Converting to minor

[olliehalsall]

I'm still a relative newbie to jazz guitar, although slowly getting better. There's one concept I keep seeing mentioned on threads: converting everything to the nearest minor. I've seen this linked to players like Pat Martino and Alan Holdsworth. What is the purpose of this?

[GuyBoden]

It makes it easier to think/practice only one type of scale, so everything converted to Dorian.

Allan Holdsworth did play the Dorian scale a lot, but many other scales too, but yes many converted to minor.

Pat Martino used Dorian with lots of chromatic embellishments to my ears.

It's the individual notes and their rhythmic placement that matter, not the chosen scale.

Listen to Pat Martino.

[Christian Miller]

Here’s a video I did about it

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[olliehalsall]

It makes it easier to think/practice only one type of scale, so everything converted to Dorian.

Allan Holdsworth did play the Dorian scale a lot, but many other scales too, but yes many converted to minor.

Pat Martino used Dorian with lots of chromatic embellishments to my ears.

It's the individual notes and their rhythmic placement that matter, not the chosen scale.

Listen to Pat Martino.

Thanks Guy, cool that there's a transcription. His phrasing is so great.

[olliehalsall]

Here’s a video I did about it

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thanks Christian I'll take a deep dive on that later

[AllanAllen]

I'm still a relative newbie to jazz guitar, although slowly getting better. There's one concept I keep seeing mentioned on threads: converting everything to the nearest minor. I've seen this linked to players like Pat Martino and Alan Holdsworth. What is the purpose of this?

If you’re new to jazz guitar, I wouldn’t recommend starting with the mental gymnastics some of the greatest minds of jazz guitarists ended on.

Start at the start… Major scale patterns, arpeggios, diatonic chords and inversions of all three. Play that stuff on a handful of tunes. Find a little group and you’ll stay busy for years.

[Cunamara]

Good point. We need a foundation in and understanding of the major scale and how it operates for generating melody and harmony before doing the converting to the minor thing. Unfortunately, both Holdsworth and Martino are rather opaque when explaining their idiosyncratic approaches.

[Christian Miller]

If you’re new to jazz guitar, I wouldn’t recommend starting with the mental gymnastics some of the greatest minds of jazz guitarists ended on.

Start at the start… Major scale patterns, arpeggios, diatonic chords and inversions of all three. Play that stuff on a handful of tunes. Find a little group and you’ll stay busy for years.

I don't know that I agree with this. That's all stuff I put in the category of 'learning how to play the guitar.' The truth being of course, that many students who want to get started in jazz haven't got around to learning this stuff, so often I end up teaching it anyway. But I don't think it specifically relates to playing jazz, although it is (maybe?) necessary for it.

Learning jazz OTOH is about checking out jazz directly. So, I think it's good to start with a model that you want to emulate. A very good model might be Charlie Christian, and he uses minor conversion a lot.

But it's hard to make recommendations to someone you don't know much about. 'Relative newbie' could mean a number of things.

[pamosmusic]

Also this:

Minor Conversion

[pamosmusic]

I don't know that I agree with this. That's all stuff I put in the category of 'learning how to play the guitar.' The truth being of course, that many students who want to get started in jazz haven't got around to learning this stuff, so often I end up teaching it anyway. But I don't think it specifically relates to playing jazz, although it is (maybe?) necessary for it.

Learning jazz OTOH is about checking out jazz directly. So, I think it's good to start with a model that you want to emulate. A very good model might be Charlie Christian, and he uses minor conversion a lot.

But it's hard to make recommendations to someone you don't know much about. 'Relative newbie' could mean a number of things.

I think I agree.

Absolute beginner, obviously not. And there’s always a danger of letting theory bog you down. But it’s surprisingly useful for — let’s say — your late beginner or early intermediate player (wtf that means)

[Tal_175]

If you’re new to jazz guitar, I wouldn’t recommend starting with the mental gymnastics some of the greatest minds of jazz guitarists ended on.

Start at the start… Major scale patterns, arpeggios, diatonic chords and inversions of all three. Play that stuff on a handful of tunes. Find a little group and you’ll stay busy for years.

