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I am not sure I am understanding the 'jazz' approach to turnarounds.
As a basic thing, if it is a turnaround to 1 (eg to C) I get staying in that key and I get playing arpeggios but that also sounds pretty lame/cheesey, well the way I do it anyway.
What are some different approaches/ideas? I can hear, but it is pretty foggy, doing something outside but I don't understand the foundation.
Cheers
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05-06-2015 07:46 PM
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A couple different things to try.
Subs - say you have Cmaj7 A7 Dm7 G7,
you might do a Coltrane 1235 pattern with C, Eb (tritone sub for A7), D, Db (tritone sub for G7). There are tons of other subs available as well.
Next you might want to try (if its a fast turnaround) a nice blues line. Since the chords are moving fast, it's not imperative to hit every change if your line is hip.
And 10,000 other things. Hope that helps!!!
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Thanks guys. The penny has not dropped for me yet. To be clear it is improving, coming up with lines not the chords
Are you suggesting eg play Coltrane changes a stock I VI II V turnaround that is even though the chords are C A& Dm G7 I can improv Eb Db and therefore chromatically I would resolve down a half step back to C on the I?
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I haven't read the replies but look for actual 2-5-1 patterns or phrases. There are a million of them. Learn about 20 in every conceivable position until you get the hang. Then extrapolate similar ideas of your own to make up more.
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David Baker's How to Play Bebop has dozens of ii-V-I lines
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Yes, but just to be clear.
Originally Posted by gggomez
By Coltrane, I just meant the little pattern 1235 (you could use coulees other patters or arpeggios). The rest of it is just playing the tritone sub. Fairly common thing to do. Yes you would resolve back to C (assuming the song goes there).
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gggomez, hey man! Hope you've been well. I still have some lessons to teach tomorrow, Friday, and Monday, but today was my last day of classes and studying myself for the semester! Let's touch base soon.
For me, I wouldn't segment out 'turnarounds' as a separate thing from anything else. A turnaround is just a sequence of chords...no different that a sequence happening anywhere else in the form. I personally like to gain ideas from a lot of places, but one easy place to talk about (and explain via typing) is just learning tunes. Look at how different guys write melodies over turnarounds (or just over moving chords in general). Bird is going to write lines COMPLETELY different than Billy Strayhorn. But each guy is bringing their aesthetic to the table. Transcribing solos is cool...but I think tunes, and the melodies these guys wrote (and continue to write) is a vastly overlooked treasure chest. I mean, their solos are cool...in the moment, spontaneous, free...it's great. But they also took the time to sit down and really think of a specific melodic statement that they wanted to make. Look at how Bird write his melodies differently during the end 1st, 2nd, and 3rd A section of a rhythm changes...or of any tune. Check out his last 4 bars of any blues. Or whoever you're into. Maybe you're not a bop guy. Listen to the way they write their melodies over the changes. I love studying the melodies. Not only does it give me a lot of ideas for voice leading through changes, but it's also a great way to learn to play more melodically, and it's a great way to set yourself apart from other people who just shred riffs. The melodic depth that emanates from players who utilize the melody during their improvisation always seems far more vast to me than guys who don't take advantage of the melodic statements these legends were giving to the world.
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Thanks Jordan will definitely do that this weekend.
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Part of the turnaround thing is coming up with the chords. Learn some basic re-harming techniques, you can play some basic arpeggios off of that, but you'll be playing over some different chords, which will make it not sound like a turnaround. Originally Posted by gggomez
Like, E-7 A7 D-7 G7 to C.
You can turn that around to something as crazy as
Bb7 G-6 Ab7 B-6 to C
There's some advanced stuff there, but start with tritone subs and secondary ii chords, and try playing arpeggios, then inverting arpeggios. You can start messing with scale patterns or upper structures as well.
