Carol Kaye Chordal notes approach

**jlart** · 12-20-2012, 10:07 PM

I found this

from a Carol Kaye interview where she mentions that the jazz players from the 50 rarely used scales to improvise instead they used chordal tones and that they only used scales as a passing tone to go from chord to chord or chromatic approaches.

Could some of the more knowledgeable guys elaborate more on this method that she mentions on the video??

Appreciate,
Joe

**mr. beaumont** · 12-20-2012, 10:48 PM

scales, chord tones (arpeggios)...just different maps to the same destination.

For a swing to bop approach, and for beginners, chord tones are probably the most direct route...ties the improvised line directly to the chords, highlights the most important notes, chromatics connect those touchstones...

The same notes are available in scales, just a different organization system...as jazz became less about knotty chord changes and more about "harmonic environments" this mapping system gave way to a different one based on scales.

But there's lots of overlap...plenty of folks still map with chord tones...really depends on the situation...

I've got some very basic videos on my website on the topic...you'll also find a ton of info here on the forum...search around.

**shrp11** · 12-21-2012, 12:25 AM

The debates posited by Carol Kaye on this subject have been the source of internet fights for years - I don't know why she chose this subject to hang her hat on, and it's not the only one, but she dogmatically fights everyone and anyone who disagrees with her.

It's hard to imagine any schooled musician not knowing both the scales and modes available for improvisation, but the chord shapes too.

It's just another in a long line of Carol Kaye weirdness, including her specious claims of having played on tracks that are clearly James Jamerson's.

**jlart** · 12-21-2012, 04:29 AM

@mr.beaumont the reason I ask this is that aside from latin melodic lines I can't seem to grasp the jazz idea for some reason. Don't get me wrong I can hear but still not fully understand the whole picture. Like I said on my intro to the forum I am not a pro but I am looking for improvements on my overall playing.

@srp11 I can understand that sometimes as a person gets a little mature he/she seem to cling to ideas that are more comfortable to them. As for the claims made by her only if someone really close to them could laid to rest any doubts.

What interested me is that in some way it is logical that we build our lines from the chordal tones not discarding the scale, modes etc.. after all they are all have the same basis the SCALES. Correct me if I am wrong, does Herb Ellis takes on the same approach on his book "All The Shapes You Are"?

Joe

**randalljazz** · 12-21-2012, 06:37 AM

Carol Kaye: "Nobody back in the '50s played note-scales."

https://www.jazzguitar.be/forum/playe...view-tips.html

**mr. beaumont** · 12-21-2012, 08:23 AM

Originally Posted by shrp11

The debates posited by Carol Kaye on this subject have been the source of internet fights for years - I don't know why she chose this subject to hang her hat on, and it's not the only one, but she dogmatically fights everyone and anyone who disagrees with her.

It's hard to imagine any schooled musician not knowing both the scales and modes available for improvisation, but the chord shapes too.

It's just another in a long line of Carol Kaye weirdness, including her specious claims of having played on tracks that are clearly James Jamerson's.

It's not that hard to believe...the cats who were playing in the 50's, when they came up, jazz wasn't an academic subject yet.

There's no actual arguement about what mapping method is better...

**MarkRhodes** · 12-21-2012, 10:59 AM

Originally Posted by jlart

I found this

from a Carol Kaye interview where she mentions that the jazz players from the 50 rarely used scales to improvise instead they used chordal tones and that they only used scales as a passing tone to go from chord to chord or chromatic approaches.

I've learned a lot from Carol's stuff. Some people think that when she says older players didn't play from scales that they didn't KNOW scales, which is a misreading. They thought in terms of chords. (There's a lot of this in Joe Pass's approach too.) It's how they worked out all those nifty substitutions and chord-runs we now take for granted.

**MarkRhodes** · 12-21-2012, 11:15 AM

Originally Posted by jlart

Correct me if I am wrong, does Herb Ellis takes on the same approach on his book "All The Shapes You Are"?

Since reading some her stuff, I see / hear a lot of examples of it in Herb's playing, including the book / CD "All the Shapes You Are." Herb doesn't talk much about theory, period. His 'system' is playing out of chord shapes, and the chord shapes tend to be based on triads, so that seems to emphasize chord tones more than scales, but Herb played all kinds of tones. The system for him was not 'which notes to play' (-he played all of 'em) but how to voice the melodic ideas you hear in your head wherever you are on the guitar.

