Your Online Guide to Playing Better Jazz Guitar
Dominant Bebop Scale
If there is one scale that defines the jazz sound it is the Dominant Bebop Scale. Used by every major jazz improvisor of the last 100 years in some capacity, this scale permeates the solos of great players such as Pat Martino, Charlie Parker, Bud Powell and countless others.
There are many ways to finger this scale, the most common is to take any Mixolydian mode you know and just add in the #7 passing tone, and I have included two of my favorites below. The first is a series of one-octave fingerings that stay in position across the neck, and the second are two, two-octave fingerings that shift down the neck as you descend the scale. Check both of these out and see how they fit under your fingers and in your playing.
The Dominant Bebop Scale has 8 notes, and they are arranged as such, descending from the Root down.
Root – M7th – m7th – M6th – P5th – P4th – M3rd – M2nd – Root
So, for example, a C Dominant Bebop Scale would be spelled with the following notes:
C – B – Bb – A – G – F – E – D – C
Because the Dominant Bebop Scale is closely related to the Mixolydian Mode, you can use it to solo over any Dominant 7th Chord in your improvisations. As well, check out this page of 21 Bebop Scale Patterns to spice up your practice routine and add tons of Bebop vocabulary to your soloing.
The following Dominant Bebop Scales are written out in the key of C, but make sure you practice them in all keys so you have them at your fingertips no matter what key you’re soloing in.
One-Octave Dominant Bebop Scales
Two-Octave Dominant Bebop Scales
Click to return to the Essential Jazz Guitar Scales Page
18 Responses to "Dominant Bebop Scale"
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hey Matt,
great website and lots of cool info here. Just starting out on jazz guitar and was wondering why jazz cats only practice these scales descending? Or did I misinterpret? Seems to make logical sense to practice ascending then descending? Just curious how best to practice them.
Thanks for checking out the site. The descending thing comes from Charlie Parker, he liked to play arpeggios up and bebop scales down, not every time, but a lot. Pat Martino used this technique a lot as well, there are others but he sticks out in my mind as someone who used it a lot, so does Mike Stern.
There is a more fundamental reason why these scales sound more “convincing” descending. The Ab in this scale is heard as the b6 of C. It represents one side of the comma between Ab and G#. If you were to play it ascending, you would be suggesting A minor. These two notes are the same pitch, but have two very different meanings in context. Charlie Parker instinctively knew this. Once you realize this phenomenon and learn to take advantage of the behavior of the tones, you can seemingly navigate the ear way out of the home tonality.
Hey Danny,
not sure what you mean, are you talking about the Major Bebop scale, which has an Ab (#5-b6) in the key of C? Just want to clear it up, let us know what you’re thinking, thanks!
matt- i am working on the dominant beebop scale an am thinking of changing the fingering to-1st string c pinky b bflat a then second string g f e 3rd string d slide to c b bflat a 4th string g f e 5th st. d c it seems much faster and easier but may be wrong. what do you think????
Sure Richard, that’s a great fingering too, there are many that work for different people, I like that one as well, over time I’ve kind of mixed the two together to form my own approach to bebop scales, check it out can’t hurt!
First off, I have to say that this is a fantastic website. The amount of things I have never even of is phenomenal. :O)
But I was trying this scale over the Herbie Hancock tune Watermelon Man (simple blues in F, chords are F7 Bb7 and C7). Maybe it’s just me but I didn’t find this to sound very good. I tried messing with it rhythmically too but to no avail.
Do you think the use of these scales can depend on the type of song(eg: hard bop vs blues) you’re playing or is it more in the player? Any is answer is much appreciated!
Hey Justin,
Thanks for checking out the site, glad you dig it! I use the Dominant Bebop scale on Watermelon Man all the time, cool sound.
First thing you need to make sure is that you switch up the scale each time the chord changes. So for Watermelon you need to play:
F7 = F Bebop Scale
Bb7 = Bb Bebop Scale
C7 = C Bebop Scale
If you’re already doing that than maybe you just need to spice things up a bit. Check out my page on Bebop Scale Patterns, that might add to your solos and you might dig on this sound a bit more.
http://www.mattwarnockguitar.com/bebop-scale-patterns-for-guitar
hope that helps!
matt: i am a little confused on transposing these scales. how to hande the double Bs and As. as an example- if i wanted to change the key to Db- would i just raise all the notes one fret including the Bs and Ss or do they get special treatment?
Hi Richard,
It might be easier to think of it as a shape and just move the shape around the neck, then learn the notes after the fact. there are a lot of bbs and other weird things going on when you transpose this scale. So the easiest way might be to see it as a shape, like you see a chord shape, and move it around that way
oops- i forgot- when changing to another key-how do you handle the sharp and flat changes in regard to the double Bs ansd As????????
when i move these scales around I know that Bbb is there, but in reality I just see it as an A on the neck. Double b’s are good for writing stuff out on the page, but when it comes to thinking in the moment then Bbb is better off being an A, even if it’s Ab to A in the same scale.
Matt: Thanks for the quick reply. Thats is just what i will do because it is confusing enough as it is without making it more complicated. By the way-have you written any books on guitar theory????? They would be great written by someone with your knowledge. I feel i need something written that covers music right from ther beginning.
Glad I could help Richard. I haven’t written any books on guitar theory yet, but I am starting a series of books called Building Bebop Vocabulary which will focus on one sound, chord, at a time. There will be in-depth descriptions of how scales, chords and other concepts are built and used in the music, so those might be something you’d be interested in. the first book in the series will be out in early May.
Matt: be sure to keep us posted on the new be bop book. I personally am working on all ther info i can on bebop so i will be ordering it. thanks for all the help!!!~!
will do richard, the Bebop books will be shorter than my other ones, because they are focused on 1 topic, so about 40-45 pages, and so I can sell them for 4.99, which should be affordable to most people. Hope you dig the books when they come out!
I am thinking that I am missing something by not understanding the logic of the fingering you have chosen for the dominant bebop scale.
I sense that you do not want to insist on any specific fingering. But I still wonder why you have advanced a fingering that does not resemble any ‘in position’ dominant fingering.
Is there an unstated advantage in taking the time to work out specific fingerings for specific scales?
Hey Ron,
I used this fingering to do two things, one was to show a fingering that isn’t as well known as the other ones out there, and also to help people break out of in-position playing if that’s what they want to do.
The dominant bebop note, the extra natural 7, can be applied to any fingering out there. So it’s easily applied to any Mixollydian scale you may already use and know if that’s more comfortable for you.
I use the more common fingerings in other articles on the site, I just like this one as it’s symmetrical, uses four notes per string and helps people break out of the box patterns and move around the neck if that’s what they are looking to do.