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The great thing about turn arounds (basic with Vsubs) is that you can voice them in so many ways, and then they pop up in a large amount of standards, so when you have build a turnaround vocabulary , you can apply it to the songs
And have a lot more fun and ease than just reading the chords one by one
You can play Eb7 instead of A7 in chord and solo
You can also play one or the other as chord with an extension and move it downwards chromatically and hear the notes change function
In a simple manner you can play C major penta on C minor penta on A7
Major on Dm an minor on G7Last edited by vhollund; 05-10-2015 at 09:01 PM.
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Try the blues scale. Good place for it sometimes.
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I agree. It took me many years to realize how contrived and cheesy it sounded to run four chords over the place in a tune where the music is supposed to take a break... Originally Posted by Rob MacKillop
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the idea of 'turnaroun approach' is more for orientation than for composition. for ii-v-i in C yu can actually play arpeggio Fm7 - Bb7 - C7 with extension...
I mean turnaround gives you the lead - from point to point but not necessarily the recipe how exactly you treat it...
Check this solo. It has very nice analysis that illustrates the idea. It is based on Hawk's arpeggio style mostly (but arpeggio is not the only way)
Coleman Hawkins ? Rainbow Mist ? complete solo analysis | Martin Uherek
But the main idea anyway - it is just to see where you are and where you are going but th emusic you have to create yourself
Another important point is to connect melodically a few turnarounds and to think on the level of form/song through the set of turnarounds...
I like taking a song 'Nobody Else But Me' original chart as a sample.. it consists practically onley of ii-v-(i) turnarounds shifting through the keys of C - B - E - D - G - C - Bb - F - D - C ... (when I key I mean relatively to turnaround, not necessarily actual modulation)
and there are only two main short motivic ideas in melody but at the same... ornamental appogiatura and 6th/7th jump... but author handles it perfectly...
Just check the first bars: harmony (only basic chords I do not consider melodic extensions) C - Fmaj/ Dm7 - G7/Dm7-G7 - C#7-F#7/Bmaj - Bmaj - F#m7 - B7/ E maj...
So here we have in the first bar I - IV in the key of C (we omit it now, but actually if you really want you can play it also as ii-v-i)...
then Dm7 - G7 in the next bar...
and then Dm7-G7 - C#7-F#7 - two ii-v in keys of C and B...
melodicaly there's also sequence... but look what they do next...
in harmony then Bmaj. as tonic here and F#m7 - B7 as ii-v in key of E..
he seems to stop melodically on the first chord Bmaj but he does on with phrase to the note of B (it will be 11th in the chord F#m7)...
I like this sample becasue it shows how melodic idea cover a few turnarounds and this way it makes a few level in composition and it adds also swimg and groove to compositionLast edited by Jonah; 05-08-2015 at 05:43 AM.
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Oh for goodness sake!
Try Playing the changes and singing a jazzy line over the top. Get it straight in you mind or use a looper. Learn the line and analyse if you wish. Job done.
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Nothing wrong with strategizing
If you first seperate the guitar in 3
Bass
Chords in the middle
Melody on top
Then you can try to drone some pentatonic melody on top while in parallel out lining the harmony and the voice leading in the middle
The hardest thing is to keep
ones mind cool at high speed
And a relaxed technique
Most of the work I do practising jazz and jazz tunes is turn around related
Reading chords the same way all the time works but doesnt get you very far as a jazz musician
Both when comping and soloing it should be full of variation and fun, and that is only possible at high speed with tons of practice and a big personally chosen (identity) vocabulairy
I find it both hard and interesting to marry both a cool melodic long term narrative with the fast pace harmonic lines changes
The risk is either
1. that it becomes too simplistic
Miles Davis was a master at adding just one note to mark a chord change
And Bill Frisell
And basically you can think of a 4 chord turn around as release tension release tension Some guitairist use a (cheap) trick that easily expresses it, by moving a phrase upward chromatically
2. That is becomes a ton of arpeggios that doesn't have any melodic value worth mentioning, when trying to outline the harmony
Rythme phrasing and familiarity with bebob music helps ofcourse
3. That it becomes all chopped up when trying to combine simple melodic with fast harmonic playing
I guess Joe Pass really mastered the solo jazz guitar and combining solo harmony bass and melody/impro , (with small hands)
Who else masters it ?Last edited by vhollund; 05-08-2015 at 07:34 PM.
