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Originally Posted by Boston Joe
The amount of patience people have for musicians bringing out contemporary tunes on a jam depends on the jam. At some jams it's strictly standards repertoire, with more unusual standards at the more advanced ones. Other jams tend to be happier with more recent rep, but these are usually fusion oriented ones.
I have to admit, I generally want to sit out if someone brings up a tune I don't know with changes that aren't easily buskable. That's because in general I want to be able to improvise than merely chase changes, and you want to be playing well at a good jam. But maybe that's a defeatist attitude. After all you have to get good at playing different types of tunes somehow.
A lot of it is governed by the culture/fashion of whatever group of musicians are running the jams. Here in London, we have hardcore bop/standards jams, swing/straightahead jams, gypsy jazz jams, fusion jams and jams with standards played in a contemporary way. The amateur/lower level jams generally have more diversity of repertoire because musicians are still to decide what they like playing I guess...
In the case of fusion jams it's often awful because you inevitably get some slap bass player who just wants to play G minor for half an hour haha.
PS: I better quickly add that actually I love working with originals jazz groups - it's always a challenge and I find it really good fun.:-)Last edited by christianm77; 01-24-2014 at 08:51 PM.
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01-24-2014 08:36 PM
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BTW - I know this might sound completely stupid/naive here, but I find one thing that always gets me though unfamiliar changes when it comes to soloing. This is like the survival approach when I have a spare hour and the gigs that night :-)
Get really good at playing the triads through the blowing progression.
If you can do this solidly in time and with good voice leading it will always sound good. Better than a bunch of modes.
I would practice a chart like Is That So with this strategy in mind until I felt I'd got it in my ears.
Building arppegios off the thirds would be the next step - so the first few bars:
Fm7 Ebm7 | B C#m9
Would be
Ab Gb | Dm Emaj(7)
To get a bit of the modality/extensions. After all, the root is for bassplayers
If it's slash chords, can't go wrong with the triad on the left hand side :-) Add the bass note in if you fancy.Last edited by christianm77; 01-24-2014 at 09:00 PM.
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Hey Vladan...
I'm still a position player at least my 1st reference. I generally stretch with 1st finger as first option, generally try and avoid 4th finger stretched... I'll change position.
That being said... I finger the 2nd example either'
12232 if i want to stay in position or 13343 if need be. My reasoning being as I've posted long ago...
My 2nd finger is the strongest... and my 1st finger has the most mobility, which leads to 2nd finger being base and 1st finger for stretches. I obviously use many different fingerings for different styles etc... but that's my basic reference, where I start from.
I'll try and find some of my fingering charts for all scales and arpeggios etc... with variations and post.
As Christianm77 mentioned... you need something that you can perform under pressure, anytime anywhere. Triads are great... 7th chords are the basic language of Jazz, but you need some reference to start with. I might say triads will never sound that bad... and sometimes good... but that is a very subjective subject to most. I will say that one doesn't get comfortable playing unfamiliar music by not doing just that. I generally don't think of jazz as rehearsed music... but I'm old school.
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everybody wants to have fun at a session but free-for-all sessions playing donna lee and 47 choruses each of blues get old. I used to be in the house band at the bop stop in cleveland and we had a sunday jam session and once a set we'd pull out an original with modern changes. Nothing like a struggle to bring your playing level up.
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Originally Posted by Reg
The ideal for me is always to create a line that would stand up on its own, without any chordal support. As most of the bands that I work in don't feature another chordal instrument, that's a matter of practicality too!
Also I would very strongly question the assertion that 'seventh chords' are the basis of jazz harmony. Barry Harris for example, insists players use major and minor 6th chords (this is more old school bop.) Older jazz is often triad based (prewar jazz - take George Van Ep's pre war style), as is a lot of more modern material (Metheny, for instance). Many bebop lines are as much based on triads and 6th chords as they are on major or minor sevenths.
I think there's a lot of benefit in rehearsing some things - arrangements, endings, intros - even if it's only a few minutes. The Miles prestige recordings have a lot of great little touches, vamps, intros, moves from 2-feels to 4-feels and so on - did they rehearse before recording?Last edited by christianm77; 01-24-2014 at 09:56 PM.
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Thanks Reg, I understand, you treat those 2 as a "combo", play them from the same position.
I think you already posted position/ fingering charts in your "In the style of Jazz thread", some time ago.
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Originally Posted by christianm77
Chick Corea, Herbie, Shorter, Metheny, Brecker, all those guys rehearsed their tunes.
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Originally Posted by jzucker
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OK.. rehearsals are great... So I'm thinking out loud...no references to anyone, (except me, I know how I play).
So do you really need to rehearse most tunes in the real or real fake books. Or if there's an arrangement... of an existing jazz tune, (or a new original in a jazz style). Are you not able to read a chart, understand what's implied. Do you need to memorize what you play before your able to perform it live.
