The dorian scale is a must-know for all kinds of music. A cool sounding scale to easily give you the sound of "jazz" and "fusion" music.
In simple terms, we can call it a minor scale with a natural 6th, or simply the 2nd degree of any major scale.
In this blog, we will learn 5 simple melodic phrases based on this scale which you can add to your vocabulary to get started.
The Method
If you read my blog about A Simple Approach To Creating Melodies, we will be using that method for these phrases.
Click Here to read that blog!
The Rhythmic Idea
For this blog, I came up with 5 simple rhythmic ideas without using dotted notes. Let's take a look at them:
You may notice that the 3rd, and 4th rhythms are the same, that is intentional, as you'll see once we create the phrase.
The Key Center
For this blog, I chose 'B' as the key center.
The Scale
As mentioned at the beginning, the dorian scale is simply a minor scale, but with a natural 6.
So, if we know the notes of a B major scale, B C# D E F# G A, we simply turn the G into a G#.
We can also look at this as an A major scale from it's 2nd degree.
This leaves us with the following notes: B C# D E F# G# A.
Choosing Our Notes
I will be choosing notes out of this scale by ear, but the number of notes will be the same as the rhythmic elements in each rhythm above.
Please note that the octave for each note is also something I'm choosing by ear. And I encourage you to do so as well.
The more you explore, the more organic you sound. Let's now choose notes for each rhythmic idea one by one:
13 notes: B G# B - F# D G# B - B E - G# A D B
20 notes: F# D - A B F# B - F# - C# || E D B F# - D G# F# A - D B - F# B
11 notes: A B G# || F# E D B - F# E D B
11 notes: D E C# || B A F# E - A F# E D
14 notes: A G# F# E - G# F# E D - F# E D B - D B
Putting Them Together
We have our rhythms, we have our notes. Now let's put them together:
Add these to you vocabulary, and try playing these over a Bmin7 vamp to get started.
Eventually try playing over some modal jazz tunes like 'So What' by Miles Davis, and use these phrases over Min7 vamps.
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