Customer Reviews

Thesaurus Of Scales And Melodic Patterns (Text)

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Written primarily for composers of modern (classical) music, the Thesaurus was a relatively obscure text offering a glimpse of a controversial and rarely explored world beyond conventional scales and Western Tonality - - The book began to gain popularity in the Jazz world when it was found that John Coltrane had been dabling in it and suddenly it rose from obscurity. - - If you're thinking of purchasing this book as sort of a "woodshedder's bible" be forewarned... unless you understand the rocket science of chord/scale relationships (etc. etc.) and the concepts behind the scales, you'll probably be wasting your time. At minimum to appreciate this book you need to know more about the scales you already use than that the reason you can play them over a certain change is that Aebersold Volume 6 told you you could. On the other hand, if you can play tunes, changes, and understand how and why tones are chosen and selected, this book may offer some powerful stuff. The important thing to realize is that the material in the book is HIGHLY applicable, however, the book will not tell you how to apply it. Your insight and understanding will be required. So in conclusion, do not be fooled... if you're looking for a "cool" pattern book, or to learn how to improvise in general, or even want to learn how to sound like Trane, this is definitely NOT the book for you. If on the other hand you're already an advanced improviser, can listen to a solo and understand the "concepts" and the process of how tones are selected... and want to experiment with and development further ideas get this book. Check out Amadea's Jazz Improv : How To Play It & How to Teach it for an interesting approach on developing lines... or an interesting book called "Tons of Runs" if you're looking for something more along the lines of interesting patterns to play.

The unassuming cover gives no indication of the "musical" wealth within its stark white pages of black notes on staves. And there is only minimal explanation in purely music terms of the major components of its contents. But for the serious musician, this challenging and comprehensive book of over 1300 scales and melodic patterns will definitely expand your musical vocabulary, no matter what instrument or musical style you play. All the examples are written in standard notation for "C" instruments in both treble and bass clefs (like piano, guitar, bass). Application for "non-C" instruments needs on-the-spot transposition but that shouldn't present too much of an inconvenience. If you're into songwriting, composing or arranging orignal music, this book is a cavernous "idea barrel" that will serve you well when you need some extra inspiration or as a reference to write out that "idea" accurately in the correct harmonic fashion. If you're a performer striving to shape your own musical expression, this book will be a wonderful tool in your hand. According to legend, John Coltrane used Nichols Slonimsky's THESARUS OF SCALES AND MELODIC PATTERNS to practice from during the period that "Kind of Blue" was recorded.(see page 71 of "KIND OF BLUE-The Making Of the Miles Davis Masterpiece" by Ashley Kahn) One note of caution, it offers no suggestion for technical proficiency or fingering in how to play these scales and patterns, you will have to figure that out by yourself. But that will allow you the maximum joy of self-discovery as you portage your way through these pages to your ultimate musicial destination.

Nicolas Slonimsky's "Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns" is a mind-bending book filled with harmonic morsels for the curious and self-motivated musician.

Although this book is usually described as a musical "reference" book, it is much more than just a few hundred pages of specific licks to spew over specific chords. There are plenty of books in print today to buy if that is the type of book you are after. Slonimsky's "Thesaurus," however, is in a totally different vein. The concepts are just as deep, interesting, and fresh today as they were in 1947 when the book was first published. For anyone who has tackled the ins and outs of conventional harmony and wants something more interesting to think about, this is the book.

It is true that Slonimsky does not come right out and say how to specifically apply these concepts and phrases. Instead, he leaves little clues (many of which are in the Introduction) to help guide and provide the reader with a few different options of harmonizations and applications. Quite simply, with the "Thesaurus," you get what you put into it. If you spend time analyzing, applying, and considering the things in this book, it will over time become clear as to what it is all really about. One of the great things about this book is it inspires an individualistic approach; you learn to develop your own way of thinking as you work through it. This makes everyone's appplication of the scales just a bit different from the next person. Two people might approach the same pattern in a totally different way, therefore making the applications constantly evolve and change.

