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You always do what you want (or what sounds right to you) when playing, or you should.
When you practice, you don't. That's why practice is a bore but we have to do it to learn new stuff.
Modern day jazz theory is pretty limited in some applications, focusses towards a certain set of sounds. But do you hear it as strange?
Barry didn't invent this stuff
(At least that's the way it would be if I could actually do it on guitar. I've kind of given up.)
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11-15-2019 08:20 AM
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wish i could be more help; i'm not busy at all lol. I like your playing, rags, would love to see what you could do with the stuff after some work. esp, as christian said, "And it no longer sounds old timey because all the sounds are in there via borrowing and so on. And you havemore flexibility because you are no longer thinking in grips."
White belt
My Youtube
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by the way rags, you should record more of your stuff via video...I can't hear the sound cloud ones at work
White belt
My Youtube
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OK I had a little go at the borrowing stuff, to see if I could make it sound completely different from the usual chords. Say you were playing chordal movements over a vamp in C minor, in Barry Harris terms you could play some standard Eb6/dim stuff like this:
x3534x
x5646x
x6858x
x.10.10.8.11.x
OK now I do them again, but this time I modify each chord by borrowing any notes I like, from above or below, in any voice, from the adjacent Eb6/dim chords. Now I can get something like this:
x3543x
x5644x
x6876x
x.10.10.8.9.x
which is totally different, now it sounds more like Allan Holdsworth than Barry.
I might even use this occasionally if I was playing 'Invitation', sounds kinda cool if you play that sequence and end it with a Cmin69, i.e. x6778x .
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Graham -
I'm playing it. The first one I get. That x6858x voicing is very hard to grab but it sounds nice.
The second one puts it in C harm, or Cm/M7... it might depend on the melody, would you say?
But I see the point. Haven't done the video yet.
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You can change that tricky voicing to maj7 if you like, I usually do, it is one of the few 6th inversions that is a bit of a stretch.
I didn’t even think about what the second group of chords are, the aim was just to see what sounds I could get by borrowing, that might be useable. You could comp with them I think, maybe not so much in a restaurant ‘standards’ gig, but if you wanted to get a more ‘contemporary’ vibe maybe.
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Seen it. He was making some very nice sounds, no question. But it does seem as though one has to almost start learning the whole music thing all over again!
He did admit he'd find doing this very hard on a bandstand but, noodling in his room, the possibilities were limitless.
There's a link in that vid on YT to this:
ii_V_Barry_Harris.tif - Google Drive
Which is quite interesting. I don't understand why the ii chord (Cm7) is now a (maj)6 inversion. If we're harmonising the Bb scale shouldn't the ii chord be a diminished and the iii chord be a 6?
One could say BH now goes back to classic theory and subs the ii for the IV. Why, I don't know. But the problem there is that, in the 6dim scale, the 4 chord is also a diminished! Don't get this. Seems to me that every time the BH thing comes up against classic theory the player just 'changes' it. Which is stupid. really. Either do the new thing or don't. If it falls down in practice why do it at all?
But the borrowing idea seems clear. We take notes from the two neighbouring dim chords either side of the 6 being played. That can produce a dissonance, or not, but good sounds nevertheless.
Or maybe you 'borrow' any note you like from anywhere - which is nonsense, of course. Probably depends on the interpreter.Last edited by ragman1; 11-16-2019 at 11:51 AM.
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Here's something from Jens Larsen. Seems very fair to me. At 16.28.
It seems every demo vid translates it differently, which means they either don't understand it or they can't do it. They all do the basic thing easily - 6dim scale produces 6 and dim chords - but then it gets fuzzy and they all start doing their own thing. Which, in terms of musical organisation, is chaos.
It's not 'simpler than classic theory', as is sometimes said, it's unclear and unstructured. It just seems simpler because there are only two kinds of chord. But that is naive, like trying to write Shakespeare with a 12 letter alphabet instead of 26 or something.
I expect to be told 'If you don't like it, shove off. No one's forcing you', etc. But that's to miss the point. This stuff is extant and needs unbiased examination. In my view anyway.
