15/12/2014 How to Play The Allan Holdsworth Bebop Scale | MattWarnockGuitar.com | MATT WARNOCK GUITAR

http://mattwarnockguitar.com/modernize­your­dominant­chords­with­the­allan­holdsworth­bebop­scale 1/13

How to Play The Allan Holdsworth Bebop ScaleThough he is best known for his Fusion playing, studying Allan Holdsworth’s playing can alsobe beneficial for more traditional players who are looking to modernize their soloing concepts, orjust add a new angle to their approach to Bebop and Post­Bop soloing.

One of the concepts that Allan has mastered, and that jazz guitarists from all styles andbackgrounds need to have under their fingers, is the Bebop scale (which you can find as the“Jazz Dominant Scale 2″ in his book Just for the Curious).

The Bebop scale is an essential tool for any jazz guitarist and while this scale usually conjuresup images of Wes Montgomery and George Benson, you can also gleam a vast amount ofknowledge on the subject by studying how more modern players, such as Holdsworth, use thisclassic sound in their playing.

First let’s review the normal Dominant Bebop Scale, which is a Mixolydian mode with an addedmajor 7th interval. Here is a one­octave fingering for that scale, nothing fancy but it soundsgreat and sits well on the guitar.

If this scale is new to you, check out my article on “Dominant Bebop Scale Fingerings for Guitar”for a little refresher on these must know scales.

Have a question or comment about this lesson? Visit the Allan Holdsworth Bebop Scales threadat the MWG Forum.

Dominant Bebop Scale

MATT WARNOCK GUITAR

Login SearchGo to...

15/12/2014 How to Play The Allan Holdsworth Bebop Scale | MattWarnockGuitar.com | MATT WARNOCK GUITAR

http://mattwarnockguitar.com/modernize­your­dominant­chords­with­the­allan­holdsworth­bebop­scale 2/13

Now we’ll take a look at Holdsworth’s version of the Bebop scale.

Here, he not only adds a major 7th interval to the Mixolydian scale, but he also throws in a bluenote, the b3rd, for good measure, producing a nine­note scale.

Here is the same fingering as above only with the extra note, b3rd, added into the scale.

Play around with this for a while. Improvise with it over a static chord, take it into different keys,apply any/all scale patterns you like to this fingering.

Getting the fingering down is a good start, but once you get the sound of this scale in yourears and internalize it, that’s when the real fun starts.

Here is the one­octave scale in the key of C.

Allan Holdsworth Bebop Scale

One of the things that makes Holdsworths playing so unique is his ability to create long, fluidideas that span large portions of the neck.

When I was checking out his version of the Bebop scale, I noticed that I could build a cool, 3­octave fingering that not only covered most of the neck, but was also very easy to play and satwell under my fingers.

Here is that fingering for you to check out.

Notice that there are a ton of 4­note chromatic groups in this fingering, which you can finger 1­2­3­4 for ease of use.

These sections not only make it easy to memorize this scale, but when you start to add in slursto this idea, you can really get that Holdsworth legato sound happening in your playing.

Here is the three­octave scale in the key of F.

Allan Holdsworth Bebop Scale – 3 8ve

15/12/2014 How to Play The Allan Holdsworth Bebop Scale | MattWarnockGuitar.com | MATT WARNOCK GUITAR

http://mattwarnockguitar.com/modernize­your­dominant­chords­with­the­allan­holdsworth­bebop­scale 3/13

How to Practice the Allan Holdsworth Bebop Scale

With the Allan Holdsworth Bebop Scale under your fingers and in your ears, it’s time to take itto the woodshed.

Here are some ways you can practice this scale in order to maximize your time in the practiceroom.

Practice the above fingering in all 12 keys, ascending­descending and then descending­ascending

Sing the root of a C7 chord and play this scale up and down, do in all 12 keys

Improvise with this scale over a static 7 chord or a static iim7­V7 progression, do this in 12keys

Apply Bebop Scale Patterns to this scale fingering in all 12 keys

Improvise over a plain I­IV­V blues progression using this scale over every chord

Transcribe a few Holdsworth lines, writing out the patterns he uses, and apply them to thisscale in 12 keys

Add slurs to any/all of the notes in this fingering

Though Holdsworth isn’t known as a Bebop player, his command of the Dominant Bebop scale,and any scale for that matter, provides a cool fingering approach for this bebop scale.

