Understanding Charlie Parker through triads

[Boston Joe]

Jordan, apologies if I've mischaracterized your intent.

[jordanklemons]

I doubt Bird was thinking about bitonality in any way. (But I'll defer to others who know much more about it than I do.) But despite that, we can look at his playing and see what we can learn about the role that triads play in the way his melodies are constructed. (But for what it's worth, I don't think Jordan was talking too much about bitonality when he started the thread. I think he just wanted to look at the triads. Jordan - correct me if I'm wrong.)

I have no issue if anyone wants to refer to this as bi-tonal. To me, it's just the study of tonality. Thinking of this stuff as more than one piece, I think, stems from the belief that the way the melodic structure SHOULD work is that the harmonic root note SHOULD govern how the notes in the melody are behaving... that THAT is the complete and authentic way music works, and that this is just a really modern, brain twisting way of getting really theory heavy and disrupting the multi-century long tradition of tonal music. Up until a few years ago, I was more in that boat. But this stuff isn't THAT modern... frankly, it's definitely not FROM the jazz world... though many great jazz artists have owned the f*** out of it. Probably all... I just am weary of speaking with absolutes.

I wouldn't take the energy to argue against calling it bi-tonal. I just think it's making it sound more complicated, elitist, and theory-heavy than it really is. If anything, I think of it as something simple and completely natural that the standard jazz pedagogy has sort of brainwashed us into losing sight of by teaching us to rely upon the proper mode or the 1-3-5-7 chord tones and training us to immediately think that the chord's root note is the only note that can behave as the melodic 'Do'... and then extrapolating that out into the jazz idiom with all of it's ornate bebop vocab idioms, modern jazz language applications, complicated chord progressions etc. I think what makes it complicated is the "jazz" stuff... not the tonality stuff.

Listen to the melody. So simple.

DO - re - MI - re - DO - re - fa - MI - DO - re - MI - re - Do
C - d - E - d - C - d - f - E - C - d - E - d - C
CMaj FMaj CMaj FMaj

Try to ignore the chords for a moment. The melody is so simple, right? Can you hear how the non triad notes are creating melodic tension and movement? Try boiling them out of the picture and just play the root note of the chord and then the DO and MI stable notes up on the top strings. Can you hear how it's basically the same exact sound, there's just less movement and momentum in the melody? But the chords are switching from the I chord to the IV chord. No big deal, right? Nobody would think that it's overly complicated or feel the need to name this bi-tonal, would they? I don't know... maybe they would. It wouldn't necessarily be wrong. It seems like it's just "music" to me when we deal with it in the pop world where the melodies and progressions are so simple.

But it is a little weird that now over the F chord, the C note still feels like the melodic 'Do'. This is NOT simply F lydian in the sense that we normally talk about it. In that sense, we would treat F as the melodic 'Do'. It is F lydian in the sense that we're playing in the key of C over an F chord, but F is behaving like a melodic tension note.

This might seem so silly in its simplicity that it might come off as pointless and obvious and not worth wasting time talking about. But really think about what this means. The melody is functioning PURELY around the C triad the entire time. The chord progression is changing. If you're anything like the average jazz musician (or like I used to be) and you're playing this tune and go for a solo, what's your first thought? When you see that F major chord... are you thinking FMaj chord tones? Are you thinking F lydian? If so, would you assume the F note is stable and resolved? Would you assume it was the root note from which you should base your phrasing?

That was my go-to thought process for many years. Modes and chord tones. And then dealing with the little messes that they left behind in their wake hahaha. Fortunately, my ear is good enough that I would have quickly figured out that the notes weren't happy and stable... and I would have altered course until I found notes that sounded better. But wouldn't it be better to just know what those better notes would be from the outset? And how the other notes would behave and sound before playing them? Like knowing without a doubt that the F note over that F chord was actually going to convey the emotion of 'Fa'... the 4 wanting desperately to resolve down to the 3? So that we don't end up just fishing around inside the scale looking for things... and we can just naturally improvise ideas over chords where everything sounds intentional and purposeful?

What if we wanted to "jazz" this up and we threw some chord subs in there. How about those two chords from the listening experiment I posted the video of... Ab+Maj7 and Bb13(#11,9)

Try looping one of those and playing this same melody. Can you hear how the C note sounds like the melodic 'Do' still?

