Mike's Music Musings

I was watching a Barry Harris masterclass video about the diminished scale, where he was talking about groupings of four dominant chords based on their relation to the same diminished scale.  I was already aware of this concept, having learned about the diminished scale and that any note of a diminished 7th chord could be lowered by a half step to create a dominant chord.  What struck me is that since these four dominant chords are related, could the dominant V in a ii-V-I progression be substituted for any of its three "siblings"?  How would these related cadences sound compared to the straight V?  I decided to investigate.

Minor ii-V-i chord progressions can be challenging for the beginning improviser, with vast harmonic possibilities that are not intuitive to unfamiliar ears.  While laying on the couch sick I was thinking about the triads that make up the melodic minor scale, as well as its applications.  Knowing that the locrian natural 9 scale (a mode of melodic minor) is a potential substitute for the locrian (a mode of the major scale) over the ii, and that the altered scale (also a mode of melodic minor) can be used over the V chord, I wondered what it would sound like to use the same triad quality over both chords in their different harmonic contexts.  I decided to start with my favorite triad, the augmented triad.