-
Actually I thanked all of the initial responses including the ones that said to think about it because I am grateful for others opinions. I honestly have no emotion attached to whether or not this is something that is thought about. I am simply asking the question because the more I transcribe and go through solos the less I actually see it in practice.
Originally Posted by Richard Luther
What is strange to me is that you are ignoring my post containing a transcription and are actually not willing to even attempt to have a discussion. You are just projecting exactly what you are doing onto me.
-
05-17-2017 06:42 AM
-
So just to look at your example. First I think that there is a mistake in bar 3. The B would be a 3 rather than a #9. So your analysis would mean that on the beat you have 6-6-3 / 3-6-5-3 / b9-5-3-7 / 5-9-7// Originally Posted by Drapte
I have taken out the flats because for example the b3s and b7s are just the 3s and 7s of those specific chords so they fit. So even in your analysis, aside from the first bar, most of the notes that fall on the beat are chord tones. and two of the other three are 9s (which I would argue are actually chord tones). The b9 in the third bar makes the harmony a G7b9 which is commonly used rather than the straight dominant particularly when resolving to a minor chord.
As for the first bar, if you see the Cm7 as F7 (which it is really), then again even that bar is mostly chord tones on the beat.
And in the second bar, seeing the Dm7 as G7, again, you have all chord tones plus a 9 which again I would suggest is a chord tone.
So you end up with - 3-6-3/ 7-3-9-7/ b9-5-3-7 / 5-9-7 //
I don't pretend to know what Binney was thinking, but I don't think this is a very good example of not using chord tones on the downbeat.
-
Okay fair enough, can you please explain to me how Bb is the 3rd of G7? Also I said above in the text you quoted I don't think including 9 makes much sense, especially if it's altered. I actually get the feeling he was thinking Dm over the Dm though if you play the lick, he lands on the 3rd at first and it really sounds as though he's targetting the 5th on beat 3. Which is strange anyway because it's really a D half diminished. Originally Posted by ColinO
-
It would be an interesting exercise to analyse some solos by Warne Marsh or Lee Konitz. Those guys often sound slightly 'outside' the chords to me, but it still sounds good. I suspect the proportion of chord tones they are using on the strong beats is lower than most.
Also how about analysing some solos by Thelonious Monk? (of whom Peter Bernstein is a big fan I believe). All kinds of non-chord tone stuff going on there, I suspect.
-
The 5th note is a B not a Bb. I think including 9 makes perfect sense. And the only altered 9 is the b9 on the G7 leading to Cm7. Originally Posted by Drapte
And even if he was thinking about Dm7 as you imagine, 3 out of the 4 notes in that bar are chord tones.
-
Are you joking about the 5th note being a B? Listen to it again, it is certainly a Bb. I don't think you have read a lot of what I have actually said, it makes sense that consciously or not you will still be hitting chord tones on the beat about 80% of the time. Originally Posted by ColinO
For me, him thinking something like this as opposed to putting a chord tone on every beat makes a little more sense. What do you reckon?
Reason I put maybe target b9 on the G7 is because of how popular a piece of jazz vocab it is to play an arpeggio starting from the 7th like that. It is entirely likely he was simply thinking Bb7.Last edited by Drapte; 05-17-2017 at 08:03 AM.
-
I was going by your notation not the Tab. If that is a Bb rather than a B then fair enough - #9.
I have no idea what he was actually thinking. But to say that by using arpeggios you will hit chord tones 80% of the time is kind of circular isn't it? I mean using arpeggios is a way of making sure you are hitting chord tones I would think.
I don't really have a horse in this race. The passage you have cited seems to have a lot of chord tones on downbeats though.
-
In reference to the David Binney excerpt above:
I see the note choice somewhat differently.
Bar 1: Cm7 is ignored, melody implies F13b9
Bar 2: Super imposing Bb major and Fadd9, 2 scale related colors that fulfill the same function.
Bar 3 and 4: G7b9/#9 | Cm9 || as you presented.
It is interesting to look at just the melodic content, see what it presents on it's own before
analyzing it in relation to the chord changes.Last edited by bako; 05-17-2017 at 08:20 AM.