That's kind of what this stuff is all about for me. There's plenty of other cool stuff about it... voicings, arranging, composition, reharms, bebop embellishment, modern jazz flurries, chromatics, etc... but it's kind of as simple, boring, and "stupid" as this example. The difference being that we work with much more complex chord progressions, melodies, and forms, and from a long tradition of allowing incredible freedom for the artist to make all sorts of consonant and dissonant decisions at any moment.

Melodic triads allow us to take the most complex and modern jazz harmonies and immediately improvise or compose over them with the lyrical simplicity that this tune has. But also, because bebop and modern jazz are derived from the same 12 notes as classical and folk... we can also then organize all of the ornamentation that we wish to add to it if we want it enter into those languages. No riffs required, no memorized patterns... just the study of how melody functions on an anatomical level and how it intertwines with harmony. If it helps you wrap your mind around it to think of them as two different and separate entities and to call it bi-tonal... that's cool. Just know that if you slowly begin chipping away at the material, you'll likely start to realize that it's really just the study of tonality... I sometimes call them "fully-extended tonalities"... meaning that we're no longer limited to only being able to think, hear, and create using the chords root note as our melodic 'Do'.

Not sure if any of that helps or just makes things seem more complicated again. I was hoping to show how simple, grounded, and rootsy the concept is. It's not about jazz. It's in everything. I just think that while the standard jazz pedagogy has produced some PHENOMENAL players... that it might be helpful to open up a dialogue about this stuff as I find the greatest jazz players eventually discover these types of tonalities on their own with their ears over time... so I just figure... why wait for it... why not talk about it, write it down, practice, and get those sounds into our ears in an almost scientific, methodical way.

[Boston Joe]

It seems simple enough to me. The initial conceptualization is that the melody and the harmony are separate. They can be the same, or they can be different, in which case we'd call it bitonal. Once you've wrapped your head around that, the second conceptualization is that they're not so much separate as interrelated, but distinct.

But I think the crux of the biscuit, as FZ would say, is hearing it. Once you hear the melodic tonic as being distinct from the harmonic tonic, the rest is just naming and nuts-and-bolts. If you already hear it that way, this would just be one particular way of applying what you hear.

Do you think that's essentially it, Jordan?

[Jonah]

But it is a little weird that now over the F chord, the C note still feels like the melodic 'Do'.

But why is it weird?

[jordanklemons]

It seems simple enough to me. The initial conceptualization is that the melody and the harmony are separate. They can be the same, or they can be different, in which case we'd call it bitonal. Once you've wrapped your head around that, the second conceptualization is that they're not so much separate as interrelated, but distinct.

But I think the crux of the biscuit, as FZ would say, is hearing it. Once you hear the melodic tonic as being distinct from the harmonic tonic, the rest is just naming and nuts-and-bolts. If you already hear it that way, this would just be one particular way of applying what you hear.

Do you think that's essentially it, Jordan?

Sure, maybe that's a better way of saying it then me saying "I wouldn't argue against calling it bi-tonal"...

Definitely a reasonable and fair way to sum up the concept and some of the major landmarks in the process.

[jordanklemons]

But why is it weird?

Perhaps I worded that poorly. From the standpoint of the feeling that the 1-3-5-7 chord tones of a harmony, or the root note of a mode are the two primary governing bodies taught into jazz pedagogy for improvising melodies, it would seem weird that the 5th of a chord would behave as the melodic 'Do'.

Again, yes we can definitely say that we're still playing with the key of C. But nonetheless, it stands in the face of the concept of a modes. Yes, F lydian is derived from the key of C... but when we switch to F lydian, F is by definition the root note.

And again... even if we leave the key of C major and put an Ab+Maj7 or a Bb13(#11,9) or an E7#9#5, or a
G-13(11), or any number of other tonalities.... still... if the melodic triad that creates that chord is a C major triad, C is going to sound and behave like the melodic 'Do'.

Perhaps there are folks here to whom that won't be weird. To me... it took me several weeks when I realized that over an FMaj7 chord, F is not a stable melody note. That took me some time to digest. Others here may already be aware. Many piano players know this stuff intuitively because they have two hands and can see these melodic triads over their left hand chords visually... so they tend to get this stuff pretty quickly.

[Jonah]

Either I miss something or it's getting a bit messy...

How and why would the melody have tonic? What would make it a tonic?
In context of this thread's example it's harmony that makes 'melodic tonic a tonic'.
Even if you separate melody from chord behind it and try to hear tonic of the melody... you still use harmonic refernce for it.

