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hey guys,
The title pretty much said what i want to ask. Players like jim hall, john coltrane always solo outside the chord changes. Though there is a saying that once you know how to solo within the chord changes, you know how to do it outside the changes, but anyway, it there any book or theory that specifically focus on this?
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06-08-2014 09:36 PM
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It's all about how you get back in.
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Henry, check out a record called Magic Meeting...Scott Colley and Lewis Nash....closest ever Jim got to playing free, maybe. It's incredible...The best listening I've ever heard on record.
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One direction, that has been working for me (as a relative novice, 6 years on jazz guitar), is to start with a ii-V7-I pattern, and get your ear accustomed to various alterations on the V7 chord. For example, put a #9 into your line and also a b9 (in fact #9 and b9 can often go together quite nicely in the same line, so try using them both together). Then also play some improv lines over the V7 that use a b5, or a #5. Once you get used to developing lines that have these "outside tones" in them, they'll start to come up more naturally for you. Then you can move on to outside pitches for the iim7, and even the I chords. Hope that helps a bit and doesn't run afoul of the advice that would be given by more experienced players.
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40 minute master class, Dave Frank "Playing Outside the Changes". Excellent lots of stuff to work on, systematically explained. Dave is the only student of Lennie Tristano who published a 90 minute master class on how to blow on D mixo mode (i.e. "Dark Star")
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Out to use and computer programming term is and very overloaded term, it can mean a lot of things.
Also are you altering the changes and band has to follow you in that case the band just made your out is not in. Are you implying other changes against the band playing the original changes. Are you just adding more tension and release to original changes. Are you actually in floating on the upper extensions of all the chords. Or you just rhythmicly displacing the harmony. All could be out depending on how you use it.
Mr. B's already referenced what Chick Corea said.... It's doesn't matter what you play outside it's all about how you come back inside.
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Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
That record is out of control good. Also ... if his "Live! Dig" album isn't outside then I don't know what would be. He reallllllly toes the "free" line on a tune or two of that one. I think he plays the forms on most of the tunes but on some of them you wouldn't know it if you didn't count through.
As for playing "out" there's a million ways but - apart from the cliches like "you have to play in to be able to play out" and "it's not about how you play out it's about how you get back in" - the best advice I got on the topic was what a teacher called "horizontal gravity" as opposed to "vertical gravity" ... his way of saying that we traditionally weigh the inside or outside-ness of a phrase by hearing how it stacks up vertically against the accompanying chords. By saying we should think about a line's "horizontal gravity" he just meant that you should also consider how compelling a melody you're playing. The point was that if you play a very strong melodic beautiful phrase then then the listener's ear will be drawn to the continuity and interest of the line and it will have integrity even if it has nothing to do with the changes.
** also ... I called those two tidbits "cliches" (which they are) but that doesn't make them dated or incorrect. They are extremely correct which is why people say them all the time which is why they are cliches. Definitely very very very good advice.
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I think i got what you mean. Jim also talked about "motive" in his master class dvd. A lot of phrases that he demonstrate seem to follow a pattern either melodically or rhythmically. But I think only this can't give you tension. Originally Posted by inwalkedbud
He seems to play a lot of tri-tone and wide intervals. Check on youtube jim hall master class 2 "play outside changes"section.
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Dear TruthHertzoa Originally Posted by TruthHertz
The first way you mentioned, as I quote" to recognize the points of resolution, the turnarounds most commonly, and work them backwards with different devices of convergence" seems to be straight forward, so I got it. Would u give me the link of your thread where u talked about your other two points? Coz I once read a article says sometimes john coltrane approach a V7 chord with proceed chords that are not within the key, say I7 to III7 to v7(i can't remember the exact chord progression, but u got the idea).
So yes, I do wants ome clarification or examples of these things. Thanks a lot.
(PS: English is not my native language, so please forgive)
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Here you go. Some of the things I referenced: Originally Posted by Balalaika
Anybody use the Goodchord Voice Leading Books?
Tim Miller/Mick Goodrick book!
Some of the ideas in the goodrick miller book although address changes as written, can surely give you outside sounds by interpreting chordal triads with basic substitution principles. Creating the aforementioned altered sounds.
On the topic of triadic use, both as melody and harmonic devices, George Garzone's chromatic triadic approach is more commonly used by horn players, but guitarist Chris Crocco is the point man in the guitar world. Here's George who can explain it in his words.
about 41 minutes into the talk he addresses his approach in detail.
Hope this gives you stuff to chew on.
Ask questions either here or on one of the other existing threads. There's some really nice discussion going on in those too, and plenty of other members can chime in.
David
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the term 'playing outside chords' is always confusing for me a bit... I cannot understand what is expected: playing tonally free - that is musical sence, or playing over chord changes but not using chord chapes - that is technical....
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Last night I was studying modes via a pianist whom I respect for his deep theoretical knowledge and performance skills.
Specifically, a chart relating the intervals from the tonic in relation to their major, minor, dominant, or diminished qualities. In effect, he covered the way in which one can relate modes to the harmonized scale in terms of determining the pool of notes available to sound "in" versus "out", or the pool of 'safe' notes - the famous goal of the CST crowd. Seeing modes from that perspective is interesting, if somewhat superfluous for me in that I realized as I followed along the explanation that my ear performs the "calculations" with the same accuracy and much less mental fatigue and work automatically. I'm grateful that my ears perceive innately what one can arrive at theoretically.
But in any case I gained more insight into the theoretical basis of "modal harmony' and the relation to notes "inside" or "outside". Of course, once you know the root, third, seventh, ninth, eleventh, and thirteenth, you already have most of the pool as inside. Chromatics can resolve a half step to inside in most cases. None of this is new to me, but I like to review it now and again and then "forget it"...
Last edited by targuit; 06-09-2014 at 11:21 AM.
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The goal of CST is to play the safe notes? News to me.
I don't know why people can't talk about playing outside without getting all esoteric. There's a hundred ways to do it--but basically you're using dissonance (caused by playing non-chord tones or particular extensions) to create tension which is then resolved by playing "in."
You can approach outside playing from a defined "jumping off point" (altered scale, playing the same lick moving up in m3rd's over a dominant, side-stepping, etc.) or it can even be based on a visual or rhythmic pattern with disregard to the actual "notes," --how you get there is rather unimportant. Tension and release...there is no "out" without "in."
Uh oh...that last sentence was a bit hippy dippy
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Some technics I use to play outside.
the chromatic scale.
I play chromatic lines to target the chord notes on the beats.
Play a short pattern in a different key, and resolve with the same pattern in the good key.
It works with the patterns built with the pentatonic scale, with the fourth intervals or with the triads.
As in the thesaurus of scales book, one octave is split with the same intervals, play the same pattern on each notes of the intersection.
On a minor key, play the melodic minor scale on the ascending scale and the natural minor scale on the descending scale.( The melodic minor scales ca be used in a lot of different ways to play outside).
Like satriani, he uses the pitch axis, different modes on the same key.
More difficult, if you know very well the relation between the notes of the chord and the other notes. Choose an external note, and try to use it like a passing tone, and step by step, use this note like a target note.
ex: on Cmaj, the #9th - D# - has a soft dissonance, and the b13th - Ab - has an hard dissonnance.Last edited by nado64; 06-09-2014 at 12:30 PM.
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One thing worth mentioning is that both these clichés (and probably the question of the OP) are referring to "out" in relation to more-or-less conventional harmony. There is a huge part of jazz that is not concerned with "out versus in", but just explores "out", starting with Ornette and late Coltrane, Ayler, and etc. As inwalkedbud says, there's a million ways, and most of them have nothing to do with playing in (which usually is taken as synomynous with playing changes) Originally Posted by inwalkedbud
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In this instance and in most others ... play ing "outside" means using notes that are dissonant against the harmony. Since jazz is a fairly chromatic music that uses lots of chord tones that are dissonant it frequently refers to an entire motive or group of notes that fall outside the harmony as opposed to chromatic passing notes or color notes on a chord.
Definitely with Mr. B here... theory is brain food but there's a point where it's like pulling out a calculus book to figure out how long you've been practicing. Obviously you need up know how to tell time but you can get in the ballpark intuitively and really don't need all of the math you ever studied to figure it out.
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Jeff, the reason I mention CST goals as learning the pool of notes which are available to a soloist is I thought that was the purpose of CST. I, frankly, can see little purpose in CST, but the pianist/composer to whom I was referring called modes the "DNA of Jazz". DNA - huh, ok..
Outside - maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think of extensions like ninths, elevenths, and thirteens or diminished chords as being "outside", so there are not many out side notes left for a particular chord after you account for the 1, 3, 5, and 7th intervals plus extensions. Your chromatic notes.
