Music/Scale/Dorian/Bebop

• Bebop Dorian Scale

  • Also called the bebop minor scale. On C, in the form most reference lists give: C D E♭ E F G A B♭. Steps in semitones: 2 1 1 1 2 2 1 2. Music/Scale/Dorian with an added chromatic passing tone.

  • History

    • The bebop scales are a teaching abstraction of the eighth-note lines of Person/Charlie Parker, Person/Dizzy Gillespie and their contemporaries. Person/David Baker's method books from the 1980s popularized the family: bebop dominant, bebop major and bebop minor.
    • The names came decades after the music. They describe a habit of chromatic passing tones that pedagogy later fixed into eight-note collections.

  • Use

    • An eight-note scale run in eighth notes from a chord tone on the beat puts chord tones on every downbeat.
    • With the added major third, the collection equals the bebop dominant scale a fourth above (F G A B♭ C D E♭ E). A line descending from F puts F, E♭, C and A on the beats, so one line serves both chords of a ii–V in B♭, Cm7 and F7.
    • With the added major seventh, a line descending from C puts C, B♭, G and E♭ on the beats, the chord tones of Cm7 itself.
    • The added note is a passing tone, never a resting point.

  • Quirks

    • Sources disagree on which note to add. The major-seventh form, C D E♭ F G A B♭ B, matches the MicroFreak manual's spelling of its "Minor" setting in Microfreak/UG/15 Using Scales/01 Scale Settings.
    • The Launchpad manual names a "Bebop Dorian" setting without listing its pitches.