THE CROSSROADS Symmetrical Connections

In this month’s Crossroads, John Wheatcroft shows you how to add sophistication, tension and release to your blues via Melodic Minor and Symmetrical Scales, Oz Noy style.

John Wheatcroft shows how players such as Oz Noy use the Melodic Minor scale to make ‘symmetrical connections’ over Dom7 chords.

Israeli guitarist Oz Noy is one of the brightest lights in contemporary guitar music today. Oz moved New York in 1996 aged 24 and in the subsequent years he has made his mark in a city bustling with talent and opportunity, especially in the field of jazz. Oz was no stranger to success, however, with over 10 years of playing experience and an established reputation as one of Israel’s top-rated studio and live performers.

A quick peek at Noy’s CV reveals a who’s who of the New York scene, balancing a respectable portfolio of work as a session player Stateside with an equally impressive and rapidly expanding list of releases in his own right. If you can judge the quality of a player by the company they keep then Oz is definitely A-list material. Drummers Keith Carlock and Anton Fig, not forgetting heavyweight bassists such as Will Lee, Reggie

Washington and James Genus are all acutely aware of Oz’s incredibly infectious and remarkably accomplished playing.

Oz is a master at integrating both harmonic and melodic tools into his playing and it’s clear that he has spent significant time woodshedding the potential for a wide variety of Pentatonic, Diatonic and Modal options. With this in mind, we’re specifically dealing with Dominant 7th chord types here, in keeping with our blues theme. For each of the seven short musical examples we choose a new scale type suitable for use over Dominant 7th chords, beginning with both Minor and Major Pentatonic, moving through Mixolydian and Lydian Dominant before heading towards symmetrical scales such as the Whole Tone and Half-Whole Diminished and ending with Superlocrian or Altered. Each example begins with a trio of appropriate chords spelling out the I7-IV7-V7 in the key of C (C7-F7-G7) and cut from the same intervallic cloth as the intended scale.

Next up we define a fingering for each scale, transposing each option to fit the chords directly, so C Mixolydian works with C7, F Mixolydian with F7 and so on, once again in a similar fretboard location. This is followed up with a short selection of single-note lines, one for each chord, drawing from this melodic material in a cohesive musical way, outlining our I7-IV7-V7 changes explicitly. We conclude our sophisticated scale study with a full solo based around a funky 12-bar blues progression with a two-bar intro in the key of C. The lines are configured so that each two-bar pair of phrases moves through our modal ‘menu’, beginning with the relevant Minor Pentatonic connected to its associated root, moving through Major Pentatonic, Mixolydian, Lydian Dominant, Whole-Tone, Half-Whole and finally ending with two bars of Superlocrian or Altered scale.

While this lesson is based around the notes you select, make sure you check out Oz’s playing on youtube or his recent GT video performance (GT319). Notice his rhythmic feel and dynamic control, both aspects that are impossible to do justice with the written score alone. Pay attention to how he changes the tone dramatically without touching the controls on the guitar, by picking in different locations and with different velocities; also notice how some notes are deliberately pulled and pushed ever so slightly against the pulse. Do some careful listening, really paying attention to both other guitar players and recordings of your own solos,. Make it a key component of your ‘Research and Development’, another cornerstone in your daily routine to get your playing to where you want it to be. As always, enjoy.

“Some weird stuff is going to come out, but that’s the idea. That’s how you expand your vocabulary” OZ NOY