So I would guess... there is a level of performance that doesn't really need rehearsal. These points are not in reference to anyone... more of just trying to break down what we're talking about.
So this level of performance, that point which requires rehearsal or not, (of Jazz), would reflect either... (1)the complexity of the music and (2) the level of musicianship of the performers. There would be music which one did not need to rehearse and some which one would... maybe a little in the middle, the grey area.
This is a good subject... especially for guitarist. Most of my gigs are not rehearsed, and the level of performance is at a very high level of performance. By that I mean the music has balance of complexity, interaction, reaction and we 're listening and are aware of what's being performed. The performance is clean and reflects what the tune implies. It also reflects the audience... by that I mean, generally I'm not just playing for myself and the ensemble, the audience and context of the gig has a relationship to the performance of the music. We can get into the interaction and reaction thing of playing live jazz... but that is a subject in it's self.
Christianm77 what are rapidly modulating changes. Is this simply a tempo issue or are the relationships within the changes the difficulty.
I agree with your points about self supporting lines etc... but that's just one style of improve. Do you generally play over or imply the same changes every chorus ? Again not good,bad, right or wrong, just trying to have a clearer understanding of what we're talking about.
If 7th chords are not the standard for jazz harmony, obviously not every tune... but the basic reference creating jazz functional harmony, are you implying that triads or 6th chords are. I love 6th chords, 6/9 etc... Are you talking about voicings or voice leading through changes, or improve over or through changes. There are many approaches to improve... but most relate to implied harmony... not that every note needs to be played, but generally there is a functional harmonic system which reflects the organization of the changes and improve. Triads and 6th chords, I like the concept and would dig hearing more...
I never got a chance to talk with Tommy Flanagan, but did perform and talked with Cedar Walton about Coltrane's music, I remember Cedar mentioning how he rehearsed with Coltrane, (giant steps), then something came up and Flanagan did the recording. I would call use of a three tonic harmonic system a modern harmonic concept at the time, in relationship to Jazz.
So again rehearsals are great... to clean up compositional or arrangement aspects of performance. And all this must reflect how well one reads and understands what the notation implies. Jazz notation is not like reading traditional classical or show style charts. The charts imply common jazz practice...
I played a gig last night... three horn latin jazz. Not salsa, pretty hip latin jazz. No rehearsal, although I believe the pianist and the horns did have a rehearsal. The harmonic concepts of the tunes, all original, was not new, but applications and his use of slash chords was. Piano voicings, chord over chord slash chords, two implied harmonic paths of movement. The use of two or more harmonic systems going on is common jazz practice....but the notational use of chord over chord slash chord was fun.
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Originally Posted by Reg
Whether unfamiliar standards or originals. Some things are easier to understand than others - if you've played a lot of bop and straightahead, that music will be easy to understand at a glance, while other types of harmony (e.g. Wayne Shorter) will present a problem. You get used to certain composers too, these become easier to read. Ideally I'd like to know about tunes for gigs a week in advance so I can get inside and even memorise anything I'm not sure about. In practice this rarely happens haha.
Originally Posted by Reg
Originally Posted by Reg
Originally Posted by Reg
Jazz harmony, as discussed on this very forum, forsooth, is a wide variety of different approaches. The basis of functional/tonal jazz harmony, in so much as it is different from common practice harmony, I feel, is the piling up of lines on existing functional harmony, and the vertical consequences this has. As early as the 20's we can hear Louis Armstrong playing the major seventh on the major chord, along with lots of 6ths and even 9ths.
Later on these notes got assimilated into piano and guitar chords. The underlying is basis is - of course - the triad - the 7ths, 6th and 9ths and everything else that one wants to pile on top of the chords are related acoustically - at least in the case of major and minor harmonies - dissonant chords such as dominants function a little differently....
What I understand from Barry and the early jazz and bop I have studied is that the minor seventh is not a tonic minor sound until the modal era. Before then the minor sixth would be a more common choice - this allows flexibility in the application of minor scales over V-i's and ii-V-i's. The minor seventh when it does appear is generally in the context of a being a ii chord in a ii-V.
Minor sixths have many applications for playing over dominants as well as acting as a gateway into more complex harmony - for example Dm6 over G7, or later on, Fm6 over G7 and E7 and for the tritone sub Abm6. Also Barry views all m7b5 chords as inversions of m6 chords. This is the way harmony used to be viewed, during the bop era, AFAIK. m6 chords have been in use in this way in jazz since the 1920s.Last edited by christianm77; 01-25-2014 at 07:26 PM.
