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OK... too strong. I was asked a pretty simple question, and gave a pretty simple answer. But I'll apologize...
Maybe I should have said..., sure that approach your talking about is great and will work nicely, but you might give this a try and see if it opens any doors for you.
Another question... why do musicians use different approaches. Do they actually have a choice. Generally most play what they can. Most want a simple approach that's within their grasp to perform with. At least that's what I see and hear.
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07-01-2015 08:59 AM
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Don't worry about it. As with many of your posts, I kind of find it a bit strong/full on at first, then I think about it, and realise you have good reasons for saying what you do. I understand you are just trying to give straight answers.
Originally Posted by Reg
When I study bebop I want to learn the absolute common practice bop stuff. Not my own style. Barry Harris's teaching also points me in the direction. It's very much 'do this' rather than 'try your own thing out.' Dictatorial even. But that's what I want. Why? Because you need to do it 'right' to learn the lingua franca of bop.
I suppose I see contemporary jazz as open to many influences, but there is no doubt that the melodic minor is very important to the playing of a large number of top musicians, many of whom studied at Berklee, now. Even when players move away from conscious chord/scale improv (Lage Lund, Metheny, Sco) that's the climate they grew up in.
I'm not sure if note choice ultimately is really what it is about - it's not there that the individuality of one's playing really comes out. For example, elsewhere on these forums we have the I-IV boogie lick discussion - Coltrane and Charlie Christian can play the exact same pitches, but the music is *not* the same.
So, is this the purpose of 'common practice'? Learn the stock stuff, master it, internalise it so you can get on the band stand and really start learning?
They is another argument against chord/scale theory which I have repeated elsewhere so I won't bore everyone with a recap. Personally I found chord/scale very difficult to apply until I fully understood traditional changes playing. I think that's the key.
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Yea...thanks. I just find that most people don't have the time, energy yada yada... to actually get past the beginning learning stages. It's like Black and white is great... but when your trying to see something that has other colors... and all you see is Black and white... you might miss something. Maybe even make choices that are wrong because you didn't see or hear everything required to make the basic choices.
As compared to being aware of colors and choosing to use black and white.
The chord scale thing, is just taking functional harmony another level. Chord scale theory... is not about playing scales, the scales are just a teaching approach for talking about chord tones and extensions. Chord Scale was being used before Berklee... they just found a means to making some money.
You can't understand CST without understanding basic functional harmony and traditional western theory. But what generally happens... you can take the results of CST... the note collections and begin to apply them with very little harmonic understanding. It becomes Plug and Play. But that is what it also sounds like.
So getting into something more interesting... what is bebop. Is it the early stages of experimenting, those results.... or the later stages when things became more organized... beyond, tradition from notated music to improvisation. I generally think of much more complex harmonies and rhythmic approaches... transition from Big Band swing and basic Blues through improvisation.... Bebop. Hardly simple stuff.
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it's not that... it's speaking from the name of all that jazz
art practices do not really develope I think... progessive idea is good for science...nless you want to just play jazz tunes in a classical style. Vanilla style. Nothing wrong with... but not jazz. I understand back in the 30's, 40's and even into the 50's that was the approach for many... but jazz practice did develop their common practice... they eventually figured it out.
and one art practice is no more true or valueable than another...
you don't have to use modern means to be jazz... to be anyone actually... unless you want to sound 'modern'...
again sounding 'modern' is something about fashion... has nothing to do with sounding convincing, fresh, interesting...
Another question... why do musicians use different approaches. Do they actually have a choice. Generally most play what they can. Most want a simple approach that's within their grasp to perform with. At least that's what I see and hear.
Another question... do you do what you should?
There's no choice any way... either you use one approach or many
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I disagree...I believe there are characteristics that need to be involved for jazz to be jazz. I think the art music subject is not about content, as you said, a very different performance direction.
The date ... modern, again is just a reference. The performance aspects... sounding convincing, fresh, interesting etc... don't always need to reflect the content.
