Understanding Charlie Parker through triads

[powersurge]

Link pls!

around 2:30

[jordanklemons]

I made it quickly... actually I had some more ideas but I did not have time and possibility to prepare and make it properly... and the phone ran out of memory...
But it seems like I managed to show the thing that I wanted to and actually while recording it struck me what I really wanted to say but could not find words in posting..

Sorry for quality and rush and low volume (it's late everybody's sleeping - hope my accent is understandable)

This is so awesome... really happy you took the time to film it and share, thanks! There's no chance you live in nyc, is there? I'd love to hang with some coffee and instruments and talk one day if it's ever possible.

So I should try and clear a couple of things up. And I thought it would be easier to follow your lead and put up another video instead of just talk more. I totally agree with everything you're saying... I just want to continue from their and push further to look at more applications of melodic triads. It may seem CST based given how simple that joy to the world example was.... sooooooo... I threw together a total reharm of it. I essentially just take advantage of the ability to create stable, harmonized notes to alter this melody. I still ultimately hear it in the BIG picture as revolving around the C major triad notes. But I went ahead and harmonized all of the notes except the B... in fact, the G melody note I harmonized it with two different chords. I just made up new melodic triads for everything except the first and last C notes... I kept those two as C major triads... the rest are all different. And then I attempted to play over it.

I don't want to type and more about it... the video explains it well enough, I think. If you're not interested in hearing me jabber about this stuff, you can probably just skip forward about halfway through to where I start playing. But some of you may be interested in what I talk about. Up to you.

Worries it might totally derail this whole thread and put us WAAAAAY out into heavy insane theory world. My goal has always been to try and keep things simple and accessible as well as I can to help others grasp it if they want without feeling overwhelmed. I may have gone a bit hyperbolic with this example.. I just wanted to balance out how simple I have been TRYING to make this stuff seem, with some of the more advanced applications that are possible once we get the hang of things.

For those who dig this stuff but feel accosted by what you're about to hear... realize this isn't the only application... I wouldn't expect anyone to try and be able to get into this type of thing within a short period of time. I love this stuff because it can be used to play real music near-immediately... but it can also be worked at for many years to get into incredibly advanced ideas....

Anyways... enough disclaimers....

[jordanklemons]

Oops, forgot to attach the chart for anyone who wants to try and play over this....

[jordanklemons]

around 2:30

This is an awesome one... I love Stefon and this video... and the other video from this same masterclass... great info. Thanks for sharing it. Have you studied with Stefon yourself? Any chance you live in nyc? I'd love to grab a coffee and "compare notes" so to speak.

[Jonah]

Jordan,

thanks!
I'll be busy today and over weekend with lots of stuff conenceted withabsolutely different music - and it just tears me part to jump from Pllestrina motets and lute resitals into jazz harmony - I feel like I cannot do good both at the same time.

But I will come back to on Sunday night or on Monday and go throughtit all carefully.

I do not want it to be just dropped or muffled becasue of lack of time or hurry.


PS
Unfortunately I am not in NY and considering political issues will hardly be there soon. Due to this exchange of consulates extradition now it takes almost a year to get a US visa... ((((
But hopefully one day I will come... lots of places in the States I would like to go to)))

[jordanklemons]

Alright, I looped that chord progression in garage band last night. I thought some of you might enjoy giving a try at playing over it... with scales, modes, chord tones, melodic triads... whatever. I tried to attach the audio to this post, but for some reason the forum isn't letting me, so I'll have to come back and try another time.

But, I did film a quick videos of me playing over it again... it's louder, much better audio play along... and I'm not 100% sight reading the melodic progression anymore. Still not totally comfortable with it...

[christianm77]

I made it quickly... actually I had some more ideas but I did not have time and possibility to prepare and make it properly... and the phone ran out of memory...
But it seems like I managed to show the thing that I wanted to and actually while recording it struck me what I really wanted to say but could not find words in posting..

Sorry for quality and rush and low volume (it's late everybody's sleeping - hope my accent is understandable)

Nice one Jonah, really clear, just got a chance to watch.