-
Ok, so sorry, I said earlier the notation was not right because of the program I'm using. Originally Posted by ColinO
Now, yes, ok, this is really the whole question. Because to me, it seems like heaps of brain work to be thinking about the chord tone on every beat, especially at fast tempos. So like I originally said in my first post, do you think this is something that the pros actually think about? that's the discussion topic. Now another point is that there are a bunch of great licks that don't conform to this rule so it really comes back to if this is something that is not only thought about by high level guys but also, is it critical? Because it is stressed by people as if it is the most important thing when it comes to playing jazz.
-
If I set out to hit a lot of chord tones then there may be a few ways of doing that. I could ignore everything and just try and hit the chord tones on the beat which as you say would be pretty hefty brain work. Or I could devise a strategy that will have me hitting chord tones frequently - say 80% of the time as you point out. In both cases I am trying to hit chord tones - it's just that one strategy seems easier than the other.
I'm not a pro player - not even close. But I imagine, and have read a lot of players suggest that hitting chord tones on down beats is a good place to start no matter what strategy you use to get there. The cool thing about music is in the breaking of "rules" though so I am not really that surprised that great players break the rules to great effect. Like any art form though, it usually works better to know how to work with the rules before you start breaking them. Like, if you want to know how to play outside, you should probably be pretty good at playing inside first.
-
Ok, that makes sense to me thanks for what you're saying. I think perhaps I might not have come across clearly in that I agree with the notion that it sounds good and is obviously something that people would want to do. I guess just the methodology of achieving this goal is primarily what I am bringing into question. And as a side question if it is even something that you necessarily want to be doing all the time, because of the great lines I have head that do not conform to this. Thanks. Originally Posted by ColinO
-
THIS... Originally Posted by bako
What you think in the practice room should be very different from what you think on the bandstand. I don't think real players are thinking one beat at a time that way , but they already know the sounds from the practice room. Originally Posted by Drapte
One thing that hasn't really been said enough in this discussion is that the original "rule" or whatever is more about chord tones and PASSING tones . But not all non-chord tones are passing tones. 12345 or 54321 are very different beasts from melodic approaches and targeting such as enclosures etc. Unprepared approaches , enclosures and other melodic devices work pretty well on the beat , but they aren't simply passing tones.
Bar lines don't exist except on paper . The notes don't really "know where they're supposed to be", and it's not always helpful to spell everything in relationship to the chord of the moment.
Things don't really work that way. If your melodic target is on beat one of a given measure, there are commonly excepted ways to approach that tone melodically , and it could be comprised of 2 notes or 10 , one measure or three etc. The thing is, the same melodic approach can work on any number of chords in the preceding measure , because the approach is more about the TARGET than it is about whatever harmony is happening at the moment, like bako was saying above.
Some people analyze things purely melodically, like saying the B-flat is just an upper neighbor, and unprepared approach to the A. Others would talk about it in terms of subs. You're just subbing one chord for another, and it works because of the thirds relationship. Honestly you could look at it as BOTH if you like: The chord sub works BECAUSE it creates the targeting pattern.Last edited by matt.guitarteacher; 05-17-2017 at 09:20 AM.
-
Yeah right, I can see this, and I also know what you mean about bar lines on paper. Real improvisation often feels a lot more elastic. I have to go bed, it's late here. I appreciate the response. Originally Posted by matt.guitarteacher
Andrew
-
Well...we are talking about three different things.
First of all, I stand by my initial post. Pros are not thinking about what notes they place on certain beats. Why? Because they don't have to.
Bop playing is a tradition. And that tradition is an auditory one...people who play bop well have listened to thousands of hours of good bop playing. They've lifted hundreds of licks off records. The sound is in their ears, there's no sitting down during practice saying, "Oh, I put a b5 on the downbeat, better fix that." They hear the strong notes, they feel the strong beats. It's that simple.
Now, the two other things being talked about appear to be "do strong bop lines have chord tones on strong beats" (the answer is yes) and now, a question of rhythm in general. Now this, you definitely should think about. here--take this line, over a G dominant sound.
(descending) Ab G Eb B G Gb F E
Play it straight, starting on beat one.
