What is a good way to become comfortable with the new scales introduced with Jazz?

[Alex]

I'm moving into serious jazz now after playing for the high school jazz band. I know all my major scales just fine, but while improvising, I find myself going to my teacher, asking what blues scale I can slip in, or just simply what notes work where, instead of looking to actually understand the symbols that represent the chord changes. Now that I'm getting out of a school jazz environment I really want to familiarize myself and actually learn and understand all these new things with jazz. Can anyone help me with a quick and easy way to get started? I was thinking start with Bb scale one week, and get all the alterations of that scale down, then next week move to the Eb and F scales, is that a good Idea? I play Alto Saxophone, here's a video of one of my solos if you want a glimpse at what i know (I know I played out of key one note, part of my motivation to really get this jazz improv and creativity thing down) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8F9eNAahTpc 3:30-4:30 try not to bash too much (And yeah I was jackin around with altissimo.. bad idea on concert day ) Any help will be greatly appreciated!!!

 

[Sammie Sneyd]

This site and specifically this article has some great advice: http://jazzadvice.com/how-to-practice-scales-for-speed/
Basically learn your majors and all the modes, in all keys (and that covers the natural minor as it's one of the modes). Then the other minors, all their modes in all keys. And all those other scales later, always good to know and be able to use but probably major and jazz minor to start with. Also know what each mode is used for, there's not much point knowing a super locrian scale if you don't know where it can be used (for tension in a v7 chord, most likely altered, going to the root). That article has some good advice to practice them, but basically the more you play them the more comfortable you'll get. Also the playing them in different ways is good too like playing them up, down and sideways, or playing the triads or arpeggios found in the scale, e.g in C you would play the C triad then down the scale to the Dm triad, up the Dm then follow the scale down to the Em and so on, anything that makes you more comfortable. Only knowing them up is one thing, down is better but every possible combination is best. I'm still working on this but going from no jazz knowledge to just this (and plenty of chords I never before thought possible on a guitar) my understanding of at least the theoretical side of jazz is pretty good now.

 

[LucasMan]

Here's a basic rundown of chord scale theory: play chord tones and fill in the gaps with notes from the key. So if you're in Bb major, then all your diatonic chords are simple enough, but what if you come across C7 chord? Well... C7 is C E G and Bb, now fill in the gaps with notes from Bb major. That gives us C D E F G A Bb... so that chord gets a C mixolydian chord scale. What if you encountered a Dm7b5? Well, that's D F Ab and C, fill in the gaps... D Eb F G Ab Bb C... that's D Locrian.

It's a simple idea and a pretty basic approach, but it takes a long time to get good at it and it works.

For your further edification, refer to this website: http://www.outsideshore.com/primer/primer/

I also recommend that you get a good teacher.