Is this a bad habit?

[brent.h]

I'm noticing that I'm frequently incorporating (or landing on) the 3rd of chord when playing through the changes. Like a good 75-80% of the time. My ears love it when I 'define' the chord, but I'm wondering if it might be too tiresome for the listener or other players to always hear that definition.

Is this a bad habit, and does it need correcting?

[pcjazz]

I'm noticing that I'm frequently incorporating (or landing on) the 3rd of chord when playing through the changes. Like a good 75-8-% of the time. My ears love it when I 'define' the chord, but I'm wondering if it might be too tiresome for the listener or other players to always hear that definition.

Is this a bad habit, and does it need correcting?

Better to land on the third than the root, but try also aiming for the fifth, sixth or second, depending on where you are going next. The Barry Harris 5-4-3-2 phrases would be good starting points.

[bako]

Suggest that you look at some melodies that you like and observe what they do in this regard.

An interesting question for all musicians engaging with improvisation:
What role do our habits play?

[brent.h]

Better to land on the third than the root, but try also aiming for the fifth, sixth or second, depending on where you are going next. The Barry Harris 5-4-3-2 phrases would be good starting points.

'Phrase 4' shows up all the time in my playing. 'Phrase 3' shows up from time to time, but the ascending arpeggio I play always seems to be a diminished or 7b9 arpeggio.

[ragman1]

It's a habit. You should land where the solo is saying it should, where it best makes melodic sense to the ear (your ear!).

[brent.h]

An interesting question for all musicians engaging with improvisation:What role do our habits play?

Good question. I guess my habits seem to 'fill in the blanks' wherever I need them to. Could be in the middle or end of a phrase or longer line. This is quite intentional, and most of the time, I try to make them sound right or at least fit nicely with the harmonic background.

Other times, I'm letting my fingers do noodly things because I can't think of what to say and the long silence is unbearable.

[emanresu]

If already noticing something like that, then it is already half way to get it solved (if annoyed).
Funny thing is that avoiding that is not the proper solution probably

[AllanAllen]

It's a habit. You should land where the solo is saying it should, where it best makes melodic sense to the ear (your ear!).

I agree with Ragman. Land where things sound good. The more you play, you'll naturally expand as you get bored of the same thing.

I was really into taking a motif through changes, then I got sick of it, but last night I was like what if I play the motif over the wrong chord and repeat it descending until it lands sweetly. So, you know things come and go and when they come back you play with them differently. Music is incredibly pliable.

[pamosmusic]

Speaking of the Barry Harris thing ... something I really like about those half-step rules is that they land you on a chord tone of the dominant ... which is to say, typically not on a chord tone of the chord you're resolving to.

That's obviously pretty useful when you're playing the dominant scale down a ii chord or something, so your next chord literally is the dominant. But it's also super super useful when you're attempting to resolve to the tonic too, because it lands you-by definition-on a note you wouldn't expect. So you can delay the resolution in cool ways.

Rubber meets the road, I like to run those big four arpeggios off the chord tones of the dominant and then just see what resolution feels natural.

Like ...

G Gb F E D C B A ... G B D F ... which means that E feels super natural to resolve to.

On the other hand ...

F E D C B A G Gb ... F A C E ... which makes me want to resolve to D, which is either cool and colorful, or maybe the first note of an enclosure of the root, or whatever.

It's really a fun exercise just to start somewhere and force that resolution to happen from wherever you land.

[rpjazzguitar]

If you resolve to the 3rd of various chords a lot, it can give a solid "inside" sounding line. If that's what you want to sound like and that's the kind of music you're playing, there isn't necessarily a problem.

But, if the music is more harmonically adventurous and your bandmates are expecting more adventurous sounds, that a lot of resolution to the third may not accomplish that.

What to do instead is an enormous topic.

[Jimmy blue note]

It's good that it's bad. The 3rd gives you a solid grounding and it gets tired really fast. Practice time is also experimentation time. Each interval has some emotional association with it; it's more than a functional grab. Once you play around (lay out the scale on the fingerboard and try moving a chord note with another scale note for starters), you'll discover notes have a profound effect on how you feel. Build a chord vocabulary on your visceral catalogue of reactions.
Becoming sick of a sound is a great sign. It means you're hearing what you're playing and not liking as you had. It's your ear telling your fingers and mind that you're ready to grow.
Congratulations!

[Jimmy blue note]

What role do our habits play?

Get thee to a nunnery for that discussion

[Christian Miller]

I'm noticing that I'm frequently incorporating (or landing on) the 3rd of chord when playing through the changes. Like a good 75-80% of the time. My ears love it when I 'define' the chord, but I'm wondering if it might be too tiresome for the listener or other players to always hear that definition.

