Jazz Scales Explained: How to Choose the Right Scale for Any Chord

Prefer to watch? Here's my beginner Jazz piano improvisation lesson:

In this lesson, you’ll learn the key jazz scales—and exactly how to match them to chords so you can stop guessing and start improvising with confidence.

1. The Lydian Scale (major 7 chords)

So when I’m choosing which scale to play over any chord type, there’s a simple rule which I like to follow. I’m going to call it the chordal tones plus whole step technique. Here’s how it works.

Let’s say we have a C major 7 chord in the chord sheet, and we’re going to start by putting the chordal tones in our scale, so that’s the root, the third, the fifth, and the seventh. All of these have to be in our scale to agree with the chord that’s also being played at the same time. So C, E, G, and B.

And then we’re going to add a whole step above the root, third, and fifth. Whole step up from C gives you D. Whole step up from E gives you F sharp, the sharp four. Whole step up from G gives you A. And then you have B and C, we already know those notes.

So which scale do we end up playing over a C major 7 chord? This is called C Lydian scale, and this is the scale that I most often play over major 7 chords.

C, D, E, F#, G, A, B

2. The Dorian Scale (minor 7 chords)

So now let’s apply this to another type of chord. Let’s say we have a C minor 7 in the chord sheet. Which notes am I going to end up playing in my scale? Well, we start with the chordal tones: C, E flat, the third, G, the fifth, and B flat, the minor seventh. So our scale has to have these chordal tones.

Now let’s add a whole step to the root, third, and fifth. C up a whole step gives us D. E flat up a whole step gives us F. G up a whole step gives us A. And then we already have the B flat and the root.

And can you tell me which scale this is? This is C Dorian scale. It’s basically a minor scale, but with a major sixth. And this is the scale that I most often play over minor 7 chords.

C, D, Eb, F, G, A, Bb

3. The Lydian-Dominant Scale (V7 chords)

Let’s take another example.

Let’s say we have a C dominant 7 chord in the chord sheet. Which scale are we going to end up playing? Chordal tones first: Root, major third, fifth, minor seventh. And now we’re going to add a whole step to the root, third, and fifth. C up a whole step gives us D. E up a whole step gives us F sharp. This is that nice sharp 11 over the dominant 7 chord. This is going to sound nice and jazzy. G up a whole step gives us A. And then we have B flat and C.

Do you know which scale this is called? Well this is called C Lydian Dominant scale. It’s the Lydian scale up to the fifth, and then it’s the dominant scale, which is also known as the Mixolydian scale, from the fifth up to the root.

C, D, E, F#, G, A, Bb

And this is a very nice scale. This is a very jazz scale. You won’t really encounter this scale in any other genre of music other than jazz. And this is one of the scales which I often play over dominant 7 chords.

So you might think that using such a simple rule would create scales which sound bland and, as my friend Ray Huckell would say, vanilla. However, that’s not the case at all. Each of these three scales that are generated from these chord types, when you follow this rule, are very sophisticated-sounding scales.

And I don’t want you to think that this is just a simple trick for beginners. This is actually what I do about 70% of the time when I’m playing, and certainly, if I don’t have any better ideas for a scale that I want to play, then I will always resort to this rule, which I call the chordal tones plus whole step rule.

'Misty' Case Study

Let's apply this to the song 'Misty':

In the video above I play through the song 'Misty' and show you which scale you could play over each chord.

The song starts on an Eb major 7 chord. Which scale would we play if we were playing a solo? Chordal tones first. Eb, G, Bb, D. These have to be in place. Now let’s add a whole step to Eb that gives us F. G gives us A. Bb gives us C. And then we have D and Eb.

That gives us Eb lydian scale:
Eb, F, G, A, Bb, C, D

So that is Eb Lydian scale to start with. That sounds great. Next chord is a Bb minor 7 chord. Which scale shall we play? Chordal tones first. Bb, Db, F, and Ab. And then we’re going to add a whole step to Bb which gives us C. Db gives us E flat. And F gives us G.

That gives us Bb Dorian scale:
Bb, C, Db, Eb, F, G, Ab

Next chord is an Eb dominant 7 chord. Which scale shall we play? Chordal tones first. Eb, G, Bb, and Db. Adding a whole step to Eb gives us F, G give us A, and then Bb up a whole step gives us C. And we end up playing Eb Lydian Dominant scale.

That gives us Eb lydian-dominant scale:
Eb, F, G, A, Bb, C, Db

And then one final chord for this lesson. It goes to Ab major 7. Which scale shall we play? Chordal tones first. Ab, C, Eb, and G, the root, third, fifth, and seventh. And then we’re going to add a whole step to these three notes. That gives us Bb, D, and F.

That gives us Ab lydian scale:
Ab, Bb, C, D, Eb, F, G

So I suggest that you go through one of your favorite Jazz standards and practice using this technique. And the first few times you do it, you’ll be figuring out the scales from scratch. However, fairly quickly, you’ll start remembering that every time you see a major 7 chord, that means you play the Lydian scale, and every time you see a minor 7 chord you play the Dorian scale. On the dominant 7 chords, you play the Lydian Dominant scale. And occasionally, when you get these minor 7 flat 5 chords, you play the Half-Diminished scale.

Key Takeaways

In this lesson, I showed you the 5 most-used Jazz scales and how to know which scale to play over any chord:

• For a C major 7 chord, I recommend C Lydian scale (C, D, E, F#, G, A, B).
• For a C minor 7 chord, I recommend C Dorian scale (C, D, Eb, F, G, A, Bb).
• For a C dominant 7 chord, I recommend C Lydian Dominant scale (C, D, E, F#, G, A, Bb) - but only when played in a major 2-5-1.
• For a C dominant 7 chord in a minor 2-5-1, I recommend C altered scale (C, Db, Eb, E, Gb, Ab, Bb).
• I also showed you the “chord tones plus whole step technique”. Start your scale with the four chord tones of the chord (1 3 5 7). Then add a whole-step above each chord tone (gives you 2, 4, 6 of your scale).