Chord Tones on the Down Beat?

[Drapte]

Hey Guys.

So, I have been thinking about this whole chord tones on the down beat thing and yes, I must admit it is all over the place, but it's also not all over the place. There is so many examples of guys like Pass seemingly ignoring this concept entirely especially when you couple this with his "think of the ii and V chord as the same chord" approach. I also notice in a Cannonball Adderley solo I am going through he neglects this concept quite a bit. I think if you were never trying to do it consciously you would still be doing it around 50% of the time if you were just playing scales, let alone if you are actively targeting arpeggios then you would seemingly do it something more like 75% - 80% of the time which is what seems to be the common thread in these solos. What they are doing all the time is resolving the 7ths to the 3rds and targetting chord tones in a not so "on the downbeat all the time" way.

I guess what I'm asking is: Do you think that pros actually think about putting chords tones on the down beat? It seems like a hell of a lot of brain work. I'm sure they resolve to a chord tone they hear on a chosen beat, but to consistently be placing next to every chord tone on the down beats?

Anyway, I'm still learning and totally open to me being completely ignorant here.

Thanks a lot,

Andrew

[mr. beaumont]

No, they dont.

It's a completely bullshit concept that you have to "think" about this.

Sounds like you've transcribed some Pass. Good. Keep doing that (not just Pass, too)

Your ears will learn what sounds good. And you'll see, as you amass licks/vocabulary, yeah, a lot of times stuff that sounds great has strong notes on strong beats...but don't get caught thinking about it in the moment.

[Drapte]

No, they dont.

It's a completely bullshit concept that you have to "think" about this.

Sounds like you've transcribed some Pass. Good. Keep doing that (not just Pass, too)

Your ears will learn what sounds good. And you'll see, as you amass licks/vocabulary, yeah, a lot of times stuff that sounds great has strong notes on strong beats...but don't get caught thinking about it in the moment.

Thanks Jeff, appreciate it.

[MarkRhodes]

Charlie Parker did a lot of this and transcriptions of his playing are readily available. If you can do them yourself, all the better, but one of the nifty things about the Parker Omnibook is that you can pick it up and look at a piece you DON'T know and just read a few lines and get a sense of how the notes indicated relate to the chord symbols above them. "Ah, so that's how it's done."

Parker did a lot of the same things in most everything he played. (So did Charlie Christian.) They were both brilliant at starting phrases on different beats, so that one simple phrase might be used six or eight different ways. And they could connect this phrase and that phrase and use THAT six or eight different ways. It's amazing how much music---good music--those guys could bet out of a few simple phrases.

Of course, they knew more than a few phrases.... ;o)

[matt.guitarteacher]

I would imagine this is yet another example of a very general guiding principle for beginners, that somehow evolved into a misunderstood "rule" for playing generally.

All things being equal - and they never are - in very traditional non-jazz music, chord tones on downbeats work very well melodically. But it's simply ONE very basic organizational structure for creating good melodies. With that general concept in mind, you can then displace that melody by some subdivision of the beat or by a whole beat even, and the melodic strength and "logic" will be mostly maintained. It just has a different context.

In my mind, the melody itself basically has its own LOGIC and is its own reference point, beyond the mere fact of which beat or part of the beat it's on. It may be more straightforward, easier to hear or otherwise straightahead to do it on certain beats or parts of beats, but melody which WORKS, basically works in different rhythmic CONTEXTS.

Bach and all of the great composers did a great deal with taking a basic melody and reworking it in terms of rhythm or phrasing. Of course by the time you get to bebop, this is being done to great extremes. Also, in jazz , you're not just displacing by an eighth note or quarter note, but very often, by eighth or quarter note TRIPLETS.

In jazz, you also have the distinctive feature of basically keeping the original "reference accent pattern" of the original melody, while displacing it by subdivisions of the beat. In other styles, this kind of displacement often implies an accent on the syncopation, whereas in jazz , it may be phrased exactly like the original, and thus "felt" more like it's still the original melody but now is "ahead" or "behind". Jazzers will even place an original melody over a completely different subset of rhythmic common denominators – like playing your eighth note melody over eighth note triplets in the next measure.

I don't know if there are those who would argue that basically it's still strong/weak-beat chord-tone stuff (but simply ahead or behind), but it's going to get too contrived really fast when you start analyzing playing that way. It's going to start feeling similar toapplying CST to everything, when that's not always the easiest analysis. I would view this idea as generally being a "starting guideline" for learning to hear chord tones maybe . Starting guideline gone amok in my opinion.

Meanwhile, teachers like Jimmy Amadie or Bert Ligon actually teach you to learn to play all melodic phrases on ALL parts of the beat: on, before and after. I think this is a much better approach. Good melodic ideas work on DIFFERENT parts of the beat.

[Drapte]

Thanks guys I really appreciate the responses.

[jordanklemons]

Do you think that pros actually think about putting chords tones on the down beat?

Yes. Ish. Do they sit around thinking about it on a normal, average day? More than likely no. But as someone who's studied with several of the guys that we would refer to as "the pros" on this forum, I can tell you that this topic was brought up... and not by me. Multiple "pros" have breached this subject during a lesson and have made it evident that they feel it's important to internalize this subject in a very instinctive way.

