One Way Road

Kurt Rosenwinkel recently gave a talk in Montreal which despite his total lack of enthusiasm and interest managed to be useful at moments. One thing he mentioned which is a neat exercise everybody should try is to play a scale in one direction over fast and complicated changes (such as Giant Steps) and change chord scales without changing directions or leaping.



Could this be done with whole or half notes and chords? Could we take a voicing and plane it up in whole or semi-tones, allowing ourselves to alter 1 or 2 notes by a semitone in either direction to compensate for the changing chord functions, all the while moving in a single direction up the fretboard for as long as possible? I think so. Definitely to be done with a bass player.