The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
Reply to Thread Bookmark Thread
Posts 1 to 24 of 24
  1. #1
    Hi!

    Classical music is endless treasure house for us "non-classical" players too. I was practicing one of the caprises from Pierre Rode and noticed two technical points that I wanted to merge into my playing. Here is the lesson video. I hope you like it!"Stealing" from classical composers"Stealing" from classical composers
    Cheers, Mikko




    Lähetetty minun SM-A035G laitteesta Tapatalkilla

  2.  

    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #2

    User Info Menu

    Very nice. Good topic of borrowing from classical and I also like the specific idea. I've also been meaning to work on this. The 1st idea I want to work is the canon, it sounds really nice on organ. Like Jimmy Smith at 10:10 after a climax on my funny valentine.


  4. #3

    User Info Menu

    For what it's worth you are definitely master with the instrument.

    I am not a big fan of 'borrowing' from classical composers.

    But I think what you demonstrate in your video is exactly the case when the borrowing fits jazz context.

  5. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by Jonah
    For what it's worth you are definitely master with the instrument.

    I am not a big fan of 'borrowing' from classical composers.

    But I think what you demonstrate in your video is exactly the case when the borrowing fits jazz context.
    Thank you very much!

    Lähetetty minun SM-A035G laitteesta Tapatalkilla

  6. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by Jimmy Smith
    Very nice. Good topic of borrowing from classical and I also like the specific idea. I've also been meaning to work on this. The 1st idea I want to work is the canon, it sounds really nice on organ. Like Jimmy Smith at 10:10 after a climax on my funny valentine.

    I don't consider myself jazz player nor classical. I just love to suck different influences from different music styles and try to create voice I can call my own."Stealing" from classical composers"Stealing" from classical composers

    Lähetetty minun SM-A035G laitteesta Tapatalkilla

  7. #6

    User Info Menu

    That's a good approach. I think it's working well. It helps create interesting material.

  8. #7

    User Info Menu

    Yes… but musicians need to be not thieves but pirates. Steal and use the musical idea in any way that you can, for whatever you want.

    Music can be freedom, if we are willing to take chances.

    (If you steal my pirate metaphor just give me credit).

  9. #8

    User Info Menu

    Classical is such a broad term and, even in the most traditional sense, covers so much ground it is inevitably a great place to find ideas. So much beauty and tension, so many great parts we can be inspired by.

    My fear is it becomes much likne Yngwie or 70s "fusion", where they sorta took the worst of each genre and fused them to create something far worse than had they not been fused (do you see my anti-fusion bias?).

  10. #9

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by AaronMColeman
    Classical is such a broad term and, even in the most traditional sense, covers so much ground it is inevitably a great place to find ideas. So much beauty and tension, so many great parts we can be inspired by.

    My fear is it becomes much likne Yngwie or 70s "fusion", where they sorta took the worst of each genre and fused them to create something far worse than had they not been fused (do you see my anti-fusion bias?).
    Three things produce “bad” music.

    First, economic concerns. There is good and bad about everything, but if a person is trying to reach as many people as possible, they will not ask people to really think.

    Second, is when a musician is trying to be able to express their own particular voice but has not been able to really have it tempered to elucidate that vision.

    Third, is when a musician is not willing to take any risks, or lack enough self esteem to be creative. Music can become like painting with numbers.

    However, if I like some music or not, is really about me and not the music. What speaks to me is always about my own vision/spirit/voice.

    It is difficult to create a objective system that would allow for one to assay music.

    I personally can not understand why someone could enjoy a simple chord prog, with a mediocre melody, and a predictable rhythm, being performed with out any improvisation. However, that is what we have. I went to a rock concert recently, with some well know musicians that had created platinum albums… I was bored sh’tless. I guess it is like comfort food for some, or reliving the past. However the experience seemed so ersatz to me.

  11. #10

    User Info Menu

    I have ambiguous feeling about mixing things. In this topic it is unevitable to mention Dave Brubeck's name. Anyone can admit, he is a great musician, did great things to popularize music, but I have to admit, this is not my cup of tee.


    There is a difference between mixing styles and borrowing and idea. As a few bars borrowing may be interesting, the conceptual mixing may end with a sterile result.

    Maybe its me, I like steak, I like crème brûlée but I can not imagine a food creation born by mixing the those concepts.

  12. #11

    User Info Menu

    Gabor, crème brûlée on steak is a pretty scary thought!

    Tal Farlow stole/pirated or as he called it ‘lifted’ ideas from several classical composers. He would look for melody lines that could be turned into a lick. His favorites were Faure, Debussy, Ravel… the French Impressionists. Several lessons we sat listening to records (1990))) with him pointing something out then playing it perfectly. I tried)
    Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun I recall being a favorite of his. If you take some of those lines and speed them up, you’ll get the idea.
    The artist Hans Hartung said ‘you must see through the eyes of the past to see the future’… or something close to that.

  13. #12

    User Info Menu

    When I got interested in playing classical guitar, one of the first pieces I worked on was Bach's prelude BWV 999. One of the things I did was to go through and analyze the harmonic structure, coming up with a very jazz like chord sequence. Looked for the edition I have with the changes written in recently, seems to have gone missing or I'd post the sequence here.

  14. #13

    User Info Menu

    Brad… yup.. Bach’s big organ fugues often end with:
    7-9 to 7-b9 to root.
    Quite a few years before jazz)))

  15. #14

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by brad4d8
    When I got interested in playing classical guitar, one of the first pieces I worked on was Bach's prelude BWV 999. One of the things I did was to go through and analyze the harmonic structure, coming up with a very jazz like chord sequence. Looked for the edition I have with the changes written in recently, seems to have gone missing or I'd post the sequence here.
    its a lot of fun taking Bachs harmonic structures and improvising on them, both in a classical in jazz style.