One of my teachers once said, "Not all 8th notes were created equal." Which in context, he was saying to point out that my note choices were only part of the thing to consider. Where and when they get placed is also an important topic to consider.

So I would say that they more than likely (if not certainly) do not sit around constantly thinking about this, or worrying about it while playing... but it has been thought about and worked on and internalized. They tend to HEAR lines that promote this stuff and FEEL it just like anyone else could feel a steady quarter note.

[Drapte]

Thanks Jordan for the response

[Petimar]

Do you think that pros actually think about putting chords tones on the down beat

So I would say that they more than likely (if not certainly) do not sit around constantly thinking about this, or worrying about it while playing... but it has been thought about and worked on and internalized. They tend to HEAR lines that promote this stuff and FEEL it just like anyone else could feel a steady quarter note.

This is a great response Jordan. I feel exactly the same!!

My bet is all top players thought about it a lot at SOME point in their development...

[jordanklemons]

This is a great response Jordan. I feel exactly the same!!

My bet is all top players thought about it a lot at SOME point in their development...

I can only assume outside of the ones I've worked with. But I'd guess in one way or another, they've all spent time on this topic... it's a pretty big one.

In opposition to this topic, I often hear people say things like "Well I can make anything work," or "So and so made it work here in this example where they landed on such and such."

I don't disagree at all with any of that. Hitting the "right" notes on the strong beats in not the only way to play. But being able to "make something else work" is a little different from recognizing what simply and natural does work without any finagling on our part. Nobody needs to "make it work" when they hit chord tones on down beats... it just does. But yes, we can also make other things work... I have my own go-to tricks that I use when intentionally or accidentally falling on a funny rhythmic placement. Though I'd wonder how easy it would be to do that if we don't have the ear and the level of control required to get those strong tones on those strong beats in the first place.

It's really not much different from just being the single note version of comping. Does the next chord HAVE TO fall on beat 1 of the next measure? Not at all. We can use a push by switching on beat 4 or the & of 4 in the previous measure. Or we might be able to hold off and grab a surprise hit on beat 2 (though I find this usually doesn't sound as good when recorded and listened back to as how we thought it sounded in the moment... or is that just me??). Or maybe even get away with hitting a tension chord on beat 1 and then resolving to the "right" chord. We could even sub out a different chord in it's place to serve some type of harmonic function.

There's a lot of ways that could all play out within comping... but probably none of them are going to be possible to use consistently and musically unless we have the ability to simply hit the "right" chord on the downbeat first. Everything else is just a playful alteration of that.

This idea of being able to do this when soloing with single notes is really kind of the same idea, just a slightly different application. For me, the best soloist often sound like they're dancing inside of their rhythm section... like it's all one unit working together, even when it sounds like they're pushing and pulling on each other, it never feels like it fully comes apart into two different things.

[Petimar]

One other thing I've noticed in ALL the transcriptions I've done of my favorite soloists (regardless of the style I was studying).

You can hear the chord progression clearly when you play the solo by yourself. This one thing leads me to make the statement I did above.

[jordanklemons]

One other thing I've noticed in ALL the transcriptions I've done of my favorite soloists (regardless of the style I was studying).

You can hear the chord progression clearly when you play the solo by yourself. This one thing leads me to make the statement I did above.

Yeah, I know what you mean. But I'd be willing to bet that none of the solos you're talking about sound like they're just running the changes. I refer to this playing the changes vs respecting the changes. It's a fine line, and a tough barrier to cross. But to be able to play in a way that respects the harmonic movement without simply outlining it.

[Richard Luther]

Hal Galper. Forward Motion.

Preview the book.

Forward Motion - Hal Galper - Google Books

Chord tones on downbeats? Yes. Hard to argue after reading this three times and dissecting Ligon. Jives with Vincent's Cellular Approach.

There's a reason why it works. Goes back to Bach. It is the essence of swing. Galloping forward motion based on our ear's physiology.





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[Toddep]

The downbeats are the strong beats, the chord tones are the strong tones. I think the bebop scale was created so the chord tones would fall on the downbeats. However, I wouldn't carve that rule in stone. The more that I worked on chord tones for a long period of time, I was able to hear the chord tones and some extensions on any given chord, and those notes are the target notes. So I think the goal is to be able to hear all the chord tones and/or extensions on any given chord because those are your target notes. (In bebop anyway.) Sometimes they might not always fall on the downbeat. Sometimes they do. I would transcribe the solos that you like and analyze the notes against the chord and ask yourself where is the chord tones fall....and I would beat?...someone once told me that Jazz is 90% or more EAR music... you got to hear it!!!!!!


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[Drapte]

Hal Galper. Forward Motion.

Preview the book.

Forward Motion - Hal Galper - Google Books

Chord tones on downbeats? Yes. Hard to argue after reading this three times and dissecting Ligon. Jives with Vincent's Cellular Approach.

There's a reason why it works. Goes back to Bach. It is the essence of swing. Galloping forward motion based on our ear's physiology.