Now play it and anticipate the Ab on the and of 4 in the previous bar, as a pickup.
Which one sounds more like a bop line?
Why? Because of where the chord tones lie, or the rhythmic placement of the line in general?
-
Jeff presents an excellent approach to investigate this question, re-contextualizing the rhythm of a phrase.
He suggests playing 8th's as a downbeat and then also as a pickup. It might be interesting to take that
a few steps further and experiment also with mixed rhythm values, broken rhythm figures and moving
accents around.
I am not a full time subscriber to a chord tone downbeat orthodoxy but I do believe in a hierarchy of notes,
and downbeats are one way to make a clear statement as to which notes are being emphasized.
-
Downbeats can be pushed.
-
The players that do it aren't thinking about it, they are hearing it. Probably because they learned so many other solos from their heroes or in some cases just right out of their heads in the cases of the extreme musical geniuses you can think about it and make exercises for yourself or you can transcribe a lot of solos but in the end you will end up doing the same thing probably, if successful, which is playing what you hear. I don't think that cheapens learning to do it consciously though because it makes very good practice and ear training, but on the bandstand there isn't time to think about that stuff so it better be internalized by then
And yes, that is a good question "what is a chord tone" because ultimately, when those great players play they are all chord tones.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
-
This is a complex issue. Won't make it too complex, as I'm a newbie on this forum. But I have been studying Parker for 20 years and would like to state my opinion.
While I have found the Omnibook transcriptions to be 98% accurate, the chords are too primitive. A guitarist must comp most of the time, so we must know what notes the soloist is likely to choose from. If the soloist is running the changes from the Omnibook, there is certain to be lots of clashing with the melody. Though Parker was criticized for playing 'off' notes, it was really the rhythm section's primitive understanding of the chord changes - and there is a limited set of change styles, e.g. Rhythm, Blues, Swedish, Cherokee, that every player has to master - that clashed. They didn't know the how or when of playing complex chords, like 7(b9) or mi(Maj6). But if you study the melody of Parker's tunes, you will find the right way to back up the soloist. And how to voice the chords that the melodies require.
Did Bebop players deliberately massage their melodies to force a chord tone to land on a downbeat or secondary strong beat (beat 3 of 4/4)? Certain theorists believe so, and method authors provide exercises of "bebop patterns" we must all have 'under our fingers' - the debate will not die; is Bebop soloing Pure Inspiration or mechanical knee-jerking? Is there a trick we can learn, to let us play great melody solos?
I recommend that Parker aficionados edit their copy of the Omnibook or (like me) transcribe the melodies with a suitable notation program and begin to perfect their fingering using a TAB staff.
On my music stand tonight:
Donna Lee
Blues for Alice
Chi Chi
Celerity
Billie's Bounce
- all by Charlie Parker, and
West Coast Blues by Wes Montgomery, and
Bud Powell by Chick Corea.
PM me for my custom charts.
Ammo
-
You are right, this is a huge subject and I tend to spew out walls of text when discussing it. I think you are thinking of this music too much from a harmonic point of view though. While the harmony is worth talking about, Bop functions heavily in a melodic plane as well... Parker was a horn player not a pianist and as a result I don't think it's unreasonable to focus on the horizontal aspect of his lines away from their vertical relationship with the chords played by the rhythm section. TBH Bird doesn't need pianists to comp for him! Everything is there already..... Originally Posted by Ammo
Furthermore, as you say, the nature of accompaniment chords (often simple triads, 7ths, 6ths, o7 etc) was often very different to the kind of notes soloists were playing over the top. This goes back to the early days - Louis Armstrong was happily playing major 7ths on major chords back when accompaniment was still triadic.
This is not something I've heard discussed much in modern jazz circles, where comping harmony and solo harmony is assumed to be interchangeable. While this is true of Keith Jarrett it's not historically true of early jazz, swing and bebop, and this is something I realised when studying with Barry Harris - he divides piano harmony and improvised harmony out into two separate areas.
For instance - the pianist might be playing a ii-V but the sax player will focus on the V chord, it's scale and related scales and play lines based on that. Barry says he reached this understanding listening to what Parker was doing.
Even Bud Powell was playing essentially swing era/stride harmony in his left hand (albeit with a different rhythmic conception) while playing those amazing lines with the right - it was later when Ahmad Jamal and later Bill Evans started to popularise the richer added note voicings we think of as 'jazz chords.' (I'm leaving Monk out the picture here, right?)
Bird was following alternative harmonic routes through the swing era changes, often against swing rooted 1940's rhythm sections (at least on early records.) What Steve Coleman calls 'invisible paths.'
But this is nothing new. Tatum had been doing this to an extreme degree for sometime. Even Louis Armstrong sometimes expresses different changes in his line to the accompaniment. Django does this - big time! Makes sense when you realise the players were finding ways to embellish often very simple song harmony, often in a very intuitive, ear guided way.
Actually even in modern settings, I think simple harmony is often a good shout to allow the soloist more freedom. By all means, if you can hear the tonality the soloist is using (you should be able to hear tritone subs, altered chords, #11 and so on after a few years of playing gigs & transcribing) you can express that sound, but simple ('primitive') is often the way to go if you are unsure. What I absolutely detest as a soloist is an accompanist who is dictatorial regarding the upper extensions of chords. On the other hand someone who listens - GREAT! In my experience pianists (unsurprisingly) are a lot better at this than guitarists.
BTW I reckon Dizzy was way ahead of the curve harmonically than most professional jazz pianists of the time, because on Now's the Time he is comping a lot of 7#11 chords on piano behind Miles Davis. Interestingly, Miles completely doesn't express them in his solo. Go figure ;-) But Dizzy did say - 'as quiet as its kept Birds main contribution was melody' - something I've always borne in mind. I think Dizzy may have been more vertical in his conception.
Furthermore, there are often conflicts in harmony in harmonic jazz in general... Usually these are based around different passing chords or line cliches expressed in the line...
This is common in jazz of the pre-modal era - IV minor against #IVo7 and so on. Take Lester's solo on Lady be Good for instance - Lester clearly expresses IVmaj IVmin on the IV7. Bird often does this, and often plays the same thing against a II V7.... It sounds so good in fact that I use it all the time in my own playing!
The line doesn't have to constantly agree with the accompanying chords - it just has to set up tensions and resolutions.
For a bop example the Bud Powell head Wail for instance. It's an Eb rhythm changes and in the A sections the line describes Ao7 and then on the second A, Ab-. Both chords are of course common ways of liking an Ab or Ab7 chord to an Eb. Two different 'invisible paths' if you like that may or many not have anything to do with what the vanilla chords say.
Now in the Real Book the good little harmony centric Berklee students have written out different changes for each one. I think it is completely absurd in a blowing context to play those written changes each time. Most experienced bop accompanists would play an Eb7 or something a little open - at least in my opinion. Maybe I'm wrong.
Lastly as a Barry Harris student, the first step for a soloist is to boil down the changes to a 'primitive' skeleton. For a Rhythm A section it's I IV V chords. You then re-embellish those changes in your line and chord work.
Yeah this ties I think into a confusion between practice and actual performance. Kenny Werner puts it well when he says 'practice is left brain, performance is right brain' (if excuse the paraphrase and pop psychology.) Ideally on the band stand you play by intuition... But practice is all about getting things to the intuitive level, which can take months.Did Bebop players deliberately massage their melodies to force a chord tone to land on a downbeat or secondary strong beat (beat 3 of 4/4)? Certain theorists believe so, and method authors provide exercises of "bebop patterns" we must all have 'under our fingers' - the debate will not die; is Bebop soloing Pure Inspiration or mechanical knee-jerking? Is there a trick we can learn, to let us play great melody solos?
Learning to control where you place chord tones is an important part of the skills required for line construction, and I doubt anyone would disagree with that. It's not so much about patterns (though it can be) as being able to do this in real time. improvising within these constraints.
If you can place your chord tones on the beats in lines - like Barry Harris - or alternatively, construct lines by embellishing a serious of half or quarter note chord tones like Hal Galper - then you are in a good position to start playing with anticipations.
An important step in the creation of improvised bop lines is to be able to compose bop lines.
