Diminished Scale Patterns & Licks
In This Section:
Taming the Saxophone
Exercises & Patterns:
- Fingering Exercises (1)
- 1|1-1|1-2|1-3|1-4
- Fingering Exercises (2)
- 2-1|2-2|2-3|2-4
- Cycle of 5ths
- 3-1|3-2|3-3|3-4
- IIm7-V7-Is
- 4 |4-1|4-2|4-3|4-4|4-6
- Chromatic
- 5-1|5-2|5-3
- Studies in 4ths
- 6-1|6-2|6-3
- Diminished Patterns
- 7|7-1|7-2|7-3|7-4
- Whole Tone Patterns
- 8-1|8-2|8-3|8-4
All of these in full (and many more) in the book:
DIMINISHED SCALE LICKS
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:
NEW! TAMING THE SAXOPHONE
Buy all the fingering exercises & more!
Discounts when you buy sheet music as well!
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!
