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Been noticing that a lot of my fave players each combine "lines" and "patterns" to make up much, if not all, of their arsenal when improvising. By "line" I guess I mean melodic playing, whether its prefab or made up on the spot. By "Pattern" I mean any repeated sequential motif that can be mixed with others in such a way as to "disguise" their use - ie. they can sound like "lines" sometimes...
I know it's a murky question, for instance you might call 50's Rollins a "line" player, but then his theme and variation approach sometimes suggests treating long lines as "patterns", transforming them every which way. Or, at the same time you had Coltrane clearly obsessed with patterns, but could throw in the occasional melodic line that left you unsure as to whether it was a "lick" or a combo of neat patterns.
With my own playing, I practice both lines and patterns, but am starting to find I'm more attracted to patterns, and the challenge of making them interesting (to me, and hopefully the listener!). I suppose I'm worried that pattern based playing is ultimately more boring for the listener and was wondering if you folks agree. When you think of your fave players (on any instrument), are you hearing many "patterns" - perhaps artfully disguised?
Apologies if this sounds like a weird question, if I think it through more I might be able to express it better....
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06-05-2015 10:37 AM
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Can you define better the difference between lines and patterns
from say motifs, rhythmic cells, intervallic shapes and contours
or dare I say melody. The latter descriptions are closer to how I
conceive of the sounds you are describing from Coltrane and Rollins.
I have no particular inside insight to how they thought but these descriptions
point more to musical development (in my mind).
A pattern creates itself once the initial figure is established and hence the need to disguise it,
from being too predictable. A motif can start out in a similar way but can develop in a multitude of directions.
Maybe just semantics, but I feel better served by these words.
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OK, I guess by pattern I don't mean necessarily mean motif (which can be quite long), but usually more of a small cell that gets sequenced out. Too hard to explain in more detail as we all do them differently, I suppose. I make up my own and probably drill dozens of them in all positions. When soloing I might typically mix these cells with purely melodic lines that can't be broken down into cells,which are either either bits of prefab language or attempts at free wheeled melodicism.
Sometimes the patterns may be ways of embellishing scales and arps, eg- encircling chord tones in lots of ways (chromatic, diatonic, both, one note per side, 2 beneath one above, 2 above one beneath etc etc etc). Regardless, my question is about whether we feel this approach to be rather unmusical, or is it legitimate ? Are there pattern based players that disguise it well? (Maybe they disguise it so well we can't tell they're essentially pattern based players!
) ...
Can anyone think of players that could be described essentially as pattern based players?
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There is a pretty formal language of linear construction that makes up the jazz idiom, princeplanet. I does include a lexicon of chord tones, passing tones, embellishments (appogituras, neighbor tones, chromatic approach tones, escape tones) and an eighth note phrasing with syncopation. This gives a characteristic sound to solos based on this approach. You can hear this in Sonny Stitt, Jackie McLean, Joe Henderson to give you a few.
After Wayne Shorter, there were linear constructions that gave rise to a different sound. One of these is (much discussed of late) chord scale approach that you can hear in people like Michael Brecker, John Abercrombie to name two.
Both of these approaches are in fact complimentary and there's a lot of overlap, but it's also an attitude in how to use notes and how to learn them that gives rise to two often divergent traditions.
People like Joe Lovano and Jerry Bergonzi are fluent in the both families and their solos combine them seamlessly.
I will say that as with any approach, the artistic challenge is to think in broad enough architectural construction so you don't merely wind up using these tools to fill up space without saying anything. It often takes an educated listener to really hear and appreciate a good solo for its subtle use of development. Well worth getting to know the language of solo construction and composition and you'll not only hear in a short phrase way but with an ear to the long arc.
I think this is what you were asking about. I hope so. I hope this might be helpful.
David
Josh Redman
[/PHP]Last edited by TH; 06-05-2015 at 12:37 PM.
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"Linear Construction" is broad enough to mean all kinds of playing, I was specifically just wanting to discuss the handling of patterns. Take McLean, his straight Bop albums are basically rehashed Bird lines, but from around "Jackie's Bag" he started to work in patterns and sequences, no doubt influenced by Trane. By the time he got to One Step Beyond and other mid 60's and beyond albums, he was using lots more patterns. Most Jackie lovers like this period more than his boppish period. Strangely, for a pattern lover like myself, I still prefer his late 50's early 60's Bop lines! (Go figure...).