    In terms of the harmony the main difference I would say apart from the use of straight major and minor tonic chords is the way that dissonances are prepared and resolved; but Bach can be strikingly dissonant and ‘out’ sometimes.

    Brad Mehldau gets a lot of mileage from this sound world
    Last edited by Christian Miller; 12-15-2022 at 01:26 PM.

  16. #15

    User Info Menu

    I’ve been working on classical improv a lot lately and one thing you end up doing is taking various figures in Bach, Scarlatti and so on and transposing to different keys. Ideas that outline backcycling seventh chords using guide tones are really common, so it’s jazz friendly out of the box lol.

    obviously I cannot resist putting them into All the Things You Are. I’ll maybe post some examples at some point. One thing you learn is how much of jazz is in the rhythm.

    the result is pleasing, but usually a bit too kitsch to use in earnest. Sometimes I guess it could work? Conversely some standards work well as vehicles for pseudo baroque improvisation while others are a much less natural fit (formally however it’s completely different, AABA isn’t really a common fixture of baroque dance movements etc.)

    Incidentally I notice Bach rarely continues a pattern too long compared to some of his contemporaries; he likes to shake up things and vary them. Maybe one reason they thought his music a bit overcooked back then.

    I remember it made his arias challenging to learn and sing (back in my classical voice days) compared to Handel.
    Last edited by Christian Miller; 12-15-2022 at 01:28 PM.

  17. #16

    User Info Menu

    One thing that I started doing a while ago was grafting the Presto from BWV 1001 onto Stella by Starlight - i.e. just changing the note choices to fit over the chord changes of Stella, keeping in tact the general shape of the Bach. I should probably dig it out to see whether it sounds good for an etude of sorts...

    I like Kurt Rosenwinkel and Jean-Paul Brodbeck's Chopin project album.

  18. #17

    User Info Menu

    Never thought of Handel’s choral music in a class with Bach. Too many half notes. (I had classical singing days too, long long gone)

    Hoping you guys are familiar with the original Swingle Singers Bach album, that is a text book example of making Bach live without any changes. Just great voices and timing.


  19. #18

    User Info Menu

    There are no half notes in Handel, only minims.

  20. #19

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by Christian Miller
    I’ve been working on classical improv a lot lately and one thing you end up doing is taking various figures in Bach, Scarlatti and so on and transposing to different keys. Ideas that outline backcycling seventh chords using guide tones are really common, so it’s jazz friendly out of the box lol.

    obviously I cannot resist putting them into All the Things You Are. I’ll maybe post some examples at some point. One thing you learn is how much of jazz is in the rhythm.

    the result is pleasing, but usually a bit too kitsch to use in earnest. Sometimes I guess it could work? Conversely some standards work well as vehicles for pseudo baroque improvisation while others are a much less natural fit (formally however it’s completely different, AABA isn’t really a common fixture of baroque dance movements etc.)

    Incidentally I notice Bach rarely continues a pattern too long compared to some of his contemporaries; he likes to shake up things and vary them. Maybe one reason they thought his music a bit overcooked back then.

    I remember it made his arias challenging to learn and sing (back in my classical voice days) compared to Handel.
    If you heard the recording I posted here a while ago of me playing ATTYA, you would have heard me lift four bars of Bach.
    I do it every time I play ATTYA, and in all these years, only one person noticed it. She was a classical pianist, who happened to be playing the piece that very day, and she flipped out in the club I was playing at over it.
    My friend (her husband) said she was kind of tolerating the jazz I was playing before that, but when I played the Bach, she almost had a fit! LOL!

    Back then, I was doing it very strictly rhythmically, but nowadays, I try to disguise it rhythmically and melodically to make it swing, or prevent guys I'm playing with to say, "Oh he's playing the Bach again- when is he gonna stop doing that?"LOL.

  21. #20

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by sgcim
    If you heard the recording I posted here a while ago of me playing ATTYA, you would have heard me lift four bars of Bach.
    I do it every time I play ATTYA, and in all these years, only one person noticed it. She was a classical pianist, who happened to be playing the piece that very day, and she flipped out in the club I was playing at over it.
    My friend (her husband) said she was kind of tolerating the jazz I was playing before that, but when I played the Bach, she almost had a fit! LOL!
    was it a good thing though haha?

    Back then, I was doing it very strictly rhythmically, but nowadays, I try to disguise it rhythmically and melodically to make it swing, or prevent guys I'm playing with to say, "Oh he's playing the Bach again- when is he gonna stop doing that?"LOL.
    I think that’s called ‘bebop’

  22. #21

    User Info Menu

    I like playing a bit of Baroque too. I usually read and copy the Violin parts.

  23. #22

    User Info Menu

    I take things wherever I can find them. So sue me….

  24. #23

    User Info Menu

    Stealing (or "adapting") from classical music is rampant in the pop music world . Think Eric Carmen "All By Myself" (Rachmaninoff)

  25. #24

    User Info Menu

    All those riffs on Pachelbel's Canon, where are they now? I think pop music has abandoned copying the classics in favour of sampling. After all, to make something like All By Myself requires a composer, with sufficient ability to extract and adapt a theme, and build a new song around it. Today's pop songs are made by committees, the members of which contribute what little they know and a lot they have stolen from other recordings. It's the feel that matters, they will tell you, not the melody.