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Originally Posted by Reg
I get this stuff from my own interpretation of Bird's music, both composed and improvised. Harmonically of particular interest actually is the way both Bird and Lester Young, for example, were able to strongly outline changes without expressly playing arpeggios (most feel this way I'm guessing!) and with great freedom with respect to rhythm. Arpeggios will only get you (me) part of the way.
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Hey christianm77... thanks for comments, there great, I'll try and add to them and continue in the dialect.
So the internalized aspect is basically being able to not figure out things on the fly... You have an understanding and are simply deciding how or what you want to play, or be able to use the performing practice your comfortable with. And yes the rehearsals are usually 10 min. before the gig as charts or book is handed out... if any.
Show type of gigs etc... with bigger budgets... yes. But I don't think of those as jazz gigs.
Which leads to the tempo or complexity of tune issue. Your example of giant steps at different tempos is cool, but I was thinking more in the line of... Tempo relating to technique and whatever other skills one needs to perform at fast tempos. Whether one understand the organizational aspects of the tune or not. I don't think of Giant Steps as a very complicated tune... pretty simple as far as what or how to approach playing, lots of choices etc..
But playing G.S. at 350 is very difficult. I tend to not think of just playing 8th notes as being able to cover a tempo, These are personal opinions, but if I can't employ all my BS... rhythmic, melodic etc... variations... I can't cover the tempo.
When I think of the complexity of the tune, I'm thinking... I can't cover this tune at 50, I don't understand what's going on.
Two different aspects, I guess there is overlap of the two.
The subject of what sounds best is pretty subjective... chord tone or implied chord tones...yada yada.
Yes I've checked out BH's approach... most of his 6th/ Dim chord and scale material still used 7th chord as method of deriving substitutions for playing standards. The added Dim chord is based on the implied 7th chord of the 6th chord. And most of the technique involves playing the related Dom. 7ths of the added Dim. notes...I'm not sure that's a good example.
Jazz Harmony.... I totally enjoy your use of the title, maybe even Jazz Harmonic Common Practice. I have always thought of Functional Harmony... Common Practice as relating to both Rameau and Riemann's basic guidelines. And when I think of Jazz functional Harmony, I think of that Common Practice Functional Harmony as, (1) of a few sets of guidelines for organization of a Tonal system.
With the additional guidelines of modality and other methods of controlling guidelines of notes and their relationships, Blue notes, MM and with the concepts and developments from Modal Interchange... still awake, sorry.
Anyway... The functional aspect of Min. 7th chords developed into Maj. functional Harmony guidelines... yea, before Jazz and the use of 6th chords seems to still be a sub of 7th chord functional harmony, not bad or good. Have you listened to earlier BH recordings... they're pretty straight ahead harmonically. I'll dig into one of music hard drives.
What do you hear or believe to be the most used function in jazz, and how does that work, what are the guidelines... what is the reference.
Sorry for all the BS... talk is cheap. I'll post some of my favorite arpeggio embellishments tomorrow. No gigs. I'll try to tie into how I might use when approaching complex or contemporary harmony. Maybe jzucker will chime back in and help get us back to Modern Harmony... and how to approach.
(the bad thing... I always enjoy all the BS)
Hey christianm77... I'm not sure your aware of many my opinions... I don't really use arpeggios or chord tones that much... personally their implied, most of the music has been played so many times, one doesn't have a choice.
My reason for using the 4 string sets of embellished arpeggios is they naturally mechanically imply harmonic reference for developing relationships and development... improvisation.
Most guitar players tend to develop noodling to a fine art.Last edited by Reg; 01-25-2014 at 09:05 PM. Reason: none
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Thanks :-) And thanks for the interesting line of debate, in so far as I understand ....
Originally Posted by Reg
While I can clearly picture in my head exactly what I7-IV sounds like, or even a Coltrane cycle I have a bit more trouble with harmony I am unfamiliar with. Even a massive amount of experience is unlikely to prepare one for every eventuality on the bandstand. Then you get to *thinking* and then, the audience will feel it even if they don't notice it consciously.
Given that these days given you can program your own chord changes into iRealB and send set lists of them and anything else you are playing to people with great ease (provided they have iPhones or iPads) so it's really a matter of getting it together and taking a few minutes. Assuming your bandmates have time to practice your lousy charts haha.
Originally Posted by Reg
Is technique necessary to play fast tunes - that the type of technique that is being able to run 8th notes at 300+ bpm? I find that type of playing very wearying on the ears.
