The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #1
    joelf Guest
    If anyone's interested---we'll see.

    I'm talking mostly about classical pieces, but I won't limit it to that alone. Ex: I have the Gil Evans Collection---all in concert!

    I recently got scores to: The Rite of Spring and La Mer (and have had for years Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra; several Beethoven String Quartets; masses of piano music by Brahms; Chopin; Rachmaninoff; Bach; Debussy.

    I don't want to be all over the map myself (though, as stated, I won't rein in anyone else---unless it gets too unwieldy, or unfocused). So let's start with 2.---and I'll take one over the other by consensus: The Rite of Spring (Dover edition, which has a nice quickie analysis in the forward); or La Mer (Dover Miniature Scores).

    Study guides: I ordered, and am disappointed in Debussy in Proportion (Roy Howitt). I expect dryness in analysis, but this one uses 'proportion' literally: the physical dimensions and proportions of pieces. Ugh! Lost me from p. 1. Simplicity! Recommendations are welcome.

    (Leonard Bernstein's Harvard Lecture series is wonderfully simple and clear. I've seen the one on Afternoon of a Faun, and Stravinsky generally, but no dice on La Mer thus far).

    Here is a terrific breakdown and performance of The Rite of Spring by the San Francisco Symphony, under Michael Tilson-Thomas, who also does the 'splainin'----and magnificently:




    I will lay back and see if there's interest before posting again. (Remember: jazz scores are fair game)...

  2.  

    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #2
    joelf Guest
    This came in the mail just now. Looks, at least at 1st glance, to be well-written and organized---not too stuffy:

    Bartok: Concerto for Orchestra by David Cooper

    Has: history of the piece, and its own place in history; 2 synopsis chapters; full analysis.

    This was always one of my favorite pieces, I owned for years a wonderful recording by Fritz Reiner and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (weirdly, on Columbia's 'Special Products' subset). Lost it, and mistakenly ordered Reiner with the Chicago---oh, well...



    I'll wait and see if there's any interest...

  4. #3
    joelf Guest
    The 1st thing to be approached in any study of Bartok's music is his love for, and active collection of (often with colleague Zoltan Kodaly) of peasant songs and their melodic materials. (He was careful to distinguish these from urban folk music---which he felt was 'artificial' and whose function was 'to furnish entertainment and...satisfy the needs of those whose sensibilities are of a low order'.

    Whatever. What this means to us, as composers and players, is that he collected and used some interesting scales---for one thing---that turned up in his own compositions.

    Ex: The 'acoustic' scale---that we would immediately recognize as our old friend, 'altered mixolydian', used routinely by jazzers in blues (throughout the changes in a common 12-bar blues) and V7 chords:

    C D E F# G A Bb C.

    I've seen this, and forms of diminished scales, turn up in both Bartok's orchestrations of peasant melodies, and his own Divertimento for Strings.

    Another interesting one: the 'gypsy' scale---which bears close resemblance to our harmonic minor (but for the F#):

    C D Eb F# G Ab B C

    Then there are scales containing more than 8 notes, like the 'arab' scale (and I find the name condescending, simplistic, and perhaps downright racist---as I do the name 'gypsy' scale. Well, I guess they had to call it something).

    C Db Eb F F# G# A Bb B C#

    More to come as I read on...

  5. #4
    joelf Guest
    It really comes into focus with the 'triumvirate': Cooper's book; the score (Boosey & Hawkes); and the above posted recording. I will post pages from the book and score, but I want to give my own thoughts 1st:

    1. Introduction

    That opening figure of ascending and descending 4ths in the cellos and basses is considered germinal material, as it is returned to; 'retrograded'; mined for pentatonic scales within. Remember, this is 1943. The 2nd Viennese school had come---with new rules. Schoenberg's Piano piece, Op 11 and his harmony treatise were already lingua franca among many newer composers. A darling pupil, Alban Berg, was using 4ths in his lieder in the early '00s. Debussy had explored whole-tone and pentatonic scales in his piano and orchestral oeuvre years before.

    Thus, a cornucopia of new materials were at hand, and though Concerto for Orchestra is tonal, it does not shy away from using any of these materials.

    More to come. Much more...

  6. #5

    User Info Menu

    Yes, Bartok considered all his music tonal. symmetrical pitch arrangements were a favorite device of Bartok, while you can find a lot of octatonic(dim scale) and whole tone stuff, he would also take pieces of diatonic modes and make symmetric collections with them

    Also 016 was a favorite cell he would use (the numbers are half steps, so C - Db - Gb would be one realization)

    This is a great resource
    https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/05...t_bibl_vppi_i2

    there is a whole chapter titled 'Symmetrical Transformations of the Folk Modes'

  7. #6
    joelf Guest
    Quote Originally Posted by BWV
    Yes, Bartok considered all his music tonal. symmetrical pitch arrangements were a favorite device of Bartok, while you can find a lot of octatonic(dim scale) and whole tone stuff, he would also take pieces of diatonic modes and make symmetric collections with them

    Also 016 was a favorite cell he would use (the numbers are half steps, so C - Db - Gb would be one realization)

    This is a great resource
    Sorry! Something went wrong!

    there is a whole chapter titled 'Symmetrical Transformations of the Folk Modes'
    Thank you so much for joining in!

    Thought I was gonna be here by my quasi-egghead lonesome. I'll go right to your link, and have also found a very helpful youtube page with a piano reduction unfolding as we hear Fritz Reiner conduct the Pittsburgh.



    Thanks again...

  8. #7
    joelf Guest
    The Cooper book has been very helpful (and amusing when he cites the 'dueling theorists---one, a Leibowitz, who wants to drum Bartok out of the Serialists for the sin of 'selling out'! with the Concerto by using more tonality, thereby 'abandoning' the advances of String Quartet #4). GET A LIFE, LEIBOWITZ!

    OK, mood swing over---LOL. But Cooper's breakdown of the materials, while sometimes mathematical in nature (I suck at math---some musician!) is very easy to follow. It's a great companion, and I've been marking the score per his observations.

    (BTW, I also ordered a book I once owned---and cherished: Bartok's own essays and letters.


    But ultimately I want to put down the books, sit there at piano with the reduction----and see what I can see...

  9. #8
    joelf Guest
    I wanted to put up this sound file, and at least a few pages of the score.

    It's a good bridge to the classical composers, b/c though it's based on 2 cells (indicated on p. 1 of the score) it's def swinging jazz, with a solo and canonic movement.

    The composer is one I highly respect, and study with on and off. He knows his onions, as you'll hear: Trombonist-composer Glenn Mills. The piece, Broad Daylight, is performed here by the Manhattan School Jazz Orchestra:
    Attached Images Attached Images
    Attached Files Attached Files

  10. #9
    joelf Guest
    Schoenberg's opus 11 piano pieces with score:



    And nice analysis:



    Notice, particularly in the 2nd piece, how the harmony---unmoored to tonal centers---'floats', creating a twilight, even surreal sound-world. One thinks of Debussy, in the sense of a feeling of floating or stasis, and the analysis isolates a whole-tone scale among the pitch sets. But this is a different animal entirely: not rooted in traditional scales, but the beginning of cell use, and the 'chords' (astonishingly sometimes sounding like post-bop jazz chords) may be accidental b/c the man definitely was not thinking chords in the sense we normally hear them.

    I find beauty here, and see how jazz writers and players later mined this gold, as well as that of Debussy; Ravel; Stravinsky; Bartok; Kodaly; Scriabin---and others. Even in the '40s Bud Powell was using pretty advanced materials, compared to his bebop contemporaries, in Glass Enclosure. George Russell was ahead of the pack, too. Jump ahead to the '60s and Tyner; Hancock; Trane; Woody Shaw---etc., etc.

    Jazz gave many things to the world of music---swing rhythm (African-derived but developed here) at the top of the list. But we can't forget that the Europeans were way ahead in Western harmony (though we must acknowledge African and other World harmony systems barely acknowledged in Western academia).

    And, lest we forget, many, if not most of the major composers were improvisers---they improvised cadenzas at keyboard, for one thing. Liszt was famous for it. The cadenzas were later written down, to mollify publishers and students...

  11. #10
    joelf Guest
    Just noticed the frequent meter changes---a la Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. Great minds thinking alike?

  12. #11
    joelf Guest
    Wanted to mention that I've been reading Bartok's Essays---which, among other interesting things like discussing his and Kolday's work as folk melody archivists) has not a little self-analysis of his works. Great to hear it from the composer's mouth. Enough critics, you know?

    I read through some examples from the 2nd Concerto for Piano and Orchestra. There's one passage (p. 422) mostly in 5ths, that bear remarkable resemblance to voicings I've heard Kenny Barron and other modern jazzers use. And this was 1939!

    Also ordered the piano reduction of Concerto for Orchestra.

    I fell in love with Schoenberg's Opus 11 piano pieces, and ordered those too. Again, a remarkable resemblance in the 'chords', which are really temporary moorings for his pitch sets, and post-bebop jazz chords. (Refer to the above performance and analysis)


    More to come...

  13. #12

    User Info Menu

    ^ nice fass...i just happen to be listening to bartok right now...the actual recording that turned bird on...sublime! ...been in my steady rotation for years


    BARTOK: Music for String Instruments Percussion and Celesta

    Los Angeles Chamber Symphony
    Harold Byrns, conductor

    I. Andante tranquillo
    II. Allegro
    III. Adagio
    IV. Allegro molto

    Capitol L8048
    Recorded in 1949
    First Recording

    cheers

  14. #13
    joelf Guest
    I'm still stuck on the Concerto for Orchestra and the quartets. Listened to the 2nd Piano/Orch. Concerto yesterday after playing through those passages. Didn't grab me---yet. Another fave: Divertimento for Strings...

  15. #14
    joelf Guest
    So the music for Schoenberg's Opus 11 came today. Sat down at the piano and had a go at the 1st few measures. Wanted an analysis, so I researched. Other than the low-keyed, plain-spoken one by Austin Patty (posted above) what I invariably found was pompous, wordy expositions offering no insight I could glean---by guys who seem to seriously need to get laid---or at least have a beer. And, hilariously, they face off and fight each other and defend their precious theories while attacking the others'. Dueling theorists! About as exciting as how friend and famous economist-talking-head-blogger (and former NYC jazz bassist!) Jared Bernstein described economists' ideas of a good time!


    I admit to being a lousy mathematician, and that's on me, and part of the problem, b/c there are many graphs offered. and they intimidate and lose me. But there's no way around analysis of especially atonal and serial music w/o some math. So I briefed myself with Patty's take on the 1st piece, and decided the hell with it---I'll sit at the piano and draw my own conclusions. My ears have rarely failed me, and anyway doing for oneself as the primary is always the best way. When you hit a wall, ask someone---just not those guys---LOL.

    The thing that hits me right off is what I've said repeatedly in these and other pages (and it's no profound insight): when the composer lands on a chord it's obvious how post-'50s jazz composers, pianists and other players have latched onto these chords---they just use them functionally in a whole different way. And Schoenberg's very 1st motive in the 1st piece, 1st to 2nd measures: (descending) B G# G natural---I can't tell you how many times I've heard those very notes in solos by Woody Shaw, Herbie Hancock, et al. I've used them---maybe transposed---myself in my own compositions.

    As Samuel Beckett would say: 'On!'...

  16. #15
    joelf Guest
    Quote Originally Posted by neatomic
    ^ nice fass...i just happen to be listening to bartok right now...the actual recording that turned bird on...sublime! ...been in my steady rotation for years


    BARTOK: Music for String Instruments Percussion and Celesta

    Los Angeles Chamber Symphony
    Harold Byrns, conductor

    I. Andante tranquillo
    II. Allegro
    III. Adagio
    IV. Allegro molto

    Capitol L8048
    Recorded in 1949
    First Recording

    cheers
    Will look into it for sure. Having Bartok's commentary on his own (and others') music in essay form is something I'll always cherish. I mean screw the egghead theorists when you can go right to the source, right?

    I'm immersed in Schoenberg's Opus 11, since the music arrived today---but it'll be back to Bela when the piano reduction of Concerto for Orchestra arrives shortly.

    Gonna be a summer of immersion and learning---spelled by the odd gig...

  17. #16

    User Info Menu

    I misundertand a bit what the question is...

