Minor Ii V I Article

Minor II-V-Is Minor II-V-Is make up a large part of the jazz repertoire varying from whole songs in minor keys (like Yesterdays, Beautiful Love and Minor Blues) to tunes that have sections of minor tonality (such as Autumn Leaves, No Greater Love and Softly As in a Morning Sunrise). Due to this, it is important to be able to negotiate around them in any key. There are two ways of thinking about Minor II-V-Is; harmonic minor and melodic minor. This session is concerned with the latter; the melodic minor scale. The melodic minor scale is the ‘descending’ melodic minor scale used in classical harmony. A simple way of remembering how they are constructed is ‘it’s the same as a Ionian scale (major scale) with the flattened 3rd or minor 3rd. Therefore C melodic minor will be : CDEbGABC One of the challenges with playing over Minor II-V-Is is that each chord in the progression comes from a different key. Rather than bombard you with theory (and you’ll have to trust me on this) I’m going to label them accordingly.

II – the two chord in a melodic minor key is actually from the 6

th

mode of

the melodic minor scale (sometimes called Locrian II). The alterations in the scale means that the II chord has a b5th naturally occurring in the chord. So a II in a minor II-V-I in the key of C would look like this: D-7b5 which is the same as DØ the spelling is D F Ab C in root position. Because we are thinking of this chord as the II of C it is easy to forget that it doesn’t actually come from the key of C (there is no Ab in Cmajor!) Think of it as being the 6th mode of the melodic minor scale. Therefore DØ comes from F melodic minor. You can also think of it as coming from the key a minor 3rd up from the root of the chord.

V

The five chord in a melodic minor key comes from the 7th mode of the

melodic minor scale (often called the altered scale). The chord symbol for this in the key of C would be G7alt. So which melodic minor scale does G7alt

come from? The answer is Ab melodic minor. You can also think of it as coming from the melodic minor scale a semitone above the chord.

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The one chord actually comes from the root of the chord. The alteration

makes the one chord a minor/major. This might sound strange but it is possible to have a chord that has a minor 3rd and a major 7th. The symbol for this can be : C-maj, C-∆. This spells out the following chord in root position: C Eb G B (it’s the last chord in the famous James Bond Theme – play it on piano and you’ll know what I mean).

So, as we can see, the Minor II-V-I is more complex than it’s ‘major’ brother but memorise the following chart and refer to it when you need to

IIØ - The scale comes from a minor 3rd above Valt – The scale comes from a semitone above I-∆ - The scale is the Melodic Minor of the Root of the chord.

Yesterdays Chord/Scale Relationships of the first four chords;

Concert:

Bb

Eb

D- (D dorian) dorian)

E- (E dorian)

B- (B

BØ (D melodic minor) melodic minor)

C#Ø (E melodic minor)

AbØ (B

EØ (G melodic minor) melodic minor)

F#Ø (A melodic minor)

C#Ø (E

A7alt (Bb melodic minor) melodic minor)

B7alt (C melodic minor)

F#7alt (G

Even though the chord symbols on the lead sheet are slightly different (the dominant chords are notated as +9) you can change them into full minor II-VIs as above. Look for minor II-V-Is in new tunes you learn and apply the above to find out what scales to use.

Scales to Music OK, so now you know how to derive the scales and chords but how do you turn the scales into music? Well, if I’m honest, you will spend the rest of your

life doing this. Fear not though, its fun! The following patterns are really only as a guide to get you hearing the sounds of the scales. Listen to your favourite players and copy them, write down your favourite patterns and licks, start to build up a vocabulary. Recommended further reading is the Aebersold II-V-I book and CD. Patterns for jazz by Jerry Coker – check out www.jazzbooks.com for more info.

Concert:

Bb

Eb

Triadic Shapes as a basis for Improvisation As mentioned last week, you can improvise on chords using triadic shapes. This produces a particularly modern sound creating interesting combinations of dissonance and resolve. You can use the following triadic shapes on the minor II-V-Is in ‘Yesterdays’. Practice triadic shapes (including all inversions) over other minor II-V-Is.

Concert

Bb

EØ – G minor Triad and Bb major triad triad

F#Ø – A minor Triad and C major

A7alt – G minor Triad and Eb major triad B7alt – Aminor Triad and F major Triad Dmin – Dminor triad

Eb C#Ø – Eminor Triad and G major triad F#alt – Eminor Triad and C major triad B- - B minor triad.

Emin – Eminor triad