Moving a dominant chord up a minor third

[ragman1]

Blah, blah, endless blah. I wish someone would PLAY something. Demonstrate the veracity and wisdom of what you say.

This is a music site. Put the subs in. Astonish us! My god, we'll all run off and be better musicians!

[ragman1]

panosmusic -

Well, here's something I remember doing way back, long before all this came up here. About a year ago now, I think. Do you know Central Park West by Coltrane?



I had to do a version so I inserted alternate dominants instead of the ii-V's between the main chords. I've no idea which ones I used, I'd have to go through it to find out. I only kept it because I thought it worked with this particular tune. It wouldn't on a lot of them.

Just in case you thought I might not understand the idea or be biased against it :-)

[StringNavigator]

I guess one page for educational purposes would not violate copyright:

Attachment 35152

For those still wondering about medblues' attached page:
Complete Jazz Guitar Method: Mastering Chord/Melody - Jody Fisher - Google Books

[Alter]

You can simply practice playing a symmetric dominant scale over a dominant chord, meaning the half step - whole step one. This scale will give you a dominant altered 9 sound. Once you get the feel of that, this scale contains 4 dominant chords, from 1,b3,b5,6. So there are your dominants. Then you practice their arpeggios, and you end up playing for example C7,Eb7,Gb7,A7 over C7.

Pat Martino demonstrates that towards the end of his second instructional videotape. Then he proceeds to do his "convert everything to minor" thing, and superimposes some impressive lines from four relative minor chords!

To take it one step further, you can always play a dominant chord from the five of any chord as a momentary out, tension creating passage. So over C7 you pass G7. Then G7 becomes G7,Bb7,Db7,E7, so together with the first four dominants you now have eight of them, with four having a tonic sound and function, and four having a dominant sound and function! Like dominant over dominant!

[ragman1]

Then you can minorise the whole goddamn thing as well... so C7 becomes practically any chord you want it to be. In fact, you can then discard any laws for chords at all. Put all the chords in a hat, pick one out, and there'll be a cast-iron reason why it's absolutely theory-tight. Even though it sounds like a schizophrenic chihuahua did it.

Fact is, when we listen to the great and good players perform, they're NOT doing all this stuff. They play properly and their out stuff sounds sensible. Even Scofield and Metheny chromaticise intelligently.

Sorry, but it do get teejus after a while.

[Alter]

From guitarists, you'll hear quite a bit of diminished in Wayne Krantzs playing

[ragman1]

Of course I'm not having a go at you personally, alter, you know that :-)

Good choice with Wayne Kranz, I'd forgotten about him. His instructional stuff is pretty good. But, again, it's more about skill and the best use of resources rather than bizarre ideas for the sake of them.

[Christian Miller]

The half whole scale is pretty common over 7#11 chords in post bop. I think Coltrane started that one off.

[pamosmusic]

Fact is, when we listen to the great and good players perform, they're NOT doing all this stuff. They play properly and their out stuff sounds sensible. Even Scofield and Metheny chromaticise intelligently.

Sorry, but it do get teejus after a while.

This is one of those things that might not be as wrong as you think. A buddy of mine had a lesson with Julian Lage once and Julian was going through some of this stuff. At one point my buddy stopped him and was like “it sounds like you’re saying I can play anything over anything” and Julian kind of thought about and then said “actually yes.”

If the line is strong the theory doesn’t really matter as much. The progressively more intense theory is kind of like what you’re describing, but not quite — it’s not a way to justify the dissonance, but maybe more of a way of organizing the dissonance so that it can be explored or used in a useful way.

Its the strength of the line that makes the theory work.

Gb is no good over G7 — except when you’re passing, say from Dm7 on a ii chord to Em7 on a ii chord, in which case the Ebm7 fits right in and no one bats an eye.

The opening bars of Wes Montgomery’s Misty solo from smokin at the half note has a huge Gb major triad over G7 if I remember right. But the melodic idea is so strong, you don’t think it’s weird. You just think “man what a monster line.”

So it’s not the theory that makes those things correct. They would sound “bad” if they were executed poorly. But really — anything really does work if it’s part of a really good line.

[ragman1]

“it sounds like you’re saying I can play anything over anything” and Julian kind of thought about and then said “actually yes.”

He's right, technically. But whether it works is another matter.

If the line is strong the theory doesn’t really matter as much. The progressively more intense theory is kind of like what you’re describing, but not quite — it’s not a way to justify the dissonance, but maybe more of a way of organizing the dissonance so that it can be explored or used in a useful way.

Its the strength of the line that makes the theory work.

Can I be honest? This is the sort of stuff that gives people ideas, wrong ideas. Which, unless they're deluded, they soon find out when they start playing rubbish. Unless everyone tells them how wonderful they are all the time, which happens :-)

The opening bars of Wes Montgomery’s Misty solo from smokin at the half note has a huge Gb major triad over G7 if I remember right. But the melodic idea is so strong, you don’t think it’s weird. You just think “man what a monster line.”

Sorry, I checked that one. He does it in G. He does two simple G licks (B D E B) over the G - G7. Then he repeats the same lick up a fourth over CM7 (E G A E). All very diatonic.

But there are two bars of the CM7. Over the second one he moves the G lick down a half-step (Bb Db Eb Bb). We can go off into tritones, etc, C and Gb, but actually he's just being bluesy and moving his licks around before he goes back into G again. So, yes, that sort of thing will work.

So it’s not the theory that makes those things correct. They would sound “bad” if they were executed poorly. But really — anything really does work if it’s part of a really good line.

Absolutely, which is why I said somewhere I didn't care about theory, it's whether it works or not. Except I can't remember where now, which is a nuisance.

[pamosmusic]

Can I be honest? This is the sort of stuff that gives people ideas, wrong ideas. Which, unless they're deluded, they soon find out when they start playing rubbish. Unless everyone tells them how wonderful they are all the time, which happens :-)

Man, I wish people had told me how wonderful I was all the time. But at least this explains why they called me deluded instead.

Sorry, I checked that one. He does it in G. He does two simple G licks (B D E B) over the G - G7. Then he repeats the same lick up a fourth over CM7 (E G A E). All very diatonic.

But there are two bars of the CM7. Over the second one he moves the G lick down a half-step (Bb Db Eb Bb). We can go off into tritones, etc, C and Gb, but actually he's just being bluesy and moving his licks around before he goes back into G again. So, yes, that sort of thing will work.

You’re right on this one. The next time through that A section he plays the ii-V to C in the same place, but there it sounds like the band is on C. It is the lick I was thinking of though, and the principle holds true. Bb and Db there would be very very wrong if it wasn’t just a monster line with beautiful melodic development etc.

Thank you for checking that one. I should’ve checked it first.

[AaronMColeman]

He told me “you can’t play this music if you don’t love this music.”.

I think it was attributed to Segovia, "you must love the music more than the instrument, without the music there is no need for the guitar".