And the change chord is not the change of tonic in this kind of music.

[christianm77]

I played for a while with a reed man from the midwest who would be about 75 or 80 now. He played very well and knew absolutely no theory. He did not know the notes in C major. He'd hear the chord and play on it.

He said that, when he was coming up, that's how they were all trained. No theory.

I recall that he was often behind the chord change (if he didn't know the tune). He had to hear it to know what to play. But, I don't recall him ever playing a clam.

That was a fairly quiet Real Book oriented, harmonically conventional quintet. If the music had been blaringly loud and/or harmonically wilder, I don't know if he could have done it. The volume makes it harder to hear harmonic detail (at least it does for me) and I don't know if he was used to a lot of ambiguous sounds and odd tonal center movements.

On the issue of bitonality -- if this thread is about bitonality, or biharmony, -- and a triad based approach to get there, then is it really about understanding Charlie Parker? I've always thought that he was extending the chords, not trying to create bitonality.

I am not sure Charlie Parker ever said he was extending chords. People think he did, but AFAIK the ‘higher intervals/i could play the thing I’d been hearing’ quote people often cite, and I heard from jazz educators when I was coming up can be traced to copy written by a Downbeat journalist, not a quote form the man himself.*

That one mis attributed quote may have led to more development in jazz harmonic theory than anything he actually said!

If I had to characterise Bird’s harmony I think Steve Coleman’s concept invisible paths ‘rings true’ for me.

Extensions are afaik a modern (post bop) concept. Barry Harris for instance doesn’t use that concept AT ALL.

And, as the quadrads approach and Jordan’s videos demonstrate, a misleading one when dealing with the sounding reality of the harmony of melodic lines.

*source - Conrad Cork - polemics and perspectives, Harmony with LEGO bricks. Well worth a read as a companion piece to Ethan’s articles.

[christianm77]

I don’t think jazz has actually anything to do with true bitonality. But it is a music of layered harmony.

[Boston Joe]

I don’t think jazz has actually anything to do with true bitonality. But it is a music of layered harmony.

What would "true bitonality" be then? Two separate melodies that don't relate at all? Or maybe tonalities that don't eventually resolve together?

[christianm77]

I have no issue if anyone wants to refer to this as bi-tonal. To me, it's just the study of tonality. Thinking of this stuff as more than one piece, I think, stems from the belief that the way the melodic structure SHOULD work is that the harmonic root note SHOULD govern how the notes in the melody are behaving... that THAT is the complete and authentic way music works, and that this is just a really modern, brain twisting way of getting really theory heavy and disrupting the multi-century long tradition of tonal music. Up until a few years ago, I was more in that boat. But this stuff isn't THAT modern... frankly, it's definitely not FROM the jazz world... though many great jazz artists have owned the f*** out of it. Probably all... I just am weary of speaking with absolutes.

I wouldn't take the energy to argue against calling it bi-tonal. I just think it's making it sound more complicated, elitist, and theory-heavy than it really is. If anything, I think of it as something simple and completely natural that the standard jazz pedagogy has sort of brainwashed us into losing sight of by teaching us to rely upon the proper mode or the 1-3-5-7 chord tones and training us to immediately think that the chord's root note is the only note that can behave as the melodic 'Do'... and then extrapolating that out into the jazz idiom with all of it's ornate bebop vocab idioms, modern jazz language applications, complicated chord progressions etc. I think what makes it complicated is the "jazz" stuff... not the tonality stuff.

Listen to the melody. So simple.

DO - re - MI - re - DO - re - fa - MI - DO - re - MI - re - Do
C - d - E - d - C - d - f - E - C - d - E - d - C
CMaj FMaj CMaj FMaj

Try to ignore the chords for a moment. The melody is so simple, right? Can you hear how the non triad notes are creating melodic tension and movement? Try boiling them out of the picture and just play the root note of the chord and then the DO and MI stable notes up on the top strings. Can you hear how it's basically the same exact sound, there's just less movement and momentum in the melody? But the chords are switching from the I chord to the IV chord. No big deal, right? Nobody would think that it's overly complicated or feel the need to name this bi-tonal, would they? I don't know... maybe they would. It wouldn't necessarily be wrong. It seems like it's just "music" to me when we deal with it in the pop world where the melodies and progressions are so simple.

