remember that scale runs are just one tool in our improvisational toolbox.
When I want to improvise a melody over a dominant chord, here are some other techniques that I commonly use:
Targeting Specific Alterations
I target the ‘colourful notes’ such as b9, #9, #11, or #5 - here are 2 tutorials which demonsrate this technique:
