Chord-Tone vs. Chord-Scale Soloing

[Drumbler]

Article:

BERKLEE | Berklee Today

Chord-Tone vs. Chord-Scale Soloing by Professor Hal Crook

For the past few decades or so, more and more jazz players have been using the chord-scale approach for soloing over chords in progressions. The chord-scale approach is based on the idea that if a chord is diatonic to a scale, then that scale can be used as a source to derive melody on that chord. Using the chord-scale approach gives improvisers (especially less proficient ones) greater melodic and rhythmic mobility (i.e., they can improvise pitch sequences in eighth notes, triplets, sixteenth notes, etc.). Whereas chord tones must be played in leaps (minor third intervals or wider), a chord scale can be played in steps (major and minor second intervals), and consecutive steps are much easier to play fast and accurately than consecutive leaps. In general, less-experienced players are also familiar with scales and scale patterns than chord arpeggios from practicing technical exercises in method books and, therefore, prefer to use chord scales for improvising.
A chord scale contains not only the tones of the chord to which it is applied, but also the tensions. Therefore, by improvising on a chord using a chord scale, the soloist will almost certainly play some chord tones and some of the more colorful notes (tensions) as well. It is likely that without the help of chord scales, a soloist may not know (i.e., be able to hear) specifically what tensions fit the chord tones appropriately in a particular harmonic context.
So, in a sense, chord scales do the work of and for the ear. They enable an improviser to play active melody lines that not only agree with the chords, but also contain the more colorful melody notes (i.e., notes other than chord tones) that the player may not be able to find or select by ear alone.
However, for beginner and intermediate-level players, the chord-scale approach has a potential downside. Many students begin studying chord scales early in their musical education and attempt to apply the knowledge acquired immediately on their instruments. Unfortunately, this often happens too soon in the student's development as an improviser--before he or she has learned how to shape an appealing improvised melody by ear on a chord or chord progression using only, or mainly, chord tones.
Chord scales can present too much information, or information that cannot be readily processed, controlled, and used musically by the novice improviser. It is much easier to understand chord-scale theory than it is to apply it with musical results in an improvised solo. Improvising on chords with chord scales means that a soloist can play melody notes that he or she does not recognize or cannot identify and control by ear. This can result in wandering, shapeless, directionless, or mechanical-sounding melody lines. Often the lines are played in eighth notes to the exclusion of all other rhythm values, producing undesirable melodic and rhythmic content. Such improvised melodies often tend to outline tonic quality on nontonic functioning chords and vice versa.
Direction changes in the melodic curve are also somewhat less frequent because the rhythms are predominantly eighth notes and are less noticeable because of the predominance of stepwise motion. (Melodic intervals wider than a second or a third are less common if not rare in elementary-level improvised solos using the chord-scale approach.) This produces a consistently linear melodic line that sounds limited or uninteresting because it is not balanced by more angular melodic curves.
It is relevant to point out here that the pioneers of jazz improvisation relied on their listening/hearing skills and their ability to accurately outline basic chord sound to guide their improvising and to create inspired melodies. They did not rely on the mechanics of chord scales. Beginning improvisers should, therefore, first experience how good it sounds and how right it feels to play inside the chords using only the chord tones before experiencing the allure and sophistication of chord scales. Improvising melodies using only chord tones connects the soloist to the song's harmony, giving him or her a feeling of oneness with the music. This is essential before a player can hear how to use chord scales and nonharmonic approach notes effectively.
Ideally, melodic ear training for improvisers should begin with chord-tone soloing and then advance to chord tones with approach notes and/or chord scale soloing.

Also see the sidebar:
Is Chord-Tone Soloing Necessary for Advanced Improvisers?

[Jazzaluk]

Very good article. I think this will resonate nicely with many on this forum.

They should have called the article: "Berklee discovers Chord-tones".

The sidebar kind of lost me though. A bit academic and silly, suggesting that one must have 90% before moving on to chord-scale. It seems there must always be a yardstick in academic institutions. A method to mark papers I suppose.