Because of this, you can take his fingerings and apply them to your own playing to modernizeyour dominant 7th chords and get a little bit of that Holdsworth flare into your solos.

15/12/2014 How to Play The Allan Holdsworth Bebop Scale | MattWarnockGuitar.com | MATT WARNOCK GUITAR

http://mattwarnockguitar.com/modernize­your­dominant­chords­with­the­allan­holdsworth­bebop­scale 4/13

Login to rate and bookmark postsShare

Tweet

12 7 StumbleUpon1

Return to the Learn from Jazz Guitar Masters Homepage.

Do you have a question or comment about the Allan Holdsworth Bebop Scale? Share it in thecomments section.

14 Comments1. Mike, October 2, 2011:

Thanks for posting this…it;s stuff like this that makes the internet worthwhile..I recently had to try and set a friend straight when he claimed Holdsworth was boring…this resurrected my interest in his music and I began to listen to 16 men of Thain after anearly two year long study of everything Django.Actually, they aren’t so different in a lot of respects.

It’ll be a treat to try and use your scale, it really has that exotic, elegant sound on acousticguitar….for some reason I’d just assumed Holdsworth did diminished or wholetone scalesover the Dominants….any attempts I make to do it myself, were at best..kind of cleversounding. but still likely to frighten small children ( our neighbours have a daycare!!).do you have any observations on how Holdworth and his band learn his tunes?No matter how hard I try to make it out I can never hear a recognizable pattern to theharmonic changes. How do they remember all that?

In my own experience it’s always fun to write out a chord chart with convuluted chordchanges and then make a recording out of them….or I can improvise reasonably wellover old standard changes……but whatever Holdsworth or Chick corea plays makes mefeel exactly like Nigel Tufnel….If it’s purely a question of human genius, perfect pitch and absolute recall I’d go along withit, but I can’t help wondering if there’s something simpler going on that I just can’t see…doyou see a method to remembering so much harmonic and rhythmic complexity???

2. Matt Warnock, October 3, 2011:Hey Mike,Glad you liked the article, I have a few more on the site talking about Allan’s playing,check them out.

For learning the tunes, I’m not sure exactly but I would imagine it’s a matter of listeningand “feeling” the form. The changes are tough, but there are harmonic patterns in themso I’m sure they study the changes to the point that they can hear them, then it’s more

202

Like

15/12/2014 How to Play The Allan Holdsworth Bebop Scale | MattWarnockGuitar.com | MATT WARNOCK GUITAR

http://mattwarnockguitar.com/modernize­your­dominant­chords­with­the­allan­holdsworth­bebop­scale 5/13

natural and less forced when they play.

For the odd forms, and odd time stuff, I would think that again they work it out at home,then when rehearsing and performing they feel it as groups of bars rather than thinkingone bar at a time.

Good question, a lot of it too is experience, Allan and his band have been doing it a longtime so I’m sure it was hard for them at first too, but after 40 years it’s old hat!

3. mike, October 4, 2011:Hi Matt

it must be like a magic trick…it comes across to the audience as a complete mystery, butin reality it could likely be something as simple as having chord charts taped to the back oftheir instruments and keeping a little rhythm calculator going in their trouser pocket…possibly even hidden wireless recievers used to dictate chords for extra long tunes;whatever it is they do to keep track of how the songs go together really isincomprehensible.

I think you’re right about feel and form…as I was listening to the music, I went from myinitial impression that a lot seemed to be the same( ie ethereal volume swelled chords) tothe realization of just how strikingly different the character of each song wais.

