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IMO, unless you are blessed with the fast ears, natural talent and fingers of a Wes Montgomery or Stan Getz then you need all the theory help you can get. That includes knowing chord scales, voice leading, triad pairs, 3 tonic, target approaches etc etc.
CST is quite useful when approaching 60's tunes like Dolphin Dance, Juju, Serenity.
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07-24-2013 02:07 AM
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No, you're not allowed to say that, take it back im-me-dia-te-ly!
Originally Posted by targuit
I admit to finding Brower somewhat overrated as a composer. Are we allowed to say that? If not, I take it back.
You only need to listen to or play his Etudes Simples, without going further away, to realise that the man is a frigging genius!
Not my favourite performer for Bach though, I prefer Paul Galbraith... Am I allowed to say that? If not, I take it back.
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This is just one video of six parts section of his class on modern chord progressions taking the progression from base vanilla changes and each video adding more subs and colors. Originally Posted by targuit
If not familiar with John's incredible musicianship check out the album he did with David Lieberman called The Banff Sessions where they are doing all Standards. So you can hear John's approach on familiar material.
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Thanks, Torito! Glad you got the joke.
Actually, I rather liked the linked Brouwer version of the Chaconne. Paul Galbraith is a very interesting musician as well. I have his CD including Bach Partitas including some I play. I should listen to some more of Brower's compositions. I have one call "november (something)" that I picked up eons ago but never play
Docbop, I would like to listen to Stowell's take on a familiar Standard, if just to get an orientation on his approach. When I posted the prior link to his master class, I did not note which vol. no. it was. Hope that wasn't no. 1...
When I look to interpreters of the Standards, I often start with Bill Evans and I enjoy the Keith Jarrett Trio recordings. I believe these players take the music to a beautiful and profound place. And Bill Evans doesn't caterwaul scat in that horrific nasal tone that Keith emits.Last edited by targuit; 07-25-2013 at 01:18 PM.
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What your saying is if you don't have the talent "paint by numbers " ... the pedagogical approach...plenty of that on this site.....
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If you regard the works of Leo Brouwer so highly [and even if you don't]
.....please accord him the dignity of spelling his name correctly.
And can someone tell me how we get to be discussing classical guitar pieces
on a thread exploring the validity [or otherwise] of CST.
And on a jazz guitar forum!
Please take your argumentative ramblings elsewhere.
This whole episode is some sad shit man.
You know who you are.
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Brouwer's 'El Decameron Negro' should be required listening for all guitarists. (Particularly the second movement, and preferably played by John Williams.)
Last edited by Jehu; 07-25-2013 at 06:22 AM.
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Hi all,my 2 cents regarding the original question : the "bebop scales" (scales with and added chromatic note) are useful when you have trouble to land on a chord tone on the beat, as they are designed for this aim. I think that practicing them in 8th-notes is quite good for the ear to really hear the chord tones. Of course as it's already been written here, this is only one of the possible tools to improvise.Have swing !G.
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Went to see a duo performance of john Williams and Barney Kessel at Claytons Play- House in London many years ago' John Williams was superb but couldn't play jazz for nuts, In an interview later when asked what he thought o Barney he said "I wish I could play like! I had the feeling it was harder for John than it was for Barney.. I think the guitar being the versatile instrument it is, has hampered it's growth as a jazz instrument unlike the Sax.. Well there's no Harmolodics here..... is there?....
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I've been keeping up with this thread for a while and I would like to add a thought.
As to the validity of CST, I personally believe that it is a great stepping stone to a deeper understanding of harmony, I am completely in support of teaching it, learning it, and if it's helpful, using it while improvising.
To the poster who has been the most skeptical.... what do you do if you have never heard the song before? do you wait until someone plays a chord before you start improvising?
It's just that a big part of the jazz skill set is the ability to improvise while reading, your approach doesn't seem to include that part of it.
Also, I would like to present a scenario where I believe "CST" (a name I dislike BTW) would make a person's life easier as a musician.
Since you appear to be primarily a classical guy, imagine you are arranging a song, any song, for an ensemble that included a harp. And let's say you wanted the harp to play a series of glissandi throughout the arrangement as the accompaniment. Due to the nature of the harp, each measure or harmonic landing point would need to contain 7 stepwise pitches while at the same time expressing the harmony intended.... see where I'm going with this?
without finishing the hypothetical I would just like to add that these days, the only time I really use CST is for extremely fast stepwise movement, in these cases, it is very helpful, whether it be in playing a jazz solo, writing for harp, or any other situation imaginable, it saves time.