And there are choices... part of the difficulty is being aware of what those choices are.
Part of playing jazz..."do you do what you should", is being aware of the references which shape what YOU SHOULD BE DOING.
Obviously these are personal choices. But we're all just musicians, right. We're talking about mixing and matching Dominant Chords, Altered Dominants. So where is this really going, is it about comping, how to comp in a Jazz style, or is there more going on.
OK get back to the music... the OP was talking about Mood Indigo... somewhat blusy tune. I'll post a few example of comping through the tune... what I believe to be in a jazz style. And explain how I would approach and why etc... maybe we all should... to see how different approaches might change the content. And it we'll also be in real time... much easier to hear etc...
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An I will check it for sure...))I'll post a few example of comping through the tune... what I believe to be in a jazz style.
not me for sure... not memaybe we all should...
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That would be appreciated, I haven't really figured out an approach to comping the tune besides just playing the exact chords listed in the Real Book (I figured out an Eb7#5 fingering to plug in there). Could definitely use tips on substitutions, etc. Originally Posted by Reg
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Haha - wasn't it Schillinger in the early days of Berklee? (I know very little about Schillinger, would be interested in learning more....) Originally Posted by Reg
Just out of interest do you know what the origin of CST theory was, roughly? Obviously George Russell's theory was significant in the history, as was Miles's popularisation of modes in his music, but the Lydian Chromatic Concept is quite different from CST (in so much as I have studied it which is not much.)
Barry Harris's system spits out the exact same scales as the CST system (he would hate me saying that haha) - in that you get the altered scale, lydian dominant and all the mainstays described from a different perspective - important minor, tritone etc... I'm not sure how old the current BH methodology is...
It's hard to tell from the records. Charlie Christian is using what we would understand to be the lydian dominant in the early 40's - but is that how he thought of it? Probably not, but hard to say.Last edited by christianm77; 07-02-2015 at 11:40 AM.
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This is an important point. If CST is the common practice of the harmony of jazz, then perhaps we should use it and really not worry at all. After all Beethoven, Mozart and Bach didn't invent new scales or practices to write their wonderful and highly original music. Beethoven for example, may have pushed the harmony thing in his late music (the late quartets) but most of his innovations were formal, I would say... But he was still using the major and minor scales, and the chromatic decorations, and the palette of chords available to the common practice of the time. Originally Posted by Reg
I don't think it was until Schoenberg that the idea of reinventing a musical language from the ground up came into vogue. Now the issue is 'what language do I compose in?' for a young composer. This (I think) is a significant sink of energy and time.
So I can really see the advantage of having a common practice. There was very much a common practice all the way up - for the 20s, 30s, 40s and so on, and as students of jazz we study one or more of these. The CST thing is perhaps the longest period of common practice - if it starts in the early 60's as Mark Levine suggest (IRC), that's almost 50 years.
Eventually some other paradigm will come into vogue, but it won't be the doing of a single musician. Even Parker reflected the developments of his era, and had quite a few fellow travellers.... And Parker's key innovations were not harmonic, but rhythmic and phrasing based.
That said, we live in an eclectic era. In the course of my work I might be expected to be comfortable improvising within a number of tonal systems including Middle Eastern maqams, freely 'atonal', pure modal, modern and traditional jazz. Many different common practices are colliding....Last edited by christianm77; 07-02-2015 at 11:32 AM.
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I must apologise for derailing the thread. It is my way. All you wanted was some practical advice! :-) Originally Posted by jtr
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Amen to that. I find that assumption a bit grating, as I have ranted elsewhere :-) Originally Posted by Jonah
The idea of progress in the arts rather old-fashioned (C19th!), and yet some musicians hold on to it... You wouldn't get that kind of thing in classical musicology, for example.
The diametric alternative that everything was much better in the past is equally annoying and counterproductive.
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Awesome. This is one I actually know somewhat. Very basic rookie approaches. Looking forward to this very much. Originally Posted by Reg
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