There are a seemingly endless amount of melodic possibilities to be found simply by using the natural and altered notes of dominant chords with no passing tones. By working with all degrees of the extended chord (root, 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th, 11th and 13th, including alterations), you can always find new melodic material to apply over improvised solos.

In this ebook book, Dominant Chord Five-Note Melodic Shapes, I’ve taken this simple concept and added an interesting parameter to it in order to inspire some new ways to approach dominant chords. By extracting notes from the fully extended dominant chord (again, including altered notes) and organizing them into Five-Note melodic “shapes”, you’ll not only discover some unique ways of organizing the notes of the chord, but will also deepen your understanding of how various scales often applied to dominant chords (e.g., melodic minor, diminished, whole tone, etc.) relate to the chord itself.

There is something special about organizing these chord notes into (the odd-numbered) five-note shapes that invites you to think and imagine differently when playing over dominant chords. By using these three, five-note sequences of the notes of the chord (1, 3, 5, 7, 9; 3, 5, 7, 9, 11; and 5, 7, 9, 11, 13), you can find lots of melodic material that “spells” out the chord, but in ways that are unique and surprising.

The book contains exercises that not only help you to get the sounds of these melodic shape “under your fingers and into your ears” as “stand alone” melodic material over dominant chords, but also how to apply these shapes as you move from dominant to tonic, and ii-V7 chord sequences.

I’ve composed this book with the intermediate to advanced improviser in mind. With this book you will:

• Develop a clearer aural imagination in using the altered notes of dominant chords, not just as singular sounds, but also as tonal color combinations (e.g., #5^th combined with #9^th and #11^th, etc.)
• Become more fluent and imaginative in using altered notes over dominant chords in all twelve keys
• Discover new melodic possibilities when improvising over ii-V type chord progressions
• Be inspired to think and explore more with other kinds of five-note melodic shapes
• Improve your skill and flexibility on your instrument with wide intervals
• Challenge and improve your ears
• Further cultivate your own personal language as an improviser
• Understand and more readily recognize how various scale qualities (melodic minor, diminished, augmented, etc.) relate to dominant chords as alterations.
• Improve your technique

For all treble clef instruments. Downloadable in pdf format, 134 pages. Price $15.00.

Click the link below for a pdf with excerpts from four different SAMPLE EXERCISES from the book:

If you’d like to gain more of an idea about the concept, format, benefits and practice guidelines found in the book, click the link below for a pdf copy of the INTRODUCTION CHAPTER:

If you have any questions about the material in this book, or are having problems downloading the pdf, please contact me. I’ll get back to you promptly. Thanks! And please know that when you place your order (through PayPal), you should immediately receive the link for the actual download from WordPress (not PayPal). So check your spam folder, etc., if you don’t seem to be able to find it. And again, if you have any problems at all, let me know!