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Yeah, I know it says this in the books but when I look at the solos it doesn't seem to be so obvious. Also I haven't actually read Ligon mention it and I much prefer his lines over Hal Galpers. Although reading through some of the responses, which I am very grateful for, I am sure it is something that some guys are thinking about on some level.

[Richard Luther]

I'm counting 1, 2, 3, 4 to the following improv.

I'm hearing chord tones on downbeats. On upbeats I'm hearing passing, enclosures, ghosts, voice leading, etc.

Granted, he begins and ends phrases all over the bar, but the gallop forward comes from chord tones on the downbeat.

Strip away all but the downbeats and you have a chord tone solo in quarter notes.

When referring to Ligon and Galper above I wasn't clear. I was referring to their written work, not their playing.

Ligon's book has page after page of lines from the masters with chord tones on the downbeat.

Sorry about the confusion.

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[matt.guitarteacher]

Also has hundreds (?) of examples NOT on the beat as well. I don't understand. Ligon is not a "chord tones on the beat" guy. His approach and view of rhythm (and harmonic rhythm specifically) is more nuanced and than that. Goes into great detail in the beginning of his theory book, laying out the very plain reality that you see when you start transcribing things: That the "beat" isn't always in the same place, nor is it always "where it's supposed to be" in jazz.

[Richard Luther]

I went back to my notes from Bernstein's master class on MMMC. In part 1 he discusses the importance of ONE.

His advice: find every one of a two, five, one and isolate your ones. That's your target.

He says the downbeat, the ONE is not corny, it is everything.

"The off beats are there to create motion between the ones".

Aka: forward motion.


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[Richard Luther]

Matt and others. I really respect your expertise. It's why I enjoy this forum so much. It makes me think deeper about simple things.

In this case the one of the bar.

Found this tune. Snapped my fingers to every "one" and verbally said "one" at the same time.

80+% of every one is a chord tone--to include the head.

Mel Rhyne uses some upbeats of one, but slips back in to one.

Eric Alexander is all over ones with chord tones.

I bet if we were to transcribe every one of the bar and just played that, we'd know it was "the song is you".

Great thread guys.

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[mr. beaumont]

I still think it's chicken/egg.

You think people thought "Im gonna start this phrase on a chord tone?" or is it "I'm gonna play something that sounds good? (and it happens to be strong notes on strong beats?)

I mean, jazz isn't alone in that regard. Before I ever even understood the idea of what a "chord tone" was, I was lifting Jerry Garcia licks of Dead records. Now, if I go back and analyze 'em...yep, you know what I'm gonna say. By doing that hundreds of times, it became what my ears like.

But sit down and actually think about it? When? Certainly not in the moment. Practice? Maybe.

One thing I think I do know is you'll get a lot more out of copping good lines from players you like and making them your own than sitting down and worrying about what beats certain notes fall on in your own lines, I'm relatively sure of that.


Furthermore, what do your ears hear as a "chord tone" anyway? 3 and 7? 1, 3, 5, 7? What about a 9th? a #11? What's NOT a chord tone? Write a line that starts on a non chord tone, followed by a chord tone. Play that line starting on the first beat. Then, displace that line by an 8th note. What sounds good?

[grahambop]

I don't think I ever once thought about what's a chord tone on a strong beat. Like Jeff said, I just learned by copying stuff from records and whatever made it sound good just came out naturally. No doubt the majority of the time it conforms to the rule, but that wasn't what I was thinking.

It doesn't always fit the rule though. I can think of things I learned from Wes and Chet Baker where they started a line with a 9th or a 4th on beat 1. So to me those are equally valid tones.

[Richard Luther]

Ok. Have the day off so popped back into the studio to re-examine Bert Ligon's "Connecting Chords with Linear Harmony".

Chapter one he writes about Harmonic Specificity versus Harmonic Ambiguity.

The pro uses Harmonic Ambiguity as dissonance and returns to consonance. The inexperienced rely on Harmonic Ambiguity because they have not developed the skill of Harmonic Specificity.

For example: Bb blues use the blues scale.

Then I poured back over those lines (Stitt, Farrell, Parker, Cannonball, et al), then went back over his massive chapter 10 with all the outlines.

Guys. Chord tones on the downbeats.

Then went back to both Of my Hal Crook books (How to Improvise and Ready, Set, Improvise). Same thing.

Hal Galper, Bert Ligon, Hal Crook, Peter Bernstein, Randy Vincent's Cellular Approach...

I know. We're not robots and there are always exceptions to the rule. But the greats break the rule as a device and return to them. The inexperienced rely on Ambiguity.

Similar to Picasso's earlier work as a Realist. His technique was incredible.


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[jordanklemons]

It might be worth stepping back for a second from whether or not people are placing chord tones on the down beats and simply ask, "what do each of us mean when we use the term chord tones?"

Might seem like a silly question to some... but I wonder if we're all referring to the same thing. Is it just the 1-3-5-7? Or does it include some other set of tones to you?

[Richard Luther]

1357


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[matt.guitarteacher]

I'd say 1357 of SOMETHING Is a good starting point. Ligon uses a lot of 3579 sub examples, especially with certain outlines. That also covers your 6th chords as well and some other subs.