Recycling melodic material is a concept that you can apply to many different situations. Here we will see how to change a melodic line and how to adapt this line (with some harmonic knowledge) to other chords.
1) This is our original melodic line, a D minor ‘jazzy’ kind of phrase.
2) The first thing I could do is to lower all the A to Ab so to use the same phrase on Half diminished chords (natural nine adds a really nice color to the phrase)
3) Let’s now change the m3 (F) to M3 (F#), and the m7(C) to Maj7(C#)
4) Let’s try anther one: m3(F) to M3(F#), m7(C) to Maj7(C#), P5 (A)to #5(A#) goes to morph the phrase so that if fits a Dmaj7(#5) chord. Very Modern indeed.
5) Let’s see if you can spot these other examples: Altered dominant & Dim H/W