Was Brecker, in your own opinion, pattern based?
BTW, what's an "escape tone"?
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A few conventional embellishments, appropriate for the western classical world where they were used to jazz ways to change the rhythmic weight or embellish chord tones.
David
Passing Tone (PT)
A passing tone is a non-chord tone (dissonance) that occurs between two chord tones, creating stepwise motion. The typical figure is chord tone – passing tone – chord tone, filling in a third (see example to the right), but two adjacent passing tones can also be used to fill in the space between two chord tones a fourth apart. A passing tone can be either accented (occurring on a strong beat or strong part of the beat) or unaccented (weak beat or weak part of the beat).
Complete Neighbor Tone (NT)
Like the passing tone, a complete neighbor tone is a non-chord tone (dissonance) that occurs between two chord tones; however, a complete neighbor tone will occur between two instances of the same chord tone. Also like the passing tone, movement from the chord tone to the neighbor tone and back will always be by step. A complete neighbor can be either accented or unaccented, but unaccented is more common. Double Neighbor Figure (DN) – Like the complete neighbor figure, the double neighbor figure begins and ends on the same chord tone. Between those two instances of the chord tone are tow non-chord tones—one a step above and the other a step below the chord tone. Though individually we may consider each of the two non-chord tones to be incomplete neighbors (below), working together in the double-neighbor figure they balance each other out and create a contiguous whole with the overall stability of a complete neighbor. A double neighbor figure is typically unaccented.
Incomplete Neighbor Tone (INT)
The incomplete neighbor tone is an unaccented non-chord tone that is approached by leap and proceeds by step to an accented chord tone. Broadly speaking an incomplete neighbor tone is any non-chord tone a step away from a chord tone that proceeds or follows it (and is connected on the other side by leap), but other kinds of incomplete neighbor tones have special names and roles that follow below.
Appoggiatura (APP)
An appoggiatura is a kind of incomplete neighbor tone that is accented, approached by leap (usually up), and followed by step (usually down, but always in the opposite direction of the preceding leap) to a chord tone.
Escape Tone (ESC)
An escape tone, or echappée, is a kind of incomplete neighbor tone that is unaccented, preceded by step (usually up) from a chord tone, and followed by leap (usually down, but always in the opposite direction of the preceding step).
Anticipation (ANT)
An anticipation is essentially a chord tone that comes early. An anticipation is a non-chord tone that will occur immediately before a change of harmony, and it will be followed on that change of harmony by the same note, now a chord tone of the new harmony. It is typically found at the ends of phrases and larger formal units.
Suspension (SUS)
A suspension is formed of three critical parts: the preparation(accented or unaccented), the suspension itself (accented), and the resolution (unaccented). The preparation is a chord tone (consonance). The suspension is the same note as the preparation and occurs simultaneous with a change of harmony. The suspension then proceeds down by step to the resolution, which occurs over the same harmony as the suspension. The suspension is in many respects the opposite of the anticipation: if the anticipation is an early arrival of a chord tone belonging to the following chord, a suspension is a lingering of a chord tone belonging to the previous chord that forces the late arrival of the new chord’s chord tone. However, the suspension must be treated with a great deal more care than the anticipation. The most common suspensions (and their resolutions) in upper voices form the following intervallic patterns against the bass: 9–8, 7–6, 4–3. (With the exception of 9–8, the pitch class of the resolution tone should never sound in another voice simultaneous with the suspended tone.) Instead of SUS, it is preferable to notate the intervallic pattern in the thoroughbass figures.
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He employed his own take on a well founded jazz vocabulary if that's what you're asking.
Originally Posted by princeplanet
Start this at 2:30 and you decide.
I'm still not really sure of your terminology but I do agree with your comments about Jackie McLean, he did evolve from the heavy use of a technical use of bebop lexicon into something more personal.
Brecker had so much of his own sound that I consider him a really good example of someone who used the notes and didn't let them use him. He uses techniques you find in bebop but you can hear him hearing. He didn't just move his fingers and plug in cliches.
David
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Got it, cheers, I remember echapee from my Harmony and Counterpoint days...