Personally, I have found I've learned the most from learning lines by ear, and I would advise anyone interested in music seriously (as in aspiring pro or serious, gigging, amateur) to get used to working purely from standard notation (fingerings can be notated classically). The Omnibook is a great resource, but I find it a totally different experience learning music by ear and reading it from the page.I recommend that Parker aficionados edit their copy of the Omnibook or (like me) transcribe the melodies with a suitable notation program and begin to perfect their fingering using a TAB staff.Last edited by christianm77; 08-08-2017 at 08:35 AM. Reason: came across as a bit of a dick
-
Wow, thanks for an enlightening reply, Christian! I mostly agree.
While I like to write out my fingering discoveries on a TAB staff, I generally only follow the melody and chords on the Treble staff. Because there are certain things that are easier to play on the guitar than on the piano, say, I like to have the TAB available to scribble out my suggestions.
Some guitarists have mentioned that Parker's melodies are un-guitaristic. I must agree, but that doesn't mean we should ignore them. That just makes them more of a challenge! Because of the saxophone's construction, certain riffs are characteristic of sax playing. If it was up to guitarists, everything would be in the keys with open strings such as E G A B C D. The key of Db is not Guitaristic. So we are forced to play everything mid-neck, and abandon that folk/rock tradition we may have started out with, in order to play jazz.
In essence the guitar is a "vertical" instrument. At any point we can play up to 6 notes at a time. Since melodies are mainly occupying the highest voice - it is the most fluid - there is always the option to colour the harmonies from time to time, perhaps once per measure, while trying to articulate the melody as written.
It's always bugged me that Aebersold insisted on 7th chords on tunes that clearly require a Maj7 ("Donna Lee", "Chi Chi"). When you consider how many players unquestioningly parrot such an error, you get fussy about what you can tolerate listening to. This is why I always write out my Omnibook tunes and substitute my preferred chords.
My pianist and I play liberally with our chordal interpretations, still we stop once in awhile to insist "that's a 7b9" or "try a Maj7#11". But we're retired, so we take time to make it right. No pressure. But with a full band we'd be much stricter.
You say the simple triads offer the soloist more freedom, but I find sus chords and rootless 13ths offer them much more latitude to build melodies through the middle voices. And the guitar is perfect for stacking fourths - so I developed a method to build chord scales that consist of 1-4-7 triads in diatonic major, minor and extended tonalities.
In truth, I have lost interest in 1-3-5 triads.
Now, how about those downbeats? Simply put, requiring a 1, 3 or 5 on Beats 1 or 3 quickly becomes tedious. You just have to start with a Maj7, like on beat 2+ of Blues for Alice. Even a #11 can be considered a chord tone, so that "rule" is just out the window. And as for that splendid 16th-note run Parker negotiated in many tunes and keys, the hi Do is on beat 1, Fa on beat 3, Sol on next beat 1, low Sol following downbeat, but lots of chromatic notes between.
I think the idea of chord-tone-on-downbeat stems from the typical eighth-note lines that required the use of the "bebop scale" which contains eight, not seven, tones. So you could run a scale of an octave and end on the same note you started on, on the same beat.
Thanks, forum, for space to work out these concepts.
Ammo
-
That's one perspective. Rhythms can also be organized in a way so that places they dwell Originally Posted by christianm77
and emphasize exist unto themselves. Anyway, both vantage points have merit.
-
I'm hearing a waterfall. Originally Posted by bako
-
Yeah, nature sounds, speech rhythm, all exist in their own space. Originally Posted by destinytot
They can be contextualized in relation to a metric grid or left alone.
-
I don't know what that means, but it sounds awesome. Originally Posted by bako
-
Oh well, awesome sounding words are of little to no musical value to anyone. Originally Posted by christianm77
Imagine in 4/4, the soloist is grouping phrases in 3/4. When they play an accent on beat 4,
in their mind anyway, they are playing a downbeat and not an anticipation.
There can exist several layers of rhythmic orientation.
Not all 4/4 rhythm sections are equal. It is said sometimes that the 4th beat is the Cuban 1.
Reply With Quote
Why in jazz are the raised 6th and 7th notes...
Today, 03:53 PM in Theory