This is the most overlooked jazz fundamental... (feat. Nathan Graybeal)

If you've ever wanted to learn jazz, you probably run into the same problem a lot of musicians face. It's hard to know where to start. There are so many concepts involved: scales, chords, language, phrasing, time feel, transcription, improvisation, and when you start digging into lessons online or different books, it can feel like you're getting pieces of the puzzle without a clear path that connects everything together. A lot of players end up jumping between random ideas, practicing a scale here, learning a solo there, but without a structured system, it's tough to turn those concepts into real jazz playing. 

To grow, you’ll need to focus on fundamentals every jazz musician needs: developing a strong time and feel, understanding how harmony actually works, building vocabulary so you can use it in real playing, and learning how to turn scales and chords into musical, expressive lines. That's exactly why we've created something different. Our 30-Day Jazz Foundations course is designed to give you a clear starting point to actually build better jazz improvisation skills. And we're going to cover a bunch of material from that course today. 

If you want to follow along with how Nathan plays anything we talk about today, make sure to check out our accompanying YouTube video, This is the most overlooked jazz fundamental... (feat. Nathan Graybeal).

Let's get playing!

Melodic minor scale

Let’s take a look at the melodic minor scale. This scale is almost a major scale, except now it just has a lowered 3. So we're going to take the 3 of our major scale and lower it down a half step. Now the warm up we're going to do here is to play the melodic minor diatonic seventh chords. The tonic chord is going to be a mM7. The ii chord is going to be a m7, iii chord an +maj7, the IV chord and the V chord are both dominant, and the vi chord and the vii chord are both half diminished. So let's play them all in succession for a warm up in all 12 keys. 

Minor ii-V progressions

So now let's get into the minor ii-V. For the two chord, we're going to have a iim7b5 or iiø7. And over this chord, you're going to play the F Locrian scale. 

This is the seventh mode of the major scale. So really, we're playing F# or Gb, but starting on F. There are a few other possible options, but we'll get to those later. For the V chord, the most default option is known as the Phrygian Dominant scale. Really, it's the fifth mode of harmonic minor. So, in our case, the Bb7. We're going to play the Bb Phrygian dominant scale, which is the fifth mode of Eb harmonic minor. So, if we play Eb harmonic minor, that scale has a lowered 3 and a lowered 6. Now, if we play that scale but start on the 5, you get the Bb Phrygian dominant. 

When that's our new root, now we have a b9, a b13, and a b7. And then for the tonic chord, there's a few options we have, but we can do the melodic minor scale for our one chord. 

Well that's all we have for today, but if you want to see how Nathan plays through anything we talked about today, make sure to check out our accompanying YouTube video, This is the most overlooked jazz fundamental... (feat. Nathan Graybeal). Plus, don't forget to check out our 30-Day Jazz Foundations course for concepts like these and so much more.

We'll see you next time!