OK..... I've been working on my II-V-I.
So... let's say we're in the key of "C."
I'll be playing along.... Dm7-G7-CM7 .... and then to turn it around, here comes an A7.
hmmmm
Well.... if a guy was soloing over that progression, and here comes that A7, what scales can you use over that A7 chord?
~Shawn
One of the nice things about dominants is that, other than the major seventh, you can really play any note and make it work. This doesn't mean you can just play randomly - but you DO have a lot of choices. Well, you can, but that's not the way to get to where you want to be.
For instance, any pentatonic scale which doesn't have a major seventh can be used. For an A7, go up a major second to a B minor pentatonic. Over a minor chord, this will give you a very dorian sound, but over a dominant chord it is a fairly straight forward dominant sound. If you go down a major second,
a G minor pentatonic scale, it gives you both a flat and sharp 9, so it's obviously an altered dominant sound. The licks you already have in these scales will have a very different sound (some of them usable, some useless - but that's why you try them all). If you go up a minor third, you get both the altered ninths, as well as a #11th, and a flat 6th.
Obviously, these are just a few possibilities, and you want to experiment with other things too, but they do work and really do help to get you out of the kinds of ruts EVERYONE gets into at some point. Of course, these things can become ruts just as easily.
Dominants are one of those areas where the whole concept of playing just the third and seventh are extremely useful. If the guy soloing decides he wants to alter a dominant chord which isn't written that way, you are giving him that opportunity.
You can also use whole tone and diminished scales effectively over dominants - again being careful to use the version which doesn't have the major seventh (or just don't use that part of the scale). Obviously, these are more "outside" choices, but that doesn't make them bad - just different, and I for one like different.
And of course, the same idea I was talking about with pentatonic (well, I mean, a pentatonic scale is just a minor chord with a fourth added) scales works just as well with arpeggios. A diminished arpeggio from the flat second of a half-dominant (minor7 flat5) chord gives you the flat 9, the third, fifth, and the seventh of the chord. Use that to lead into a line starting from the chords root (if the chord lasts that long), or from the resolving Dm's fifth, and you've got a nice bit of flow. Experiment with other arpeggios too. This is a DEEP bit of exploration.
Light
"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi