The bV7#11 Chord

[rpjazzguitar]

Thanks. That’s a much easier #11 grip than I was using.

C69#11 would be C E G A D F#. On guitar it's common to omit the 5th, leaving C E A D F#.

That's also a D9.

I've never thought to play a common D9 grip (with the bassist playing a C) to get C69#11, although I have sometimes played a D triad to get that lydian sound. Probably ought to try it. But, to get the C69#11, which I have mostly seen as an ending chord, iirc, I feel like the C needs to be a low note and the F# needs to be on top. To my ear, anyway.

[Christian Miller]

There's an interesting relationship between the #4 2/lydian chord/3rd inversion dominant - for example G/F and the IV7#11 chord, eg F7#11.

If you look at the sheet music of Like Someone in Love

C/G D/F# G/F C/E

So like a II7-V7-I in inversion

Nowadays we might play

A-7/G F#-7b5 F7#11 E-7

What I take from this is that modern jazz tends to interpret inversions as root position chords.

Other thing - I know that polychord is meant to be functional and all when it crops up in regular, but when I hear C D/C G/B etc in a piece of music or a song I definitely hear D/C as lydian not so much as a D7. Like ET, baroque music, Quincy Jones, Joni, ABBA etc.

It's why it's so pretty in You Are the Sunshine of My Life

C G/F E-7 A7b9

My boi Faure knew what was up

Also this is so pretty, just had to post

Isn't Brian Blade such a zen master? Anyway I digress as usual.

[Jim Soloway]

Are you talking about chords or scales here?

Follow up, You got a grip for them that you can share with the class?

Chords. I don't really do much with scales. Almost everything I do comes from chords.

Assume it's a b5 of G7 headed towards the I (Cmaj), here's a simple Db6/9/#11: x-4-3-3-4-3, barring the 5 strings on the 3rd fret
Same assumption, here's a Dbmaj(6/9) (or you could call it a Dbmaj13 if you prefer): 9-8-8-8-9-8 again with a 5 string barre, this time at the 8th fret. And most of the time I omit the F just because it's difficult to articulate and chord is so obviously a major that it doesn't really need the 3rd to convey that.
Or you want something a little more twisted try this Dbmaj13#11 (b5?): 9-x-8-10-8-8 with the same 5 string barre at the 8th fret

[Tal_175]

I think that's a problem with the common usage. I think if we are going to talk about anything with clarity it's important to not be too wide with our definitions.

I don't think having broad concepts is problematic as long as there are clear subcategories for more refined differentiations. Physics as a general concept is useful because there are higher granularity notions within it like fluid mechanics or astronomy so nobody equates a subfield with the general area. Perhaps the problem with music theory is that there aren't as clearly separated subfields that are in common language so people equate the general notion with a more specific subfield or just put everything they don't like in that definition.

Now, TBF Mark Levine's book IS to some extent a theory text. It analyses jazz lines in terms of scales and other pitch sets. There's a tacit assumption in the book that the reason why Joe Henderson lick X sounds good is because it uses notes from Y chord scale. The reasoning is that the chord scales that players use are what we should be paying attention to, and by extension we can use them to improvise jazz.

That's not how I interpret the book. I don't think Mark Levine is saying that Joe Henderson sounds good because he uses that scale. It is a book about breaking down jazz. To me what he is saying is, here are some of the notions that are prevalent in jazz and these are the elements that define the sound of the style and here are examples of how they are applied by influential jazz musicians. I am under the impression that if you agreed with this interpretation, you wouldn't call it theory. But I think this sort of analysis is what most people still consider theory.

This is different to Barry Harris's teaching (who taught both Joe and Mark) for instance, where he tells you how to construct bebop lines and there's never really a need to understand why things sound good. I regard this as craft or practice.

There's a profound difference between analysing music and looking for overarching theoretical connections and looking at music for specific cases. I'm much more interested in the second. It was understood for a long time that art is taught in the specifics. It still is, if you have a good teacher. Which is to say the specifics of the style, genre, idiom, tradition, whatever you call it. There is no Universal Music Theory, because what sounds good in one style or tradition doesn't always in another. And yet people often talk as if there is.

In theory you are always boiling things down. So for instance a simple example of scalar analysis that should be understood by most guitarists - you go and listen to BB King and you say, "here BB King is playing notes the major pentatonic scale". Which may be true, but tells you less about BB King than many might think. Real blues players understand implicitly that there's an aural tradition and idiom beyond noodling around in a pentatonic scale. You have to pay your dues.

Analyzing idioms in terms of abstract musical and harmonic structures (like scales, arpeggios, substitutions) is considered part of music theory in my opinion not just by most musicians but also by most dictionary/encyclopedic definitions.
So when Barry Harris says, something along the lines of "Charlie Parker must have been thinking dominant over both ii and V chords based on his lines, and so you practice the dominant scale over both chords. Moreover also put half steps into dominant chords using such and such rules, play arpeggios from chords tones etc. to build lines" he is engaging in the same type of analysis as saying BB King played major pentatonic scale over I chord sometimes also put blue notes in certain parts of the scale. I don't think one can make a strong argument that the notion of music theory excludes one but includes the other.

I am not arguing what's useful and what is not useful. I am simply stating that "music theory is X" is different type of claim than "I think X is not useful".

[Christian Miller]

I don't think having broad concepts is problematic as long as there are clear subcategories for more refined differentiations. Physics as a general concept is useful because there are higher granularity notions within it like fluid mechanics or astronomy so nobody equates a subfield with the general area. Perhaps the problem with music theory is that there aren't as clearly separated subfields that are in common language so people equate the general notion with a more specific subfield or just put everything they don't like in that definition.

I think that's exactly what they do. I regard myself as having little interest in academic music theory. Which would surprise a lot of people because they see me as a theory guy. I know theory and I know terminology. BFD as they say. I'm not interested in finding reasons why things sound good or bad, I'm interested in music.

It’s just that people don’t always recognise the words I’m using. But they are just names for things.

That's not how I interpret the book. I don't think Mark Levine is saying that Joe Henderson sounds good because he uses that scale. It is a book about breaking down jazz.
To me what he is saying is, here are some of the notions that are prevalent in jazz and these are the elements that define the sound of the style and here are examples of how they are applied by influential jazz musicians. I am under the impression that if you agreed with that interpretation, you wouldn't call it theory. But I think this sort of analysis is what most people still consider theory.

Here are some theoretical statements from the book within a few pages of each other:

"Did you notice that F7#11 and B7alt are the only dominant 7th chords from C melodic minor? Note that the roots (F and B) are a tritone apart. The two dominant 7th chords from melodic minor harmony are a tritone apart. Because of the lack of “avoid” notes, F7#11 and B7alt are the same chord"

Levine, Mark. The Jazz Theory Book (p. 153). (Function). Kindle Edition.

"This is perhaps the most intriguing thing about melodic minor harmony, so let’s go through it again. Take a look at the piano voicing shown (in the bass clef) in Figure 3-110. Play the top four notes with your right hand, while playing the root with your left hand. The voicing lacks the 7th of the chord when played as C7alt, and lacks the 3rd of the chord when played as G7#11. When you play melodic minor chords, because of the lack of “avoid” notes, you’re really playing the entire key, not just the chord."

Levine, Mark. The Jazz Theory Book (p. 154). (Function). Kindle Edition.

"Whole-tone harmony can be very boring, so it’s not played all that much. No matter how you rearrange the notes, there are no minor 2nds, minor 3rds, perfect 4ths, perfect 5ths, major 6ths, or major 7ths possible in whole-tone harmony. Whole-tone harmony lacks half of the intervals that occur in Western music. Because of this potential for boredom, whole-tone harmony is best played in short doses."
Levine, Mark. The Jazz Theory Book (p. 180). (Function). Kindle Edition.

So heavy use of the word 'because' and a degree of putting things like tritone subs and so on under a broader theoretical umbrella. Which is a telltale of that gosh darn music theory in the wild.

The last one especially telling because it anchors a necessarily subjective aesthetic response in terms of an objective technical fact. Very German! :-) (sorry djg) But jazz educators tell these sorts of 'just so stories' a lot. Best to take them with a pinch of salt.

Analyzing idioms in terms of abstract musical and harmonic structures (like scales, arpeggios, substitutions) is considered part of music theory in my opinion not just by most musicians but also by most dictionary/encyclopedic definitions.
So when Barry Harris says, something along the lines of "Charlie Parker must have been thinking dominant over both ii and V chords based on his lines, and so you practice the dominant scale over both chords. Moreover also put half steps into dominant chords using such and such rules, play arpeggios from chords tones etc. to build lines" he is engaging in the same type of analysis as saying BB King played major pentatonic scale over I chord sometimes also put blue notes in certain parts of the scale. I don't think one can make a strong argument that the notion of music theory excludes one and includes the other.

If it was Levine he'd get hung up about the B on the D-7 or something. Barry looked at Bird and said 'oh he seems to be doing that.'

I am not arguing what's useful and what is not useful. I am simply stating that "music theory is X" is different type of claim than "I think X is not useful".

True, but I think both things in this case :-)

[rpjazzguitar]

I have no interest in what someone considers "theory" or the opposite, but I found that material on melodic minor harmony from Levine's book to be one of the most helpful things I've ever read about playing music.

All melodic minor chords are the same chord?

You mean, I can take all my Cminmaj7 voicings and use them as D7susb9, Ebmaj7#5, F7#11, G7b13, Am7b5 and Balt?
etc?

And that's true of every one of them with respect to every other one?

I can use that!

I can take any tone cluster from melodic minor and move it up through the scale -- and all the resulting voicings can be interchangeable? That's great! (even though some are more appealing than others).

[Mick-7]

C69#11 would be C E G A D F#. On guitar it's common to omit the 5th, leaving C E A D F#.

That's also a D9.

I've never thought to play a common D9 grip (with the bassist playing a C) to get C69#11, although I have sometimes played a D triad to get that lydian sound. Probably ought to try it. But, to get the C69#11, which I have mostly seen as an ending chord, iirc, I feel like the C needs to be a low note and the F# needs to be on top. To my ear, anyway.

Except that, if the chord does not contain the natural 5th, it's a maj.7b5 rather than a maj.7#11 chord. Different names because they sound distinctly different.

For example:
C^13#11(no 5th) | x-3-2-2-3-2 | versus: C^7#11 | x-3-2-0-0-2 | or | x-3-4-0-0-0 | - etc.

or C^7b5 | x-3-4-4-5-x | vs. C^7#11(no root) | x-x-5-4-5-2 | or | x-3-5-4-5-2 | (play the F# with the side of your index finger).

[Christian Miller]

I have no interest in what someone considers "theory" or the opposite, but I found that material on melodic minor harmony from Levine's book to be one of the most helpful things I've ever read about playing music.

All melodic minor chords are the same chord?

You mean, I can take all my Cminmaj7 voicings and use them as D7susb9, Ebmaj7#5, F7#11, G7b13, Am7b5 and Balt?
etc?

And that's true of every one of them with respect to every other one?

I can use that!

I can take any tone cluster from melodic minor and move it up through the scale -- and all the resulting voicings can be interchangeable? That's great! (even though some are more appealing than others).

This doesn't have much to do with the melodic minor per se. Pat Martino, Barry, Holdsworth etc etc all had their own version of this concept and were all a bit looser with it. It goes back to trad chord substitution rules. II-V, relative major/minor, half dim to min 6, tritone sub, etc etc.

The melodic minor thing specifically comes in because Mark Levine seems very concerned about avoid notes over the chord of the moment, and according to him the melodic minor modes don't have any*. (Not everyone agrees with this - for instance, the Berklee CST book.)

If you'd have asked Allan Holdsworth or Barry Harris for instance, they'd have said you can totally do the same thing with the major scale (dominant scale in Barry's case) which Leivne rules out for this reason. So it seems like he's over thinking it tbh.

NB what counts as an avoid note varies between Levine and other theorists. It's a classic case of a subjective aesthetic call that seems more objective than it is.

And even then - Brad Mehldau loves adding 11ths to major chords, for example.

[Christian Miller]

I mean, I don't mean to have a dig at Mark Levine, but I have to quote this now I've seen it.

'Wouldn’t it be great if there were a scale that worked over Dø, G7alt, C-^7, a minor II-V-I? It would be, but there isn’t one. The harmonic minor scale is often mentioned in theory books as being “a scale played over a minor II-V-I.” If that were true, you’d hear the great players playing it a lot, but they don’t.'

It's profoundly depressing to me that many people might take this paragraph at its word without, you know, checking if it it's actually true. But you know exactly what has happened for a lot of people.

If I was feeling generous, I'd say it's reflective of the specific stuff that he transcribed, and his own preferences. But it's presented in such an authoritative way, and it certainly can be questioned by someone with a passing knowledge of what is on the records. I would say that some people use it a lot, others less so, people have their own style. The ones that do would certainly fit into the canon for many - Hank Mobley, Grant Green - oh yeah, some bloke called Charlie Parker.

You'd say well this is just a mass market jazz education book (albeit on influential one) so let it slide - it's not an academic treatise, so let it slide. But I'm not convinced academic theory has a higher standard of proof from what I've read TBH.

[Tal_175]

I think that's exactly what they do. I regard myself as having little interest in academic music theory. Which would surprise a lot of people because they see me as a theory guy. I know theory and I know terminology. BFD as they say. I'm not interested in finding reasons why things sound good or bad, I'm interested in music.

It’s just that people don’t always recognise the words I’m using. But they are just names for things.

I think "names of things" and analysis of real music in terms of pattern matching these named concepts is part of what people call theory. It looks like we disagree on that.

Here are some theoretical statements from the book within a few pages of each other:

"Did you notice that F7#11 and B7alt are the only dominant 7th chords from C melodic minor? Note that the roots (F and B) are a tritone apart. The two dominant 7th chords from melodic minor harmony are a tritone apart. Because of the lack of “avoid” notes, F7#11 and B7alt are the same chord"

Levine, Mark. The Jazz Theory Book (p. 153). (Function). Kindle Edition.

"This is perhaps the most intriguing thing about melodic minor harmony, so let’s go through it again. Take a look at the piano voicing shown (in the bass clef) in Figure 3-110. Play the top four notes with your right hand, while playing the root with your left hand. The voicing lacks the 7th of the chord when played as C7alt, and lacks the 3rd of the chord when played as G7#11. When you play melodic minor chords, because of the lack of “avoid” notes, you’re really playing the entire key, not just the chord."

Levine, Mark. The Jazz Theory Book (p. 154). (Function). Kindle Edition.

"Whole-tone harmony can be very boring, so it’s not played all that much. No matter how you rearrange the notes, there are no minor 2nds, minor 3rds, perfect 4ths, perfect 5ths, major 6ths, or major 7ths possible in whole-tone harmony. Whole-tone harmony lacks half of the intervals that occur in Western music. Because of this potential for boredom, whole-tone harmony is best played in short doses."
Levine, Mark. The Jazz Theory Book (p. 180). (Function). Kindle Edition.

So heavy use of the word 'because' and a degree of putting things like tritone subs and so on under a broader theoretical umbrella. Which is a telltale of that gosh darn music theory in the wild.

The last one especially telling because it anchors a necessarily subjective aesthetic response in terms of an objective technical fact. Very German! :-) (sorry djg) But jazz educators tell these sorts of 'just so stories' a lot. Best to take them with a pinch of salt.

If it was Levine he'd get hung up about the B on the D-7 or something. Barry looked at Bird and said 'oh he seems to be doing that.'



True, but I think both things in this case :-)

I think these quotes mischaracterize the book. It's easy to find many sections in the book where a particular concept is discussed with the support of transcriptions from recordings. In some cases when he says a certain thing sounds a certain way, he gives an example of it and asks the reader to play it, and hear it.

Barry Harris would also say something like half step rules make the scale come out right, as opposed to saying play the half step rules because that's what Charlie Parker did. It's natural for people who think about how to teach jazz to have running theories of why certain musical patterns arise in music in the way they arise. Their teaching is often interspersed with such observations. Here is a quote from Alan Kingstone's book:
"Barry in an understated way will begin many of his harmony classes with an explanation of the universe and our place in it. He calls the chromatic scale 'our universe, god'. From this comes man and woman, 2 whole tone sales. Take two notes (genes) from each whole tone scale (man and woman) and we get children: Three diminished chords".
Barry Harris was never shy about sharing his overarching musical theories as the justification for why he taught certain musical constructs and how he applied them.


The distinction you seem to be making is that in Barry's teaching, the rules, the invented scale forms, ways to apply abstract constructs to build lines are not theory because he sourced these from the records. Whereas the rules, constructs Mark Levine talks about in his book are theory because they are not based on his experience as a jazz musician, or all the transcriptions he had done for the book (and before writing the book), they are theories of how music works based on his ideas about music detached from his relationship to the body of work? I know this probably is not how you are thinking but I am really trying to understand the distinction you are making.

[Christian Miller]

I think "names of things" and analysis of real music in terms occurrences of these named concepts is part of what people call theory. It looks like we disagree on that.

I don't disagree that it's part of what many people call 'theory'. TBF, the ABRSM is one...

I'd be more live and let live, but I get personally offended when people accuse me of music theory. ;-) I try to be practical.

I think these quotes mischaracterize the book.

I found these examples in a few minutes of looking through the text.

It's easy to find many sections in the book where a particular concept is discussed with the support of transcriptions from recordings. In some cases when he says a certain thing sounds a certain way, he gives an example of it and asks the reader to play it, and hear it.

Every time I think I'm mischaracterising the book, I go back to the original text and realise it's more that way than I remember.

If he chopped all of that stuff out and left in the stuff you mentioned, I don't think it would lose its value to the student. It's clearly the stuff that's most useful to people.

To make this less about poor old Mark Levine, I would say that I find these distinctions helpful in my own efforts in that direction.

Barry Harris would also say something like half step rules make the scale come out right, as opposed to saying play the half step rules because that's what Charlie Parker did. It's natural for people who think about how to teach jazz to have running theories of why certain musical patterns arise in music in the way they arise. Their teaching is often interspersed with such observations. Here is a quote from Alan Kingstone's book:
"Barry in an understated way will begin many of his harmony classes with an explanation of the universe and our place in it. He calls teh chromatic scale 'our universe, god'. From this comes man and woman, 2 whole tone sales. Take two notes (genes) from each whole tone scale (man and woman) and we get children: Three diminished chords".
Barry Harris was never shy about sharing his overarching musical theories as the justification for why he taught certain musical constructs and how he applied them.

The distinction you seem to be making is that in Barry's teaching, the rules, the invented scale forms, ways to apply abstract constructs to build lines are not theory because he sourced these from the records. Whereas the rules, constructs Mark Levine talks about in his book are theory because they are not based on his experience as a jazz musician, or all the transcriptions he had done for the book (and before writing the book), they are theories of how music works based on his ideas about music detached from his relationship to the body of work?

It's not the looking at transcriptions stuff that I'm talking about. That's how you learn jazz. (It would be preferable if one didn't outsource that work to Mark Levine, of course.)

From my time in Barry's class I would say he spent little time on explaining anything beyond, "do this, it sounds real pretty."

He did at one point tell us that diminished theory of creation. I always felt that one had the character of parables. And I suppose he saw the 8-note scales as having some explanative power for common practice and jazz harmony.

But mostly it was, here's a beautiful thing, this is how we make it.

[rpjazzguitar]

Except that, if the chord does not contain the natural 5th, it's a maj.7b5 rather than a maj.7#11 chord. Different names because they sound distinctly different.

For example:
C^13#11(no 5th) | x-3-2-2-3-2 | versus: C^7#11 | x-3-2-0-0-2 | or | x-3-4-0-0-0 | - etc.

or C^7b5 | x-3-4-4-5-x | vs. C^7#11(no root) | x-x-5-4-5-2 | or | x-3-5-4-5-2 | (play the F# with the side of your index finger).

Would it be a similar argument for the 69#11 chord we were discussing? Seems to me it's a different thing to omit the 5 when you have a 3 and a 6.

For C69#11, you have C E G A D F#. If you remove the G, you're left with C E A D F#. Play it x32232 and it sounds lydian to my ear. Play the same notes in a different order and it can sound like a D9, depending, presumably, on the bass note and context.

[Mick-7]

Would it be a similar argument for the 69#11 chord we were discussing? Seems to me it's a different thing to omit the 5 when you have a 3 and a 6.

For C69#11, you have C E G A D F#. If you remove the G, you're left with C E A D F#. Play it x32232 and it sounds lydian to my ear. Play the same notes in a different order and it can sound like a D9, depending, presumably, on the bass note and context.

It's just that the contrast between the #11th and the natural 5th, the semitone (or 2x maj.7th, i.e., C-B + G-F# of C^7#11), gives you the characteristic sound of the maj.7#11 chord, which you don't have with the C^7b5.

But it is kind of context dependent as you said, this could be called something else, say EmAdd9: | x-x-5-4-5-2 |

[Christian Miller]

Oh god, you've got me going through the Levine book now... and there's this nugget

The entire history of Western music can be characterized as the gradual acceptance of dissonant intervals. In the Middle Ages, writing a tritone in a piece of Church music could get you excommunicated, or worse. Chords containing minor 2nds and major 7ths were relatively rare in classical music until the late nineteenth century.

Levine, Mark. The Jazz Theory Book (p. 108). (Function). Kindle Edition.

Literally nothing in this paragraph is true. If I was going to be charitable, I'd say 'who cares, he's not a classical music scholar' and these statements repeat commonly held myths about music history. OK, fine. But it is used as a narrative to develop his idea about jazz harmony - something that Conrad Cork terms HATE or Harmony as the Engine - or the idea that the development of jazz comes chiefly from harmonic innovations.

HATE is not in my opinion entirely wrong (although maybe at least in part because it became a self fulfilling prophecy) but it overlooks the elements of jazz that are most characteristic to it - the rhythmic sections and how that evolved, the nature of improvisation, the nature of rhythm, feel and phrasing, and so on.

[rpjazzguitar]

This doesn't have much to do with the melodic minor per se.

Considering it's entirely about the melodic minor and how to use it, I'm not getting this point.

If you're saying there's some other way to get to a similar result, that seems to be the rule, not the exception, in music.

I got it from what I consider to be a beautifully written and edited work -- and I verified it myself by trying lots of substitutions in tunes. They all worked, exactly as he said. Some, of course, were more appealing than others. It's not consequential to me if somebody else did it first and wrote it up in a book I haven't seen. I'm not a historian.

As far as the issue of avoid note, addressing this issue at all here is proof that I have too much time on my hands.

Levine suggests "handle with care note" would be a better name, if more unwieldy. Fine with me.

If we want a vanilla dominant like a G7 going to C, it's pretty safe to play G B D F A E (G13, but no 11). The other notes change the sound more, to my ear. The C, being a resolution point in the near future, can make the chord sound more ambiguous. Which is perfect if that's the sound you want -- and I use it all the time. Same as the F in a Cmaj13. To be fair, I didn't get that from Levine.

That said, the distinction he draws between the so-called no-avoid-note-melodic-minor and the major scale is a good one, IMO. In one case all the notes work interchangeably, sort of, and in the other case, they don't unless you handle them with care, exactly as Levine stated.

[Tal_175]

Oh god, you've got me going through the Levine book now... and there's this nugget

The entire history of Western music can be characterized as the gradual acceptance of dissonant intervals. In the Middle Ages, writing a tritone in a piece of Church music could get you excommunicated, or worse. Chords containing minor 2nds and major 7ths were relatively rare in classical music until the late nineteenth century.


Levine, Mark. The Jazz Theory Book (p. 108). (Function). Kindle Edition.

Literally nothing in this paragraph is true.

I can't comment on this one. You're a better judge of the accuracy of his claims about pre-nineteenth century classical music than I am. But in his defense, I'd like to share an anecdote that I heard. Barry Harris went to teach a workshop at this top jazz program. One of the professors who was curios about Barry's teaching was in attendance. Barry started his teaching by saying something along the lines of, all jazz harmony is based on how you treat the diminished chord. The professor was visibly angry, he mumbled something and stormed out of the class. Barry Harris was a legend and I am sure there is a lot of value in that insight for someone who looks at harmony in a certain way, but overarching generalities tend to invite disagreements.

[Christian Miller]

Considering it's entirely about the melodic minor and how to use it, I'm not getting this point.

Because the important thing is to know these basic subs:

Am relates to C
Am relates to D7
Am relates to F#-7b5
D7 relates to Abalt (Tritone)

If you understand that you get the main melodic minor applications in the Levine book, just use A melodic minor for minor:

A MM relates to Cmaj7#5 (Lyd aug)
A MM relates to D7#11 (Lyd dom)
A MM relates to F#-7b5 (Loc #2)
D7#11 relates to Ab altered scale (And therefore to A MM)

But jazz musicians did not use these relations expressly for MM, because a lot of them didn't even play MM much. Wes doesn't, for example.

If you're saying there's some other way to get to a similar result, that seems to be the rule, not the exception, in music.

I got it from what I consider to be a beautifully written and edited work -- and I verified it myself by trying lots of substitutions in tunes. They all worked, exactly as he said. Some, of course, were more appealing than others. It's not consequential to me if somebody else did it first and wrote it up in a book I haven't seen. I'm not a historian.

It's not actually my intention to get into the weeds about the Levine book's quality, but I find it hard to help myself. Sorry.

As far as the issue of avoid note, addressing this issue at all here is proof that I have too much time on my hands.

Heh I couldn't comment on that front could I?

Levine suggests "handle with care note" would be a better name, if more unwieldy. Fine with me.

If we want a vanilla dominant like a G7 going to C, it's pretty safe to play G B D F A E (G13, but no 11). The other notes change the sound more, to my ear. The C, being a resolution point in the near future, can make the chord sound more ambiguous. Which is perfect if that's the sound you want -- and I use it all the time. Same as the F in a Cmaj13. To be fair, I didn't get that from Levine.

That said, the distinction he draws between the so-called no-avoid-note-melodic-minor and the major scale is a good one, IMO. In one case all the notes work interchangeably, sort of, and in the other case, they don't unless you handle them with care, exactly as Levine stated.

Barry Harris taught that you could apply the dominant scale (G A B C D E F ) freely over the II V, at least for lines. It's a key part of his teaching. You can also tritone sub it and use the F# over the G7, and a load of other applications. There is no concept of the avoid note in his teaching.

So you are discussing Levine's own take on the idea of applying language and voicings to different chords. He's concerned with avoid notes, Barry isn't. TBF he is thinking about voicings more and the way the notes interact with the underlying chord.

That said, I don't hear it the same. I don't think the 11th sounds very dissonant on a dom7 for example. So it is somewhat subjective, and there's nothing wrong with that.

It's not the laws of thermodynamics. Make of that what you will.

Anyway, my understanding is that the C-B-C thing is a matter of the musician's decision. You can 'give away the sound of the dominant' if you like, or withhold it.

C-B-C emerges from Western music as a typical soprano melody in an authentic cadence back in the olden days. It's all over the Western canon. That's where the II-V-I comes from, in fact - it's just what happens when you put those bass notes underneath with that melody line and add appropriate middle voices. So it's super important for Western classical music.

For American music? Less so. Very often you hear jazz improvisers withholding the B, and keep the character of the II-7 or Vsus4 chord going into I. Think Wes - but Lester Young was doing it 20 years earlier, playing IV on V.

The principle misunderstanding as I see it is the belief that jazz musicians - at least in the days before chord scale theory - are thinking in terms of vertical chords all the time. They are improvising together, often taking different harmonic routes through a song. So the banjo on an old Louis Armstrong record plays an F chord, and the Louis outlines Am on top. Is that Fmaj7? Let alone when Louis plays F F#o7 C while the rhythm section goes F Fm C. That doesn't come up in the theory books, haha, except when Gunther Schuller airily refers to it as a 'mistake.'

This is not a question that ever comes up in classical music. But it is very jazz - a music of improvised layering.

[Christian Miller]

I can't comment on this one. You're a better judge of the accuracy of his claims about pre-nineteenth century classical music than I am.

Taken at face value, it's just wrong. I mean, Bach is full of major seventh chords for instance. Minor seconds are an essential dissonance. You can find maj7#5 chords, all sorts of things... TBF it is true that in general everything needed to be prepared and resolved and we use them way more freely in modern jazz*, but that ain't what he said.

You could say over time passing chords tended to become gain more independence and be used more freely. That's happened in both Jazz and European music.

Adam Neely did a great video about the 'tritone would get you excommunicated' myth. .

As I say these are common myths that people say all the time. You might say the first part is sort of a simplification of Arnold Schoenberg's famous and influential framing of music history in his Theory of Harmony. But as I say this idea of 'more dissonant intervals become more widely used' forms a perhaps quite misleading narrative of progress within jazz. I mean b3 on major is pretty bloody dissonant, and they don't call that no modern jazz.

It's odd in a way - he spends a lot of time saying 'this note is dissonant on this chord', so one wonders... If we follow a narrative of progress in music through "emancipation of the dissonance" shouldn't Cecil Taylor represent the final form of jazz piano? But here we are worrying about funny notes on chords. I think we can say that Levine was more interested in post-bop.

To his credit, he does sometimes point out exceptions to this narrative - where he has happened to transcribe them. It's a fool's errand to make generalisations about a music which includes such unique individuals as Ellington and Monk.

But in his defense, I'd like to share an anecdote that I heard. Barry Harris went to teach a workshop at this top jazz program. One of the professors who was curios about Barry's teaching was in attendance. Barry started his teaching by saying something along the lines of, all jazz harmony is based on how you treat the diminished chord. The professor was visibly angry, he mumbled something and stormed out of the class. Barry Harris was a legend and I am sure there is a lot of value in that insight for someone who looks at harmony in a certain way, but overarching generalities tend to invite disagreements.

Barry absolutely revelled in the fact that he went to Berklee, told all the students that they were learning everything wrong, and never got invited back haha.

Interestingly when writing Barry's obit Ethan Iverson fixated on the diminished chord.

Really the diminished chord is kind of an outcast in modern jazz harmony. It's sort of old timey. But Barry was looking back to Chopin as well as Bud Powell. It's a different conception of music. Most modern piano comes out of the Bill Evans approach which is quite often gets put as a Yin to Barry's Yang (though Joel said Barry loved Bill's playing), But then Bill also knew Bud very well.

*though maybe less so in improvisation back in the day, interestingly.

[Christian Miller]

You know ultimately, theory is often invoked to refuse the Green Eggs and Ham because the fnurtleburgler clashes with the bootlefopple, and therefore no further discussion on the matter may be entered into forthwith.

But try them and you may I say!

Levine's approach seems to be to tell you the Green Eggs and Ham taste disgusting, and then suggesting you try them and find out for yourself.

[rpjazzguitar]

Because the important thing is to know these basic subs:

Am relates to C
Am relates to D7
Am relates to F#-7b5
D7 relates to Abalt (Tritone)

If you understand that you get the main melodic minor applications in the Levine book, just use A melodic minor for minor:

A MM relates to Cmaj7#5 (Lyd aug)
A MM relates to D7#11 (Lyd dom)
A MM relates to F#-7b5 (Loc #2)
D7#11 relates to Ab altered scale (And therefore to A MM)

But jazz musicians did not use these relations expressly for MM, because a lot of them didn't even play MM much. Wes doesn't, for example.
.

If you prefer, you can think about lyd aug, lyd dom, loc#2 and alt. You can think of it as four, or more, different things or it can be considered one big thing the way Levine suggests.

So, I take Levine's text as including that, but not requiring it - and going beyond it. All seven of the stacked third voicings are the same chord. Function depends on context, your ear and whatever the bassist plays. And, Levine mplies that other tone clusters will also work -- which I've experimented with and found to be useful concept.

I've posted before that I picked a tune that begins with 8 beats of Fmaj7 followed by 8 beats of Bb7#11. Any stacked thirds chord from Fmelmin works in place of the latter. I've also tried random tone clusters from Fmelmin and liked a lot of those too.

I learned chords the way I imagine many of us did. So, I already knew multiple ways to play Fminmaj7 and Bb7#11 (and all the other stacked third chords from Fmelmin). After reading Levine, I considered that they were all the same chord and all the grips were interchangeable -- and it works, with the caveat that you're likely to prefer some over others. The result was that I suddenly knew a lot more grips for specific chords. Also, I had a different way of thinking about soloing over them (I read Levine before I read much about CST).

I have wondered what it would be like to learn chords that way from the beginning. That is, know a whole bunch of grips under the rubric of a melodic minor. And, then, consider that, for example, a Bb7#11 in a chart means to play any one of the grips for Fmelmin. It's not a Bb7#11 in this way of thinking, it's just Fmelmin. Still worth knowing the chord tones so you can play a vanilla version, but it opens up a lot of other options.

[Christian Miller]

Double post

[Christian Miller]

If you prefer, you can think about lyd aug, lyd dom, loc#2 and alt. You can think of it as four, or more, different things or it can be considered one big thing the way Levine suggests.

So, I take Levine's text as including that, but not requiring it - and going beyond it. All seven of the stacked third voicings are the same chord. Function depends on context, your ear and whatever the bassist plays. And, Levine mplies that other tone clusters will also work -- which I've experimented with and found to be useful concept.

I've posted before that I picked a tune that begins with 8 beats of Fmaj7 followed by 8 beats of Bb7#11. Any stacked thirds chord from Fmelmin works in place of the latter. I've also tried random tone clusters from Fmelmin and liked a lot of those too.

I learned chords the way I imagine many of us did. So, I already knew multiple ways to play Fminmaj7 and Bb7#11 (and all the other stacked third chords from Fmelmin). After reading Levine, I considered that they were all the same chord and all the grips were interchangeable -- and it works, with the caveat that you're likely to prefer some over others. The result was that I suddenly knew a lot more grips for specific chords. Also, I had a different way of thinking about soloing over them (I read Levine before I read much about CST).

I have wondered what it would be like to learn chords that way from the beginning. That is, know a whole bunch of grips under the rubric of a melodic minor. And, then, consider that, for example, a Bb7#11 in a chart means to play any one of the grips for Fmelmin. It's not a Bb7#11 in this way of thinking, it's just Fmelmin. Still worth knowing the chord tones so you can play a vanilla version, but it opens up a lot of other options.

Sure, absolutely

The point I’m trying to make is that transposing stuff onto different chord types is absolutely a core jazz skill and it is not something that only works for melodic minor.

It maximises the amount of use you can get out of the stuff you already know, as you say. If I have a super hip minor key line or voicing, I can stick that on a dominant or half diminished chord etc. It’s a really good idea and everyone should do it.

The reason why Levine talks about melodic minor is because in his opinion those pitch collections don’t have “avoid notes” (or as I think we should call them, funny notes), and that’s important for him. It also avoids theoretical issues with the tritone sub.

Very neat.

A good example is Bmaj7 on G7, something we get from the b7 on the tritone sub.

Most modern college trained players would go Bmaj7#5 to avoid the F# and because melodic minor. Barry Harris on the other hand says ‘this one has F#, it’s beautiful.’ And the old guys used it.

Turns out music isn’t always neat.

Truth is - you have to listen to things and make your own mind up. There’s no BS musical laws that will tell you what will sound good or bad in advance and most of these things are subject to context. I love Bmaj7 on G7 but maybe not so much if it sat around all day. Someone else might hate it, but i would hope it would be an honest, irrational hatred rather than ‘it said so in a book’.

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[rpjazzguitar]

Sure, absolutely

The point I’m trying to make is that transposing stuff onto different chord types is absolutely a core jazz skill and it is not something that only works for melodic minor.

It maximises the amount of use you can get out of the stuff you already know, as you say. If I have a super hip minor key line or voicing, I can stick that on a dominant or half diminished chord etc. It’s a really good idea and everyone should do it.

The reason why Levine talks about melodic minor is because in his opinion those pitch collections don’t have “avoid notes” (or as I think we should call them, funny notes), and that’s important for him. It also avoids theoretical issues with the tritone sub.

Very neat.

A good example is Bmaj7 on G7, something we get from the b7 on the tritone sub.

Most modern college trained players would go Bmaj7#5 to avoid the F# and because melodic minor. Barry Harris on the other hand says ‘this one has F#, it’s beautiful.’ And cats use it.

Turns out music isn’t neat.

Truth is - you have to listen to things and make your own mind up. There’s no BS musical laws that will tell you what will sound good or bad in advance and most are subject to context. I love Bmaj7 on G7 but maybe not so much if it sat around all day. Someone else might hate it, but i would hope it would be an honest, irrational hatred rather than ‘it said so in a book’.

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Bmaj7#5 would be third mode Abmelmin. B Eb Gb Bb (or is that Cb mel min?). So Levine would say, Bmaj7#5, Galt, whatever.

But, what about the Bmaj7 with the F# against G7? You get the root, B, from the b7 of the tritone sub. I seem to recall somebody posted a theoretical justification for the maj7 against a dom7. I'd estimate that it would be a few years of assiduous theory-study before I got to that.

Meanwhile, to me, it's the opposite of a vanilla note. In rp's visual classification, chord tones belong on the left and, way to the right, perhaps beyond the printable portion of the page, is maj7 against dom7.

I'm guessing that when Jobim wrote One Note Samba, it didn't take him long to decide to use an F rather than an E in the key of Bb.

But, I'm aware that a great player can make any note sound good. For more info on that please refer to my thread on Giving Up.

[rpjazzguitar]

You know ultimately, theory is often invoked to refuse the Green Eggs and Ham because the fnurtleburgler clashes with the bootlefopple, and therefore no further discussion on the matter may be entered into forthwith.

But try them and you may I say!

Levine's approach seems to be to tell you the Green Eggs and Ham taste disgusting, and then suggesting you try them and find out for yourself.

It's more engineering than math. Meaning, that part of math where there's an exact right answer vs that part of engineering where you get close enough for the thing to work and you don't worry about little pieces that don't fit.

Levine gets you in the ballpark. You learn which notes are likely to work because they've worked before. And, if you can read a little bit on piano, you can hear what he's talking about.

You don't necessarily learn how to fit any note into any harmonic situation. He makes it clear that lofty thing can be achieved, but the bulk of it is in the troposphere.

Having just taken another look at Ted Greene's Chord Chemistry, I am also thankful to Levine's editing. I think the white space is as helpful as the ink.

[Christian Miller]

But, what about the Bmaj7 with the F# against G7? You get the root, B, from the b7 of the tritone sub. I seem to recall somebody posted a theoretical justification for the maj7 against a dom7. I'd estimate that it would be a few years of assiduous theory-study before I got to that.

My contention would be that finding theoretical justification for it is a complete waste of energy and time if you like how it sounds.

In the Barry approach it’s just what happens when you have a tritone sub.

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