But it is a little weird that now over the F chord, the C note still feels like the melodic 'Do'. This is NOT simply F lydian in the sense that we normally talk about it. In that sense, we would treat F as the melodic 'Do'. It is F lydian in the sense that we're playing in the key of C over an F chord, but F is behaving like a melodic tension note.

This might seem so silly in its simplicity that it might come off as pointless and obvious and not worth wasting time talking about. But really think about what this means. The melody is functioning PURELY around the C triad the entire time. The chord progression is changing. If you're anything like the average jazz musician (or like I used to be) and you're playing this tune and go for a solo, what's your first thought? When you see that F major chord... are you thinking FMaj chord tones? Are you thinking F lydian? If so, would you assume the F note is stable and resolved? Would you assume it was the root note from which you should base your phrasing?

That was my go-to thought process for many years. Modes and chord tones. And then dealing with the little messes that they left behind in their wake hahaha. Fortunately, my ear is good enough that I would have quickly figured out that the notes weren't happy and stable... and I would have altered course until I found notes that sounded better. But wouldn't it be better to just know what those better notes would be from the outset? And how the other notes would behave and sound before playing them? Like knowing without a doubt that the F note over that F chord was actually going to convey the emotion of 'Fa'... the 4 wanting desperately to resolve down to the 3? So that we don't end up just fishing around inside the scale looking for things... and we can just naturally improvise ideas over chords where everything sounds intentional and purposeful?

What if we wanted to "jazz" this up and we threw some chord subs in there. How about those two chords from the listening experiment I posted the video of... Ab+Maj7 and Bb13(#11,9)

Try looping one of those and playing this same melody. Can you hear how the C note sounds like the melodic 'Do' still?

That's kind of what this stuff is all about for me. There's plenty of other cool stuff about it... voicings, arranging, composition, reharms, bebop embellishment, modern jazz flurries, chromatics, etc... but it's kind of as simple, boring, and "stupid" as this example. The difference being that we work with much more complex chord progressions, melodies, and forms, and from a long tradition of allowing incredible freedom for the artist to make all sorts of consonant and dissonant decisions at any moment.

Melodic triads allow us to take the most complex and modern jazz harmonies and immediately improvise or compose over them with the lyrical simplicity that this tune has. But also, because bebop and modern jazz are derived from the same 12 notes as classical and folk... we can also then organize all of the ornamentation that we wish to add to it if we want it enter into those languages. No riffs required, no memorized patterns... just the study of how melody functions on an anatomical level and how it intertwines with harmony. If it helps you wrap your mind around it to think of them as two different and separate entities and to call it bi-tonal... that's cool. Just know that if you slowly begin chipping away at the material, you'll likely start to realize that it's really just the study of tonality... I sometimes call them "fully-extended tonalities"... meaning that we're no longer limited to only being able to think, hear, and create using the chords root note as our melodic 'Do'.

Not sure if any of that helps or just makes things seem more complicated again. I was hoping to show how simple, grounded, and rootsy the concept is. It's not about jazz. It's in everything. I just think that while the standard jazz pedagogy has produced some PHENOMENAL players... that it might be helpful to open up a dialogue about this stuff as I find the greatest jazz players eventually discover these types of tonalities on their own with their ears over time... so I just figure... why wait for it... why not talk about it, write it down, practice, and get those sounds into our ears in an almost scientific, methodical way.

100%

I think all the really good jazz players form their own relationship with the music.

Conventional jazz pedagogy may feature in their thinking but they won’t let it impinge too much on the sounding reality of the music.

I think the central point is that it’s about training the ear. And anything I know about jazz (such as it is) comes from my ears (such as they are.)

The theory I choose to use reflects what I hear, or can suggest a new way to hear it (which is always exciting)

After all, everything you have posted here exists within textbook CST in terms of the written pitches, but you have suggested a different way to hear it. Or rather draw attention to the way we were actually hearing it all along.

[Boston Joe]

Either I miss something or it's getting a bit messy...

How and why would the melody have tonic? What would make it a tonic?
In context of this thread's example it's harmony that makes 'melodic tonic a tonic'.
Even if you separate melody from chord behind it and try to hear tonic of the melody... you still use harmonic refernce for it.

And the change chord is not the change of tonic in this kind of music.

