Diminished Scale Patterns & Licks
In This Section:
Taming the Saxophone
Exercises & Patterns:
- Warmup Exercises
- Fingering Exercises (2)
- Cycle of 5ths
- IIm7-V7-Is
- Chromatic
- Studies in 4ths
- Diminished Patterns
- Whole Tone Patterns
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DIMINISHED SCALE LICKS
The diminished scale can be very useful. When applied to a dominant 7 it includes several nice extensions and chromatic notes: the b9, b10, #11 and 13 so can be used with a plain dominant 7 or one with those extensions. Although the diminished scale can obviously have any root note, there are only three sets of fingerings to learn. (See Scales for Improvisation in the Jazz section). Each diminished scale is based on one of the four notes of a diminished chord and the interval structure is Tone-Semitone-Tone-Semitone-Tone-Semitone-Tone-Semitone. Ideally you should think of the correct enharmonic spellings, which would vary depending on each dominant 7 chord, however while learning the basic diminished scales it’ easier to use whatever seems simplest. Here I have mostly followed the convention of sharps ascending and flats descending, but have used B instead of Cb.
Ex 7.1
Basic Diminished Scales:
Ex 7.2
This is one of many useful jazz patterns for improvising, typical of Oliver Nelson.
- If used on D7, the opening bar of this example consists of root, 7th, b10th, b9th, b5th, 3rd, 13th, 5th. Of course the Gb in this case would be F#.
- If used on F7, the opening bar of this example consists of 13th, 5th, root, 7th, b10th, b9th, b5th (#11th), 3rd. In this case the 3rd is enharmonically correct.
- If used on Ab7, the opening bar of this example consists of b5th, 3rd, 13th, 5th, root, 7th, #9th, b9th. The A natural in this case would be Bbb.
- If used on B7, the opening bar of this example consists of b10th, b9th, b5th, 3rd, 13th, 5th, root, 7th. In this case the Eb would be D#, Ab would be G# and Gb would be F#.
The next example (B) is just an embellishment of (A), which can be played as straight
semiquavers as written, or played as a bounced
turn as shown here:
Ex 7.3
Another very useful diminished scale lick that was used by Coltrane quite a lot. You don’t have to play it exactly as written here, take some time to breathe if you need to!
Ex 7.4
As with Exercise 7-2 this can be also be played as a bounced turn:
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All the fingering exercises are available in book format. These contain expanded versions of the online exercises (many of them in all keys) and also a section on tone exercise. 144 pages of fun!