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When thinking of turnarounds, its important to keep in mind where the turnaround leads to. How you end up at the tonic after a turnaround is often more important than what you play on the turnaround itself.
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Just steal any nice simple line you like that works well over the changes ..... to your ear
steal it , then get it really down all over the guitar (and in a few different keys)
then just experiment with changing a note here and there and watch what happens
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@pushkar
Good thing to mention yes
I write for example "T Bb" for "turn around in Bb", on my partitions so that I dont have to analyse too much while playing
And to avoid just playing chord by chord
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have used the first five chords of "giant steps" as a base for a turnaround if it fits..
parts of the circle of fifths/fourths..in melodic patterns
chromatic chord runs may work well
diminished/augmented scale runs
melodic patterns also have a nice feel to them..as well as melodic statements from songs - yep it could be clichés
use a fusion exercise with wide intervals to fill the space if it fits the piece..
to some the turnaround is "play time" and some guys will throw in things they are working on to see if it fits and what reaction they get from the band/listeners
find a page of turnarounds and play against them ideas like the above..in time you will be able to feel what will work..and how to fit ideas with melodic or "outside" flavors and make them work
and of course listen to how name players use the last four bars of the blues to rev up or cool down//Last edited by wolflen; 05-08-2015 at 11:27 PM.
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Johnny Smith- ''If you tell a student everything that has to be learnt....they give up on the spot.''
Jazz is now full of academics making a living out of being....academic. Why? Because they can't make a living playing jazz.
Someone above said study the tunes. Very wise. That's all you need. You might produce some music then as opposed to jazz showing off.
I was at a work shop with Lee Konitz. His whole approach was, just play around with the tune. Forget the changes. The tune has to be the best line for that set of changes. If you solo not thinking of the tune then it is no longer that tune! How many times have you heard jazzers just blasting away at the same crap over every 'tune' they play. Cut out the head and it all sounds exactly the same. Just ripping through harmonic 'concepts' to impress the academics. That doesn't make it 'music' necessarily.
OK, rant over.
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Everything is a harmonic concept. Even playing the tune is a harmonic concept. Originally Posted by md54
It doesn't matter what way you approach it, if it doesn't sound good, its not worth much. This applies to anything - whether its playing complex ideas over changes or playing simple melodies based on the tune. Both can sound good or bad. There's nothing superior about 'playing the tune' - nor is there anything superior about 'playing the changes'. Every thing we do every sound we make are just equal parts of the puzzle.
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Another thing I like to do occasionally, is repeat the turnaround over the next chord. Say in Ladybird, You have the
C Eb Ab Db, I like to keep that going over the following I chord and into the next key. It's amusing because someone above stated they hate that sound.... Oh well, to each their own.
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Baker's 3 books in that series are a great resource. Vol 2 offers "101 Favorite Bebop Era II V7 Patterns" and "100 III VI / II V Patterns." It also contains many minor II V7 patterns as well as cycle patterns. (Vol 1 focuses on the bebop scale while Vol 3 focuses on learning tunes. All 3 volumes are good but 2 is the focused most on the bebop language.) Originally Posted by Flyin' Brian
Last edited by MarkRhodes; 05-10-2015 at 05:37 PM. Reason: concision
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Thanks everyone for taking the time to provide some guidance, I am working through all that has been recommended.
What I am trying to unlock is the concept that the turnaround is not played as a straight ii v. I guess I am thinking a turnaround needs to go away from the key to come back to it.
Lets say a turn around to ii (Dm) like a Cmaj7, Bb7, B7, A7.
To follow the chords is gonna sound cheesey and for me very difficult to play a melody that is not gonna sound like a pile of arpeggios. To stay in C over the whole thing and just highlight the C# of A7 a bit stock. Is this not the section of a song where after you play some nice melodies I should be trying to play something that goes outside to then resolve to create one of those "oh yeah that was cool" moments?
Yes understand transcribe and examine the masters, absolutely I am doing that. I am trying to understand the theoretical approach.
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