4. Matt Warnock, October 4, 2011:Hey Mike,I don’t think it’s any kind of magic trick, just hard work and experience. I asked the samething, “How do you memorize all these hard charts?” of Ben Monder’s bass player. Hetold me it’s hard work, but when you think about it it’s nothing compared to what aclassical violinist or pianist must memorize when playing a concerto or long solo work,take the Bach Chaconne for instance with classical guitarists.

So I think it’s a combination of hearing the changes and rhythm variations, hard work inthe practice room, a bit of muscle memory and years of experience.

Also, for me, memorizing a lot of tunes really helps. After years of memorizing hundredsof jazz tunes I can look at a tune once and then play it from memory, the chords at least,melodies are a bit trickier. So anyone can do it if I can! lol Especially someone at the levelof Holdsworth.

5. mike, October 4, 2011:I guess you’re right matt….still..you’ve got to wonder if those guys have total recall.and anyhow;what anyone could actually do with a method or understanding of a bettertechnique for recalling incredibly complex changes??

It certainly plays a central role in his compositions and until just now I never fullyapreciated the seamless ease these guys bring to the changes.Holdsworth…boring?,,,well I suppose the same could be said of Newton or Monet…

Bye the way…I’m having some fun with your scale…and also the minor arpeggio fromyour Mike Stern lesson…great site. It’d be really interesting to hear more about thatparticular scale…..any sort of personal insights you developed to help make it work?I don’t mean how to practice it neccessarily (because you covered that beautifully) but any

15/12/2014 How to Play The Allan Holdsworth Bebop Scale | MattWarnockGuitar.com | MATT WARNOCK GUITAR

http://mattwarnockguitar.com/modernize­your­dominant­chords­with­the­allan­holdsworth­bebop­scale 6/13

little ideas you uncovered along the way that consistently seem to work?

6. Matt Warnock, October 4, 2011:Hey Mike,I really like using this scale in 4 ways.

I like to use it over a V7 chord, so C bebop scale over C7I also like to use it a tri­tone away so F# Bebop scale over C7I like to use it over a m7b5 chord, so Gb Bebop scale over Cm7b5And I like to use it over an altered dominant chord, so E Bebop Scale over C7altThose are the main ways I use this scale, I also like to apply a number of patterns to it,you can check them out here

http://www.mattwarnockguitar.com/bebop­scale­patterns­for­jazz­guitar

It’s a great scale, the first one I teach when I teach new jazz guitar students, and one I stillpractice every day

7. mike, October 10, 2011:Hey Matt

I’ve been having a blast with your Holdsworth lessons.I’m thinking though that Holdsworth is not neccessarily the best influence to draw fromwhen tackling these concepts.There’s at least two good reasons; one is musical and the other is technical (althoughit’s’s all the same once the smoke clears.

Musically; something like the bebop scale is really only a dominant 7 arpeggio with somechromaticism thrown in. Chopin for example might be as good if not better direction totake the scale. Charley Parker of course.. and my favourite_ Django.Holdsworth is right up there with these guys as a concept of how to best string chromaticnotes together for a nice effect…but to associate the scale primarily with Holdsworth is notjust limiting; it’s also a dangerous direction for both the listeners and the players.The short and sweet reason why is that the Holdsworth legato technique is perfectlyuseless for every guitarist but him.Legato on guitar is, and always be a small technique…a trick or a special effect really.Think artifial harmonics or two handed tapping or those cool chirps you get when yousqueeze a string with the plectrum.Holdsworth’s technique owes an awful lot to the lightening fast sounds of the SpanishFlamenco players.But again, it’s a trick. For the duration of a passage, the player tranfers all the work to theleft hand. The right hand is still working, but it’s no longer neccessary for producing theactual music…the left hand temporarily assumes all the responsibility for producing music.Like the Outer Limits prelude…it controls the melody and it controls the rhythm.What is hopeless for everyone but Alan Holdworth is that it’s the guitarists Right Hand thatproduces rhythm. Sooner or later the flamenco player has to quit showing off machinegun flurrys (while waving at the girls) and get back to the business of actually playing asong and chances are he’s going to want to keep things propelled with rhythm….And nomatter who is playing…they will put the focus back on the right hand…every time.