One thing I learned from Carol's material that I hadn't heard before was how to substitute augmented chords for minor chords. (I knew how to sub diminished chords for dominant chords, which is something Joe Pass and Herb Ellis both often did, but I'd never even heard of subbing augmented chords for minor ones.)

**fep** · 12-21-2012, 11:36 AM

The book 'Joe Pass Guitar Styles' was originally published by Carol Kaye in 1970. Published in 1970, but Joe is from the 1950 school of playing that she refers too. Carol had a lot of respect for Joe's playing. The chapters in that book include:

Chord Scales

Altered Scales

Whole Tone Scales

Also in that book are solos transcribed from Joe Pass' playing. If you look at those examples there is a ton of examples of scalar playing, there is also a ton of examples of chord tone playing.

Scalar playing was clearly part of Joe Pass' approach. Just take a listen to his playing.

I take from the Carol Kaye video, that she is describing a chord tone 'mind set'. But, scales can clearly be part of that mind set, one can play a scale and still be aware of the chord tones of that scale.

**mr. beaumont** · 12-21-2012, 11:59 AM

Again, there's no dichotomy...players knew both, but may have had a preffered way of mapping...

If you know chords and scales you can get the same sounds...I might play a line that sounds "harmonic minor" to someone, but I might have been thinking about a 7b9 chord over a minor sound...same notes available.

Seems we have again, a small sound byte taken from a video/interview/whatever that we take and run with...man, i hate the internet sometimes...

**MarkRhodes** · 12-21-2012, 02:03 PM

Originally Posted by fep

Scalar playing was clearly part of Joe Pass' approach. Just take a listen to his playing.

I take from the Carol Kaye video, that she is describing a chord tone 'mind set'. But, scales can clearly be part of that mind set, one can play a scale and still be aware of the chord tones of that scale.

Sure, Joe did a lot of scalar playing. He also did a lot of "chordal thinking." He even uses that phrase sometimes. "Chordal thinking" does not simply mean chord tones. It doesn't mean ignorance of scales either. One thing Carol says in a few places is, "Don't play this scale over that chord; play the chord!" But when she says 'play the chord,' and the chord is say, G7, that includes all the substitutes for G7 (including diminished and augmented one) and the triad stacks that follow from G7. Lots of good-sounding options.

**MarkRhodes** · 12-21-2012, 02:18 PM

Originally Posted by mr. beaumont

Seems we have again, a small sound byte taken from a video/interview/whatever that we take and run with...man, i hate the internet sometimes...

Carol is adamant in her views. She's not being taken out of context here. I've emailed with her a lot and there's little nuance (or give) in her position. She really does think the chordal approach helps develop a player's ears better than does a scalar approach. She learned from Horace Hatchett (-who taught Howard Roberts) and Horace hired her to help teach beginners because she was too poor to pay for more lessons otherwise. She played with a lot of major players from that era and she can speak with some authority about what they did and didn't do, how they taught each other new things and what they called them. (For example, she says she never heard the term "tritone" back then and still insists on using the term "b5 subs.") I much prefer the jazz from that era to the present one, so I take what I can from her and am grateful for it. Further, the more I work with her material, the more I hear it in the piano players and horn players from that era. (I also hear a lot of it in Herb Ellis in Joe Pass. Not that they got it from her but that they were drawing from the same well.)

**jlart** · 12-22-2012, 07:43 AM

Sry

that this is a touchy subject involving such great players. in a way it's the healthy discussion of these topics that makes understanding and decisions much easier.

I appreciate the input from all you guys, I am going to try and make some new year resolutions as to what steps I will take on my jazz evolution.

My inclination though, is to take on the Herb Ellis and Joe pass way and see what will come out of it. Meanwhile I'll keep on checking the great tips and lessons done in other threads of this forum.

As for my next post I promise I'll do a thorough research on the subject matter.

Thanks,
Joe

**MarkRhodes** · 12-22-2012, 10:31 AM

Originally Posted by jlart

Sry

that this is a touchy subject involving such great players. in a way it's the healthy discussion of these topics that makes understanding and decisions much easier.

My inclination though, is to take on the Herb Ellis and Joe pass way and see what will come out of it. Meanwhile I'll keep on checking the great tips and lessons done in other threads of this forum.

I like this subject and I'm glad you brought it up. If Santa Claus brings me a webcam, I'll make a short video with examples of what "chordal thinking" means. (I think many people misunderstand the way older players use(d) the term.)

