Levi Clay: tritone fascinations

Musical harmony has come a long way in the last 150 years, so far in fact that it could be easy to fall into a rut of repetition, never breaking any new ground. Bebop itself was born out of frustration and experimentation, the youth of the day pushing the boundaries and seeing what happened. Today we're going to look at some post bop experimentation that you might find in the lines of saxophonists like Michael Brecker and Jerry Bergonzi. The focus will be the synthetic scale known as the tritone scale, so come and have a look if you want to insert a little of the devil into your playing.


Michael was particularly synonymous with the experimentation of synthetic scales so check out his work with The Brecker Brothers, Steps Ahead and his solo albums (try his self titled album for something really special).
We're deep in the world of funk fusion now, so lets start this by listening to some Brecker Brothers (with Mike Stern on guitar). Michaels solo starts at 1:18 and he's really flying here, a great blend of pentatonics and fluid outside lines. If only we could be that fluid on the guitar! There is a valuable lesson to be learnt here though, drawing influence from other instruments is a great way to help develop your own voice on the guitar.

Full lesson with tab: http://live4guitar.com/article/levi-clay-bop-n-roll-part-6-tritone-scale