We're told that Wes used BH ideas but, according to some, BH himself said 'Wes never used it' - and they played together on some recordings. We're also told that Bach used it... no comment :-)
You don't have to join in with this, by the way, no one's forcing you
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I think you misunderstand the application. That google drive doc shows which BH 6/dim scale is appropriate for each chord.
Say the first three chords on that doc are the first 3 chords of Autumn Leaves, you could play Eb6/dim over the Cm, Gbmin6/dim over the F7, and Bb6/dim over the Bb. You might only have time to fit two or three chords from each scale over each one, depending on the tempo, but you can do it. The point is to create harmonic movement over each chord. So you change the BH scale accordingly. It is like playing lines made up of chords, over each of the original chords. That’s how you get more movement.
You don’t typically just play only Bb6/dim over the whole 2-5-1 just because it’s resolving to Bb.
So to create more movement you can do this:
Over Cmaj chords play C6/dim scale
Over Cmin chords play Eb6/dim scale (or Cmin6/dim scale)
Over C7 chords play Gmin6/dim
Over C7 altered chords play Dbmin6/dim scale
Over Cm7b5 chords play Ebmin6/dim scaleLast edited by grahambop; 11-16-2019 at 01:42 PM.
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Oh that’s what I do
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Graham -
You misunderstand the application. That google drive doc shows which BH 6/dim scale is appropriate for each chord.
Say the first three chords on that doc are the first 3 chords of Autumn Leaves, you could play Eb6/dim over the Cm, Gbmin6/dim over the F7, and Bb6/dim over the Bb
Okay, decent subs.
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Did you see my question in the previous post? Here:
I don't understand why the ii chord (Cm7) is now a (maj)6 inversion. If we're harmonising the Bb scale shouldn't the ii chord be a diminished and the iii chord be a 6? One could say BH now goes back to classic theory and subs the ii for the IV. Why, I don't know. But the problem there is that, in the 6dim scale, the 4 chord is also a diminished! Don't get this.
You might only have time to fit two or three chords from each scale over each one, depending on the tempo, but you can do it. The point is to create harmonic movement over each chord
Over Cmaj chords play C6/dim scale
Over Cmin chords play Eb6/dim scale (or Cmin6/dim scale)
Over C7 chords play Gmin6/dim
Over C7 altered chords play Dbmin6/dim scale
Over Cm7b5 chords play Ebmin6/dim scale
But this is exactly what I do anyway, and have been doing for years. It's on all my soundclips. And there are chromatic passing notes in there anyway. Whether they're the 'right ones' I have no idea. Whatever sounds okay at the time.
See this answer to someone who asked what I was playing to something (long before all this came up):
October 2019 - You Don't Know What Love Is
Last edited by ragman1; 11-16-2019 at 02:15 PM.
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I see I've been 'killed'. Oh dear. True though, what I said. Someone's being very vigilant. See how scared we are?
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Ragman, in this context the ‘scale’ is a ‘scale’ made up of chords, I.e. alternating 6th and dim chords (or min 6th and dim).
Honestly it is really difficult to explain this to someone who doesn’t know what the 6th/dim scales actually consist of.
Here is an example (I hope Alan Kingstone will forgive me for extracting this from his book, I can’t think how else to do it).
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Graham -
Oh, you mean a scale of chords. Right, okay.
I do know what they consist of. As your picture says. But you also said there were different ideas for lines. Described elsewhere as for 'horns' as opposed to piano, presumably.
But did you see my question before? I think that was valid. It arose from the vid guy saying 'BH treats the Cm7 (ii of Bb) as an Ab6'.
'I don't understand why the ii chord (Cm7) is now a (maj)6 inversion. If we're harmonising the Bb scale shouldn't the ii chord be a diminished and the iii chord be a 6? One could say BH now goes back to classic theory and subs the ii for the IV. Why, I don't know. But the problem there is that, in the 6dim scale, the 4 chord is also a diminished! Don't get this.'
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It’s just less shit to learn. It’s the same thing so we just to the conversion in your head.
Call it Cm7 if you like and convert Ab6. Doesn’t actually matter, although most of us would prefer to think of the I chord as whatever it is.
