LJS 99: Which Scales You Can Play Over Different Kinds of 7th Chords

Welcome to episode 99 of the LJS Podcast where today we are going over scales you can play over different kinds of 7th chords. While scales aren't musical by themselves, they can be helpful for mapping out tones you can choose from in chords and chord progressions. This episode covers the essential basic chord qualities and alterations. Listen in!
Listen to episode 99







I have to admit right off the bat: I didn't think I would ever do an episode like this. In general, I'm not a huge fan of using scales as a means to improvise over chords and chord progressions. It's not that scales are bad. They are important. But in the wrong hands, they can be used in unmusical ways.
But I came around to doing this episode because I believe it is both helpful and important. If we think of scales as "pitch collections", tools to help us map out tones we can choose from, they can enlighten us and help us conceptualize our approach to improvisation.
In this episode, I cover the basic chord qualities and the common altered extensions they have. I list out common scales that can be applied to these chords and help you map out your options.
Here is a list of the chords I cover:

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Major 7, 9, and 13th chords

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Minor 7, 9, and 11th chords

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Minor 6 chords

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Dominant 7, 9, and 13th chords

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Half diminished chords

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Diminished 7th chords

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Minor(maj7) chords

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Major 7(#11) chords

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Major 7(#5) chords

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Dominant 7(#11) chords

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Dominant 7(alt) chords

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Dominant 7(b13) chords


If you want to see the scales I use for each of these chords and how they are notated out, go here. I haven't listed them out in this post in an effort to not be redundant.
Having these tools under your belt can be incredibly helpful for conceptualizing your note choices. Go ahead and pick a few you would like to apply and start working on.
Important Links
A Guide for Which Scales to Use Over 7th Chords
LJS 67: How to Use Pentatonic Scales Over Any Chord
LJS 74: How to Improvise over Sus Chords







Read the Transcript
Brent: Oh man, that's right. This is episode 99, which means that next week is episode 100, which I am super stoked about. I am so excited about this. We're going to be hitting the big one, zero, zero episode of the Learn Jazz Standards Podcast, this is incredible.
By the way, my name is Brent. I'm the jazz musician behind the website learnjazzstandards.com, which is a blog and a podcast all geared towards helping you become a better jazz musician. The is a really big deal for me coming up to episode 100, and coming up to our birthday month, actually, in February. Our birthday episode is 104. Because, you know, I almost didn't start this podcast. A couple years ago we had the blog that had been going on for a long time, was doing really successful, and our YouTube Channel that we had a long time ago posted a lot of play logs on there that became really popular. But Justin, the guy that does all the tech for Learn Jazz Standards, and something of the planning and stuff, he said, "Man you should start a podcast."
At first, I was really like,