I think the word "tonic" is confusing you. We're playing a little loose with the definition. From a classical perspective you're right. A D- chord in the key of C does not have D as the tonic. It has D as the root, and is a supertonic chord. That's not the way we're using the word. We're using the word to denote the "home" note of a chord (in the case of the harmonic tonic) or the melody (or a section of the melody). Maybe it would help for you to mentally substitute "root" when you see "tonic".

If you have a melody, that goes C-E-G-E-C-E-G-E-C, that's clearly a melody based on a C major triad, right? C is "home", yes?

If you then harmonize that melody with Ab+Maj7, the C will still sound like "home" from a melodic perspective. C will be "stable", even though it's the #5 of the harmony. You can pretend that CMaj7 was the "original" chord, say, and that Ab+Maj7 is a substitute that the composer put in. You can then say we're "de-substituting" the chord.

[christianm77]

What would "true bitonality" be then? Two separate melodies that don't relate at all? Or maybe tonalities that don't eventually resolve together?

Either of those. Or bitonality can be two related keys that nonetheless stand apart.

Bitonality is kind of a twentieth century classical music concept. You can see it in Stravinsky sometimes. Also the music of Les six iirc.

[Jonah]

If you have a melody, that goes C-E-G-E-C-E-G-E-C, that's clearly a melody based on a C major triad, right? C is "home", yes?

If you then harmonize that melody with Ab+Maj7, the C will still sound like the tonic from a melodic perspective. C will be "stable", even though it's the #5 of the harmony. You can pretend that CMaj7 was the "original" chord, say, and that Ab+Maj7 is a substitute that the composer put in. You can then say we're "de-substituting" the chord.

Why would yo hear C as 'home'?
Only because of hypothetical harmonic context. Not melodic - it is harmony what you hear here.
Ab+Maj7 is in the same harmonic context that's why you still here C as tonic. This is why Ab is weak, it's in the same context - and it cannot be strong here (at least without any movement around).

If we take real modal cadence form Gregorian chant - this will be the melodic tonic.. and in many cases we won't hear it as tonic - as we are used to our harmonic contexts.

[jordanklemons]

Why would yo hear C as 'home'?

No idea why triads behave this way. Not sure that this is an answerable question. Maaaaaybe Bach or Mozart could have answered it??? But I don't know. Again, it sort of reminds me of the debate over whether the glass of water is half full or half empty. All I know is, there's some water in a glass, and I'm thirsty. So everyone's welcome to take sides on the debate... I'm just gonna drink the thing
¯\_(?)_/¯

If we take real modal cadence form Gregorian chant - this will be the melodic tonic.. and in many cases we won't hear it as tonic - as we are used to our harmonic contexts.

I'm not going to pretend to be an expert here... or even conversationally fluent. I studied all the music history stuff in school... but that was years ago. I'm simply talking about jazz improvisation on a jazz guitar forum. I imagine there will be several discrepancies between the jargon used in Gregorian chant vs Lester Young or Miles. I don't really take a stance on any of those things either.

And I apologize, but I don't really follow your posts enough to answer any questions... if you're looking for an answer to help understand what I'm talking about. Perhaps it has to do with you being more deeply rooted in the classical tradition? I'm not sure. But it seems like you're don't catch what I'm expressing, and I'm not catching what you're expressing.
:/

[Boston Joe]

Why would yo hear C as 'home'?
Only because of hypothetical harmonic context. Not melodic - it is harmony what you hear here.
Ab+Maj7 is in the same harmonic context that's why you still here C as tonic. This is why Ab is weak, it's in the same context - and it cannot be strong here (at least without any movement around).

If we take real modal cadence form Gregorian chant - this will be the melodic tonic.. and in many cases we won't hear it as tonic - as we are used to our harmonic contexts.

Like Jordan, I really can't explain it. All I know is, I played a non-diatonic triad over a chord for 20 minutes straight, and SOMETHING changed. And it stayed changed. If this is a process you're not really interested in going though, or if you're so used to hearing this way that you can't understand why we want to explore it, then this discussion probably isn't going to be of much use to you.

I would offer one piece of advise: I think trying to relate this stuff to classical theory is worse than a waste of time. I think it's actively preventing you from engaging with this idea. Accept a priori that there can be two distinct harmonic environments - one implied by the melody, and one described by the written changes. Or don't. But if you don't, why are you interested in this thread?