Same with calling an Am7b5 a Cm6
That way you have like 2 main scales (4 total) instead of one for every chord colour with a load of redundant stuff that’s repeated.
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Christian -
Eh?
Doesn't really matter, although censorship isn't pleasant.
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I haven’t a clue what you’re on about by now, sorry.
In the video as I recall he said Fm7 = Ab6? Not Cm7.
Either way, if the chord is Cm7 you don’t play Bb6/dim on it. You play the appropriate BH 6/dim scale for Cm which would be Eb6/dim. You don’t play a dim chord just because dim is second chord of Bb/dim. On each chord you use the 6/dim scale which translates for each chord. I feel like I’ve said this 1000 times now.
I think in all my posts in this thread I have given as much explanation as I can.
I am sorry if I wasn’t able to communicate the basic concept to you, I honestly don’t think I can do anything further.
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[QUOTE=grahambop;989358]
In the video as I recall he said Fm7 = Ab6? Not Cm7.
I am sorry if I wasn’t able to communicate the basic concept to you, I honestly don’t think I can do anything further
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Duh yes Fm7 not Cm7 = Ab6
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[QUOTE=ragman1;989362]Yes so while (and only while) the chord is Fm7, you play chords from the relevant 6/dim scale FOR THAT Fm7 CHORD, which is the Ab6/dim scale.
You DON’T play the second chord of Eb6/dim scale just because the key is Eb.
Each chord usually takes a different 6/dim scale. They don’t all follow the same 6/dim scale that the key uses.
Now I have said it 1001 times.
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Assuming you know most the substitutions (4 uses for minor 6, 3 uses for major 6 at least) and can play those scales in drop 3 and drop 2 easily on all string sets. Let's even assume you can borrow masterfully to suit your own taste.
In Alan's book alone you're missing Long-short, expand and contract, four note chords in tenths, Borrowing from the diminished scale, surrounding, Monk Moves, major to minor to minor with the 6th in the bass (less complicated than it sounds), Home and away movements, dominant 7 dimished scale, b5 diminished scale, the 3 diminished chords and their implications
Other concepts include MAJOR SCALE CYCLING (not 6th dim), using related dominants (you got hung up on no vanilla dominant in the 6th dim scale for some reason), whole tones, The blues/rhythm move Alan taught me in E-mail (and taught in the Howard Reese workshop I went to)
You're getting hung up on a small part of what he teaches (and to be honest, you're not really getting that yet) and calling it an incomplete theoryWhite belt
My Youtube
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Each chord usually takes a different 6/dim scale. They don’t all follow the same 6/dim scale that the key uses.
Now I have said it 1001 times.
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You wordy Brit scribes must think you owe it to Shakespeare to write as many words before you die to prove you have a worthy thought. Seemed like a good thread to post that observation. Turn everything into a boring essay. Don't have to defend every idea about an artform with no rules. Jazz is not proper, so get over it. :-)
Last edited by cosmic gumbo; 11-17-2019 at 02:35 AM.
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yeah let’s stick to discussing pickups and strings all day.
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yeah, bollocks!
White belt
My Youtube
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Gonads
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And people think jazz is boring.
Jeff Matz, Jazz Guitar:
http://www.youtube.com/user/jeffreymatz
"Jazz is like life...it goes on longer than you think, and as soon as you're like 'oh, I get it,' it ends."
--The Ghost of Duke Ellington
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As for the rest of you -
After that bombardment I thought I'd let the brain absorb the info for a while. Always works.
Came up with a thought or two - not that I want to bore anybody - and an experiment.
Basically the thoughts were that the main benefit of all this is obviously in chord melody, not that I do a lot of that. I prefer playing notes over chords. I prefer it, it suits me.
It strikes me that, in many ways, this is very similar to the way of filling out, say, a couple of bars of the same chord with inversions and dim chords, like G//Am/Bbo - G/B for 2 bars of G. It's more complex than that, or can be made more complex.
So I did an experiment, which was interesting. I put down the progression
Am7/D7 - Gm7/C7 - FM7
and then reharmed it as
C6/Ebo - Bb6/Dbo - F6
It's not a vast reharm of chord movements, just to see what flavours the use of 6 and dim chords gave to it soloing-wise.
