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bebop dominant scale

bebop dominant, passing 7

What color?

Mixolydian plus the major seventh as a passing tone: an 8-note scale that lines up the chord tones on the strong beats when you play eighth notes. The central melodic tool of bebop over a dominant.

Origin & history

The "bebop" scales were named and codified by jazz pedagogy (notably David Baker) to describe the playing of the boppers of the 1940s. A chromatic passing tone is added to the seven-note scale so that the chord tones fall on the strong beats.

Which chords to play it on?

The jazz consensus (Aebersold) recommends it on:

Try it in a real chart

Paste a chord chart into the tool: Pentania tells you, chord by chord, when this scale fits — and what other colors are open to you. Open the tool →