[Drumbler]

The sidebar kind of lost me though. A bit academic and silly, suggesting that one must have 90% before moving on to chord-scale. It seems there must always be a yardstick in academic institutions. A method to mark papers I suppose.

Actual blind study indicated 89.4736%.

Number was rounded up.

[max_power]

Great article. That's how I was taught to play jazz, and I think it's the best approach. In my first jazz guitar lesson, my guitar teacher handed me a lead sheet to Autumn Leaves and told me that my homework was to learn arpeggios for every chord in the tune in every spot on the neck, and to practice playing chord tone solos. It took a lot of work, but after a few weeks I got the hang of it. Then we started talking about the possible extensions for each chord... it was a very chord-centric approach. That helped me make the connection between comping and soloing, since I was analyzing both using the same methodology (chord tones + extensions). By the time we started going over scales a few months later, it was easy for me to understand the qualities of any given scale based on its relation to a chord. I had already been doing this on the basis of individual notes - scales allowed me to conveniently compile these notes together. I use scales a lot, and I'm very "pro-scales"... however, I think that without a deeper understanding of how scales relate to chords (i.e. just knowing which scales can be played over which chords isn't good enough), they're pretty useless. And they're certainly not necessary to play jazz well.

[Reg]

I graduated from Berklee in the 70's and they said the same thing... the Chord scales were a method for being aware of complete collection of notes for composing/arranging etc.. There was also a line writing concept I was taught by herb Pomeroy ... I think they covered most concepts fairly well. In late 70's,I was in LA, but Berk's,(the Berk of Berklee) kid took over.. he changed and dropped some of the programs. A big problem is most musicians go or went to Berklee for a year or two and because their skills, reading, comping and soloing and basic theory levels were low...didn't really get a chance to get much more than the basics, which berklee tried to pound down beginners to get their levels up as quick as possible... I guess my point is all the information was there, and much more than most music programs, if you were ready for it.

[mr. beaumont]

Beginners need to read that last part and take it to heart.


I wil say to my grave you need to know both approaches.


I couldn't make it past the first paragraph of the sidebar--do they really think that chord tone visualizing players only play chord tones?

[markf]

Very good article. I think this will resonate nicely with many on this forum.
.

it does with me.

I think that there is one thing I might add . he says


"This can result in wandering, shapeless, directionless, or mechanical-sounding melody lines. Often the lines are played in eighth notes to the exclusion of all other rhythm values, producing undesirable melodic and rhythmic content. "

That kind of playing is pretty common in jazz at all levels.

slow down, play less, think more, leave spaces, try to develop an idea, have a beginning, middle, end, texture changes, something familiar throughout the effort, a musical thread, some rhythmic interest.

[JonnyPac]

I like that a LOT. ...Though you can play chord-tones in CST. It doesn't force step-wise motion. This whole division is BS. CST is not fool-proof, and neither is chord-tone soloing. The student must fully engage in the harmony/melody eventually in either case.

Here's another thing on CST:

http://adamneely.com/2010/05/07/oh-b...e-to-hate-you/

I posted this reply, but the blog guy deleted it right away:

"Greetings Adam,

I enjoyed your post. It was forwarded to me by an author friend of mine who found it interesting. We both self-published guitar books in the last year that focus on chord-scale theory.

My musical development has been tremendously influenced by chord scale theory (CST) though I never went to a music college whatsoever. I self-studied through books, articles, youtube, forums, private lessons/classes, and gigging. Levine’s book was the gateway book for me back in 2000 when I was 19 years old and semi-interested in classic jazz.

I fell for the Levine-CST bag hook line and sinker. I spent years tracking down almost every recording in the footnotes, had a pianist friend play all of the “two hand” examples. And even went through Levine’s piano book to get piano-like voicings on the guitar.

Though, I liked Levine’s work, something always bothered me… a few things in fact. His neglect of the harmonic minor scale and exclusion of functional harmony (no mention of secondary dominants, melodic devices, guide tones, etc). At this point, I began to use CST in my own way based on my ear and what I was hearing in actually music (jazz and non-jazz alike). I naturally had a sense of the tonal hierarchies within a chord-scale. I heard the tonic, basic triad, guide tones, tendency tones, extensions, triadic upper-partials and so on. It never ended with the idiot-proof “play this over that, avoid that note” BS. That makes no musical sense and no one in classic jazz thought that way as I know. I have turned away from Levine and found Bert Ligon’s books much better all around.

I don’t think throwing the baby out with the bath water is a good answer… Let’s turn to rock improvisation. I work in a guitar store (over 10 years experience, now a manager), and I have been teaching guitar lessons that long as well. It is typical for students (and some professionals) to ask “what scale do I play over that SONG”. They want one pentatonic, blues, or full diatonic scale that fits the entire progression, and then they want to noodle and shred from there. The idea of chord-scale pairing is beyond their wildest dreams, and a tonal hierarchy within each is out of the question. CST is a way to get lead guitarists (or other melodic instruments) to pay more attention to the underlying progression. A progression that “borrows” parallel chords via modal interchange (common in grunge, Beatles tunes, jazz, hip-hop, etc), back-cycling (country western, rhythm changes, sweet Georgia brown, etc), secondary dominants (most good music), makes the “one scale” idea is nearly impossible to pull off. Note that “harmonic generalization” is very different and melodically complex compared to noodling in one key.

There are huge pitfalls to CST as it is usually presented, yes, but I still feel like it is a great launching point (though tedious to grasp at first for those without exceptional patience and memorization capabilities). There are no true short-cuts, but going the long route without CST seems even harder and creatively limiting. I cannot imagine playing a Wayne Shorter tune or soloing over the changes to “Strawberry Fields” without it.

At this point I can solo over any oddball chord progression in a harmonically specific way that implies everything between the counterpoint of my part against the bass line (no chords needed). That’s where “linear harmony” comes in and fills the gaps of CST, and allows the rules to be broken (not “outside” mind you) in order to give the music direction; the elements of rhythm; especially “harmonic rhythm”. Chromatic notes, anticipations, and melodic devices make a lot of sense on this level. Again, this is miles away from the typical rock/pop guitarist’s one scale mentality. Thoroughgoing CST is very different than memorizing the dictionary!"

[JonnyPac]

Here's an excerpt on CST from my book:

It is a common pitfall for students of chord-scale equivalency theories to give every note within a chord-scale equal treatment. There is a tonal hierarchy that must be recognized. The core triad needs to be thought of as the lower structure, the seventh as what I call the “gateway” tone, and the other chord-tones as “upper-structures” or “extensions”. Every note besides the core triad may be treated as a “tendency tone” (meaning a tone that is unstable and naturally tends to resolve either upward or downward to a more stable tone) depending on the immediate context. “Avoid” notes or “handle with care" notes are the most unstable tones within each chord-scale. Tonal hierarchies within each chord-scale can fluctuate depending on the harmonic conditions of the music at hand. Use your ear to determine the level of complexity that is appropriate.

****
The "gateway tone" is my layman's way of explaining the way that adding the 7th stabilizes the upper-structures via tertian harmony. The 5 7 9 upper triad is pretty solid stuff. Tunes without 7ths (a lot of rock pop, etc) do not take to jazzy extended chords easily, IMO. Not to get OT.

[Drumbler]

(No one here take this next sentence personally.)

The genius makes difficult things simple, the fool makes difficult things even more difficult.

[monk]

"The one beef I have with the "chord scale movement" is that it sort of suggests all seven notes are equally cool, when in fact that's really not the case. There really are usually four notes you want to land on that are the really, really, good ones. Then there are the others you want to get through and some you barely want to touch them. That degree of weight thing is usually not discussed because it is usually presented in the form of modal thinking rather than voice leading. My advice to people is yes, learn the chord scales but also make sure you can solo using just the chord tones. A big chunk of early jazz history was largely improvising using chord tones and improvising around the melody. Those are two valuable entry points"　-Pat Methey

[JonnyPac]

"The one beef I have with the "chord scale movement" is that it sort of suggests all seven notes are equally cool, when in fact that's really not the case. There really are usually four notes you want to land on that are the really, really, good ones. Then there are the others you want to get through and some you barely want to touch them. That degree of weight thing is usually not discussed because it is usually presented in the form of modal thinking rather than voice leading. My advice to people is yes, learn the chord scales but also make sure you can solo using just the chord tones. A big chunk of early jazz history was largely improvising using chord tones and improvising around the melody. Those are two valuable entry points"　-Pat Methey

+1!!!

[docbop]

(No one here take this next sentence personally.)

The genius makes difficult things simple, the fool makes difficult things even more difficult.

Here's the Mingus version of that quote....

Anyone can make the simple complicated.
Creativity is making the complicated simple.

[mr. beaumont]

And the mr. B version:

It takes a smart man to make the complicated simple...it takes a jazz guitar player to write a thesis on a ii V I.

[Nuff Said]

Article:

BERKLEE | Berklee Today

Chord-Tone vs. Chord-Scale Soloing by Professor Hal Crook




(Click for larger image)


For the past few decades or so, more and more jazz players have been using the chord-scale approach for soloing over chords in progressions. The chord-scale approach is based on the idea that if a chord is diatonic to a scale, then that scale can be used as a source to derive melody on that chord. Using the chord-scale approach gives improvisers (especially less proficient ones) greater melodic and rhythmic mobility (i.e., they can improvise pitch sequences in eighth notes, triplets, sixteenth notes, etc.). Whereas chord tones must be played in leaps (minor third intervals or wider), a chord scale can be played in steps (major and minor second intervals), and consecutive steps are much easier to play fast and accurately than consecutive leaps. In general, less-experienced players are also familiar with scales and scale patterns than chord arpeggios from practicing technical exercises in method books and, therefore, prefer to use chord scales for improvising.
A chord scale contains not only the tones of the chord to which it is applied, but also the tensions. Therefore, by improvising on a chord using a chord scale, the soloist will almost certainly play some chord tones and some of the more colorful notes (tensions) as well. It is likely that without the help of chord scales, a soloist may not know (i.e., be able to hear) specifically what tensions fit the chord tones appropriately in a particular harmonic context.
So, in a sense, chord scales do the work of and for the ear. They enable an improviser to play active melody lines that not only agree with the chords, but also contain the more colorful melody notes (i.e., notes other than chord tones) that the player may not be able to find or select by ear alone.
However, for beginner and intermediate-level players, the chord-scale approach has a potential downside. Many students begin studying chord scales early in their musical education and attempt to apply the knowledge acquired immediately on their instruments. Unfortunately, this often happens too soon in the student's development as an improviser--before he or she has learned how to shape an appealing improvised melody by ear on a chord or chord progression using only, or mainly, chord tones.
Chord scales can present too much information, or information that cannot be readily processed, controlled, and used musically by the novice improviser. It is much easier to understand chord-scale theory than it is to apply it with musical results in an improvised solo. Improvising on chords with chord scales means that a soloist can play melody notes that he or she does not recognize or cannot identify and control by ear. This can result in wandering, shapeless, directionless, or mechanical-sounding melody lines. Often the lines are played in eighth notes to the exclusion of all other rhythm values, producing undesirable melodic and rhythmic content. Such improvised melodies often tend to outline tonic quality on nontonic functioning chords and vice versa.
Direction changes in the melodic curve are also somewhat less frequent because the rhythms are predominantly eighth notes and are less noticeable because of the predominance of stepwise motion. (Melodic intervals wider than a second or a third are less common if not rare in elementary-level improvised solos using the chord-scale approach.) This produces a consistently linear melodic line that sounds limited or uninteresting because it is not balanced by more angular melodic curves.
It is relevant to point out here that the pioneers of jazz improvisation relied on their listening/hearing skills and their ability to accurately outline basic chord sound to guide their improvising and to create inspired melodies. They did not rely on the mechanics of chord scales. Beginning improvisers should, therefore, first experience how good it sounds and how right it feels to play inside the chords using only the chord tones before experiencing the allure and sophistication of chord scales. Improvising melodies using only chord tones connects the soloist to the song's harmony, giving him or her a feeling of oneness with the music. This is essential before a player can hear how to use chord scales and nonharmonic approach notes effectively.
Ideally, melodic ear training for improvisers should begin with chord-tone soloing and then advance to chord tones with approach notes and/or chord scale soloing. The musical example is a chord-tone solo on the progression of a well-known standard tune.

Also see the sidebar:
Is Chord-Tone Soloing Necessary for Advanced Improvisers?

I thought it was good to read this again.

Nuff

[JonnyPac]

Einstein's Blade in Ockham's Razor

Essay by Kai Krause

Responses | 2011 Annual Question | Edge

In 1971, when I was a teenager, my father died in a big airplane crash. Somehow I began to turn 'serious', trying to understand the world around me and my place in it, looking for meaning and sense, beginning to realize: everything was very different than I had previously assumed in the innocence of childhood.

It was the beginning of my own "building a cognitive toolset" and I remember the pure joy of discovery, reading voraciously and — quite out of sync with friends and school — I devoured encyclopedias, philosophy, biographies and... science fiction.

One such story stayed with me and one paragraph within it especially:
"We need to make use of Thargola's Sword! The principle of Parsimony.
First put forth by the medieval philosopher Thargola14, who said,
'We must drive a sword through any hypothesis that is not strictly necessary"

That really made me think — and rethink again...
Finding out who this man might have been took quite a while, but it was also another beginning: a love affair with libraries, large tomes, dusty bindings... surfing knowledge, as it were.

And I did discover: there had been a monk named Guillelmi, from a hamlet surrounded by oaks, apocryphally called 'William of Ockham'. He crossed my path again years later when lecturing in Munich near Occam Street, realizing he had spent the last 20 years of his life there, under King Ludwig IV in the mid 1300s.

Isaac Asimov had pilfered, or let's say homaged, good old Guillelmi for what is now known in many variants as "Ockham's razor", such as
"Plurality should not be posited without necessity."
"Entities are not to be multiplied beyond necessity"
or more general and colloquial and a bit less transliterated from Latin:
A simpler explanation invoking fewer hypothetical constructs is preferable.

And there it was, the dancing interplay between Simplex and Complex, which has fascinated me in so many forms ever since. For me, it is very near the center of "understanding the world", as our question posited.

Could it really be true, that the innocent sounding 'keep it simple' is really such an optimal strategy for dealing with questions large and small, scientific as well as personal? Surely, trying to eliminate superfluous assumptions can be a useful tenet, and can be found from Sagan to Hawking as part of their approach to thinking in science. But something never quite felt right to me — intuitively it was clear that sometimes things are just not simple — and that merely "the simplest" of all explanations cannot be taken as truth or proof.

Any detective story would pride itself in not using the most obvious explanation who did it or how it happened.
Designing a car to 'have the optimal feel going into a curve at high speed' will require hugely complex systems to finally arrive at "simply good".
Water running downhill will take a meandering path instead of the straight line.

Both are examples for a domain shift: the non-simple solution is still "the easiest" seen from another viewpoint: for the water the least energy used going down the shallowest slope is more important than taking the straightest line from A to B.

And that is one of the issues with Ockham:
The definition of what "simple" is — can already be anything but simple.
And what "simpler" is — well, it just doesn't get any simpler there.

There is that big difference between simple and simplistic.
And seen more abstractly, the principle of simple things leading to complexity dances in parallel and involved me deeply throughout my life.

In the early seventies I also began tinkering with the first large scale modular synthesizers, finding quickly how hard it is to recreate seemingly 'simple sounds'.
There was unexpected complexity in a single note struck on a piano that eluded even dozens of oscillators and filters, by magnitudes.

Lately one of many projects has been to revisit the aesthetic space of scientific visualizations, and another, which is the epitomy of mathematics made tangible: Fractals — which I had done almost 20 years ago with virtuoso coder Ben Weiss, now enjoying them via realtime flythroughs on a handheld little smartphone.
Here was the most extreme example: a tiny formula, barely one line on paper, used recursively iterated it yields worlds of complex images of amazing beauty.
(Ben had the distinct pleasure of showing Benoit Mandelbrot an alpha version at the last TED just months before his death)

My hesitation towards overuse of parsimony was expressed perfectly in the quote by Albert Einstein, arguably the counterpart "blade" to Ockham's razor:
"Things should be made as simple as possible — but not simpler"

And there we have the perfect application of its truth, used recursively on itself: Neither Einstein nor Ockham actually used the exact words as quoted!