The understanding needs to be there - to take a simple example, thinking of the Cherokee A harmony as based on the chromatic line 1-b7-6-5-#4-4-3, and that the B is a set of cadences into major chords descending by whole tones means that you can get by playing a few notes and still nail the changes. At least that's what I think Lester would do (probably by ear and with much less verbiage :-))
Also there is a psychological element to the passage of time that's really fascinating. There's always more space between the notes, if you can feel it... :-)
I'm thinking here of Peter Bernstein for example playing on a roasting version of All God's Chillun. There's a lot of space, while many would fill the whole solo with 8th's notes, but the changes and the time are definitely there. I prefer the spare approach, but I find it hard to do. Not that the alternative is easy either :-)
Originally Posted by Reg
I regard the dom 7 as pretty fundamental as it is in common practice harmony, although playing a major triad or major 6th on a dom 7 is common in tonal jazz - take the first four bars of the bridge of Anthropology for example, no sevenths, first four bars of the melody of Sweet Georgia Brown etc.
Originally Posted by Reg
Common practice governs why one chord follows another in a jazz standard. Jazz harmony describes the way in which notes can be added on top of this matrix.
However I'm very interested in how much of this apparently vertical harmony is emergent from people just playing strong melodies that describe chord changes over other chord changes - something Steve Coleman referred to as 'secret paths.' Metheny mentions something very similar in his the old audio lesson recording that got posted up on youtube. He subscribes it Coltrane but it's a really venerable thing - Lester Young playing a Cm6 arpeggio over C#o7.
Originally Posted by Reg
What I'm doing is surely what most jazzers who are serious about the language have done and will continue to do - check out the recordings of the music they want to learn about, and piece together an understanding form published sources or even their own ideas where that is incomplete. I'm not sure if it's worth putting out there in a way, even here. I write stuff down sometimes just to keep track on what I've noticed and to remind myself to practice it.
The 6th chord, triad thing is important to my understanding. That's not to exclude major and minor sevenths either, it's just that I don't appreciate them swaggering around like they own the place.
Why is was this necessary for me -for example the biiio7 chord moving to ii used to confuse me. Another one was the ubiquitous prog I I7 IV #ivo7 I familiar from about 1000 trad jazz tunes and the stock jazz blues (!) as well as more modern repertoire.
Generalise the principles you discover, and your playing will probably go in its own direction because people understand things differently. Then you have your own concept right?
In any case, reading between the line, I very much suspect this the process you have gone through with your own playing.
Originally Posted by Reg
Originally Posted by Reg
Good god this is a long post. But I find it helpful sorting out my thinking...
TL;DR - go listen to some records. :-)Last edited by christianm77; 01-25-2014 at 10:55 PM.
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No one will want to hear this, but I have come up with the wildest chords using the Barry Harris method. Ironic, I know. The thing I like better than when I used to dabble in modern stuff is that I automatically know where I can go from chord to chord. Anyway, ignore me haha
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Originally Posted by joe2758
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I don't have a guitar handy, but something like:
EADGBE
X3323x
x5545x
X7657x
In BH theory we wouldn't worry about naming these, they are conceived as 2 notes of a 6th chord and 2 notes of a diminished chord. no need to be like "Csus6/9" or something. Of course there are super crunchy/dissonant sounds that require more stretch (I like those but some are really hard)
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Interesting seeing what I wrote 5 years ago.
I was at a pretty different place in terms of the way I was playing. I think I was right to concentrate on doing something decently, though.
I'm playing very different gigs now...
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Those 3 chords to me are just F6, G6 and E7#5. When you said "wildest chords", I must admit I was thinking you meant something a little more esoteric!
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Originally Posted by christianm77
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lol! that's what I get for not thinking in note names!
I guess all I did was trasform a c6 to F6, D dim to G6, C6 to E7#5.
Let me try again:
EGBDE:
X3513X
X5625X
X7746X
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or maybe
X5535X
and move that through the scale in the same manner
or
XX2525
XX3647
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I think of "modern harmony" not being about voicings, but about being the way tunes are harmonized or organized.
Non-functional tunes, for example, or tunes with modal sections, etc.
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check this out. starting with a maj 7 chord, by adding a b6 to the scale you see it morph as you go up the scale:
CGBE
DAbCF
so those two are nothing, but then
EADG
FBEAb
GCFA
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Originally Posted by princeplanet
I’ve learned there’s no such thing as modern harmony.
Everyone’s different. What Kenny Wheeler does is different to what Wayne Shorter does. What Kurt does is different to Lage Lund. And so on and so forth.
Every artist has to discover their own palette, stuff they are drawn to....
In the case of good modern composers i expected to learn harmony and ended up learning about melody. Jordan’s perspective was useful in that, but that stuff is applicable to everything...
But I’m glad I understand the history reasonably well, it does make it easier. Jazz pedagogy is all over the place.
Seems to me lot of people go with what they were taught in school rather than what musicians actually play and write. So the latter is always more interesting and educational.
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Originally Posted by joe2758
OTOH you get CST plus when you get into borrowing.
For instance last time I saw him, it was all about the sounds you get with G6dim on a C chord.
RIP Nick Gravenites
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