Lydian Dominant Question

[JeSuisSkeleton]

I've recently started learning and playing jazz. I'm playing with a couple of people, both much more experienced in jazz than I am. We played around with A Night in Tunisia, and the guitarist said something about soloing over the main section in the Lydian Dominant? He said it's the fourth mode of the melodic minor scale, so in the key of the song (the version I have is D Minor), that would be:

Ascending: G A B C# D E F (G)
Descending: G F E D C Bb A (G)

Right?

My next question is, when would I use that? He was pretty vague about when he would use it in his solos. Also, why would I want to use this instead of the regular D Minor scale?

[XB26354]

We don't usually use different ascending and descending versions of the melodic minor, normally when improvising you use the ascending form in both directions (although there's bno reason not to use it if you like the sound, but jazzers tend to think of the descending form as an aeolian mode). The Lydian dominant is just a mode of the melodic minor, and improvising a fourth above the root of a minor chord/key sounds cool (G in D minor is thought of as being one if the extended intervals, the 11th). It can also imply a sus sound, as in Gmin7/D. You could use any of the melodic minor modes, or D blues scale, or in fact any D minor variant. You do have to pay attention to how you handle the transition to and from the Eb7 chord though. G Lydian Dominant shares G, A (#11), C# (Db, the b7) and F with Eb7(#11) and E gives it an Eb7#9 flavour.

[Bilbo]

In jazz, we only use the ascending version of the melodic minor scale so the descending G lyd dominat would also have the C# and not the C natural.

As the main solo section of Night in Tunisia is Eb7 to Dm6, the most obvious scale to use is the Phrygian and lydian modes of Bb major. By using the lydian dominant, however, you are creating a tension between the phrygian which has a natural D and the Eb lydian dom which has a flattened D. If you just solo on a G lydian dominant (GABC#DEFG), you are not playing the Eb so the harmoninc movement will be lost. I would recommend soloing 'around' the Eb lydian dominant not the G during the Eb/D passage

[neilb]

[Happy Jack]

Can I just say that I didn't understand a single piece of the discussion/advice above, but that I feel honoured (no, really) to be part of a forum where stuff like this can go on.

And without a safety net.

[JeSuisSkeleton]

[quote name='XB26354' post='1116350' date='Feb 5 2011, 11:22 AM']We don't usually use different ascending and descending versions of the melodic minor, normally when improvising you use the ascending form in both directions (although there's bno reason not to use it if you like the sound, but jazzers tend to think of the descending form as an aeolian mode). The Lydian dominant is just a mode of the melodic minor, and improvising a fourth above the root of a minor chord/key sounds cool (G in D minor is thought of as being one if the extended intervals, the 11th). It can also imply a sus sound, as in Gmin7/D. You could use any of the melodic minor modes, or D blues scale, or in fact any D minor variant. You do have to pay attention to how you handle the transition to and from the Eb7 chord though. G Lydian Dominant shares G, A (#11), C# (Db, the b7) and F with Eb7(#11) and E gives it an Eb7#9 flavour.[/quote]


[quote name='Bilbo' post='1116373' date='Feb 5 2011, 11:35 AM']In jazz, we only use the ascending version of the melodic minor scale so the descending G lyd dominat would also have the C# and not the C natural.

As the main solo section of Night in Tunisia is Eb7 to Dm6, the most obvious scale to use is the Phrygian and lydian modes of Bb major. By using the lydian dominant, however, you are creating a tension between the phrygian which has a natural D and the Eb lydian dom which has a flattened D. If you just solo on a G lydian dominant (GABC#DEFG), you are not playing the Eb so the harmoninc movement will be lost. I would recommend soloing 'around' the Eb lydian dominant not the G during the Eb/D passage[/quote]

Thanks for the info guys! I'm not soloing on the track, just trying to think of ways to make a walking line more interesting and compliment what the guitarist is doing when he's soloing. I'll take those suggestions and work something out.

So glad I understood all of it too, six months ago I wouldn't have even attempted any of this