Andres Segovia wrote ” the left hand is the workhorse; the right hand is the poet” in his

15/12/2014 How to Play The Allan Holdsworth Bebop Scale | MattWarnockGuitar.com | MATT WARNOCK GUITAR

http://mattwarnockguitar.com/modernize­your­dominant­chords­with­the­allan­holdsworth­bebop­scale 7/13

Scale studies for Guitar.

and you can bet he wrote that after seeing Django perform an impromptu improvisation ata party he attended. Django was All about producing music with his right hand.

You could say, the left hand is a trained monkey which, if left to it’s own devices will stillcrap all over the house, The right hand is the one that cleans up the mess and pulls themonkey’s tail to make it howl and scream.

Holdsworth is truly an exception…but he is the one and only. In fact, if we wish to playmusic on a guitar, then the allure of Holdsworth actually becomes a dangeroustreacherous path for anyone wishing to improve over time.For one thing..Holdsworth is not even a guitarist. He doesn’t even like the guitar and never did.If you handed him a guitar he literally would’nt know what to do with the damn thing…youmight as well hand him a flugel horn because there’s no way in the world a guitar is goingto work for him….he plays a specialized electronic instrument that looks like a guitar but isset up to provide hairtrigger action. but a Guitar? No way.

I guitars were weapons, you and I would be learning to hunt with really nice winchesters.Holdsworth uses an ak­47. Same concepts..radically different instruments?It’s not a great analogy–I know— but the point is that he does’nt actually play guitar asyou and I know them. His guitar playing might as well be produced by any otherinstrument BUt a guitar!! He’s no more practical an influence for guitarists thanany greatpianist orWhY?Because for guitar players. the music and the quality of the music will always rely on theRight Hand and not the left.

It is the reason all of us will suck whenever we try to adopt Holdsworth too literally…we willbe completely incapable of sustaining the intricate rhythmic thinking that he uses to propeland decorate scales. Just when we think we’re getting it we will realize every time that itwas afterall, just a temporarily nifty trick.

So what’s wrong with a trick like that?Nothing at all…it’s fantastic fun.But if we hope to take notes of any description and make them sound good, then we’reeach of us going to provide the timing and rhythm needed to do that.If the Holdsworth influence is so strong as to attach undue attention to the left hand ratherthan the right…then sooner or later that trained monkey is going to crap all overeverything and the right hand may turn out to be a little too slow to catch it.

Hope you you don’t mind the ramble….I should have just said” Holdsworth Sucks!!!” but that might have been taken the wrongway. LOL.

Bye the way Matt….it’s almost scary how fresh and interesting the string skippingis once you start to get the hang of it. It’s gone from being a weird exercise to somethingquite entirely different than I expected….it gives you tones all over the place that oftensound like something a piano player might have thought of.. it really adds an element of

15/12/2014 How to Play The Allan Holdsworth Bebop Scale | MattWarnockGuitar.com | MATT WARNOCK GUITAR

http://mattwarnockguitar.com/modernize­your­dominant­chords­with­the­allan­holdsworth­bebop­scale 8/13

musical surprise doesn’t it?TRE COOL…THANK YOU> I SHUDDER TO THINK WHAT DJANGO WOULD HAVEDONE WITH YOUR LESSON

Mike

8. Matt Warnock, October 10, 2011:Hey MikeGlad you’re having fun with the Holdsworth stuff. I like this scale, only seen it inHoldsworth’s book with the two passing tones like that. Cool sound.

I have other articles that are more traditional as far as the Bebop Scale, check this oneout if you haven’t already.

http://mattwarnockguitar.com/bebop­scale­patterns­for­guitar

You’re right that applying Holdsworth’s technique is not going to be easy, and why wouldanyone want to sound like him, I mean we’ve already got one Holdsworth which is enoughfor most cats!