A few things should be said to those who might be thinking of purchasing this book. First of all, if you can't read musical notation (treble and bass clef), learn that first, as you will get nothing out of this book if you can't. Also, if you are thinking this book will provide a "quick fix" for your playing, or make you sound like Coltrane, don't bother buying this book either. One should also be well aquainted with both classical and jazz harmony before working through this book (for those interested in jazz theory, a good place to start is "The Jazz Theory Book" by Mark Levine).

Besides the contents of the book there are a few other nice things about it. There is an explanation of terms, which is most helpful as the musician learns Slonimsky's terminology. It is also extremely well organized which lends itself well to an individual curriculum.

For the musicians that are ready, and are motivated enough to put in the required time and effort, it will be well worth it, and the musical rewards will compensate the price of buying the book many times over. Slonimsky states in the Introduction, "There are 479,001,600 possible combinations of the 12 tones of the chromatic scale. With rhythmic variety added to the unbounded universe of melodic patterns, there is no likelihood that new music will die of interval starvation in the next 1000 years." Good news for musicians and audiences, eh?

Also recommended: For a book in a similar vein, check out Wayne Krantz's "An Improviser's OS," available through his website.

I believe that the book is worthwhile because,of the scales,chords,progressions contained within
1 The book is useful for people studying modern twentieth century classical music and for those studying jazz.
2 contains unusual pentatonic patterns,all kinds of patterns and chord progressions contained in serialism.
3Palindromic canons-used in serialism/set theory.
4for unusual chords like the grandmother chord/petrushka chord
5 useful for composers,arrangers,students of twentieth century music and jazz.

This book is a collection of phrases and scales with the purpose to present some raw material for modern/avantgarde composers, or etude material for the musician preparing themselves to play such ouevres. From a contemporary composer's view, it's probably old news. If you are an improvisor, it is quite interesting stuff, because it contains mainly stuff beyond what you might know as scales from jazz theory. On the other hand be warned, there is nothing of "real" musical "meaning" in it - most of it is just symetrical, mathematically constructed stuff, similar to the diminished scale or whole tone scale. Up to you how to make sense of this material and incorporate in your playing.

After reading carefully, I found an overlap (No.20 & No.393) and a missing "symmetrical" scale, 1 b3 3 4 b5 6 b7 7 (= Messiaen's M.T.L.4)..... check No.1142-1190 of the pentatonic scales section...... sketchy information.

In fact, the "Master Chords" section (unnumbered p.244) is even worse...... it's just a series of dominant chords 1-3-b7 in uncommon terms..... Tritone, Diatone (Maj 3rd), Sesquitone (Minor 3rd) apart.

Slonimsky's Thesaurus had become anachronism and I found it's very incomplete. The book is old ...... published in 1947...... and soon people will not want to buy it anymore.

Replace the outdated Slonimsky's Thesaurus with Dr. Lateef's "Repository of Scales and Melodic Patterns" and Yamaguchi's "The Complete Thesaurus of Musical Scales."

This book is terrific on several levels. One, it contains many useful patterns that one may incorporate into solos, especially if you're a jazz musician. There is also a section on scales, which is helpful. The patterns force you to figure out fingerings that you probably haven't used before. All in all, the material in this book helped me to think differently about construction of solos, etc.

One criticism, relatively minor: it would have been better with the "comb" type of binder so the pages lay flat against the music stand. If you're a "two-hander," get a nice heavy weight or two to keep the pages open.

Buy this book!

This is a very good book. It basically outlines series of melodic patterns based on clear principles of harmony set forth in the introductory section. These patterns' harmonic uses are fairly clear and seem to be intended to assist performers in developing proficiency playing melodic lines and ideas in defined harmonic contexts. Since the patterns fit a mathematical (for lack of a better term) taxonomy of musical notes, their logic (both intrinsically as well as their applications)is clear.

I would think this would be quite helpful for developing muscular facility with these types of musical ideas and a way of thinking about developing melodic lines.

Nicolas Slonimsky's genius is well established, yet I'm astonished that this volume isn't considered essential for the studios of performers, teachers of advanced students, composers and arrangers in both the jazz and classical idioms. Its a splendid tool with which to enable meditations on melodic form and musical analysis.

This is quantum physics for musicians. It takes the nuts and bolts of music and breaks them down to it's subatomic particles. For anyone that takes music analysis seriously, this book is a must have.