After I sifted through dozens of books, his collected works and letters in German, the Einstein archives: nowhere there, nor in Britannica, Wikipedia or Wikiquote was anyone able to substantiate exact sources, and the same applies to Ockham. If anything can be found, it is earlier precedences...

Surely one can amass retweeted, reblogged and regurgitated instances for both very quickly — they have become memes, of course. One could also take the standpoint that in each case they certainly 'might' have said it 'just like that', since each used several expressions quite similar in form and spirit.
But just to attribute the exact words because they are kind of close would be, well..another case of: it is not that simple!

And there is a huge difference between additional and redundant information.
(Or else one could lose the second redundant "ein" in "Einstein" ?)

Linguistic jesting aside: Nonetheless, the Razor and the Blade constitute a very useful combination of approaching analytical thinking.
Shaving away non-essential conjectures is a good thing, a worthy inclusion in "everybody's toolkit" — and so is the corollary: not to overdo it!

And my own bottom line: There is nothing more complex than simplicity.

Responses | 2011 Annual Question | Edge

[pingu]

Less is more ...........

[Nuff Said]

Article:

BERKLEE | Berklee Today

Chord-Tone vs. Chord-Scale Soloing by Professor Hal Crook




(Click for larger image)


For the past few decades or so, more and more jazz players have been using the chord-scale approach for soloing over chords in progressions. The chord-scale approach is based on the idea that if a chord is diatonic to a scale, then that scale can be used as a source to derive melody on that chord. Using the chord-scale approach gives improvisers (especially less proficient ones) greater melodic and rhythmic mobility (i.e., they can improvise pitch sequences in eighth notes, triplets, sixteenth notes, etc.). Whereas chord tones must be played in leaps (minor third intervals or wider), a chord scale can be played in steps (major and minor second intervals), and consecutive steps are much easier to play fast and accurately than consecutive leaps. In general, less-experienced players are also familiar with scales and scale patterns than chord arpeggios from practicing technical exercises in method books and, therefore, prefer to use chord scales for improvising.
A chord scale contains not only the tones of the chord to which it is applied, but also the tensions. Therefore, by improvising on a chord using a chord scale, the soloist will almost certainly play some chord tones and some of the more colorful notes (tensions) as well. It is likely that without the help of chord scales, a soloist may not know (i.e., be able to hear) specifically what tensions fit the chord tones appropriately in a particular harmonic context.
So, in a sense, chord scales do the work of and for the ear. They enable an improviser to play active melody lines that not only agree with the chords, but also contain the more colorful melody notes (i.e., notes other than chord tones) that the player may not be able to find or select by ear alone.
However, for beginner and intermediate-level players, the chord-scale approach has a potential downside. Many students begin studying chord scales early in their musical education and attempt to apply the knowledge acquired immediately on their instruments. Unfortunately, this often happens too soon in the student's development as an improviser--before he or she has learned how to shape an appealing improvised melody by ear on a chord or chord progression using only, or mainly, chord tones.
Chord scales can present too much information, or information that cannot be readily processed, controlled, and used musically by the novice improviser. It is much easier to understand chord-scale theory than it is to apply it with musical results in an improvised solo. Improvising on chords with chord scales means that a soloist can play melody notes that he or she does not recognize or cannot identify and control by ear. This can result in wandering, shapeless, directionless, or mechanical-sounding melody lines. Often the lines are played in eighth notes to the exclusion of all other rhythm values, producing undesirable melodic and rhythmic content. Such improvised melodies often tend to outline tonic quality on nontonic functioning chords and vice versa.
Direction changes in the melodic curve are also somewhat less frequent because the rhythms are predominantly eighth notes and are less noticeable because of the predominance of stepwise motion. (Melodic intervals wider than a second or a third are less common if not rare in elementary-level improvised solos using the chord-scale approach.) This produces a consistently linear melodic line that sounds limited or uninteresting because it is not balanced by more angular melodic curves.
It is relevant to point out here that the pioneers of jazz improvisation relied on their listening/hearing skills and their ability to accurately outline basic chord sound to guide their improvising and to create inspired melodies. They did not rely on the mechanics of chord scales. Beginning improvisers should, therefore, first experience how good it sounds and how right it feels to play inside the chords using only the chord tones before experiencing the allure and sophistication of chord scales. Improvising melodies using only chord tones connects the soloist to the song's harmony, giving him or her a feeling of oneness with the music. This is essential before a player can hear how to use chord scales and nonharmonic approach notes effectively.
Ideally, melodic ear training for improvisers should begin with chord-tone soloing and then advance to chord tones with approach notes and/or chord scale soloing. The musical example is a chord-tone solo on the progression of a well-known standard tune.

