Jazz Guitar Lesson 4: Diminished Scale (Part 1 of 2)

[z1reticuli]

The best exploration of diminished scale is (although out of the jazz bucket) Fredrik Thordendahl: check e.g. song Zeta 1 Reticuli... can not post a link in here for some reason

[illnastic]

Geoff,

How do I apply the whole tone half tone vs. the half tone whole tone?

[JAZZWHATINEED]

very nice video bro!..

[mLiebzeit]

i play trumpet / piano and this helped me out a bit. thanks man! who do u listen to?

[geoffstockton]

@mLiebzeit Hey thanks for the kind words. I pretty much listen to everything. I like just about all styles of music and enjoy playing any style. As for jazz guys: I'm still knocked out by the legends: Bird, Dizzy, Hawkins, Monk, Mingus, Duke, 'Trane, Miles, Clifford Brown, etc. I'm impressed with a lot of the newer guys that I hear but I just can't keep up with all of them because I have a lot of interest in other style of music, too. 

[Roaredizzle1]

Wow I never looked at it that way. Thanks a lot for the info. I will definetly keep in touch.

[Roaredizzle1]

Thanks a lot for the reply geoff. I think i get what you said but im a little confused with small parts here and there. When you say 1 and 1/2 you mean a whole and a half step right? And if i were to make a c dim 7 the notes would be, c eb gb and A? And i know the cirlce of 5ths very well but i dont know what you mean by a square.

[geoffstockton]

@Roaredizzle1 Yeah, you're right about the step and a half and you're right about the notes of Cdim7. As for the square, if you draw out the cycle of 5ths, set up just like a 12 hour clock, with C at 12:00 and Gb at 6:00, any diminished 7th chord will form a perfect square inside the circle if you connect the dots from root to b3rd tob5th to bb7th. Augmented chords will form triangles if you do the same with them.

[joeyguitarlo]

Hi. Interesting thing is that the diminished chords in between the scale chords are sometimes called intermediary degrees.

[streettrash123]

Awesome!! straight to the point teaching style. Clear, concise practical applications. Invalubale for an intermediate guitar player. Thank you!

[RoarEDizzle]

Hey geoff love your videos! I have a question for ya. What notes are you playing for those diminished chord shapes at 2:11?

[geoffstockton]

@RoarEDizzle Hey, thanks for the kind words. Dim7 chords are made up of 4 notes, all 1 1/2 apart from one another. There's only really three distinctly different dim7 chords as any note of a dim7 can be the root. Adim7 is made up of the same four tones as Cdim7, Ebdim7 and Gbdim7. 4 goes into 12 3 times. I'm just using dim7s based on the neighboring tones between the actual scale tones. Any voicing will do as long as the four notes create perfect a square in the cycle of 5ths.

[geoffstockton]

@RoarEDizzle PS: I won't tell you the notes outright in case I might be nurturing a crutch. Let me know if you have any trouble with the answer I gave. I'd gladly help you work it out.

[elpaso12345]

Great lesson! Thanks.

[gasforus]

I've viewed several of your lessons. It's nice to see/hear someone who knows what they're taking about(music theory). I will get good "milelage" out of your diminished lessons. You're a fine player and instructor. Thank You! Saginaw, MI.

[r0kas]

"whoops" :D nice lesson

[ricdeed]

Hi, nice vids, thanks. You may have mentioned somewhere before but can you tell me what model Ibanez you're playing? I like the thinline design. How is the upper fretboard access? Thanks!

[geoffstockton]

Honestly, I don't even know. But if it looks like mine, DON"T BUY IT! I'm really regretting this guitar. These Bigsby style tail-pieces are for the birds. No matter how much you stretch out your stings, if you bend a string more than a quarter step, the sting goes flat. Like clock work. To avoid it, you need to stretch the strings before every time that you play it, as if they were brand new strings. And that's not even a fail-safe solution. Plus the roller saddles on the bridge rattle.

[geoffstockton]

I'm going to have to fork out at least another $100.00 to replace the bridge and the tail-piece and then it may prove to be a respectable guitar. The problems I've mentioned are common from what I've gathered out of user reviews on-line. Hind-sight is always 20/20 they say.

[Orionsglare]

on the last second of the vid, did u say l larrycoryellism?

Aha ha ha man! I really laughed HARD when i got hold of that!!!

LOL man, cheers!