Is this a bad habit, and does it need correcting?

I mean if it’s good enough for bird …

To me all the different notes on a chord have a certain rhetorical function or grammar even if that doesn’t sound too pretentious. It’s good to get acquainted with the sound of each. I’ll give my highly subjective and simplified perceptions…

Thirds make ‘good’ classic counterpoint with root movement. They are a good choice for a traditional sound that expresses the changes clearly. Notice how many standards stick around on the thirds of chords. I would say they are the most common resolution point and are archetypical for circle progressions and so on. Sevenths resolving into thirds around the cycle are the ‘butter notes.’

You may also want to avoid them for that same reason.

You can evade the third.

Playing the 2 instead for example has a cheeky, subversive effect. Playing a 4th and leaning on it before resolving to it adds tension or even pathos. Some 4ths can be left hanging, most famously the #4 on major or dominant.

Resolutions to the fifth are generally a little less common but effective and are used.

The sixth has a colouristic sound, especially in minor. Charlie Christian called it the ‘worry note.’

Resolutions to the root have finality. They are used at the end of sections most often. If you follow it with a sixth in eighth notes you have a classic jazz turn of phrase especially in minor. ‘Bebop!’

Resolutions to the seventh are less common but have a very interesting quality. Again the feeling may be of an evaded or unfinished phrase.

So they all have a rhetorical effect in bop, at least to my ears.

But with these things it’s not a good/bad distinction. It may be something you could practice avoiding in order to find other ways of playing changes.

If you land on a third you can always use a Barry Harris 3 phrase to make it land on the 2.

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[Christian Miller]

The other thing I’d say about music is that it’s hard to thwart an expectation if you haven’t set up an expectation.


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[emanresu]

Um. That "landing" itself might be an issue. If making the last note of a short phrase as THE TARGET all the time, eventually.. quite fast, it doesn't sound so cool, whichever the note might be.
Maybe too many phrases have a conclusion, not open-ended and the 3rd itself is the habitual note?

It is a good question, about the habits. Absolutely.

[Cunamara]

It's a guide tone, along with the 7th of the chord. It helps you and the listener have some idea of where you are in the song. And they tend to be notes with some emotional juice to them which, as pointed out above, is an important consideration. You can hear it in good melodies. Someone in the forum has a Frank Vignola quote (IIRC) in their sig, which says something like "learn the songs, it's all in there."

I hear far too many (for my taste) jazz musicians play things that sound completely disconnected from the underlying harmony and seeming to pat themselves on the back for being "hip." When you go to outer space in a solo, you still have to bring it back so that you're at least in orbit around the same planet as the listener. At least if you want a second gig.

But the guide tones don't have to be belabored in the solo. Don't necessarily land on them, but touch on them in passing.

[Christian Miller]

It's a guide tone, along with the 7th of the chord. It helps you and the listener have some idea of where you are in the song. And they tend to be notes with some emotional juice to them which, as pointed out above, is an important consideration. You can hear it in good melodies. Someone in the forum has a Frank Vignola quote (IIRC) in their sig, which says something like "learn the songs, it's all in there."

I hear far too many (for my taste) jazz musicians play things that sound completely disconnected from the underlying harmony and seeming to pat themselves on the back for being "hip." When you go to outer space in a solo, you still have to bring it back so that you're at least in orbit around the same planet as the listener. At least if you want a second gig.

But the guide tones don't have to be belabored in the solo. Don't necessarily land on them, but touch on them in passing.

I’m viewing this from the perspective of connecting to tradition. If you dig out a random piece of Bach you are going to see these same guide tones around the cycle.

(I notice no one accuses Bach of lacking creativity.)

So this stuff goes deep. There are so many voice leading archetypes that have been used for centuries in Western music. People recognise them subconsciously because they’ve been hearing them their whole lives.

For me the truly progressive musician is not one who rejects all of this ‘baggage’ but one who artfully subverts it and extends the means of comprehensible expression. I feel this is what High Modernism got wrong and what jazz got right (with its connection to popular song etc.)

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[Lionelsax]

I'm noticing that I'm frequently incorporating (or landing on) the 3rd of chord when playing through the changes. Like a good 75-80% of the time. My ears love it when I 'define' the chord, but I'm wondering if it might be too tiresome for the listener or other players to always hear that definition.

Is this a bad habit, and does it need correcting?

No, it's a good thing.
It's the thing to do, as a Dexter Gordon fan you should think your 3rd could be the root in order to develop your substitution feeling, I mean a parallel way in order to make something that sounds above the chord changes and not only into.
When you get this, 9ths (real ones) will make more sense.
It won't be annoying because you will have more ideas and you will be more open.
Sure, that sounds like rootless changes but it opens another world.