Also see the sidebar:
Is Chord-Tone Soloing Necessary for Advanced Improvisers?

This is a Post worth re-reading.......
Nuff

[mr. beaumont]

Actually, I think it's a bunch of hogwash.

The idea that a chord tone approach somehow means that the improvisor needs to play notes in leaps of a m3 or more or that other available tensions in the chord are somehow off limits is ridiculous.

All methods are visualization. Anybody who thinks that a chord tone visualizing improvisor is limited to G B D F# over a Gmaj7 chord doesn't understand the approach.

[Nuff Said]

Actually, I think it's a bunch of hogwash.

The idea that a chord tone approach somehow means that the improvisor needs to play notes in leaps of a m3 or more or that other available tensions in the chord are somehow off limits is ridiculous.

All methods are visualization. Anybody who thinks that a chord tone visualizing improvisor is limited to G B D F# over a Gmaj7 chord doesn't understand the approach.

If you read the article properly, his point is that using only Chord tones exclusively gives intervals of m3 and above.

Nuff

[mr. beaumont]

Exactly. Does he really think people who view the fretboard in chord tones play only chord tones?

[Nuff Said]

Exactly. Does he really think people who view the fretboard in chord tones play only chord tones?

Yes, a beginner student who learns to play arps only, will play arps on all the chords in a song.

Nuff

[Nuff Said]

"It is relevant to point out here that the pioneers of jazz improvisation relied on their listening/hearing skills and their ability to accurately outline basic chord sound to guide their improvising and to create inspired melodies. They did not rely on the mechanics of chord scales. Beginning improvisers should, therefore, first experience how good it sounds and how right it feels to play inside the chords using only the chord tones before experiencing the allure and sophistication of chord scales. Improvising melodies using only chord tones connects the soloist to the song's harmony, giving him or her a feeling of oneness with the music. This is essential before a player can hear how to use chord scales and nonharmonic approach notes effectively.

Ideally, melodic ear training for improvisers should begin with chord-tone soloing and then advance to chord tones with approach notes and/or chord scale soloing."

The quote above, is the main point of the article.
Nuff

[fep]

Actually, I think it's a bunch of hogwash.

The idea that a chord tone approach somehow means that the improvisor needs to play notes in leaps of a m3 or more or that other available tensions in the chord are somehow off limits is ridiculous.

All methods are visualization. Anybody who thinks that a chord tone visualizing improvisor is limited to G B D F# over a Gmaj7 chord doesn't understand the approach.

I agree, I never thought that a chord tone approach was all about arpeggios. That is were I'd disagree, a chord tone approach is not all about arpeggios, arpeggios are just something that can be used in chord tone soloing.

A chord tone approach over G7

-----------------------------
--6-5-4-2-3-----------------
-------------5-3-3-4---------
----------------------5-3----
-----------------------------
--------------------------

Imo, that's a chord tone approach even though no arpeggios were used.

[Nuff Said]

"Whereas chord tones must be played in leaps (minor third intervals or wider)"

"Professor Hal Crook" in his article is stating "Chord Tones" to mean exclusively using Chord tones.

Nuff