I have no idea how Jordan's idea fits into the larger theory picture. All I know is that this stuff is useful to me. It solves something I've been beating my head against for years. Maybe it's more of a method than a theory. Maybe not. All I know is that over the past week, I've played stuff that I never would have though of before, because up until now, I've been thinking of those more distant relationships as putting something "on top of" the written changes. This way feels more like putting something inside the changes. Or maybe under them.

But regardless, what's going on here is a mental and aural reframing of the melody, and some techniques for exploiting it. If the words we're using to talk about it are wrong, then they're wrong, but I haven't had much trouble communicating with Jordan, so they can't be THAT wrong.

[Boston Joe]

Either of those. Or bitonality can be two related keys that nonetheless stand apart.

Bitonality is kind of a twentieth century classical music concept. You can see it in Stravinsky sometimes. Also the music of Les six iirc.

I was aware of the concept in classical music, but I've never studied it.

It seems easier to steal the word than to try to come up with a new one, though, eh? And it seems an apt enough description, even if it doesn't exactly fit the dictionary definition.

[rpjazzguitar]

Seems to me that if the chord is Bb7 and you're trying to hear C as "do" while playing the notes of a C major triad ... well, you've got a Bb7 tonality in the comping and a C tonality in the melody -- and if you can hear both at the same time, it's bitonality. That seems simple enough to me.

But, I'm still having trouble understanding the concept of "melodic triads". Is it a way of finding chord substitutions? At some point I hope to see a tune annotated with the melodic triads and how they were derived.

As an aside, it seems like for a lot of the stuff I can't understand on here, or an barely understand, when I finally get to the musical example, it's good ol' fashioned chord substitution. Play this chord in place of that one.

Or, sometimes, playing an arp from one chord while the comping is another chord. Play this chord over that one.

Playing Cm over Bb7 is a perfectly fine way to think about it. It makes it easy to find 9, 11, and 13. Those are extensions that Charlie Parker is famous for using. It's a good idea to be able to hear lines starting on 9, or, for that matter, #11, or ....

OTOH, if you just think "Eb tonal center", you get 9 notes that will be consonant, including the Cmin triad and you can omit as many/whichever you like.

Warren Nunes taught it this way. Two kinds of chords, type I and type II. His terminology, corresponding to tonic and dominant.

I iiim Vma7 vim were the tonics.

iim, IVma, V7, vim were the dominants.

He used them interchangeably. Meaning, in the key of Eb, the V7 was Bb7 and he would substitute Fm, Ab or Cm. And he might well start on the root of the substitution.

Mark Levine was where I learned that the same logic applied to melodic minor, where any group of tones could be substituted for any other.

Chuck Wayne (thru Carl Barry) taught that every melody note could be harmonized, with the goal to reference every one of those chords during a solo.

Later, I learned from Chico Pinheiro that the major scale could be approached similarly, albeit with a bit of caution.

[christianm77]

Jordan posted an example of Blue in Green somewhere above.

[Jonah]

And I apologize, but I don't really follow your posts enough to answer any questions... if you're looking for an answer to help understand what I'm talking about. Perhaps it has to do with you being more deeply rooted in the classical tradition? I'm not sure. But it seems like you're don't catch what I'm expressing, and I'm not catching what you're expressing.

I'll explain, Jordan... and Boston Joe hopefully this will answer your post too...

I am not trying to realte it to classical theory... actually I just see it is already realted.

I like Jordan's approach as practical one...

What provoked my a bit pedantic comments was that it began to go out of practical application in this thread.
It was not me who began to theoresize this approach.

One implies new terms or freely uses old ones - and it's ok when he uses it just as - for examplae - practical method to introduce solfeggi.. to teach to hear basic tones.

But then it goes beyond it... this bitonality thing in this thread is a total mess.
As well as 'melodic tonic' in a melody c-e-g-e-c... there's no melodic tonic in this context.
It's great when someone tries to learn through his own experience... but there are tools that work already... not need to reinvent things and multiply enetities.

We always imply context even when we do not actually use it. (sorry for Even if you play only C-E-G-E-C without any chords of thinking, you inmply harmonic context - traditional for our culture and music - and this context is here a functional harmony, this is what makes you hear C as 'home' in this context.
And this is why Ab+maj7 over it does not sound strong- why would it sound strong?
I don't understand why do you expect to be strong - only because of Ab in the bass?

There is no 'bitonality', no 'melodic tonic' here.
It is just contextual C major and what one needs to learn basically and firstly for this kind of music is just to hear functions, not chords but functions. And hearing tensions is a part of it.