I would say that your video chimes very closely with how I’ve been looking at things. The harmonic layers for instance.

I’ve talked about this a number of times, and I think it’s really key. We can look at the history of jazz back when the comping harmony was simpler to illustrate this really clearly.

This goes back a long way. For instance Louis plays plenty of ‘maj7 chords’ (what we might think of as Am on F say) but it is absolutely not the case that a maj7 chord will be played by the banjo or piano left hand.

I’ll mention that as Ethan Iverson often points out these harmonic layers can even emerge between the two hands of a pianist. When we go back to stride the reasons for this are pretty clear, but even with Bud Powell and the bedrock of modern jazz piano, the comping hand/soloing hand separation is key. And bud is really playing the same comping sounds as stride pianists, just rhythmically different. He doesn’t generally play major 7’s, for instance, in the left hand.

Red Garlands two hands may have harmonic clashes between them.

Barry Harris’s approach separates harmony and soloing - another manifestation of this split.

Now, people never seem to pick up on it when I say it, so I’ll say it again. I think the key development in jazz harmony is when the two hands became integrated in the 1960s after Bill Evans. This coincides with the development of - guess - modern jazz harmonic theory.

This triad/quadrad thing is one way of underlying this layer of history to take a peek underneath.

[jordanklemons]

Oh, do try, I'd love to take a stab at it!

I've been quiet in this thread, but I'm following it closely.

Ok, I went ahead and uploaded the audio loop to dropbox, so you can just click the link and you'll be able to grab it from there....

Dropbox - weird joy to the world.mp3
Hope it works... first time I've tried this here....

[Jonah]

Nice one Jonah, really clear, just got a chance to watch.

I would say that your video chimes very closely with how I’ve been looking at things. The harmonic layers for instance.

I’ve talked about this a number of times, and I think it’s really key. We can look at the history of jazz back when the comping harmony was simpler to illustrate this really clearly.

This goes back a long way. For instance Louis plays plenty of ‘maj7 chords’ (what we might think of as Am on F say) but it is absolutely not the case that a maj7 chord will be played by the banjo or piano left hand.

I’ll mention that as Ethan Iverson often points out these harmonic layers can even emerge between the two hands of a pianist. When we go back to stride the reasons for this are pretty clear, but even with Bud Powell and the bedrock of modern jazz piano, the comping hand/soloing hand separation is key. And bud is really playing the same comping sounds as stride pianists, just rhythmically different. He doesn’t generally play major 7’s, for instance, in the left hand.

Red Garlands two hands may have harmonic clashes between them.

Barry Harris’s approach separates harmony and soloing - another manifestation of this split.

Now, people never seem to pick up on it when I say it, so I’ll say it again. I think the key development in jazz harmony is when the two hands became integrated in the 1960s after Bill Evans. This coincides with the development of - guess - modern jazz harmonic theory.

This triad/quadrad thing is one way of underlying this layer of history to take a peek underneath.

This I idea about pianists and Ville Evans is really great...
I felt something like that when listend to Red Garland or Monk but I could not find the words

[christianm77]

This I idea about pianists and Ville Evans is really great...
I felt something like that when listend to Red Garland or Monk but I could not find the words

Thanks!

Here is another Ethan Iverson article you may find interesting Red’s Bells | DO THE M@TH

[christianm77]

Bad grainy video of me getting it wrong

[WillMbCdn5]

Christian -- Love the Allman Bros quote at 5:19 DbMaj/4


Will

[christianm77]

Jordan, Thanks!

I listend to it, there is nothig that I would really disagree with)))

But probably something to gon with or to give a feedback with from my own experience...

I think I will make another video one of the next days...

Last months I feel frustrated with typing - nobody reads!)))

Hey man I ALWAYS read what you have to say.

I don’t always understand it, quite often due to holes in my knowledge, but it’s always been worth persisting with.

But the vid was great. It’s so much better to hear what people are talking about in music.

