They are also included, with the exception of the Dorian bebop scale, in Roni Ben-Hur's book Talk Jazz: A Comprehensive Collection of Bebop Studies, which is derived from the work of Barry Harris. This scale is often used over minor sixth chords.īarry Harris called this the minor sixth diminished scale and said that it is derived from a minor sixth chord (1 b3 5 6 of the scale), and a fully diminished chord from the second degree (2 4 b6 7 of the scale). It has all the notes of both the ascending form of the melodic minor scale and the harmonic minor scale of the same root. The bebop scale helps enable this characteristic in melodic improvisation.Īudio playback is not supported in your browser. Historically, in strong melody writing, chord tones are usually placed on the downbeats and nonchord tones are placed on the upbeats. The chord tones root, 3rd, 5th, and ♭7th will naturally and continuously stay on the beat when played starting from a chord tone starting on a downbeat. The bebop dominant scale is derived from the Mixolydian mode and has a chromatic passing note added in between the flatted 7th ( ♭7) and the tonic. The modifier 'bebop' is reserved to indicate those scales most frequently used-and popularised-during the bebop era. The remaining notes in the scale ( non-chord tones) all fall on the upbeats.Īs such, generally, any scale of seven notes may be modified by the addition of an additional note to accomplish the same effect allowing chord tones to naturally stay on the beat. Chord tones on downbeats are characteristic of all strong melodies throughout musical history. In general, bebop scales consist of traditional scales with an added passing tone, and when the scale is played from any chord tone and placed on any downbeat, then all other chord tones will also continuously fall on downbeats. These artists include Charlie Christian, Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, and Dizzy Gillespie, to name a few. Jazz educator David Baker nicknamed these scales the 'bebop scales' because they were used often by jazz artists from the Bebop Era. These bebop scales are frequently used in jazz improvisation. This is unlike common seven note scales in which the chord tones do not all naturally fall on the downbeats due to an odd number of notes. Having eight notes enables the primary chord tones to continuously fall on the strong beats ( downbeats) of the rhythm when the scale is played sequentially.

Bebop scale is a term referring to the practice of adding a note (typically a chromatic passing tone) to any common seven tone scale in order to make it an eight tone scale.

Formula harmonic minor scale