Interestingly, in his book Linear Expressions Pat Martino argues that minor conversion is a simpler approach than the more commonly used pedagogy. Mind you that "more commonly used approach" he compares minor conversion with is CST.

[Tal_175]

The core simplification is a very common idea that exists outside of minor conversion.
You have two groups of chords that can be treated with the same vocabulary.

- Gmin7, C7, Emin7b5, Bbmaj7#4, F#7alt and A7alt (Dominant, subdominant group).
- Cmaj7, Amin7, Emin7 (Tonic group).

The vocabulary for these groups can come from any one of the chords in the family. In other words you can "convert" these groups into any one of their members. Since minor exists in both groups, if you choose minor, that means both groups can be converted to minor. That's Pat Martino's approach.
If you choose dominant for the first group (C7) then, you'll have to treat the tonic group with a different chord. That's Barry Harris's approach.

[Christian Miller]

If you choose dominant for the first group (C7) then, you'll have to treat the tonic group with a different chord. That's Barry Harris's approach.

Barry also has minor conversions in addition to this.

Interestingly, in his book Linear Expressions Pat Martino argues that minor conversion is simpler approach than the more commonly used pedagogy. Mind you that "more commonly used approach" he compares minor conversion with is chord-scale theory.

it's funny really, melodic minor harmony is just a branch of minor conversion... and people have been doing minor conversion since at least the 30s.

What I was driving at with Rick elsewhere was that if you relate it to melodic minor all the time, you may end up thinking only in terms of scales all the time instead of melodic ideas. But the conversions are exactly the same if you just think 'minor stuff' which is AFAIK what Pat means by 'topic'.

Am on Cmaj7
Gm on C7
Dbm on C7
Ebm on C-7b5
Bbm on C7sus4 (or C7)

One classic is the 'Cry Me a River lick*' which is often described as melodic minor, but it's really just a minor(add9) sort of thing. Here's a neat handout I found after a quick search:




You could do a lot worse than just get used to using m(add9)'s on everything. Charlie does it a lot, as do the boppers.

EXACT same logic as my video.

[Christian Miller]

I think I agree.

Absolute beginner, obviously not. And there’s always a danger of letting theory bog you down. But it’s surprisingly useful for — let’s say — your late beginner or early intermediate player (wtf that means)

I'm not quite sure what you are agreeing with

[AllanAllen]

I don't know that I agree with this. That's all stuff I put in the category of 'learning how to play the guitar.' The truth being of course, that many students who want to get started in jazz haven't got around to learning this stuff, so often I end up teaching it anyway. But I don't think it specifically relates to playing jazz, although it is (maybe?) necessary for it.

Learning jazz OTOH is about checking out jazz directly. So, I think it's good to start with a model that you want to emulate. A very good model might be Charlie Christian, and he uses minor conversion a lot.

But it's hard to make recommendations to someone you don't know much about. 'Relative newbie' could mean a number of things.

I just assume people are at the place I was when I called myself a jazz beginner. If they already know the foundation, great. If not, the time to start is today.

[AllanAllen]

Interestingly, in his book Linear Expressions Pat Martino argues that minor conversion is a simpler approach than the more commonly used pedagogy. Mind you that "more commonly used approach" he compares minor conversion with is CST.

Both of these systems assume the student has a grasp on diatonic harmony, and the rest of the foundation that comes with it.

I wouldn’t recommend either to someone who’s green. I would say shed the major scale and its chords. Learn some tunes by ear, it’s okay to cheat with the real book if you have too. We learn how to read music for a reason.

If someone is thinking chord names through Autumn Leaves, they can’t also be converting the chords to other chords and also be playing something that sounds good… It’s too much mental load. Or keeping track of which mode of the same scale they should be playing.

[Christian Miller]

TBH, I'm not 100% sure Charlie Christian really understood diatonic harmony on the guitar.

Come at me!

[GuyBoden]

If you want to convert everything to minor, don't watch Pat Martino tutorial videos that are full of obfuscation and convoluted ideas.

But, I always enjoyed his tremendous playing.

[rpjazzguitar]

I'm trying to think the process through.

Let's take a simple case. All of Me.

Cmaj. "minorize" to the relative minor, Am? Or might you "minorize" to Em? Bm7b5?