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A pattern I picked up from Carol Kaye is the stack triads. For example, over G you have G (G, B, D) Bm (B, D, F#) D (D, F#, A), F#m (F#, A, C) Am (A, C, E) C (C, E, G) Em (E, G, B) F#b5 (F#, A, C) You can start this anywhere and either ascend or descend. It's a great way to build momentum in a break----you just have to know where you need to be on the "one" when the band comes back in and start far enough away from it.
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Well, I hear patterns, sure. Let's face it, most post Coltrane players are messing with countless patterns. It's certainly not lyrical playing like Stan Getz, or Dexter Gordon! Originally Posted by TruthHertz
At any rate, Brecker, or even more modern players like Potter really wear me out. This is my fear, that patterns (no matter how ornate or well founded in Jazz vernacular) are more fun to play than they are to listen to!
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Yeah, I use similar patterns. I call them my embellished 13th arp patterns. In another thread that's still going we discussed Dominant vs Tonic flux, and I mentioned that some ideas fall into both categories (Ambi-Tonic?). Any idea that is basically and embellished pattern around a 13th chord is going to contain all the notes to every diatonic 13th chord in the key (it has to, it's using all 7 notes!). So it's going to work against any diatonic chord, better than the same 7 note scale will because when, say the dissonant 4th for example, is played against a maj or dom chord as part of your cascading sequence above, it's far less objectionable because it's patterned sequentially and it imposes it's inner logic over the prevailing harmony. (Sidestepping works the way it does for the same reason, yeah?). Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
If you were just noodling and landed the 4th, it will often sound "wrong" in a way that no resolution can salvage...
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Yes, we've become very good at growing trees and planting them all over the place. A good player has something there that they're embellishing, and often it takes an increasingly better set of ears to catch it, and maybe that's why so many people don't listen to jazz, they don't hear it. Originally Posted by princeplanet
I really don't know where my ears would be if I didn't spend as much time playing and being around live music. And I do agree, a lot of people are getting really good at making overplayed kinesthetic based solos with no real direction. A lot of people really good at making a dense expansive group of trees but they sound like they've never seen a forest.
There are good players out there and their artistry lies well beyond the realm of proficiency.
Space is the place.
David
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This post wins the internets for 2015! My hat is off to TruthHertz. Originally Posted by TruthHertz
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Great stuff as always, David! Originally Posted by princeplanet
Just to go back to this one point from the OP … If our listeners are "civilians" (i.e., not musicians), I'd say they would prefer a "pattern," rather than a completely improvised solo, since it helps them "latch on" to what's going on. Patterns are more "recognizable," and the listener will think, "Hey, I can hear that!" I think it's similar to civilians (often) preferring singers in a jazz combo rather than just instruments -- they can hear and understand the words, so they "get it;" it's harder for them to "get" that you're blowing over an altered scale or using Coltrane changes.
Of course, a whole solo of patterns would be boring for everyone, so it still goes back to using everything in our arsenal (rhythm, melody, chord-scale, patterns, licks, space, harmony, dissonance, etc. etc.) to make interesting music.
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07-07-2015, 08:29 AM #15paulcw16 Guest
I find that shorter phrases you love are most likely to appear spontaneously in your playing.
Last edited by paulcw16; 07-09-2015 at 05:03 PM.
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Frequent changes in more "tonal" tunes have a way of pushing us toward pattern playing.
modal music has a way of freeing us up from these tight constraints, and hence, is more conducive to line playing.
true or false?
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As I see it . . . . Patterns, fingerings, shapes, chord tones, boxes, modes . . . call'em what you will. They're all used and functional while improvising. But, unless the individual notes within them, along with available tensions/releases and chromaticism are incorporated and all is collectively used to form a *spoken* lyrical and melodic language, they're all gonna sound like . . . patterns,fingerings, shapes, chord tones, boxes, modes . . . when played as such in an improv.
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The most common phrase in Charlie Parker's playing was an ascending arpeggio, most often played as a triplet. The second most common was an inverted mordent. (See the "Parker Style" chapter of "Bebop" by Thomas Owens.) Originally Posted by paulcw16
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This is why Herb Ellis was always saying "sing what you play" (or "play what you sing")---that deepens the connection between your "heart" (Herb's term) and your fingers. Originally Posted by Patrick2
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That ascending arp was most often used by Bird as a launch or prelude into a line spoken in the bop language. Johnny Smith did the same thing with scale runs up to beautiful and intervalic lines . . (one of the very few things I disliked about JS' improvs, because IMO he overused that approach and it became predictable. Jazz shouldn't be predictable). Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
Almost everything Wes did (or the vast majority of it) was based around and upon arps. But, there was tremendous lyrical and melodic music created using those intervals.
