Approaches to Improvisation

[BreckerFan]

What exactly the difference between outlining harmony and melodic lines/floating over the changes/flowing through the changes/insert next catch phrase continues to be an unsearchable mystery.

[Mick-7]

I think with Joe Pass, it goes without saying as evident in the exercises that follow the exercise description.

That's how Joe plays, do you expect Joe Diorio type lines from him? And he played plenty of nondiatonic notes, e.g., altered chord tones over the dominant 7th chords, how does a F# or G# note outline a plain C7 chord?

Mick, you tend in some of your recent posts to talk as though creating good melodic lines and outlining the changes are mutually exclusive things. I don't think that's the case at all.

Well, if I gave that impression (that they are mutually exclusive) it was not intentional.

[grahambop]

Mick, you tend in some of your recent posts to talk as though creating good melodic lines and outlining the changes are mutually exclusive things. I don't think that's the case at all.

yes I’ve always felt that a good solo kind of implies the changes anyway. To me it makes sense that if your lines contain quite a lot of 8th notes (as bebop solos tend to) that they are bound to encompass a lot of the harmonic information for each chord change.

I learned jazz by copying a lot of bebop/hard bop-type players e.g. Joe Pass, Wes, Dexter Gordon, Chet Baker etc. so I think I just naturally assimilated a melodic vocabulary that is built around chord tones and passing notes. So I don’t have to think too much about ‘outlining changes’, it sort of happens anyway (hopefully!).

[Mick-7]

What exactly the difference between outlining harmony and melodic lines/floating over the changes/flowing through the changes/insert next catch phrase continues to be an unsearchable mystery.

As I understand it, the textbook definition of "outlining the changes" is emphasizing chord tones, versus playing a lot of nonchord tones, chord extensions or nondiatonic /altered notes. Kind of a "you know it when you hear it" situation.

[grahambop]

That's how Joe plays, do you expect Joe Diorio type lines from him? And he played plenty of nondiatonic notes, e.g., altered chord tones over the dominant 7th chords, how does a F# or G# note outline a plain C7 chord?

Another strange distinction, I would say an altered dominant is the more usual sound in jazz (when it’s a true functioning dominant) rather than the ‘plain’ chord.

[pamosmusic]

Let me try this.

Jazz lines are kind of expected to express harmony. That’s a part of the idiom.

two important caveats

1. Changes for a tune are probably fluid, even from chorus to chorus on the same performance.

2. You are expected to express harmony, but not necessarily to express *the* harmony. So lines express harmony, but that harmony might break loose from the rhythm section or the lead sheet changes in pretty dramatic ways.

eh? Anyone?

[pamosmusic]

As I understand it, the textbook definition of "outlining the changes" is emphasizing chord tones, versus playing a lot of nonchord tones, chord extensions or nondiatonic /altered notes. Kind of a "you know it when you hear it" situation.

I think Brecker is implying that a good melodic line will very likely outline harmony.

If they don’t, they’ll probably use some other device to keep your ear on the hook — sequences etc

[Tal_175]

And he played plenty of nondiatonic notes, e.g., altered chord tones over the dominant 7th chords, how does a F# or G# note outline a plain C7 chord?

Again, we have a very different understanding of what it means to outline harmony. The chart doesn't have to say, "OK now alter the dominant" to play alterations. A resolving dominant can always be outlined with altered notes (F# and G# are b5, #5 of C7). Alternatively these can be chromatic passing notes depending on how the line is played.

[BreckerFan]

But playing alterations doesn't mean you aren't playing chord tones. And the alterations themselves imply some kind of harmony; even the most outside substitutions are usually based on some non-diatonic chord.

That's why this hard distinction between the two doesn't really make sense to me, especially in the context of 8th note lines. Lines imply harmony; the point of the exercise is to work on being clear in the harmony your lines imply, whether that is totally diatonic or includes alterations or substitutions. The goal is that in hearing the lines you recognize the harmony (even with substitutions, as good use of substitutions shouldn't make the harmony completely unrecognizable).

So the fact that Pass plays a line over C7 with F# and G# doesn't surprise me, because I bet the line also contains a Bb and an E, which means he's just implying altered over a dominant, which is completely standard. Harmony successfully outlined, melodically outlined even.

[Christian Miller]

I mean I can play Dm7 Dbo7 Cm7 B7b5 on Bb G7 C-7 F7 I'm still playing chord tones.

A lot of what we call extensions are an emergent property of people not quite reading off the same hymn sheet.

[BreckerFan]

Let me try this.

Jazz lines are kind of expected to express harmony. That’s a part of the idiom.

two important caveats

1. Changes for a tune are probably fluid, even from chorus to chorus on the same performance.

2. You are expected to express harmony, but not necessarily to express *the* harmony. So lines express harmony, but that harmony might break loose from the rhythm section or the lead sheet changes in pretty dramatic ways.

eh? Anyone?

Exactly.

[pamosmusic]

Hey here’s another fun one …

Question: When is a note other than 1 3 5 7 an extension rather than a nonchord tone?

Answer: when you make it one.

Followup question: how do you make it one?

[lawson-stone]

I have the cassette that accompanied the book, I'll see if I can convert it to mp3 and share it. Not sure if I still have a cassette player that will work for the conversion.

It's on a CD that comes with the book for $14 from Amazon. Worth it.

[BreckerFan]

Hey here’s another fun one …

Question: When is a note other than 1 3 5 7 an extension rather than a nonchord tone?

Answer: when you make it one.

Followup question: how do you make it one?

I'd say context

If you play E-G-B-D-C over a Cmaj7 chord I'd call the 9th and extension. If you play D-F-A-D-E-C-A or something I'd call if a non-chord tone.

Edit: so I guess that still boils down to when you're using it as an extension vs when you're using it as a non-chord tone lol

[pamosmusic]

I'd say context

If you play E-G-B-D-C over a Cmaj7 chord I'd call the 9th and extension. If you play D-F-A-D-E-C-A or something I'd call if a non-chord tone.

I think if I were to spell out as many contexts as I could, they would all involve leaving the note exposed in a skip. So for that note D over C major

G A B C D E … not a chord tone

G D C … maybe a chord tone but probably not.

G D B … a chord tone.

That’s simplistic, but I think it’s true more often than it’s not. I also think it informs the way I think about stepwise chord scale exercises.

This is also a place where Jordan Klemons and Stefons melodic triads stuff can be super helpful to think about.

[Christian Miller]

Hey here’s another fun one …

Question: When is a note other than 1 3 5 7 an extension rather than a nonchord tone?

Answer: when you make it one.

Followup question: how do you make it one?

I don’t know I’m playing 1 3 5 7, it’s just not the chord that you’re playing because your chord is cringe.

Don’t number notes from the root. It’s silly.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[ragman1]

Well, it seems RLetson has cottoned on. I hope he doesn't mind my quoting him.

'It seems to me that an all-eighths exercise is just that--a skill-building activity in which one 1) maintains a rigid metrical framework while 2) finding notes that connect to but expand or vary the as-written tune. An actual, on-purpose, expressive improvisatory passage would not limit itself to any arbitrary single-factor rule. In Lawson's ATTYA demo, it is the departures from metronomic straight-eighths that make the passage interesting musically. It's even more noticeable in the "Wave" video.'

He also says he doesn't take solos so he might not really be getting it. However, I'd say it may well be that it's precisely because he's not involved in it that he can see without a particular bias.

-------------------

There's also one factor that no one's mentioned so far. Players are generally of two types. There are what I call 'spider crawlers'. That is, their hands are more or less at right-angles to the neck and the four fingers crawl over it. Joe Pass was a player like that.

Then there are the '1 and 3' players who finger it more like blues players. The hand is angled backwards a bit and the primary fingering done with the first and third fingers. The pinky's also used but not so much. Wes Montgomery was a '1 and 3' player.

If you look at videos of these two players and their styles, they're different.

The first one is Joe Pass and the second is Wes. You can watch the whole of the Joe Pass one but, to save time, Wes plays single lines at

21.39
36.08
40.20

I'd say these 8ths exercises are designed for the 'spider' types. They wouldn't suit a '1 and 3' player.

I'm a '1 and 3' player and, as it happens, so are players like Mr Beaumont who plays a bit like George Benson. On the other hand, the 'spiders' here are pamosmusic, grahambop, CliffR, and so on - all of whom are dead set on the 8ths exercises.

This isn't why I don't like exercises, by the way, I'm just pointing it out. Make of it what you will.

[Tal_175]

I'd say these 8ths exercises are designed for the 'spider' types. They wouldn't suit a '1 and 3' player.

