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All good, I wasn't being snarky, just saying that Bird elicits much theorising as to what his "system" may have been, and I wonder if he is more mysterious in this regard than even the great composers! Let's face it, from Bach to Schoenberg, composers have left a broad trail of evidence regarding their methodology, but not Bird, he left no crumbs... even Coltrane and other Jazz icons have left behind notebooks or practice tapes etc, but not Bird.... best we got from him are the few oft quoted throwaways like "First learn your instrument, then forget that shit and just wail..."
Originally Posted by jordanklemons
Dizzy, on the other hand, had few secrets and yet despite being the other important architect of Bop, we never seem to discuss or wonder about his playing. I think if Bird were even still alive today, he'd never have spilled the beans. Is he music's greatest enigma?
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04-06-2018 12:13 PM
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I can't quite follow some of the theory here. I don't see how analyzing this line in triads is helpful, but maybe that's just me. Originally Posted by jordanklemons
What it looks like to me is he played Fm9 to Ebmaj, more or less. If I had to guess how he approached it, I'd suggest that he was thinking key of Eb and starting on the #11.
Did he think Bbmixo, Fm13, Abmaj7, Bb13? Who knows? I do think he had lots of ways of playing a ii V I and probably transcended thinking about specific chords or arps, especially at the tempos he played. So, maybe he was thinking dominant to major, V I, and doing the rest by ear.
Will studying triads get you to hear the way he did? Beats me. Probably can't hurt. As I understand Parker's evolution, he played in some dance bands, knew his standards, had heard lots of other players solo, had a gift for hearing extensions, and was brilliant about anticipating or delaying the chord change in his lines.
When I look at the Omnibook, I see examples where his line on, say, beat 4, is conventional, but not for the COM. Rather, it's for the chord that's about to come up on beat 1 of the next bar. So, you can't analyze that as this extension or that one for the COM. It has to be understood as anticipating the change. IMO.
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The original line resolves to the note E on the chord C major. So it's not a anticipation of the Eb major chord if that's what you meant. Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
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I tried smiling and nodding, but I didn't see you smile and nod back so I just assumed you wanted to fight instead Originally Posted by christianm77
hahaha
jk
No, I may have come off as being short or dismissive or just a d$@* before... I was just in a rush to get out the door to meet some family. I've "worked on" triads for decades now... but it wasn't until I spent time with my old teacher Stefon that I fully understand how much of the picture I was missing. And once he started breaking down the theory and the methods for me I thought it was all way too hyper intellectually heavy and kind of called him out on it.
BUT, at the end of the day, I always trust my ear. And if anyone here isn't already into Stefon Harris, you should check him out. He does it all. He can get sounds like Rosenwinkel, like Bill Evans, like Count Basie.. he plays with everyone from Kenny Barron up to Robert Glasper and Mark Turner... and he write some gorgeous original music and makes some amazing arrangements... and while his theory seemed unfamiliar and unnecessary to me at first, I trusted my ear enough to go with it and see where he was headed. And I'm glad I did. He basically breaks it all down from the oldest sounding stuff to the hippest most modern stuff all into the same DNA and has the ability to play within any of those elements just using the triad. So for me... I was hooked.
But that's what I mean about the ear coming first. I trusted him with the theory and went along for the ride only because my ear told me (against the warning of all my intellectual defense mechanisms) that this dark scary looking alley was where I needed to go. If I meet a reggae player and showed him a Stevie Ray Vaughn riff and he doesn't dig it, it would be silly for me then to explain the theory behind the blues scale to him, wouldn't it? Maybe that's just me. I don't mean to be dismissive. For me it comes from a place of respect for the other person and the respect of their ear to make decisions about what they dig, and my lack of a desire to try and convince them to dig something different.
As for this particular conversation and my intentions or methods, it's really no different than any of the other times we've talked. The idea for me is to get me OUT of thinking with visual shapes, patterns, and muscle memories and instead to give me a means of starting with ears and simplicity and building outward. There's only 12 notes and plenty of ways to organize them or analyze how others play with them. For me it just comes down to tension and resolution. The more time I spend with triads the more my ears can hear and understand this in real time and connect with my fingers to develop melodic ideas that really move either within an individual tonality, or within a cadence or a tune. As a slight variation from the BH stuff, for me, the ideal organization for pure resolution is a triad... as opposed to the 6 chord... which obviously also works... I just hear it as 2 different options (the major tonic triad and it's relative minor... I prefer keeping them as 2 separate things and find that for me they work better treated differently as they each create their own little universe of sound which can be substituted for each other, but do sound different). I also prefer the triad thing because it allows us to tonicize upper structure notes if we want which means we can turn almost any note into a stable resolution point as opposed to just the 1-3-5-6.
