Outside (jazz)

Side-slipping complementation: C7 chord/Lydian dominant scale (chord-scale system) and complement  Play.

Side-slipping on rhythm changes B section  Play.

Side-slipping through distant ii-V  Play.

In jazz, side-slipping, sidestepping, or outside playing, is a technique in which, during improvisation, one plays only the five "'wrong'" non-scale notes for the given chord and none of the seven scale or three to four chord tones, given that there are twelve notes in the equal tempered scale and heptatonic scales are generally used.

In the example on the rhythm changes B section to the right, the (heptatonic) scale for each chord would be:

E7 - E mixolydian
A7 - A mixolydian
D7 - D mixolydian
G7 - G mixolydian
C  - C major

Thus the non-scale notes would be those of the following (pentatonic) scales:

E7 - E♭ major pentatonic
A7 - A♭ major pentatonic
D7 - D♭ major pentatonic
G7 - G♭ major pentatonic
C  - G♭ major pentatonic

One technique used for sideslipping is the addition of distant ii-V relationships, such as a half-step above the original ii-V. This increases chromatic tension as it first moves away and then towards the tonic.

Playing 'outside' is similar to stacking chords to use the chord extensions that 'colour' modern jazz bebop harmony. Charlie Parker would play 9ths, #11ths, 13ths by playing D7 over C7 for example. Thus the melody line immediately uses the extended tones of C Mixolydian and creates more 'interesting' solos because of the bigger pallet available. Playing outside/side-slipping and using these 'super-arpeggios' [D7 over C7] all gives for a more expressive melodic vocabulary, and is how modern jazz evolved with Bebop.^{[citation needed]}

See also

• Bar-line shift