Every day of the year you can find me on Mooloolaba
Beach on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, for my daily walk and
swim. It gives me a good break between teaching private music students and
my computer work on books, Courses and the Jazclass website.
 | Mooloolaba is a great beach, and very well
known in Australia. Amongst the many regulars are several Olympic Gold
medalists and other Sport Champions. It is also a favourite beach for
Surf Carnivals, Triathlons and Ironman competitions. There is one famous
regular visitor to this beach who is quite different. His name is
Stumpy.
Stumpy is a well known
seagull on Mooloolaba Beach.
He lost both feet while skimming the
ocean waves in search of a meal, bitten off by a barracuda or shark faster
than him.
Stumpy is now very spoiled by all the regular beachees who
favour him with plenty of food, to the great disgust and jealousy of his
fellow seagulls. So you see, sometimes even the darkest cloud can have a
silver lining ! |
I felt that this brave little fellow with his major handicap deserved a
song.
So here it is : Stumpy's Blues.
When you listen to the song carefully
you can hear that Stumpy is quite wobbly on his feet. But once in the air he
still flies as fast as the rest of them !
(Down - Up - Top - Jazclass Links)
SB 2. The II - V - I Blues
The IIm7 - V7 or IIm7 - V7 - Imaj7 progression is by far the
most common chords segment in Jazz standards and Popular music. It occurs in
almost every song I know.
IIm7, V7 and Imaj7 refer to the scale-tone 7th
chords of the major scale in
any key.
They are the chords that can be formed on the 1st note (tonic),
2nd note and 5th note of a major scale selecting tones from that major scale only as chord
tones for each chord. Here are the three chords for the C major scale.
Audio 1
The three chords are placed in Circle of
Fifths order.
Like this.
Audio 2
The IIm7 - V7 segment has many uses in the Blues too.
The most
commonly used feature is the so called II - V - I
Blues, where the last 4 bar phrase uses a IIm7 V7 chord
segment.
Audio 3
| | I7 | | IV7 | | I7 | | I7 | |
|
| IV7 |
| IV7 |
| I7 |
| I7 |
|
|
| IIm7 |
| V7 |
| I7 |
| (V7) |
||
|
(The (V7) chord in the last bar is a turnaround not used for the final
chorus.
(Down - Up - Top - Jazclass Links)
SB 3. Improvisation
Stumpy's Blues is a typical II - V - I Blues in C.
Melody
You can use the C minor pentatonic or the C Blues scale for
improvisation over this blues.
However to bring out the typical IIm7
- V7 character of this blues I suggest you use the Dorian mode for the IIm7 chord and the Mixolydian mode over the V7 chord. This gives a nice refreshing twist
to the usual blues sound.
For the Blues in C use :
Audio 4
Over the rest of the blues you can use the C minor pentatonic, the C Blues
scale, or the C Mixolydian mode over C7 and F Mixolydian mode over F7.
Bb- and Eb-instruments use the following modes.
| Instrument | IIm7 : II Dorian
mode | V7 : V Mixolydian mode
|
|---|
| Bb instr. | Em7 ---> E F# G# A B C# D E
| A7 ---> A B C# D E F# G A
|
| Eb instr. | Bm7 ---> B C# D E F# G# A
B
| E7 ---> E F# G# A B C# D
E |
- Remember :
- C instruments are : keyboard, guitar, flute,
recorder, trombone, violin
- Bb instruments are : clarinet, trumpet, tenor sax, soprano
sax
- Eb instruments are : alto sax and baritone sax
