Sorry for the delay on these reviews, I’ll be posting about Weeks 3, 4, and 5 of Gary Burton’s Introduction to Improvisation class this week.
Week 3 deals with the application of scales to harmonies in a vertical manner, i.e., one scale per chord. Using the 10 common scales taught in Week 2, Burton describes a number of techniques for determining the appropriate scale for each chord. The scales are already divided according to their tonality as major, minor, or dominant. In choosing the variety of major, minor, or dominant scale, Burton refers to the melody and preceding harmony as indicators.
This week’s tune was Chick Corea’s “500 Miles High.” Here’s a link to my improvisation.
