Canadian Musician - November/December 2018 | Page 29

WOODWINDS
Dr. Daniel Schnee is a multi-instrumentalist who has performed worldwide with 21 different JUNO and
Grammy Award-winning musicians. He has been internationally recognized as a graphic score composer
and is a former student of Pulitzer Prize-winning jazz musician Ornette Coleman.
By Dan Schnee
A Creative Approach to
Chords & Scales
T
he most common theoretical study a
jazz saxophone player will engage in
is that of which scales go with which
chords, learning the proper chord/
scale relations unique to each style of jazz.
But the problem with this kind of study is that
a significant number of teachers and students
treat the basic rules as iron-clad and “right,”
making any deviation automatically a de facto
mistake, no matter how good or interesting
the music sounds.
For example, I once heard saxophonist
Michael Brecker play a dozen choruses of a
C blues in the key of C#. Now according to
the usual rules of jazz theory, this is about as
“wrong” as it can get, as every note is in the
wrong key (save for B#), but it sounded abso-
lutely fantastic, and when Michael returned
to the “proper” key, the effect was thrilling.
What made this technique work can be sum-
marized by two important ideas that will take
you beyond “rules” into a zone where you are
not actually breaking rules but playing both
inside and outside the rules simultaneously.
Chromatic Intentionality
When first learning scales and chords, we study
how to fit them together like a jigsaw puzzle
– discovering which of each work best in stan-
dard songs and chord progressions. But at the
advanced level, the professional jazz player is
actually creating and developing scales and
chord relationships through texture and co-
lour choices. Certainly, some genres require a
certain set method of connecting scales and
chords, which is fine. But to create art is to create
new visions and perspectives, and in Brecker’s
case, he found a way to play with power and
sophistication by utilizing the first idea: what I
W W W. C A N A D I A N M U S I C I A N . CO M

call chromatic intentionality – a fancy way of
saying “playing one highly contrasting thing
over another thing to create a single overall ef-
fect,” making two things sound like one thing.
To illustrate this, let’s use the example of a C
dominant seventh chord (C7: C E G B ) played
on the piano. Now the regular rules of music
theory say that the correct choice of scale to
play over this chord would be a dominant scale,
and this choice is certainly correct in ordinary
circumstances. But if you arpeggiate an E 7
chord (E G B D ) over top of it on your saxo-
phone, it sounds like you and the piano player
are creating a C7 chord with a flat and sharp
ninth note added, what is known as a C7 9 9
chord. You can also create this same effect if you
arpeggiate a G 7 or A7 chord over a C7 as well.
Another excellent example is how one can
use a major seventh chord with a flatted fifth
note in it to colour and contrast. For example,
if you arpeggiate a concert F major 7 5 chord
and hold down the D on the piano, you are
now creating the sound of a D minor 6/9 chord,
because the F now becomes the 3 rd of a D chord
while the remaining notes spell out the 5 th , a 6 th ,
and a 9 th . Even without the 7 th , it still sounds like
a solid minor chord. Moving on, if we arpeggiate
the concert F major 7 5 chord again, and this
time hold down a G on the piano, we are now
creating a G dominant 13 chord. The F is now
the 7 th of G, the A functions like a 9 th , the B is
the 3 rd , and E functions like a 13 th .  This is why
memorizing standard scale/chord relationships
like they are ironclad rules will only deny you
the opportunity to hear these aforementioned
sounds, as well as the ability to play with greater
harmonic power and beauty.
So when Brecker played long phrases and
arpeggiations in C# over chords related to the
key of C, he was using chromatic intentionality
to create an overall sound containing a lot of
tension, which would culminate in a beautiful
release and return to the conventional chord/
scale sound. He could do this because he was
totally comfortable with complexity and such
intentionality, which brings us to the second
idea related to understanding scales and
chords: what I call the Shitajiki Effect.
The Shitajiki Effect
In traditional Japanese calligraphy, it is stan-
dard practice to put a shitajiki (a felt or paper
under-sheet) underneath the writing paper to
absorb extra ink and provide stability. Many
artists and graphic score composers who use
ink also use old pieces of paper as a shitajiki
under our creations to avoid staining the table
or desk. After several hours or days of work,
these papers end up looking like abstract art-
works themselves, and can be quite interesting
to look at.
Like a shitajiki, when one studies scales and
chords for years and years, one begins to notice
that though scales and chords come and go,
we tend to gravitate towards certain sounds,
chords, scales, and rhythms, much of the time
unconsciously until we actually sit down and
analyze what we do. Thus, the cumulative effect
of studying scales and chords colours our mind,
our musical personality – the unique “creative
shitajiki” underneath our studies.
Studying a huge variety of scales and
chords and then exploring them as the shitajiki
foundation for chromatic intentionality means
that we are exposed to a greater amount of
potential creativity, and provides for us greater
opportunity to become original artists. It is fun,
and it really works.
C A N A D I A N M U S I C I A N • 29