Ted Dunbar Books

[MomaDan]

Hey Folks, I'm very interested in this book too. This guy over on phish.net has offered to send a scan of A System of Tonal Convergence if you PM him with your email. I can't register and PM him for some reason, if anyone with a phish.net account could PM him for me with my email, thomasmaclennan@gmail.com I would greatly appreciate it!

http://phish.net/user/angelhair

Done and done. Theres been a problem with trolls on .net recently, so their tightening what new users can do. That happened here also a little bit back if I remember correctly. Happens to every forum sadly.

[jadirusso]

Just played through all of the excerpt that was posted.. all makes sense tonally.. very interesting and cool stuff. playing around with the chord section at the end I sort of naturally ended up in the jam section (maybe so maybe not) part of stash.  If anyone finds a full version of this please pass along.

[Heady Jam Fan]

Someone replied to Manic and I talking about it on TGP and offered to send the full version. I just PMed him, so I will post it if it comes through.

I still haven't gotten a chance to try it - I need to quit work and school honestly! But some of it is pretty accessible, the first blues scale is something everyone here has played before.

PS - I think this is the same person snail mailing it to Manic... he doesn't seem to mind sending me a copy and I will put it on google and share it, but I figured if he already sent it to you Manic, would you be able to post on google and save Joe the trouble/cost of mailing again?

[Heady Jam Fan]

Ok, I think I have the whole book now, there is a link to a google doc folder, 2nd post, first page.

[manicstarseed]

Thanks heady. I have yet to see the CD in the mail...

[Heady Jam Fan]

hmm, I thought he sent it to you first... either way, the CD just had those two PDFs, so you have it now!

[fulltone1989]

Much thanks! Between this and Sheets of Sound I should be set for life.

[jadirusso]

Sweet.. I just rotated all the upside down pages and now my PDF is easy to read on the computer.

[manicstarseed]

Heady:

I just got it in the mail, yesterday, hours after I posted
Murphy is my bitch

[Magilla]

Heady, thanks so much for putting these up!  I rotated the pages & merged the 2 files here https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B2lA8yUcT3jjTXl1aGYwZUhSWFdRMU9uYklmVkIxdw/edit

It's been really fun & eye opening working with these scales & arpeggiating the 'character chords' leading into the tonic

[Happyorange27]

Thanks for all the efforts above!  I'm stoked.

[Heady Jam Fan]

Heady:

I just got it in the mail, yesterday, hours after I posted
Murphy is my bitch

Lol, bend him over.



Magilla - thanks for orienting the pages!

I feel bad I haven't been able to put any effort into furthering the discussion. I promise in a few weeks after finals I will jump back into it.

[Magilla]

Hey no problem, it would be cool to get some discussion going to see how everyone is using it.

So far I've been spending a few days on each scale, really working to get the sounds to come out naturally in my playing. I've been working on applying it to I vi ii V I Major progressions (think Ya Mar to keep it in the Phish realm) & i VI iiø V i minor progressions (Stash!)

I'll start by playing the scale as written over the V chord, timing it so the tension is being resolved on the first beat of the chord it's leading into.  This simple first step has been a good starting point & is a good foundation for coming up with interesting ways to give a sense of forward motion to your lines.  

After that, I'll use the character chords listed for each scale as substitutions (usually played as arpeggios) in place of the V chord in the progressions.  That has been really eye/ear opening.. You start to see how you can 'bombard/converge' on the tonic in so many different ways without even delving into the limitless rhythmic variations you can start messing around with.

Anyways that's how I've been using it so far, I've only been through the first few scales and diving in deep with them has been great. Def interested in hearing how others are approaching it too  

[Heady Jam Fan]

Finally getting time to practice these

I have been working mostly in the minor key(s), sometimes over the Stash chords as Magilla mentioned, but I ended up just doing a drawn out i-V7 to give me more time to find phrasing in the Dunbar scales, which leads to some really cool results - I have read quotes of jazz players saying what happens over the V chord is 'where it's at,' in other words, that where the interesting stuff happens, and that was really what I was finding in practicing these when I drew out the chords; I was focused on phrasing over the V and more of a theme and variation / melody on the i. With the faster changes, I found myself only using the Dunbar scales for a mild tension and searching for the quickest release or resolution into a chord tone of the i. BIAB is awesome for this, I might get the newest version.

I am having the most trouble with the scales that are suggested to be unidirectional (ascending or descending) as they really sound better going in their implied direction, but I think that rule can be broken if certain notes are used together in a certain direction, probably usually half-steps. In other words, I found that sometimes I got good stuff out of ascending a descending scale if I jumped over a note to another note in the scale a half-step above, then descended to the lower note, and continued up the scale (sorry, that sounds confusing).

I also found that scales including the major 3 of F (or the i chord) sounded pretty clunky in minor, I suppose that's not surprising. Not sure if that is just how I am playing the scale or if those just really work best in a major key.

Finally, I find my tendency was to almost consider these various scales as alterations to the dorian mode that I was using over the i chord. This is not the best idea; while it makes it easier to learn and play quickly, it takes away from the 'essence' of that scale; it removes the focus on the implied chord(s) of the scale via removing focus on the arpeggio(s). I need to go back and practice these scales with their accompanied arpeggio(s) in mind to really draw out the 'out(side)ness' of the scale.

Maybe people have suggestions for my practice, struggles or findings with these scales, or maybe this is helpful for someone about to delve in!

Also - I found a used copy of another Dunbar book (ordered it used online, should be shipping currently). I have no idea how it fits in with this book, it about tonal interrelations across the neck (fretboard logic?), so it sounds more fundamental, but it would be interesting to hear it from his perspective, especially while trying to figure out the best ways to play these scales (some of which, admittedly, feel clunky under my fingers). I also talked to someone who is going to long-term loan me a copy of another one of his books where I believe he develops etudes using a jazz standard. Depending on the length of the books and if I can find a scanner, I will make PDFs to share with ya'll!

If anyone can find his ii-V Cadence book, I would love to read that as well - I emailed one person who said they might have access, but I don't feel too hopeful. There are 3 listed in libraries, but none in this corner of the earth, though I still requested an interlibrary loan via my Grad School library, but not feeling hopeful about that either.

[IamWILSON]

Man you guys make me jealous!  I've never been good at learning out of books.  I can read music and everything, but I just have some sort of disconnect between taking what's on the page and applying it in a musical situation, and making it sound musical.  Any tips from you guys from the dunbar book would be great.  Can you recommend a certain page and scale from the book to start with that's an easy scale to get down?  And maybe paraphrase what's written so I can better figure out how I should be using the scale.  I do have a great understanding of music theory, site reading, and jazz theory even, so please don't think I'm slow.