[christianm77]

Squeezed in some practice today and for some reason filmed it.

[Jonah]

I thought about interesting example of totally opposite process (opposite in my opinion)

here we we have descending scale in the melody (major and then minor) that goes through though harmonic changes and it brings in it all the individuality

[jordanklemons]

@Ragman
Nice job man. It's tough to play with this stuff. Not sure if you caught the live interview I did last weekend with Peter Bernstein. Someone sent in a question asking him about transcribing and how he learned to develop his language. He said that he would take one riff, analyze it to find the sweetest most important notes that defined the sound of it, and then steal those notes and practice making new lines focusing around them. He was essentially talking about what this Charlie Parker study guide was all about. We looked at a riff, saw which notes Bird was using over specific chords, tried to learn something new from them and organize them into a pattern, and then tried to learn to play around within that pattern. It simply adds a new pathway for us to navigate the changes.

@WillMbCdn5
It's amazing how often you'll see great music from all genres that can immediately be broken down into this triad + 1 or 2 tension note thing. I noticed Jessica once while playing through a specific tonality with a student a few months ago. I've also spotted this stuff straight out of jazz tunes, improv, classical stuff, pop stuff... it's everywhere if you know how to spot it.

@Christian
Glad to hear you dig Heartcore, I agree, it's an incredible record. You sound great man. And I enjoyed watching your breakdown of Tenderly too. I probably would have done a couple things a touch differently, but that's kind of what's great about this stuff.... different people are going to gravitate towards different sounds and create music that's more personal to themselves. There is no THE melodic progression to a tune... sometimes there are objective-like truths to certain tunes... but a lot of times it can be very subjective and personal. And I find even just for myself that I will hear tunes one way for a while, and then something will shift and I'll try it a new way. And then once we learn to develop a vocabulary around these ideas, we can also simply leave the structure of a tune's melody and just throw in whatever kind of sounds and movement we want. After the live interview I did with Bernstein this weekend we hung out for a bit and played a few tunes. Man... that dude will throw you some CURVE balls when he's comping for you. I can assure you I wasn't following any of my quadratonics strictly. BUT, I did hit a few of them at times... and more importantly, they were helping inform my decisions. Even when he was playing very unexpected chords, my ear what able to immediately hear the types of melodic tension that my notes were creating and I was able to play off of those and dance around within tension and resolution against him. For me, this is just so much fun.

@Jonah
God bless ya for bring Tchaikovsy into this. He's one of my favorites. I'm not sure what you mean by that being an example of "the opposite" of what I've been talking about. I'm not sure that there is an opposite to melodic triads... besides maybe someone who's not interested in music enough to want to listen to sounds and explore things. But either way, I THOROUGHLY enjoyed listening to this while sipping on my espresso this morning. I find so much inspiration from him. What is it about people named Pete??????

[Jonah]

@Ragman

@Jonah
God bless ya for bring Tchaikovsy into this. He's one of my favorites. I'm not sure what you mean by that being an example of "the opposite" of what I've been talking about. I'm not sure that there is an opposite to melodic triads... besides maybe someone who's not interested in music enough to want to listen to sounds and explore things. But either way, I THOROUGHLY enjoyed listening to this while sipping on my espresso this morning. I find so much inspiration from him. What is it about people named Pete??????

)))
Thanks.
I'll try explain later what I meant - when I make a video!

[ragman1]

Jordan -

I see you pop in from time to time so you'll get this.

I've read your thesis, it's online in a pdf. It's very good, very clear, probably clearer than what's been presented here.

Don't think I'm just being a nuisance. I like to question. We should question, never just blindly follow. These ideas, or rather this idea here, is basically a way of getting away from CST (not that it's always wrong or inappropriate) and finding a simpler way of playing good solos over really complicated chords.

As you say, one way - and it is only one way - is to go by the melody. That gives, inevitably, a very solid indication of how the composer intended it to sound, and I'm all for that.