I love Joe and Herb but their books couldn't be much more different. Herb is all about lines; Joe's approach is more theoretical. (Which is kind of odd, since in several of his videos he says theory confuses him and he doesn't 'think that way' when playing.) They played together brilliantly. Here's their duet of "Honeysuckle Rose," another thing Carol Kaye put out.

**mr. beaumont** · 12-22-2012, 12:23 PM

I always took any material with Joe's name on it to be an interpretation of whatever Joe told someone else. Great player, but his teaching shows how ingrained andintuitive it was for him...Joe was a lousy explainer.

Mark, I'll have to look further into what Carol says...I have only heard her say that the 50's cats didn't "think" about scales, which is not to say they didn't know them or play them...as far as thinking goes, she's generally correct.

**jlart** · 12-22-2012, 01:47 PM

@MarkRhodes I really hope Santa Claus brings you that cam and all the other wishes for you this year. Would be nice to have a lesson that would explain in more detail the type of things she talks about.

@Mr. Beaumont Funny you mentioned those things about Joe and that's how saw his explanations also. I guess teaching was his real cup of tea but he did communicated well with his guitar that's for sure.

**MarkRhodes** · 12-22-2012, 03:30 PM

Originally Posted by jlart

@MarkRhodes I really hope Santa Claus brings you that cam and all the other wishes for you this year. Would be nice to have a lesson that would explain in more detail the type of things she talks about.

.

Well, I hope Santa brings me that too, and if so, I'll do a lesson on this with some examples. This discussion reminds me of an episode from my past: I was raised anti-Catholic but became Catholic in my late 30s. For a while I considered becoming a priest, spending four years in a seminary, a summer as a hospital chaplain, and another year living in parishes to see day-to-day parish life up close and personal. I can't count the times a Catholic would ask me, "why do they[those odd Protestant people you calll family] do that?" And many non-Catholics asked me 'why do Catholics do that?' I found out most misunderstandings had the same cause: a guy from one tribe saw a guy from another tribe doing something, asked himself what it would mean if he did that, and then assumed that must be what the other guy meant by it. Wrong-o in the Congo! At least often enough.

In jazz, the Scale People and Chord People are not so far apart as Protestants and Catholics but the nature of misunderstanding is much the same. I think I can help some people understand what the people who talked about "chordal thinking" or "the chordal approach" in the '50s meant by it. I find the approach useful; others may too.

**jlart** · 12-22-2012, 03:52 PM

Originally Posted by MarkRhodes

I know what you're talking about and, as Richard Nixon might put it, "let me say this about that."
She thinks that players should START by learning chord tones, triads, and she has several nifty exercises for helping players get them down and then play them in cycles. Then you add notes---leading tones, chromatics--and that livens things up. With this approach, even if she plays a scale line, that's not how she's thinking about it. She's thinking in terms of chords, keys, substitutions, not scales.

@MarkRhodes you mention these "several nifty exercises" on a post in this thread;
Carol Kaye: "Nobody back in the '50s played note-scales."

Question what r these exercises and is there any specific book for guitar that goes into more details on this???

**MarkRhodes** · 12-22-2012, 04:16 PM

Carol has some book / CDs available. Most of her material is for bassists but she has some guitar stuff too, most of it dating back to the era of cassette records. (Anyone else old enough to remember Aebersold play-alongs coming with cassettes?) No tab, just small booklets with lines written out that she plays on the disc. (The cassette material has been transferred to CD, not re-recorded for CD.) Not play-along material, straight demonstration (-with mistakes left in at that!) Like a guitar lesson.

The Official Carol Kaye Web Site

It's not the sort of academic presentation we are now used to. It's more the way a pro guitarist might show a beginner the ropes. You're given solid stuff to work with but you're expected to take these basics and develop your own style out of them.

If that's not clear enough, you can send me a PM and I'll answere any further questions you have as best I can.

**edh** · 12-22-2012, 08:32 PM

Hey Mark, if jlart asks you any questions, could you answer them here on the forum? I would also like to know more about this topic.

Thanks
edh

**MarkRhodes** · 12-25-2012, 04:09 PM

As it turns out, Santa did not leave a webcam for me. However, someone gave me a bit of dough and I just placed an order with Amazon for a webcam. Went the free postage route, so it will be next week before I have it. That gives me some time to figure out what to say / show in a 'ten minutes or less' lesson on the chordal pattern system. Stay turned...