    I always had scores and played from scores on piano and listened to recordings with scores. And I have quite a lot of scores I used a lot (Like all Bach's big works)... (and also quite a few that I opened only once)

    What is the question about analysis of the score? I mean... I usually listen or play and hear what is going on - the form and all.. and usually it is possible without a score.

    And the score is needed usually to check the details (if I hear something and get curious but cannot get by ear what's there precisely) or the arrangement nuances... or if you plan to conduct it.

  18. #17

    User Info Menu

    Hi, J,
    Interesting topic. I found the study of scores to be especially helpful when I was writing for Jazz/Rock big bands since I needed to write not only for horns: tenor sax/trumpets: Bflat; trombone: C, and alto sax:E flat but very specific bass lines written in the bass clef--yes, they could read music. The guitars and piano were written in block chords--hardly what you're talking about. One of the best books I've ever used for Jazz and all writing/voicings was Russ Garcia's "The Professional Arranger and Composer." Highly recommended. I also used to be able to get full Classical musical scores from the Chicago Public Library music collection which were free and valuable. Good playing . . . Marinero

  19. #18
    joelf Guest
    Quote Originally Posted by Jonah
    I misundertand a bit what the question is...

    I always had scores and played from scores on piano and listened to recordings with scores. And I have quite a lot of scores I used a lot (Like all Bach's big works)... (and also quite a few that I opened only once)

    What is the question about analysis of the score? I mean... I usually listen or play and hear what is going on - the form and all.. and usually it is possible without a score.

    And the score is needed usually to check the details (if I hear something and get curious but cannot get by ear what's there precisely) or the arrangement nuances... or if you plan to conduct it.
    No question, really---just a discussion.

    And you've discussed!

    But the analysis piece comes in when you want to study the materials for your own growth as composer, or general knowledge.

    Simple as that...

  20. #19
    joelf Guest
    Quote Originally Posted by Marinero
    Hi, J,
    Interesting topic. I found the study of scores to be especially helpful when I was writing for Jazz/Rock big bands since I needed to write not only for horns: tenor sax/trumpets: Bflat; trombone: C, and alto sax:E flat but very specific bass lines written in the bass clef--yes, they could read music. The guitars and piano were written in block chords--hardly what you're talking about. One of the best books I've ever used for Jazz and all writing/voicings was Russ Garcia's "The Professional Arranger and Composer." Highly recommended. I also used to be able to get full Classical musical scores from the Chicago Public Library music collection which were free and valuable. Good playing . . . Marinero
    Ha! Used to have Garcia's book---attracted to the title, but I was too young to really dig in. I remember he had a chapter, Wandering Harmonies (sounds like Wuthering Heights), where Debussy/Ravel-like movement was explored.

    I have books on score reading, but I find it a pain in the ass to do all that transposing, while holding the pedal down. The Gil Evans score collection is in concert---Mother of God. When I settled in here and finally got my things out of storage after years I was able to retrieve that one---marked up as hell. Gotta get to it and mark it up again.

    I think a great practical tool for classical score reading is piano reductions. All the important info is there, and it's 'wieldy'---way easier to read. I'm eagerly awaiting Concerto for Orchestra, and when I'm done it'll be La Mer.

    Orchestration is a different animal, and of course one needs the full score to study that. I have plenty of those, believe me. Right now, though, my interest is in the actual melodic, harmonic, rhythmic materials---especially the 20th Century pieces. I started writing over my head with a wild theater piece back in '95, and put it down til I had a firmer grasp of what I was doing harmonically. Seat of your pants will get you only so far. I'm ready to tackle finishing that wacky piece now...

  21. #20
    joelf Guest
    Bump.

    Thought this worth reviving...

  22. #21
    joelf Guest
    This is a good analysis of Schoenberg's Opus 11---focusing on the 1st piece.

    I was led to it b/c I've been TRYING---with my slow piano reading skills---to delve analytically into the 2nd piece, which is to me more lyrical. The slower tempo and repeated bass ostinato in piece 2 make it a bit easier for me to grab ahold of. As stated, there are chords and figures that foreshadow later jazz usage, though the jazzers were certainly thinking differently.

    This student, Mattia Aisemberg, gets into only piece 1 in depth, but does an excellent job explaining form; motific development; harmony. I marked my copy of the music as he spoke, and will review it for study---though it's hard as hell to play or even read...