I like to take his ideas, extrapolate them and apply them to different situations to opennew doors in my playing. Kind of like with Trane. Some of his later stuff was way outthere, harmonically advanced and melodically intense, but we can still dig into it, grabsome core ideas and insert them into our own playing, even if we don’t end up soundinglike Interstellar Space.

Sometimes it’s cool to dig back and check out how Parker used the Bebop scale, othertimes it’s cool to check out how Ben Monder or Adam Rogers uses it, and everyone inbetween depending on where we are in that moment in time with our musical tastes anddevelopment.

All that to say, you’re right, Holdsworth is a funky place to go looking for Bebop Scalematerial, but sometimes we can find cool things when we look in nontraditional places.

And I definitely dig the string skipping thing, very cool idea when applied to this or anyscale. Try it with arpeggios, two notes per string, things really get interesting then!

9. mike, October 11, 2011:Hi MattBen Monder..Adam Rodgers….thanks for the tip.Yeah…you’re right about skipping strings with arpeggios…it just opens them right up.

I agree 100% with you about extrapolating ideas from Holdsworth….where else could yougo for such model work on virtually every aspect of what is possible on a guitar?He’s like Newton….you can’t just start scribbling out equations because he does andexpect great science.I figure that if Newtonian Physics can help me build a better toaster oven it can’t hurt tostudy it. In fact between Holdsworth and Django and the lessons here on your site there’sdays when I’m a regular Alfred Einstein on the guitar.

About Holdsworths left hand Matt. The question really is..is it worth the time to pursue thelegato thing at all?Here’s what i mean…..

15/12/2014 How to Play The Allan Holdsworth Bebop Scale | MattWarnockGuitar.com | MATT WARNOCK GUITAR

http://mattwarnockguitar.com/modernize­your­dominant­chords­with­the­allan­holdsworth­bebop­scale 9/13

Lets say you get the bebop scale under your fingers and then flip on a Holdsworth albumto get some ideas for using it.You’re treated to incredible tone and fantastic chord ideas…then over the chords theexact right exotic sounding scale begins to weave around the chords…so far so good…and then all of the sudden there it is….the scale notes effortlessly spin and ripple and hebegins to add motion and propel the sounds with a lightness and speed which makeseveryone’s jaw drop. Now we’re stuck with a decision.It works best to think of Holdsworth as a drummer,,,,,a drummer who hears a lot ofinticate little rolls.So now you have to ask yourself how you would go about creating fills and rolls in yourown playing.The question is, which hand are you going to use to express your rhythmic thinking?

The answer is the right. That’s just the cold hard fact of the matter. If you play guitar, therhythm always comes from the right hand.As a guitar player, this is good news. It means we can ensure our practice time returnsbetter divedends by not wasting time unneccessarily with the legatto trick. It also meansthat we can learn to express rhythmic thinking in a similar way in a far shorter period oftime…(I don’t mean quick and easy, I mean “the straightest line”

Best of all, depending on our right hand ensures we don’t end up sounding like we’reimitating Holdsworth even though he was an inspiration.

When it comes to Holdsworth I think you’ve got to be willing to put the same thought andcraft into how you hold a plectrum as he put into his legato if you hope to add anyexcitement to the notes.Actually, the real question is What kind of rhythmic thinking would I have if I could playanything? Most of us can’t even tap our toe easily to the tempo of an entire song. It’s apretty interesting question because there is likely a pretty good drummer insi inside ofeach of us that could be expressed as easily on guitar as… guitar playing.Once again Matt, sorry for rambling on, You’ve got a great site here and I probablyshould’nt be venting about why Holdsworth sucks. It was bad enough yesterday dialingyou up and insinuating that he was a trained monkey who shits in the house. Probablyinapropriate eh?

By the way Matt, I noticed the jazz altered scale is exactly half a diminished scale and halfa whole tone. What would you call it if you reversed the order!!??