With your particular progression here it's quite fast and the chords change rapidly and unexpectedly. Reducing the soloing possibilities to a palette of four notes isn't a bad way to do it but, as I said before, I personally find it very strait-jacketing and restrictive. And it has certainly nothing to do with 'freedom' and all that waffle (sorry!).

If it gave freedom to improvise fairly happily over this difficult backing then we'd all be doing it. But no one is as far as I can see, and we're on page 11. The only person to have done it so far is yourself and me. Christian, bless him, is still working up to it... in public :-)

But not even you can do it fluently because it's extremely difficult. And I suspect that the notion that it's going to take a long time of working, struggling, frying the brain and fingers, before we can achieve enlightenment is basically fallacious. We should be able to take to the idea and make it work, emerging happily with a new found skill after only a reasonably moderate bit of practice. Otherwise there'll only be a lot of unnecessary head-banging and frustration, if not giving up altogether.

I was thinking of taking a known tune and trying the idea on that. 'Iris' occurred to me.

That tune is in C (or rather has no particular key sig) and has a complex melody and chords. It's much slower and follows just the same principle as your example. Let's see what the professional soloists are making of it. And there are other versions on YouTube.

I'm NOT against your theory, I'm just trying to make it work in a practical manner. Please don't say 'Just go on with what you want to do in your own way' because that's not the point at all. If you don't mind my saying that.

In either case I'd be grateful for your comments. Thanks.

[christianm77]

@Christian
Glad to hear you dig Heartcore, I agree, it's an incredible record. You sound great man. And I enjoyed watching your breakdown of Tenderly too. I probably would have done a couple things a touch differently, but that's kind of what's great about this stuff.... different people are going to gravitate towards different sounds and create music that's more personal to themselves. There is no THE melodic progression to a tune... sometimes there are objective-like truths to certain tunes... but a lot of times it can be very subjective and personal. And I find even just for myself that I will hear tunes one way for a while, and then something will shift and I'll try it a new way. And then once we learn to develop a vocabulary around these ideas, we can also simply leave the structure of a tune's melody and just throw in whatever kind of sounds and movement we want. After the live interview I did with Bernstein this weekend we hung out for a bit and played a few tunes. Man... that dude will throw you some CURVE balls when he's comping for you. I can assure you I wasn't following any of my quadratonics strictly. BUT, I did hit a few of them at times... and more importantly, they were helping inform my decisions. Even when he was playing very unexpected chords, my ear what able to immediately hear the types of melodic tension that my notes were creating and I was able to play off of those and dance around within tension and resolution against him. For me, this is just so much fun.

Thanks man! I would be very interested to know what choices you would have made that were different from mine on Tenderly.

[bako]

Practicing extracting quadrads from the "Iris" chart. Not the same as actually listening to or playing the song
but a fun, expedient 10 minute game to play before I start my day.

Fm11 - EbGBb + F

Ema7#11 - D#F#A# + G#

Gbma7#11 - FAbC + Bb

Bb7+ - GbBbDb + Ab

Db7#11 - EbGBb + Cb

Abma7+ - CEG + D

Cm7 - BbDF + Eb

Db7#11 - EbGBb + Cb

Dbm(b6) - Gb Bbb Db + Ab

Db7#11 - EbGBb + Cb

[ragman1]

Well done, double flats before breakfast :-)

Not taking over the thread but this tune does bear a resemblance to Jordan's loop. It's even got an AbM7#5.

The other thing is that, in all the versions on YouTube (including one extremely speedy piano 'shredder') the soloists don't appear to have any trouble getting through it at all - and it doesn't sound like CST.

[christianm77]

I think what Joy to the World now needs is a frantic contrafact ala the Blue Line

[ragman1]

Where are peoples' efforts at this? Why am I alone?

boo hoo

[mr. beaumont]

The "Joy to the World" loop?

I was planning on trying it out tonight, actually. Been busy.

I'm going to try a few things over it. I hear a really strong melody on top of those chords as played...I think I'll use a combination of that melody and the original as my approach.

[christianm77]

What? You have other things to do than record things for the guitar forum?