Wes Montgomery could play 8th note lines through the changes like it's nobody's business. It's time to listen to some Wes I guess. Being a "1 and 3" player doesn't mean the player has such massive gaps in their playing. Not all of them anyway.

[ragman1]

Wes Montgomery could play 8th note lines through the changes like it's nobody's business.

Obviously, that's why I posted him. George Benson too.

My real point was that, as a '1 and 3' player myself, I know that trying to change my style to 'crawling' felt completely unnatural. I tried it once or twice and it was pointless. Just not made that way. And I dare say it would be true the other way round too.

Again, not taking sides, just saying.

[supersoul]

Obviously, that's why I posted him. George Benson too.

My real point was that, as a '1 and 3' player myself, I know that trying to change my style to 'crawling' felt completely unnatural. I tried it once or twice and it was pointless. Just not made that way. And I dare say it would be true the other way round too.

Again, not taking sides, just saying.

I like the exercise, but it's just an exercise. I don't think my playing sounds at all like that exercise.
So why do it? Personally, I just like doing it, and if it makes me a better player, that's a nice side effect. I know that I practice a lot of things that I never use, at least consciously.

A bigger question might be: do you think exercises are detrimental? That somehow, by practicing exercises, you are harming your actual playing? Interfering with the spontaneous flow that is improvisation, or some

[MinToyTot]

Don’t number notes from the root. It’s silly.

Could you elaborate on this? I can see how "numbering" could be seen as sort of redundant shorthand for the actual intervals in play but it still seems useful (or at least harmless) when describing a tone relative to a specific, known chord.

[lawson-stone]

As I understand it, the textbook definition of "outlining the changes" is emphasizing chord tones, versus playing a lot of nonchord tones, chord extensions or nondiatonic /altered notes. Kind of a "you know it when you hear it" situation.

That's the problem. You spend too much time with the "textbook" and not enough time playing. Theory is just second-order reflection on successful music-making. It is a description after the fact. I haven't really heard you outline changes, play solid 8th-note lines that accentuate the harmony, or anything like that. At some point we put the books away and cultivate the music on the instrument.

[lawson-stone]

I mean I can play Dm7 Dbo7 Cm7 B7b5 on Bb G7 C-7 F7 I'm still playing chord tones.

A lot of what we call extensions are an emergent property of people not quite reading off the same hymn sheet.

I think that's called "One Note Samba." A huge epiphany for me one day when I realized that One Note Samba's characteristic line was just substitutions for 1-6-2-5.

[lawson-stone]

Please tell me if I'm being dense, but it seems to me that an all-eighths exercise is just that--a skill-building activity in which one 1) maintains a rigid metrical framework while 2) finding notes that connect to but expand or vary the as-written tune. An actual, on-purpose, expressive improvisatory passage would not limit itself to any arbitrary single-factor rule. In Lawson's ATTYA demo, it is the departures from metronomic straight-eighths that make the passage interesting musically. It's even more noticeable in the "Wave" video. So the exercise amounts to "make your fingers operate in this limited way at this tempo while also finding interesting or satisfying notes that are not just the melody"--right?

But then, I don't take solos and have no ability to produce linear improvisation at all, so what do I know.

In my experience, playing these "all 8th note" exercises attempting to outline the chord changes are exactly the source of the places where I end up playing more "musically." It's like lifting weights. I don't work out in the gym so that next time I see a barbell on the ground I can pick it up. But doing that workout in the gym makes everything else I have to do physically easier, smoother, and I have more choices since I have greater power and flexibility in my body. At my age--70 years!-- that's a big deal. But if you don't do the hard work in the gym, or at least something like it, you don't get to swing those 35 bales of hay at 80 pounds each over the fence while your wife drools over your raw physicality (growwwwwwl!).

8th note arpeggio and scale work is the gym. It isn't making the music, but it's developing the familiarity with the fretboard, the dexterity of hands linked to the discernment of the ear... all of which you need to make music.

Some of the clips I've heard on here clearly show exactly that some people need to do more of this 8th Note chord drill exercises.

Just my opinion, worth what you pay for it.

[Tal_175]

I'll post my 8th note outline of Yesterdays (and/or other tunes) tomorrow. I didn't have time today.

The next exercise we can do is it to pick a tune and play three choruses as follows:
- Play the melody in the first chorus
- Play 8th note continuous outline of the harmony in the second chorus
- Improvise freely in the third chorus.

This will make the benefits of the exercise more apparent.