Playing idiomatic bebop

(this is a repost from my Orkut group that covers music theory in jazz)

Most of what I know in terms of teaching this to someone comes from having studied
briefly with David Baker of Indiana University, who is well-known and respected in the
jazz pedagogy field. The stuff presented here is a mixed collection of things I learned
over the years, and stuff I worked out in trying to practice effectively myself. I hope it is
useful to you.

In a sense, this topic leaves the realm of music theory and enters music practice. But in
another sense were looking at the question of what rules can be followed that makes
your playing more idiomatic, and that is theory. Well talk about practice a decent
amount in order to cover the topic fully though.

So herewith are my five rules for playing an idiomatic, linear bebop solo (theory).
Following are tips on how to work on these ideas (practice). At times they may not be
cleanly separated.
1.Play chord tones on the beat.
2.Descend by scalar motion.
3.Ascend by arpeggio (outline a chord)
4. Surround a chord tone to interrupt scalar motion.
5. Articulate eighth notes legato except for the final note of a line.

Playing chord tones on the beat is the thing that I think most people struggle with.
Bebop lines are made mostly of eighth notes, and if you run seven-note scales,
eventually you get to a non-chord tone falling on a down beat. To avoid this, use eight-
tone scales in playing stepwise runs. The bebop scale inserts an additional scale tone
between the 6th and 7th degree of a major scale. Another way to look at it is that the
scale contains both major and minor sevenths.

I recommend that unlike every other scale, which you learned ascending, you learn this
one descending. To that end, Ill notate it for you here that way. The following
represents the F bebop scale which would be associated with the chords (Cmi7 F7):

(F E Eb D) (C Bb A G) F

(Im grouping four eighth notes together

in parentheses to indicate how they would likely be drawn with beams on staff paper,
hopefully helping you to visualize the phrasing)

If you start your scalar run on a down beat, all the down beats will fall to chord tones of
the F7 chord. This is true no matter where you start in the scale. Notice that I said that it
works over Cmi7this is only true in the context of the ii-V progression. You cant use
this in a Cmi situation where it functions as a minor tonic. Just to clarify, this is a
dominant seventh scale, and it happens that you can treat the ii as V for purposes of
scale selection. This simplifies the process of picking a scale, as bebop tunes tend to be
built from the building block of ii-V.

I was also taught a major version of this, where a scale tone was injected in between the
fifth and sixth scale degrees of major. I dont personally use this, but I should make you
aware of it. The idea is the sameinjecting the eighth scale tone creates a situation
where chord tones fall on down beats for eighth note runs.

Using octatonic scales is not the only way to achieve chord tones on down beatsyou
can omit or repeat notes, follow pentatonic, etc. The crucial idea is that non-chord tones
on down beats weaken your line.

The second and third rules go together really, I almost made them one rule, except that
theres different practice tips related to them. These arent really rules as much as
observations based on what Bird and Diz and other boppers were actually playing. This
is to say, you cant characterize this as a strict rule, but following it will tend to make
you sound more like Bird and Diz. So it has some usefulness in that respect.

Take a look at a typical bebop head, say Donna Lee, and note for yourself that these
rules do tend to describe the shape of the melody pretty well. (Especially when we
factor in the next rule, but thats getting ahead) If you have the Charlie Parker
Omnibook, flip through and note how well this rule seems to fit.
Now a problem faced by many in constructing a long line that spans several chord
changes is how to cleanly transition between scales associated with different chords.
One of the situations youll continually be faced with in bebop is ii-V-I. If you accept
my suggestion of playing a bebop scale for the ii-V part, youre probably wondering
what to do with the I part. What sounds the best is if your line works with the V-I
progression and creates a sort of resolution.