But regardless, the two systems are essentially both about making some sort of decision about how we wish to organize the feeling of stability and resolution. And then it becomes about how we develop tension. In BH, it's essentially the diminished, right? I'm no scholar though, but as far as I've played with his system, it's the 6 chord vs the diminished... with overlap and borrowing of course.
For the triad way of thinking, I prefer to just pick one note and play with that one tension note. For so many reasons. Primarily, it requires my ear actually take the time and responsibility to learn what THAT chord tone/solfeggi/scale degree/etc FEELS and SOUNDS like against the triad... what is the flavor of its particular tension.
The most common push back against this idea is, "Well you're playing 4 of the 5 notes of the F minor pentatonic, why can't I just play F minor pentatonic?"
Well obviously you can. Nobody says that's not allowed. But the question has to be asked for people who are committed to their ear and their musical growth... are you using it because you've really listened to the other options and think that 1-b3-4-5-b7 is truly the best and most perfect way to create your line? Or simply because that's what someone showed you years ago and your muscle memory just knows it and so it's easier than listening and finding other options? Neither is right or wrong. But they are different. What if I prefer the sound of the 2 instead of the b7? 1-2-b3-4-5? Do we know what the tension of the 2 sounds like when used against a minor triad? Versus the 4? Or the b7? Or the 6? These are questions that concern me more than what scale am I supposed to be using based on what a book tells me (which if you are reading this and don't know what scales commonly go with which chords... you should learn that stuff first... or at least alongside forcing your ear to take a more active role in the process). What does it tell us that in almost every pass through this chord change Bird seems to rely upon F minor triad notes and almost always with the Bb note added... and the A natural passing tone? I frankly could care less about figuring out what HE was thinking because that's not possible and ultimately doesn't matter. That was HIS way of thinking. What I am interested in is getting outside of my muscle memory and my comfort zone and growing and learning and opening my ears to new pathways for improvising within. So what's important for me is to identify what's being used, to organize it into a way of hearing and understanding tension and resolution, and then infusing that into my playing. For me, that's important.
And then it gets even more complex and important when we take it into upper structure ideas. You mentioned something about the F minor triad, the C minor triad, and the Bb triad as all coming from the same scale. This is one of the biggest (and maybe only) differences between the way we think... and neither are right or wrong... I just choose to look at the picture from the opposite perspective. I choose to see triads first, and then scales built from and around them based on a specific set of tension notes... as opposed to seeing a scale, and breaking down into triads. The reason being that the triad notes are where the resolution points are.
So forming phrases based on an F minor triad over an F- chord will yield COMPLETELY different sounding lines than if I where phrasing around a C minor triad, or a Bb major triad. Are they all related from the same key? Yeah, sure. But if we change to them being the center of our tonal universe, then everything changes.
The best way to hear this is at the piano... play an F-7 shell voicing in your left hand, and then play each of those triads sitting on top. They will each have a totally different vibe and color. We can play within that vibe/color/emotion via single note improv and by developing chord voicings that are based on the triad. So if you improvise over an F-7 shell voicing based around a C minor triad, you'll find that the F note in the melody starts to sound and behave like the 4 in a bluesy C minor sound. It's just different.
The process for me is always to begin with a tune, analyze the melody to see where the stable resolution notes are, find the triads hiding in the melody, and then improvise based on the contour and anatomy of the melody of the tune instead of playing chord tones to outline the harmony... though I'll do that too sometimes if I feel like it. This month we're taking a short break from looking at standards to try something different... specifically, to check out one example of how Bird phrased through a cadence to learn about where he naturally laid out his tension and resolution points... because whether he was actively thinking about triads or not (spoiler alert... pretty sure he wasn't), he was still creating melodic contour and movement utilizing tension and resolution.
And for those who are interested in looking at jazz from the perspective of triads and the super basic fundamentals, that may seem intriguing... in which case the study guide regarding it is free for the rest of the month. For those who aren't, that's cool too. There's plenty of ways to learn and organize our 12 noises.
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Ha I was a bit worried I was coming across as a dismissive d&@k.
Luckily sunnyside turned up. Bless his little cotton socks.
Triads rock.
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Oh, is that what’s up? The cotton socks? Originally Posted by christianm77
huh
Yeah.. ignore everything else I just said and go with
“Triads rock”-Christian
That’s a much more concise way to understand what I’m getting at. Ha
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Christian, would you explain this? The line looks like it's in Eb. Why do you say "E on the chord C major"? Originally Posted by christianm77
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Jordan's study material sent me back to the Omnibook, which reminded me of this....Six 30 minute broadcasts from the late 1970's I taped from my mum's radio. Interviews with Coleman Hawkings, Sonny Stitt, Jay McShann, Diz, Gil Evans, lots more, Bird himself telling of his first disastrous attempt at sitting in (It's not the story you think you know) Bird in a hotel room playing tenor with Dizzy.....
