Chord Scales Feature... Some Thoughts

[carneyweb]

First off, thanks so much for iRealb! It's replaced Band-in-a-box for me, and I've used it successfully on a couple of live gigs (I play the sax and use it as my backup band).

Secondly, thank you so much for this scale/chord display feature. It is one of the most useful practice tools I've ever come across.

I have a couple of features requests that I think might make it even more useful (at least for me :-).

First, Mark Levine, in his book "The Jazz Theory Book", says to "think KEY, not scale". With this in mind, it would be a nice feature to be able to optionally see scales listed by parent "key" or scale. For instance, if I have the progression:

Dm7 G7 Cmaj7

it would be nice to see the scale options for:

Dm7 : C Major : D dorian - D E F G A B C
G7 : C Major : G mixolydian - G A B C D E F
Cmaj7: C Major : C Ionian - C D E F G A B

This would then tie the entire progression together into one key center. The above example is pretty obvious, but it becomes less so for a progression like:

Bm7b5 E7b9 Am7

In this case, some of the optional scales could include:

Bm7b5 : A Harmonic Minor Bebop : (more on this below)
E7b9 : A Harmonic Minor Bebop :
Am7 : A Harmonic Minor Bebop :

Basically, the harmonic minor bebop scale can be used on all three chords in a minor ii-V-i, and this connection might be lost if the related harmonic minor "key" is not listed among the scale options.

Also, being able to see relationships like:

G7alt : Ab melodic minor : G Altered - G Ab A# B Db Eb F

would help in learning the various modes of the melodic minor scale.

Which brings me to the second feature… can you add the Harmonic Minor Bebop scale to your list of supported scales? I see major, and "minor" (also called the Dorian bebop scale) and dominant bebop scales, but not the harmonic minor bebop. For instance, with the Cm7, the C Harmonic Minor Bebop scale would be a very nice option. The harmonic minor bebop scale is the same as the harmonic minor scale with an added b7 passing tone between the 6th and 7th notes, and is a mode of the major bebop scale. So, perhaps instead of the A Harmonic Minor Bebop, the C Major Bebop scale could be displayed?

In any case, thanks again for providing such a useful tool. I look forward to the continued improvements!