Hi Everyone,
I’m interested in finding out what kind of scales Mike Stern uses when he blows. I know peppers pentatonic and blues here and there and I saw him teach a half whole symmetrical diminished lick over dom.7th chords in a video series for Guitar World, but other than that I’m pretty much lost when it comes to incorporating his style into my playing. I’m new to CTC, so if this has already been duscussed please point the way.
Regards and Thanks,
David Hoskins
I’m far from a Stern nerd but I’ve watched his CTC material and have a few records he’s played on. Incredible player. Aside from what you mentioned in your first post I get the sense that he might think more in terms of chords with added chromatic passing tones than straight scales much of the time. And sometimes I feel that sometimes (especially on his “outside” playing) his note choices are secondary to a rhythmic idea that he’s trying to get across.
As a side note, have you seen Troy’s YouTube lesson on the “Fat Time” arpeggios? Once I went through the lesson I started hearing that lick all over Stern’s stuff. It’s everywhere, from Miles Davis to live with Billy Cobham and even into his 2010’s-era solo stuff. It sounds totally badass every time!
“Playing the changes” is very much the norm for jazz. (And really any style where it makes sense to talk about the music as a chord progression.)
I agree with the others, most Jazz Musicians think of following the changes. I know Stern has a huge Bebop vocabulary- they commonly use Arpeggios.
I would learn some basic shapes for Major 7, Dominant 7, Minor 7, and Half Diminished 7. Start connecting the different arpeggios through the changes in various directions. Both ascending, both descending, ascending then Descending, descending then ascending.
Then start to add in some chromaticsm by approaching these chord tones from either a half step below or a half step above.
Another common chromatic technique is the enclosure where you play a chromatic note below, then above before playing the chord tone (you can also do above then below).
Superimposing Different arpeggios over Changes is very common as well. 3-9 and 5-11 arpeggios are very common.
He is playing lines. Not scales. Not arpeggios. Lines.
Transcribe lines. Learn how lines work.
What you wrote right here is enough harmony knowledge to hang with almost any improvisational context. If you find yourself, as you say, “lost” on how to incorporate this knowledge, then I would recommend actually not adding more harmony, but instead checking out this conversion:
https://troygrady.com/interviews/martin-miller-through-the-changes/
What most people appear to lack is the ability to know exactly where the next note on the fretboard is going to be when the chord changes, and you need to switch from one harmony to another. That’s what CAGED gives you.
In this conversation with Martin we walk through, in step by step detail, exactly how he goes about working out those maps to make this possible, in a very hands-on way. We use the altered scale but you can use the dominant diminished if you like - same process.
Blunt, but accurate. Transcribing Mike’s lines and studying them would be the absolute best insight into his style.
Thanks for the lead Troy. I’ll check it out.
Mike Stern was a long time student of Charlie Banacos. I studied with Charlie briefly before his untimely passing.
He had everyone working on different things depending on where they were at, but one thing he had EVERYONE learn (especially guitar players) was how to chromatically or diatonically approach any chord tone for every type of seventh chord, with every pattern you could think of (chromatic above, chromatic below, double chromatic above, etc).
Anybody who studied at Berklee in the 70’s is going to know their scales (a somewhat disparaging stereotype, but it’s true). The trick with “playing the changes” in jazz is learning how to voice lead those scales.
An excellent video covering vocabulary of jazz and the techniques they use to have tension and release.
This one is really cool! Stern reference around 26:05 
I only got halfway through, but one thing I didn’t hear him mention regarding chromatics is timing. It’s usually (emphasize on “usually”) best to place them around the down beats, and use diatonic (preferably notes from the chord being played) on the down beats. It’s certainly not an unbreakable rule since I’ve witnessed lots of cool licks and lines that didn’t follow that narrative, but in most cases they make up for it with a strong melody/motif.
Hopefully anyone will find my yapping useful 
Hi Dave and others,
Myself a Stern fan since the late eighties, with a jazz mentor who played with Stern in the seventies, and likely reiterating what a lot of folks have already touched upon here…
Transcribe his lines.
Bop is a language, and even if one is fluent in that language, one is not likely to sound like Stern unless one walks in his shoes. Transcription helps the ear. If you are able to transcribe the root movement, you are way ahead in the game. If you can relate his solo lines to the underlying harmony, you are even further ahead. Using one’s ear independent of one’s instrument is a critical skill. Combine that with studying others’ transcriptions, you’ll be miles ahead, no pun intended.
Plenty of lines that he plays that wouldn’t require you to embark on a lifelong study of modern jazz. Walk in his shoes if you want to capture the inflection, yes? Pick a recording, an era, and get out Transcribe! or similar and return with specific questions? Nothing more fun than “being one” with a line you figured out by yourself. Nobody here need stay stuck on any given specific.
Peace, Daniel