Adhering to the first rule will help you accomplish this, but you can employ some
devices to make the sense of resolution stronger in your lines. One I was taught is to
arpeggiate upward from the minor seventh, outlining a diminished seventh chord. This
outlines the dominant seven (b9) chord, and you can break out of the arpeggio at any
point by downward motion and land on a scale tone of I. The following licks show V-I
in Bb, and Ive put the bar line in to show where the chord changes (play in eighth
notes):

(Eb Gb A C) | Bb
(A C Eb Gb) | (F D)

The fourth rule is valuable in that its not especially interesting to listen to someone
running scales and arpeggios, no matter how good they are at it. A long scale run is less
tedious sounding if its interrupted. Idiomatically, if you surround one of the chord
tones, you add a lot of interest. Any chord tone can be surroundedyou play the chord
tone, then the note a half-step below, then the scale tone above, then the note a half-step
below (same as the earlier note), then continue the scale downward from the surrounded
tone. Sounds complicated to describe it, but its easy and once you get these under your
fingers you have a powerful technique to add interest to your solos.

An example line that walks down the F bebop scale without a surround:
(F E Eb D) (C Bb A G) | (F E Eb G) (D C)

An example line built by surrounding the

C:
(F E Eb D) (C B D B) | (C Bb A G) (F E Eb G) | (D C)

An example line built by surrounding the A:

(F E Eb D) (C Bb A Ab) | (Bb Ab A G) (F E Eb G) | (D C)

Ok, you now have all the tools to construct a badass bebop line on paper. But you need
to also get a sound out of your instrument. Theres no single correct articulation, but in
general, a bebop line is built by putting a long string of legato (long, connected) eighth
notes together. The last note in a phrase can be accented and played staccato (short).
Even the word bebop helps you remember thisbe is the legato sound, and bop is
the stacatto. Bebop players add a lot of additional rhythmic interest to their lines
generally, and its hard to reduce this to a rule of formula. A commonly encountered
device is to compress four notes into the space of two by replacing four eighth notes
with a eighth note followed by three sixteenth-note triplets. Surrounded chord tones can
happen at faster than eighth note speed too. When quarter notes happen, they are often
played on up beats. Generally quarter notes should get a short articulation.

At this point lets turn to how to practice this stuff. At all times for every exercise you
are practicing your articulation. If you are struggling to produce an even legato
articulation at the tempo you are playing, I find it helps to deliberately play the same
figure in even eighths with a stacatto articulation (deliberately the opposite of what you
are trying to achieve) then retry it legato. For whatever reason, going to the opposite
extreme seems to help you reach the sound you are after.

Start out with a tempo thats comfortable for you and work out the bebop scale in all 12
keys. An exercise that helps get it under your fingers is to run from the root to the fifth
of your scale three times, then run the entire scale. This will fill four bars of eighth
notes, with the first two bars the same. For F bebop scale, written so that one line = one
bar

(F E Eb D) (C D Eb E)
(F E Eb D) (C D Eb E)
(F E Eb D) (C Bb A G)
(F G A Bb) (C D Eb E)

Repeat that until your hands fall off. No, seriously, work on getting that to lay smoothly
under your fingers in every key. Sorry I cant help with fingerings. Work from a
comfortable tempo up to faster speeds (this process never really endsI still am pushing
my speed limits).

I like to work on the resolving idea by improvising around the circle of fifths. You play
an improvised bebop line, starting on any dominant 7 chord, and every 2 bars cycle to
the chord that would function as tonic to that dominant. (So G7 -> C7 -> F7 and so on
around the circle).

Any lick you come up with that resolves is a great candidate for running around the
circle with. so for an example, I borrow a lick from Donna Lee:
(G Bb Db Eb) ((E Gb E) Eb Db) | C (bars 16 and 17 if youre following along: Eb7 ->
Ab)
And run it around the circle:

(G Bb Db Eb) ((E Gb E) Eb Db)

(C Eb Gb Ab) ((A B A) Ab Gb)
(F Ab B Db) ((D E D) Db B)
etc.

Im certainly not suggesting that bebop can be reduced to an algorithm. No one

will ever write software that plays like Diz or Bird. But if you want to make your
playing sound more idiomatic, these five rules and associated practice techniques should
help push you in the right direction. Once youve taken a few steps in that direction,
please inject your own creativity and personal conception in order to make your playing
as artistically meaningful as possible.

For the guitarists, I did find a nice page with some tablature to help get you in the right
direction:
http://www.jazzguitar.be/bebopscale.html