We all know how the symmetric diminished is a great scale for improvisation. But today,
I want to focus on using the symmetric diminished as a source for voicings. Let's
say I have a 2 5 1 in the key of G. So, Am7 - D7 and then Gmaj7. Watch what happens when I
play a couple of voicings using the symmetric diminished on the D7 chord...
The cool thing about these voicings, is that they're all using the same
upper structure a dim(maj7). Not only that! I'll show you how you can think about
these particular voicings so you cannot only play them with ease, but also know, and control,
how much tension you want your dominant chords to have. "If you're new to mDecks Music, we create
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for exclusive access to our ever expanding library of music resources." Yes, the symmetric diminished
is great for any dominant chord, so when you see a 2 5 1, like Am7 D7 Gmaj7.
You can always use the symmetric diminished on the V chord -- D7 in this case. The symmetric
diminished is very easy to remember. It's just a half-whole scale. So if you want to play a D
symmetric diminished, just start on D and then alternate between half steps and whole steps.
That gives us D Eb F F# G# A B C and then we're back to D. This is an eight-note scale.
And look, the D7 chord is inside of the scale. That's why this scale always works
on dominant chords. Now, I want you to think of today's voicing as follows: Play the 7th
of the chord in D7 -- that's a C. Remember, in a dominant chord the seventh is a b7.
And now, play a dim(maj7) chord on that note. That's a Co^7.
C Eb Gb and B -- the maj7. The cool thing about this Co^7 is that
all the notes in it belong to the D symmetric diminished scale. Now play all the o^7
chords you find by moving the root C up by minor thirds. Co^7 becomes
Ebo^7 and then Gbo^7 and then Ao^7.
Notice that if we move up one more time we're back on Co^7
So, there's only 4 possible o^7 chords that you'll find by following these
steps. What's really cool, is that all the notes in these chords also belong to the D
symmetric diminished scale. In fact, the symmetric diminished is, as the name implies, a symmetric scale.
And what exactly is symmetry, as it relates to scales? Well, it's when a scale has less modes than
it has notes. This is a result of the cyclical nature of how symmetric scale formulas work,
and how they always produce multiple occurrences of every mode. And the symmetric diminished scale
is symmetric by leaps of a minor 3rd. We can clearly see this when we write the intervallic
formula for the scale: half whole, half whole, half whole, half whole. A half step plus a whole step
is a minor third. So starting the symmetric diminished on the third note is the same as
starting "here" and moving this half whole string to the end of the formula. Both formulas look exactly
the same. So D symmetric diminished is the same as F symmetric diminished, A flat symmetric diminished,
and B symmetric diminished. In other words, if I play anything using the notes from the D symmetric
diminished, and I move it up a minor third, all these notes will be contained in the D symmetric
diminished scale. So let's say I play D - Eb - G#, all notes from the D symmetric diminished
scale. Let's move it up a minor third. Now I have F - F# and B, also notes from the same scale.
And then G# A and D, still notes from the D symmetric diminished and then finally B C and F,
still inside the D symmetric diminished scale. And then B up a minor third gives us D, and we're back
where we started. So if this line D Eb G#, works on a D7 paired with the D symmetric
diminished scale, then all the other lines we get by moving up by minor thirds should work as well.
The cool thing about being symmetric by minor thirds is, that moving by minor thirds produces
another symmetric structure the dim7 chord. Look at the starting notes of each line D, F,
G# (or Ab) and B. That's a Do7chord, which is a symmetric scale: minor 3rd,
minor 3rd, minor 3rd, and then one more minor 3rd at the end.
Extremely symmetric! Any note in that scale could be the root of the chord. Moving up by minor thirds
gives us the same notes as moving down by minor thirds. You always get four possible starting
points, which are all a minor 3rd away from the previous and the next one, and today we're taking
advantage of this property to build our voicings. We play these o^7 chords
starting on the b7 of our dominant chord and move by minor thirds up, which guarantees us
we'll always be playing notes from the symmetric diminished. And the roots of these chords spell
out a o7 chord. In D7, we start on C-- the b7 -- and play Co^7,
Ebo^7, Gbo^7 and, Ao^7. The roots
C Eb Gb and A spell out a Co7 chord. Okay, so why am I asking you to start
on the b7? That's because this organizes the voicings by dissonance,
or amount of tension if you will. The higher up in the chain, the more dissonance you'll get.
Look, Co^7 over D7 turns the D7 into a D7(b9,13) with the b7 on the
bottom and the 13 on the top. The next chord, Ebo^7 turns the D7 into a D7b9
but this time, the b9 -- the tension-- is at the bottom of the voicing, and the root of the chord
is on the top. This creates more tension, since the b9 interval -- the most dissonant interval of all --
is at the lowest point in the voicing. And then we have Gbo^7 (or F#o^7)
This gives us a D7#9, which without a doubt, is much more tense than
a b9 chord, because it has qualities from D major and D minor -- having that F natural at the
top. And the last chord -- Ao^7 -- gives us a D7(b9,#11), a very dissonant version
of a V7 chord, which by the way, is very tricky to pull off if you don't resolve it correctly.
Let's do it in the key of C. So, we have:
Dm7 - G7 to Cmaj7. The b7 of G7 is F. So you can think of the
Fo7 chord: F Ab B and D, and play the o^7 chords
on each of these notes. Fo^7, to Abo^7,
to Bo^7, to Do^7. Which, as you can hear, is very dissonant.
A great way to practice these voicings is to play a simple dim7 chord on
the b7 of the dominant chord, and then play all of the inversions.
Once you have that down replace, the top note of each inversion with the note a whole step above.
On the left hand you can just play the root of the original dominant chord
and, if you want, add the missing guide tone if applicable. For example: for
Fo^7 over G7 you can just play a G -- because the two guide tones F and B are in the top
voicing. For Abo^7 you can play G and F, the other guide tone -- B --
is already in the top voicing. For Bo^7 -- we already have the two guide tones -- so
just play G on your left hand if you want. And for the Do^7 you can play G and B.
I hope this was helpful and remember: if you're an "Exclusive Access" member you can download
the accompanying pdf to this video with the worksheet in all keys and examples to practice.
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clicking on the link provided thanks again for watching and we'll catch you next time