    Last edited by joelf; 10-10-2021 at 08:04 PM.

  23. #22

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by joelf
    As stated, there are chords and figures that foreshadow later jazz usage, though the jazzers were certainly thinking differently.
    Sure, you see a lot of chord shapes in non-tonal music that look like extended harmony, but they dont function like it

    Cant really call the Bb-Ab-B-F in the first chord below a Bb7b9 for example, even though (ignoring the register and the pedaling) it resolves nicely to Eb-G


  24. #23
    joelf Guest
    Quote Originally Posted by BWV
    Sure, you see a lot of chord shapes in non-tonal music that look like extended harmony, but they dont function like it

    Cant really call the Bb-Ab-B-F in the first chord below a Bb7b9 for example, even though (ignoring the register and the pedaling) it resolves nicely to Eb-G

    Yeah---you gotta think like them. Not easy to do when you've been hearing and playing chords based on the old Roman numeral system your whole life. I mean I teach kids, so what am I gonna teach them, serialism? First of all I don't even understand it. Second of all if I did and started them off on that the parents would find me and kill me---slow and with torture and pain!

    It's interesting about shapes though. There are the visual kind, like we guitar players and pianists, etc., have to be aware of---if only intuitively. Then there are what you're alluding to. I guess what Schoenberg was trying to do was organize sound according to the way he heard it, and felt it---since he really thought tonality reached the absolute end with uber-chromatic Romanticism (even though he dove in hard in his early pieces). Debussy was reacting in a similar way I guess, but he and Ravel weren't ready to give up on chords as they were then used, they just cancelled on the 'progress' part.

    My problem is that I always let my ear lead me. But you can't go by the seat of your pants trying to understand, let alone write, this way. You have to learn the language like you learned the other ones. 2 things happened that drug me: I was doing a lot of writing in '95, maybe some of my best. I dove into this wild theater piece with a narrator and wacky story, parodying the Inferno; Film Noir and the Beat Poets. (I SWEAR!) I was going back & forth between a recognizable jazz language and what I took to be 20th Century classical. But I was in over my head and shelved it, realizing I needed a teacher. (I found one in the great Bill Finegan).

    Then, more recently, I had a truly gifted composition student. He was with me for 2-3 years, and I taught him all I could about the language I knew---pretty much jazz and the American Songbook. I did take classical in school, but my theoretical knowledge was sketchy. This guy wrote a very impressive piece and I pointed some things out, but again I was in over my head. I was teaching by ear. Then he started bringing in 'modern' 2-voice counterpoint pieces. I could hear when a consonance didn't fit with the more 'pungent' intervals but I didn't know enough about this kind of writing to do much else. It worked out that I was moving anyway, so I urged him to study with an old friend who knows jazz; orchestration; and the theory behind 'pitch sets' very well. And now that I'm back around NY I want to study with him myself.

    There's really no reason for holes in one's knowledge. The books and teachers---and auto-didactism are all there for the taking. Maybe I even started this thread b/c I'm hungry to learn this stuff. Maybe someone will come to the thread and turn me on to stuff. Aside from writing it doesn't hurt an improviser to expand the harmonic palette---as long as the resulting work comes out natural and not forced or 'tacked on'...

  25. #24

    User Info Menu

    Its really simple - you have intervals and gestures/phrases - just like tonal music. More challenging perhaps to string them together conerently

  26. #25
    joelf Guest
    Quote Originally Posted by BWV
    Its really simple - you have intervals and gestures/phrases - just like tonal music. More challenging perhaps to string them together conerently
    To me anyway!

    Gotta live with it a while. This is more interesting to me than modal jazz (except for the very beginning, when it was lyrical and not as long-winded), in which too often players end up in a trick bag---'stacking' chords. I listened to Lee Morgan Live at the Lighthouse, then The Real Mcoy. I dig McCoy's tunes and the band---and his early playing was mmmwahh!, but what he plays on 1 chord gets old quick to my ears. Lee just updated his blues and post-bop and sailed through the new type tunes like he wrote them.

    I still believe that composition is the best pathway to discovery. You can extract the elements of your piece and improvise off them...