Next chord, E7. You could stay with Am, but say you want to hear the G#. Are we now going to start our minorization by thinking Am? Bm? F#m? Seems like "minorizing" to 5th mode A harmonic minor would work, but I don't see how that's any simpler than alternative approaches. B dorian? It has a C# - do we want that?

Next up, A7. Minorize to Em? Dm?

I'm not clear about how this is supposed to work.

[Tal_175]

Barry also has minor conversions in addition to this.

That's true. There is tritone's minor idea for dominants and 6th on the fifth for majors (which is the same as iii min 7). But a lot of his core line building concepts are based on various applications of family of dominants AFAIK. He talks about harmonic minor in the second Howard Rees workshop. Though I am not sure if he applies it derivatively.

[AllanAllen]

TBH, I'm not 100% sure Charlie Christian really understood diatonic harmony on the guitar.

Come at me!

How are you so good at countering me? It’s like you have a decade more experience…

[Christian Miller]

How are you so good at countering me? It’s like you have a decade more experience…

and I'm complete a**** who will argue the toss about anything.

It's all prioritisation, really. All of this stuff is good to learn

But, I think I would tend to start with moving licks around a chord progression in the same sort of way as I discussed above. I really think it is the quickest route to get you sounding good.

The resistance to people actually doing this has... surprised me. But I think it works!

The guitar is not a naturally diatonic instrument - the piano is. So to understand bebop, classical music etc, it's kind of important to get into that. Which I think is often best done at the piano.

OTOH many jazz guitarists have a more chromatic/transpositional approach, and I can't think of a player that exemplifies that better than Charlie C.

[olliehalsall]

But it's hard to make recommendations to someone you don't know much about. 'Relative newbie' could mean a number of things.

Not a newbie in terms of guitar, i've been playing for decades. But jazz had always eluded me,until I read an interview with John Etheridge where he talked about how all the old classic players "basically played off chord shapes". That was a light bulb moment for me. Hasn't made me a jazz player but I can do cartoon approximations of Charlie Christian . I know I need to spend way more times studying standards.

Unfortunately, both Holdsworth and Martino are rather opaque when explaining their idiosyncratic approaches.

Holdsworth had some very strange concepts, like he'd mention writing out hundreds of permutations of scales using mathematics. I guess that's one of the things that threw me off the whole 'converting to minor' stuff - how did that fit with his system?

[Tal_175]

I'm trying to think the process through.

Let's take a simple case. All of Me.

Cmaj. "minorize" to the relative minor, Am? Or might you "minorize" to Em? Bm7b5?

Next chord, E7. You could stay with Am, but say you want to hear the G#. Are we now going to start our minorization by thinking Am? Bm? F#m? Seems like "minorizing" to 5th mode A harmonic minor would work, but I don't see how that's any simpler than alternative approaches. B dorian? It has a C# - do we want that?

Next up, A7. Minorize to Em? Dm?

I'm not clear about how this is supposed to work.

I am not sure if I would consider some of the above to be the most obvious choices. For example Bm7b5 to minorize Cmaj? I mean that's a cool sound but not a good way to outline the chord's function. I listed what I consider to be more inside options in post #12.


Aside from that I am not sure what is not clear to you about how this works? Pat Martino's Linear Expressions have a large variety of minor lines (that's all to book is, minor lines). The idea is to use these lines in a manner, for example, described in post #12. You can analyze them or make decisions based on which lines you like the sound of over a given chord.

Another approach is to use minor scales as a way to organize melodic ideas. Some people make a distinction between scales and melodic ideas. To me that's a false dichotomy. Scales provide an organization for internalizing melodic structures and exploring melodic ideas. That is the idea behind the what Barry Harris calls ABC's or what many melodic pattern books like "Patterns for Jazz" are based on (often used by horn players). Once you get good at coming up with lines derived from, say, the dominant scale, you can apply the lines to a group of chords. In the case of Pat Martino, the lines are derived from mostly the dorian scale (but also some MM or natural minor).

[pamosmusic]

I'm not quite sure what you are agreeing with

whoops I agree with you, in that I don’t think I agree with Allan.