Its kind of a trip because I’ve noticed it often sounds nice to end songs by descending withroot minor chords for the first half of the ending and finishing the up in the root major

10. Matt Warnock, October 13, 2011:Hey MikeI like to use those slurs, not as many as Holdsworth, but one per string if I’m playing ascale based line, it helps to secure the time and add accents to the phrase that can lock itin the groove. But, it can be overdone. I don’t like to use more than one slur per stringmost of the time, sounds too much like an exercise if I do, though Holdsworth can getaway with it, so can Metheny and to a certain extent Abercrombie, but those guys haveworked out a very personalized sound over the years.

15/12/2014 How to Play The Allan Holdsworth Bebop Scale | MattWarnockGuitar.com | MATT WARNOCK GUITAR

http://mattwarnockguitar.com/modernize­your­dominant­chords­with­the­allan­holdsworth­bebop­scale 10/13

For the altered scale, it’s sometimes called diminished­whole­tone for just that reason. Ifyou reversed it, say

B C D Eb F G A B

Became

F G A B C D Eb F

you would have the 4the mode of Melodic Minor, which has half a whole­tone and half adiminished scale, normally used to solo over a 7#11 chord.

11. Mike, October 14, 2011:Holy @#$^&%$$ times eleven!!!

I can’t believe that you already knew that or even that you might have managed to figureit out….Now that’s what I call knowing your stuff!!!!! Good on you Matt!!!And thanks.

12. Matt Warnock, October 14, 2011:Hey Mike,It’s just another mode of Melodic minor. each mode can be looked at that way, as havinga mirror, with another mode in the scale.

C D E F G A B C is C Major

G A B C D E F G (the two hexachords reversed) is G Mixolydian

That’s all i did, nothing fancy lol

13. John Walker, October 17, 2011:The remarks on memorising are particularly apt.Yet I have met Classically trained, sight­reading musicians who found it very difficult toplay stuff they had only heard.Yet put the dots in front of them and they could learn the piece, and then commit tomemory.

Me? Everything I want to play, first I have to know how the “tune goes”. Then I then workit out and remember! Sometimes it comes off great. Mostly it doesn’t!

John Walker

14. Rick Davies, August 6, 2014:Mike’s comments about Holdsworth and the left/right hand thing….dear me. Mike, totalrubbish. Worse is what you say about him not knowing what to do with a guitar. Worst issaying you are gobsmacked that Matt knows some simple music theory. You do knowhe’s a top music educator as well as a top player, right?

Add comments about this pageName (required)

15/12/2014 How to Play The Allan Holdsworth Bebop Scale | MattWarnockGuitar.com | MATT WARNOCK GUITAR

http://mattwarnockguitar.com/modernize­your­dominant­chords­with­the­allan­holdsworth­bebop­scale 11/13

E­mail (will not be published) (required)

Submit

Notify me of followup comments via e­mail. You can also subscribe without commenting.

JAZZ GUITAR - BEGINNERS

JAZZ GUITAR - IMPROVERS

JAZZ GUITAR - RESOURCES

15/12/2014 How to Play The Allan Holdsworth Bebop Scale | MattWarnockGuitar.com | MATT WARNOCK GUITAR

http://mattwarnockguitar.com/modernize­your­dominant­chords­with­the­allan­holdsworth­bebop­scale 12/13

FORUM LOGINNot a member yet?Click here to sign up

Username

Password

GO

RECENT FORUM TOPICSFEELING the metronome on 2/4bebop scale patternsImplementing Bebop Patterns in TunesOctave Playingplaying in 3/4Backing TracksComposing

Related Articles

Allan Holdsworth Scale Patternfor Jazz Guitar

Allan Holdsworth Scales – StringSkipping Shapes

Dominant Bebop Scale

Bebop Scale Patterns for JazzGuitar

Minor Bebop Scale

15/12/2014 How to Play The Allan Holdsworth Bebop Scale | MattWarnockGuitar.com | MATT WARNOCK GUITAR

http://mattwarnockguitar.com/modernize­your­dominant­chords­with­the­allan­holdsworth­bebop­scale 13/13

FREE Jazz Guitar eBook!Sign up for my FREE email guitar lessons and get a copy of: "Beginner's Guide to Jazz Guitar"

Your Email

First Name

Subscribe