I played something diatonic over the first Am7/D7 one, keeping to the chords, and then saw how that sounded over the reharm. Fitted nicely.
Then I put in some usual b9 and alt subs over the first Am7/D7 one and they fitted nicely too.
Then I played over the reharm, keeping to those chords, and did the same again. Also with subs like using dim runs and harmonic minors over the dims and usual stuff over the 6s (not deserting M7 sounds either). Also subbing the 4 possible dominant chords for each dim.
Obviously all that fitted, but then I played them all back over the first Am7/D7 progression. And they all fitted very nicely too.
So basically these reharms and substitutions work together. Perhaps not unsurprisingly, I don't know. There's also all the stuff that Joe listed out that I haven't done yet.
If anyone has any thoughts/insights into single-note playing that would be interesting.
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How about:
Am7/D7 - Gm7/C7 - FM7
and then reharmed it as
C6o/Ebm6o - Bb6o/Dbm6o - F6oLast edited by A. Kingstone; 11-17-2019 at 07:05 PM.
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You're confusing me. Why introduce yet another reharm? I was testing notes that work for the Am7/D7 thing against the simple reharm I did.
Why have you turned all the maj6s into diminished chords? Diminisheds instead of majors? Since when did a tune end on a diminished chord?
Or are you saying a dim6 (6o) is a chord? If it is, it's new to me!
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C6o= C Sixth Diminished Harmonized 8 note scale
Ebm6o - Eb Minor Sixth Diminished Harmonized 8 note scale
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See post no. 171 - the term C6o (or C6dim) means the C maj sixth diminished scale of chords, exactly as illustrated in that post.
For min6dim scale, just flat the third, no other difference.
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We've had this before and I don't think I'm that dumb, to be honest. When I talked about note-scales you said 'No, chord scales'. Now I'm talking about a chord reharm and you're saying 'No, we're talking about note scales'!
This confusion isn't my fault. All I did was reharm (a la BH idea of inversions + dim chords) the simple progression Am-D7-Gm-C7-F. I played standard lines over both sets of chords and found that everything I did fitted both very well.
So are you telling me now that I should be using different scales? I'm NOT talking about chord melody-type playing. I said that. I'm talking about single-note lines.
Please make it clear whether you're talking about chord voicings or single notes when you say 'scales'!!!
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We are all talking about scales of chords. Not single-note scales.
See post 171. That is what we are talking about.
You are the one who has started talking about single-note scales. That is a different subject. BH has a different system for that.
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Correct, and my post tonight was about - and only about - single note playing. Not my fault. What post were you all answering?
At the end of that post, which I admit was quite long, I asked:
'If anyone has any thoughts/insights into single-note playing that would be interesting.'
That still applies, if anyone can answer it. There's precious little on the net as far as I can see. It's all about the usual 6dim chord scale. In fact, all that has become tediously repetitive. It's as though that's all they know and as far as they've got.
Do you know there's not one video that I've seen where they discuss 'the knowledge' and then amply demonstrate it in a convincing manner. The guy who does the 'Things I have learned' vids got to Lesson 23 and did his usual crawl around the scales, etc, without any attempt at performance. When someone asked 'Can you play it' he said - after years of studying with BH - 'No, I wasn't at that class'.
You what? It's laughable. The tune? ATTYA. Good god.
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Graham -
Sorry, I'm not having a go at you. I just don't like phonies who want to be big nobs on the internet. You, I respect. You're accurate, helpful, and come up with the goods. You've done me proud on several occasions. And you're no phony. I don't forget this one, when you banged out lovely bebop. I know you weren't playing by rote, it's too long and fluent for that. And I can't think of anyone else here I've seen do it with equal ease.
So there. Bollox, as they say
Next page...
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Damn, something's happened to that recording. Have you got the original? You better repost it, it's not something that should be lost.
There's also your SoundCloud stuff. Blue Bossa's not a one-off.
Any Tele players here? What strings do you use?
Today, 03:25 AM in Getting Started