# Playing over 2-5-1's



## Charles (May 4, 2011)

Any suggestions on how to do this well? I'm really bad at it.


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## McCap (May 5, 2011)

Did you do a google search?
There's plenty of tips on the net.

Here's the basics:
*Major 2-5-1*: you can play just the basic scale. So, if the 2-5-1 is in Cmajor, the C major scale will fit over all the chords.

*Minor 2-5-1*: Here you have to be careful as the 5 is a dominant chord so it has the major 7th relativ to the minor scale. 
For example take A minor. 
2 = Bmin7b5
5 = E7 (watch for the G#)
1 = Amin7
Basically you could play A minor over the 2 and the 1 and then chose a scale which contains a E7 chord. The easiest choices would be A harmonic minor or A melodic minor.
A common & good approach is the following:
Play A harmonic minor over the 2 and the 5.
Play A minor over the 1 OR actually play A Dorian (= G Major) over the 1, it's Jazz after all 

Hope this helped, if you have more questions...


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## AvantGuardian (May 5, 2011)

^ Good advice in the above post.

Another way to look at it is with arpeggios. Obviously you can play any of the chord tones, so it would be a super-vanilla easy/boring way to play the changes "correctly" if you just used chord tones. You can practice just running 8th note 7th chord arpeggios, changing the arpeggio with each chord change. Try it in different positions on the neck so you become familiar with all of your 7th chord arpeggio shapes if you aren't already.

After this becomes easy, you can start adding extensions (9s, 11s, altered notes over the V chord, etc.) or playing arpeggios of different chords (i.e. play an Em7 arpeggio over Cmaj7 chord, since Em7 is essentially Cmaj9 without a C) to make your phrases sound more colorful.


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## SirMyghin (May 5, 2011)

McCap said:


> *Minor 2-5-1*: Here you have to be careful as the 5 is a dominant chord so it has the major 7th relativ to the minor scale.




E7 is a major chord with a MINOR 7th, not a major 7th. Emaj7 would have a major 7th.


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## ibanez254 (May 6, 2011)

I'm pretty sure he means G# (The 3rd in E7) is the major 7th of A-7, therefore he can't play A minor over the whole progression.


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## McCap (May 6, 2011)

> ...E7 is a major chord with a MINOR 7th, not a major 7th. Emaj7 would have a major 7th.


You are pefectly right, that is why I said:
"so it has the major 7th* relativ* to the minor scale"
I was talking about what Ibanez254 wrote, but I admit that my sentence is a little unclear.


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## celticelk (May 6, 2011)

ibanez254 said:


> I'm pretty sure he means G# (The 3rd in E7) is the major 7th of A-7, therefore he can't play A minor over the whole progression.



You could, actually, if you're comfortable with that tension - playing the G over E7 generates a #9 sound, which is a classic altered-dominant move. I'd be a little more cautious about playing the A over E7, as that fourth is a less-usual tension, but on the other hand, if you play A natural minor lines over E7 and avoid the A root, it generates a subtle tension which is resolved by landing on A when the Am7 tonic comes back around. (You could do the same trick with A Dorian lines and generate a slightly-more-inside sound, as A Dorian has the F# instead of the F, or the 9 instead of the b9 when played over E7.)

If you phrase well, you can get away with an awful lot. Stevie Ray Vaughan used to just play blues lines over David Bowie's bizarro-pop chord changes, and his phrasing was so strong that it carried the ear along with it. Experiment.


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## SirMyghin (May 6, 2011)

ibanez254 said:


> I'm pretty sure he means G# (The 3rd in E7) is the major 7th of A-7, therefore he can't play A minor over the whole progression.



See what happens when we all read something and think differently? I can see that side.. now.


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## Trespass (May 6, 2011)

You could use an Altered Dominant scale over the minor 2-5-1. This is a mode of melodic minor, otherwise known as super locrian and a host of other names. 

You could also play a half-whole diminished scale over the V chord (treating it as an V7alt whether everyone else is playing it or not) in the minor 2-5-1, which will hit quite a few altered tensions. 

You could take the whole step a bit further, and use modal interchange to basically imply a II7Alt-V7-Alt-i min. This would be considered a sub V of V.

An easy sub is a tritone sub, which can work over either 2-5-1. Dmin - G7 - C becomes Dmin - Db7 - C, which is a nice chromatic decent. 

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2-5-1s are the vehicle of jazz, so while playing one tune (especially bebop tunes) through 5-10 choruses of more, you are potentially playing 20-30 2-5-1s in a 4 minute period. Having all those different approaches I've listed above keeps the audience interested. Different flavours.


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## TreWatson (May 8, 2011)

SirMyghin said:


> E7 is a major chord with a MINOR 7th, not a major 7th. Emaj7 would have a major 7th.



(Also known as a Dominant 7th, since E is the V of the Key)


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