Getting Started with Chromaticism / Approaches / Enclosures

[GuyBoden]

If I understand it, the idea is that you have a target note.

In most of the examples the strong beats (right on 1 and 3, for example) are chord tones.

So, if you're playing eighth notes in 4/4, you start on a chord tone. Then you have three unspecified notes and then another chord tone. So, 1 and 3 are chord tones. 1& 2 2& don't have to be.

So, how are you going to connect the chord tones in a way that doesn't sound too jagged?

I'd probably just scat sing until I found something I like and then I'd put it on the guitar.

But, for a more structured approach, you could pick chord tones for 1 and 3. Then, decide that 1& be a half step from 1. And, then, that 2& be a half step from 3. And, then you fiddle around until you get something that sounds good to you.

If you can, write the line in a notebook or notation software in standard notation. That has a way of cementing things in memory.

Then you could mix in whole steps, or other intervals. You could listen to the greats and copy some of their ways of connecting things.

And, whatever you do, the most important thing is time-feel. So, don't make the mistake that some have (me) and neglect time feel while you're doing a lot of musical math.

Simplistically, I think that adding approach notes allowed players to play chord tones on the down beats, 1 and 3. Obviously, it has become more and more complex over the years.

[Christian Miller]

Simplistically, I think that adding approach notes allowed players to play chord tones on the down beats, 1 and 3. Obviously, it has become more and more complex over the years.

I mean it was more complicated than that 300 years ago.

One important distinction between jazz and European music is jazz has upbeats baked into its basic rhythmic matrix - such as in the clave - while for western music subversion on the down beat/up beat is always going against the grain.

If you put a chromatic neighbour tone on the beat in classical music the effect will always be tension, whereas in jazz this isn’t always true.

As much as I like the forward motion concept I think this is an important thing that it doesn’t really cover.

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[GuyBoden]

I mean it was more complicated than that 300 years ago.

We're still trying to catch up with Bach.

[cmajor9]

If you put a chromatic neighbour tone on the beat in classical music the effect will always be tension, whereas in jazz this isn’t always true.

I don’t know that putting a chromatic note on the beat is any less tension in jazz, but rather its an accepted and even expected tension. The music of the time reflects/conveys the tension of the time.

[GuyBoden]

Slight Digression: Can anyone point me toward a source for where the term "enclosures" originated, or how/when/where it got popularized?

I consider myself a fairly well educated musician: I earned a Bachelor of Music degree from The Berklee College of Music, and a Master of Music degree from The New England Conservatory of Music. I studied music theory & arranging in high school before getting those degrees, and I continued reading academic papers and articles for years after getting those degrees. Plus I took guitar lessons from a handful of hip literate jazz cats (including Chuck Loeb! ...once) throughout my late teens.

But all of that education was pretty much before the explosion of the internet. And in all that education I never encountered the term "enclosures".

Reading a summary of "enclosures" (thanks to Google's AI Overview) I get the impression it's just another name for what I was taught to call Upper + Lower Approach Notes. Is that all it is?

And, is "enclosures" a term that sprung up in the last ~25 years via some internet influencer(s), or was it a legitimate musical term from way back that I simply managed to never cross paths with?

Thanks.

'Enclosures' are mentioned in "David Baker's - How to Play Bebop 1 on Page 9". (A very, very, extremely popular Jazz book.)

Published 1st Jan 1988 by Alfred Publishing Company.

See extract scan from my copy of the book below:

[pamosmusic]

I don’t know that putting a chromatic note on the beat is any less tension in jazz, but rather its an accepted and even expected tension. The music of the time reflects/conveys the tension of the time.

That’s kind of what makes tension — being unexpected or less generally acceptable.

If it’s quiet at the dinner table because that’s how people like to eat, there’s no tension. If it’s quiet at the dinner table because your little brother just said something profane, then there’s tension.

[Jimmy blue note]

When I was learning improvisational music (jazz), it seemed that everyone I knew had two books that were a given and what became of that after was up to the individual. There was a time when the ear was the judge that established legitimacy. Coltrane, Ayler, Burton, Mick Goodrick, Cecil Taylor, Baker, Bill Evans, Carla Bley, Steve Swallow and so many more all acknowledged their roots in the same wellspring.
The books that were on their shelves? Walter Piston and Vincent Persichetti.
These days I don't hear those names at all. But they'll always be my go to.

The ornamental melodic devices within those books are not only relevant to today's contemporary music, but they open doors up for the inquiring mind to the deep history of western classical music and the many layers of hidden gems just waiting to be tapped. I learned the language from Archie Shepp and he never shied away from citing Piston and Persichetti whether you called them enclosures or appogituras, or "Chromatic licks" or melodic phrases and approach tones.

But one thing I've noticed, before institutional music schools made the improvisational language a quantifiable study with its own criteria of legitimacy, musicians learned from as broad a sphere of influence as they could and the "final grades" were based on how well you could defend your own sound.

If you listen enough, you'll start to hear it. If you hear it, you can start to play it. If you impart your own human feel to it, you can convey. If that sounds good, it is good.
This process takes patience and devotion.

[Christian Miller]

I don’t know that putting a chromatic note on the beat is any less tension in jazz, but rather its an accepted and even expected tension. The music of the time reflects/conveys the tension of the time.

In jazz it basically depends


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[jamiehenderson1993]

Thanks so much for all this useful information folks - rest assured I'm appreciative of the knowledge-base here & am so grateful you're all so willing to share.
Thanks