Or perhaps you can explain to me once again what modes are useful for.
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Certainly, nobody's suggesting that ninths, elevenths, and thirteenths are "outside." Outside isn't just note choice, it's sequence, phrasing, the whole shebang.
With regard to your other question, I hope I don't derail the thread--but here goes. I don't like the word "goal" here because it makes CST sound like a method--a means to an end--or a "prescription as to what to play." It's not. It's just another visualization system, one that can be very useful in certain situations.
Jazz harmony up to about 1959 or so is pretty straightforward, and I would agree if someone were to say CST offers little advantage to the player if they're playing bop tunes or standards and ballads. But along the way, in the last 50 years, harmony has become a bit more interesting. Here's a string of chords:
E9sus4 | Cmaj7/E | E9sus4 | Cmaj7/E | Eb13sus4 | Bb13b9/Eb | Abmaj7#5 | G7#5#9 |
Now, you can visualize your familiar chords and make note of alterations, bass note changes, etc...or, you can familiarize yourself with a pattern that shows each of these chords "suggests" a scale.
I know which one sounds simpler to me.
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what is being dissonant against the harmony here? to over C7 is dissonant, even d ofer C7 is dissonant... but is it outside? It does not make sence..In this instance and in most others ... play ing "outside" means using notes that are dissonant against the harmony.
As I understand this to be really out side there's got be a certain feel in hearing of various directions where the melodic line goes and harmony goes - they go diverse... that/s what I could understand as being outside within the key
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I drew that distinction saying that the definition had to be looser in jazz because it's traditionally a bit more tolerant of dissonance than some other genres. Or more tolerant of particular types of dissonance I guess. I was just trying to provide a general explanation as the term applies here. Originally Posted by inwalkedbud
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This answer is a paraphrase answer Chick Corea gave. Recently I did attended an online seminar given by Chick Corea. The question posed here and the answer I gave were roughly the same. He went into more detail, but he tried to show how amusing the question was. He said, "Your question is the answer." Originally Posted by henryrobinett
I've spent a lot of time playing outside. I like to pivot off of altered tones and create a new sound shape, mode, arpeggio from that tone. Shapes are also cool. It doesn't matter so much what the harmony is going on underneath. Half step up, down, whole steps, 3rds, 4ths. Patterns. Divide the bar in half or a whole measure, than come back inside.
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Yea... it is an odd question when you think about it . I think it comes from people being told by teachers to "let your ear be your guide" and then being force fed a bunch of theory and stuff that sort of contradicts that idea When a topic like playing outside comes up people have been trained to think there's some kind of formula when in this instance there really really really isn't. I think all the theoretical approaches to playing outside stem from a fear of playing out. If it sounds bad then at least you had a reason to have played that way ... then it's not your fault. The entire point is that you're playing contrary to what theory would dictate ... no need for a theoretical justification. Just find something that sounds interesting and practice it in a million contexts see where you dig and where you don't.
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Jeff, the reason I mention CST goals as learning the pool of notes which are available to a soloist is I thought that was the purpose of CST. I, frankly, can see little purpose in CST, but the pianist/composer to whom I was referring called modes the "DNA of Jazz". DNA - huh, ok..
Outside - maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think of extensions like ninths, elevenths, and thirteens or diminished chords as being "outside", so there are not many outside notes left for a particular chord after you account for the 1, 3, 5, and 7th intervals plus extensions. Your chromatic notes.
Here is an excerpt from a treatise by Stuart Smith on Jazz Harmony.
Chord scale theory concerns the question of which scales go with which chords. Typically a jazz soloist wants to know what scale to use to improvise a melody over a particular chord or sequence of chords. Chord scale theory provides some guidelines (not rules) for choosing scales in this situation. Chord scale theory is most properly used as an planning tool to help the musician map out a sequence of scales to be used as material for improvisation, which should be done before an actual performance rather than “on the fly” during a solo. The key to using chord scale theory is not to think of the harmony of a piece as a sequence of isolated chords, but rather as sequences of chords related to one another by their functions within a specific key.
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A dominant chord is maybe a bad example...you play just about anything over them! Maybe it's a good example. Originally Posted by Jonah
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The unisson, fifth and octave are perfect consonances.
The sixth and third are imperfect consonances.
The remaining intervals, like the second, fourth, diminished fifth, tritone, seventh are dissonances.
The others intervals are outside notes.
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