When you play rythmically descendant scale showing tension to tirad tones... it's NOT melodic tensions, there are real harmonic tensions.
And it's very basic thing.

I am telling this not becasue it is classical, but because what you are talking about here is based on it.

So you discuss bitonality, tonics and harmonies... but when I say something

you say: 'come on... we do not care... you try to be pendatic..'

You speak melody\harmony all the time...
but did youtry to understand what you call harmony and what you call melody here?
Your melodies in this thread are all harmonies!

Terms are not toys to play... good clkear thinking is a way to understanding things.
And understanding will always affect your playing positively

[christianm77]

I think I am on the verge of understanding Jonah’s point but not quite sure what is meant.

[Jonah]

Maybe I have to make a video too on piano using exactly the same example that Jordan used and explain what I hear behind it?

[ragman1]

I've been silent here because I don't want to irritate Jordan who, I'm quite sure, is excited about this thing and wants to get it off the ground. Plus I like him, he's reasonable :-)

But it is hard to understand and I'm not sure that it's been presented in a clear and simple enough way. There's far too much intellectual waffle, obscuring what may be a fairly simple thing. After all, it's just the 12 notes etc.

Putting sounds on top of other sounds is a very old and, dare I say it, commonplace thing. It's been done with extensions, substitutions, scales, pentatonics, or just the odd note slipped into a standard line for a long time. The only difference I can see here, between this and the usual ways, is that the melody is being used much more to determine the superimpositions.

The presentation here seems to me to veer from generalised philosophical and academic-think to micro-detail (what just one note over one chord sounds like). The idea of Boston Joe spending ?days playing one thing over and over and over again is, frankly, ludicrous. Obviously, at the end of that process, the ear will adjust and hear anything it's told to hear. It's just a form of conditioning through incessant and brain-numbing repetition.

The Wizard of Oz tune is (I think) a rare example of a melody line that distinctly outlines one chord (Dm) over another (Gm), thus determining that one should choose that sound rather than a Gm sound. Which is hardly revolutionary. But it's not even a jazz tune. One might think it would be a simple thing to find a standard where this takes place quite easily. Apparently not. So one has to take a fairly simple ii-V line and scour it looking for an implied triad... etc. Life's a bit short for all that, I would have thought.

If I may make so bold, I could probably show somebody the essence of this type of substitution in about ten or twenty minutes. There are only so many that work effectively. Anything outside that and the music begins to sound distinctly weird as opposed to interesting. For instance, with the Wizard of Oz example, playing the minor off the 5th of a minor is standard and nothing new. It doesn't need all this micro-analysis.

What I'd like to see, if this thing is to be presented clearly as a desirable option, is a familiar tune with fairly simple chords (like Stella or one of the others) played twice. Once the standard way with scales, arps, and the usual methods, and again with this melody-based triads idea to see whether all this is actually worth the effort of joining a group and going through it very slowly and incrementally, taking really quite a long time. In short, show not tell.

I know Jordan has posted his two videos but, to be honest, it's not really very clear. I really think all this should come out of the conceptional and theoretical clouds and land back on earth where we can survey it in a rational and realistic manner.

[matt.guitarteacher]

There's NO requirement that anyone take this on. It's for those who WANT to and are interested. The imagined need for justification of this concept for those who aren't even INTERESTED isn't real. Move on to a thread you care about. Or maybe disrupt one of the gear threads you don't really care about. Somehow I don't think it will be accepted there. These things only seem to occur this way in playing threads or theory threads.

Secondary tonal centers etc are absolutely a jazz thing , and a distinction, at least to the degree used, from other styles. Can be independent if overall function " of the moment". Reg talks about this stuff all the time. When you start talking about music and how you choose to view it/approach it some of it can get personal/philosophical , and there's nothing wrong with that. Conversations meandering into "you don't have to look at it that way" are not all that helpful to those who are actually interested in looking at it , at least after certain point. At this point, honestly, I think that debate would be better as a separate thread .

This seemed to be a practical application thread. If you want to discuss philosophically the NEED for it etc., start a dedicated threat on that topic. It's not helpful here. Distracts from the real focus of the thread in my opinion.

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[christianm77]

Maybe I have to make a video too on piano using exactly the same example that Jordan used and explain what I hear behind it?

Yeah that might help.

I just feel that your terminology isn’t quite clear to me.