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No. It is important for a thorough understanding of harmony. The problems are when (1) it is taught as a replacement for traditional functional harmony (Aldwell & Schachter, Piston, etc.) when it is better to approach it as supplement and extension of, rather than replacement; and (2) when people teach it as an improvisation method: telling someone to play D dorian over Dm7 isn't anymore helpful than telling them to play Dm7 over Dm7 when they don't know what to do with it. Learning improvisation is better approached by studying melodic development and embellishment techniques and developing vocabulary and repertoire.Is chord scale theory crap?
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Hey at least now we're getting into what the topic is about....why CST is or is not crap.
Once you learn what melodic development and embellishment is....and what functional harmony is, you then are able to begin approaching jazz relationships, melodically and harmonically.
Not all improvisation is about melodic development... and functional harmony is not the only set of harmonic guidelines. Just as Ryan said of CST not being a replacement for traditionally taught musical common practice. Trying to play and understand jazz with only those traditionally taught musicianship skills.... Well if your looking for a example of Vanilla.....it's like a bunch of old white guys trying to play funk.
If I offended anyone... Sorry, we're only talking about music, it's not that serious. Ok...personally the goal or end result from understanding CST is you become aware of complete vertical note collections for any one melodic attack, you obviously don't have or need to think this way... But every single note has a complete harmonic implication. Every note can be a 13th chord.
You don't need to play all the notes All the time...but they all can be implied. The next step is being aware of the different possibilities of complete note collections that can or might be implied. With jazz being aware of those possibilities is common practice.
Just as we have melodic development and embellishments.... Think harmonic developments and embellishments ... Yes with Maj/Min functional harmonic guidelines, but also with different guidelines, Modal Guidelines, there are other methods of creating Function... Creating movement within music.
You won't be aware of these aspects of playing jazz from only using melodic development and functional harmony. CST is one source of becoming aware of some of these possibilities and being able to hear and understand some common practice jazz relationships. Reg
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Originally Posted by timscarey
What about when you use superimposed triads as material for improvisation? You likely extract them from a chord scale...
CST gets a bad rap from situations like someone mentioned earlier - an inexperienced improvisor attempts to "play D Dorian over Dm7" - in light of their current level of experience, a 7 note scale is much to "macro" for them at that point. A person playing at that level needs to leverage note constructs that contain a higher "money-note ratio"...hey, I like that!
From now on, I'll refer to that as "MNR"...lol
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Is it Scottish?
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Kind of a nice final wrap up of the topic...
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Originally Posted by Reg
Time for new thread.... Chords tones are the Black Holes of music theory.
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What is 3 Tonic please ? Originally Posted by robscott
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Let's let Elvis have his say......
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Tunes that utilize the 3 different keys, each a major 3rd apart like Giant Steps, Countdown etc... Originally Posted by pingu
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HAAAH! That was great! Originally Posted by docbop
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This is the common practice of super-imposing coltrane's countdown harmony over simple or more static harmony. Originally Posted by pingu
Over | Dm7 | G7 | CM7 | / | you would imply | Dm7 Eb7 | AbM B7 | EM G7 | CM |
You can hear a lot of this from Dave Liebman and Steve Grossman on Elvin Jones Album live at the lighthouse.
Most coltrane influenced tenor sax players have a fair amount of these lines in their bag of tricks.
Here's a Steve Grossman track with a lot of these lines
Some books on this would be:
walt weipskopf: coltrane, a players guide to his harmony
corey christiansen: coltrane changes
Dave Liebman: chromatic approach to jazz harmony
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You go round the cycle two tones down C to Ab to E to C yeah ?
I've always thought going C to Ab is like C to Cm kinda
ie it feels like the Ab could be the the IV chord of Eb and C- is the rel minor of Eb
Many thanks , I can't really hear those sounds yet
I've got my hands full with the maj scale , relative minor (vi chord) and secondary doms etc
at the moment ........ show tunes etc
Thanks tho
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Video clip of the day! At first I thought it was overdubbed. Did they really name check Lennie Tristano? Originally Posted by Spirit59
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I don't know if it was overdubbed or not but Lennie was pretty well known in his day. Originally Posted by BigDaddyLoveHandles
Short term and long term fame can vary and then there is also the possibility of rediscovery.
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I think they just named the guy they least understood! they certainly upset Elvis!!.....
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