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My basic opinion on every question like this is: use everything. There is never ever one right or better way to do something when it comes to art. Use lines. Use patterns. Be happy. Use other stuff too.
The general rule for my practice sessions has always been try to figure out every freaking possible way to play a group of notes. And after chipping away at it for the last 25 years, I feel I'm finally starting to make progress.
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07-10-2015, 09:34 PM #22paulcw16 Guest
I think short phrases have the most flexibility for being worked into a solo spontaneously.
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use all the "tools" you know..and build melodies that talk to each other..an ascending scale run could be answered by a descending arpeggio..wide intervals could be a nice change to a chromatic run in 4ths..then a blues lick could sweeten a long symmetrical run .. inserting melodic lines from songs you know and invert them..playing them backward..in a modal style .. all can enhance a solo greatly..
I use some jimi Hendrix lines sometime in a slow ballad..the notes-not the distortion..jimi played some very melodic lines..(wind cries mary) I experiment over very simple progressions of four or five chords and their inversions..you can develop some nice melodic ideas that way..record your experiments and make the ones you like part of you..another thing .. try all this stuff in as many different keys as you can..you will get new ideas from each key..
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For me the original question about patterns vs diatonic lines has absolutely no ambiguity. It's the central question I ask myself, as hours turn into days and then weeks practicing. Are you on the right path?
Lately time has been spent watching you tube interviews with Kenny Burrell and Wes Montgomery. Without trying to copy either they are my guides for the past 2 years, particularly KB. Thanks to both and a steady diet of band in a box with a Saffire Pro 40 I think I can now say swinging hard is under control.
My conclusion, right or wrong, is patterns with a strong shot of ear training win the day. Wynton and all the Lincoln Center guys may be able to traverse the creek smoothly moving with no step, half step or whole step across the changes but I don't have the mental horsepower for it and most likely never will. From the 1st hours of picking up the guitar and knowing nothing about the even tempered thing there was one key pattern that sounded best. Pentatonic in D and that 5 pattern form was hard wired by the end of the 1st day. In the decades since, nothing (just kidding) has changed.
KB has a degree and formal training. Wes is noted as being self taught. JC is described here and by others as being a pattern player. From Jelly Roll Morton to Monk and Mingus, the 3Ms in my book, all are founded on minor pent. To me that's the first hand hold on the rock wall that is El Capitan that we climb. By the time you get to the top of the hardest route you have crossed 5.14 + in climbing terms but you start with a simple move. Diatonic, melodic minor, harmonic minor, chromatic, appoggiatura... all are likely to be called on as you ascend the wall and are pulled as needed for the situation. Whether we know their formal names is not so important unless we have to write about them such as in our forum or talk about them verbally. It's my belief that Wes and other self taught champions whose music has stood the test of time have rather sophisticated mental structures when it comes to music organization. It's just their language is not something that could be communicated or easily verbalized in a Berklee classroom. Staying abstract for another moment some languages have more words than others like English has more words than French. There are also common cases where words in one language have no corresponding translation in another. This is what comes to mind regarding one of the recent threads ragging on the Real Books (Benson's Approach it may have been).
As an example, using the chart for 4 on 6 where Wes descends in 4 pairs of minor thirds you see the written chords in the chart imply each two note minor 3rd pair maps out a separate key. This approach of using Western music theory with ii, V progressions identifying all implied keys in order to make the notes fit inside a major scale misses the point like a bad translation. To me this is what the criticism of the Real Books was about and I have to agree with the point of view. Wes was not thinking in those terms (multiple diatonic key centers) when he created that part of the song.
Understanding the trap of patterns being one dimensional comes back to another language analogy. If your vocabulary is Hemingway or even more extreme, Dr. Seuss, you may get labeled as being limited. On the other hand, both could tell complete stories and are respected for that fact. The patterns vs diatonic progressions question to me is not so much the important issue although I'm acutely aware of it due to my personal approach. It first comes down to can you tell a story that pulls on the emotional puppet strings. If you can use your craft to find the cracks in time and space and drive a wedge in them for a few moments then you have done your job whichever direction you started from.
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