If someone wants to move it to a more appropriate thread please do.
At one point my mum comes in and says 'Are you asleep?' (she wanted her radio back) I was being VERY QUIET because my crappy Sanyo cassette player was balanced on top of some books on a chair with the built in microphone as close to the radio as I could get it. Anyone who posts the correct time stamp for this may upload a clip of them playing a bebop head of their choosing...
PS Jordan you rock...
OK that failed...can I not upload mp3's straight from my laptop without hosting 'em somewhere first ?Last edited by dot75; 04-07-2018 at 08:26 AM.
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Jordan, I didn't know you studied with Stefon! Well, now your (healthy) obsession with triads plus bass notes makes even more sense.
I think my takeaway from this thread has been not so much that this is "the way" to analyze Parker (which you never claimed anyway) but more that trains of thought that can be considered "more modern" are not antithetical to the approach of bebop...
I suppose in the end, all of it is just trying to put names to things that happened, to make it make sense, to catalog it so it can be found again, pused deeper...the approach can be very personal or a "widely accepted" one, but each person needs to figure out what works for them...
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Jordan mentioned above the solo is originally from Yardbird Suite and he changed the line to resolve to Eb rather than the original context of a backdoor into C Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
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Jordan -
Maybe I'm a bit iggrrant but I don't see what that simple 8-note line over a one bar ii-V has to tell us at all. Apart from a chromatic passing note, quite normal for a bebop scale, it's all diatonic anyway.
I take it that the issue is that a basic Cm was outlined over the Bb7. It's common practice to outline a minor chord a step above the dominant for a sus effect. Or he was just thinking 'C minor here'. In fact that's more likely.
Apparently the next chord was originally C major, not Eb. That makes it a simple backdoor progression. I'm willing to concede he was thinking 'C minor to C major' at that point. That would make sense.
But is it really anything more than that? After all, this is only one bar in the middle of a long solo at a med-up pace. Sorry, not trying to be difficult, just wondering.
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I may still be missing something here.
The line in the OP paraphrases/embellishes the melody of Yardbird Suite. It doesn't resolve to Eb and not really to Cmajor either.
Rather, it leads into a 3 6 2 5. Of course, you can sub a I for the iiim, but it doesn't change the context, IMO.
Stated another way, the very vanilla harmony here is Cmaj descending to A7 and the lick shown is in the middle of that descent.
I don't see how changing the resolution to Eb makes any sense. He certainly didn't play the line to reach Eb.
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I'd LOVE to hear this if it's possible... sounds amazing!!! Thanks dot! Originally Posted by dot75
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Yeah man... you know Stefon too? And/or his teaching??? What an amazing dude. I'm so happy to hear that he landed the associate dean director of the jazz dept at Manhattan School of Music. He deserves it. I think he should in charge of the curriculum altogether, but that's just me... I'm sure he'll have a HUGE impact on those types of directions for msm now that he's so high up. I got to do an ear training/theory course with him that changed my life, play in an ensemble with him, and then took privately with him as well. I guess I never mentioned that stuff too much? I thought I had... but I try not to be overly name-droppy. Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
The cool thing with the quadratonic method I use (much of which was taken directly from him) is that it not only helps give names to things... but just as importantly (or more importantly???) it breaks things down into small chunks and offers an almost step-by-step method for growing and developing our ear, and therefore our language... and it interlocks all melodic ideas with harmonic ones, so comping more pianistically starts to become a lot more obvious... which also rubs off on making arranging easier and more interesting. Or... it has for me.
But yeah, like you said... when you look at and approach music from the DNA level, it doesn't matter whether you're looking at this animal or that animal... it's all DNA. So whether it's classical or blues or bebop or modern jazz or Americana... it's all the same "stuff"... just has variations on the surface level. But the underlying structure of triads and tension/resolution has been at work at least as far back as Bach and really hasn't changed all that much as an architectural backdrop. Animals may evolve over time... but the DNA is still made up of the same 3 things.
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I think that depends what version of the changes you are looking at. Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
The vanilla version I think of as going to C. I don’t actually think I tend to play Em there, but maybe I should lol.
But It doesn’t really matter. You could have C/E chord doing the same job and ‘split the difference.’
Re the other points, see above - basically that’s kind of what I said.
But actually I do like the line as a ii v I.
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I really just know his playing, but the idea of structuring thought like that for a vibraphone player makes perfect sense, seems very logical for that particular instrument, but I also like the way it carries over to guitar. Originally Posted by jordanklemons
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.... Originally Posted by ragman1
You don't think there's anything to learn, but you spotted the C minor over Bb7 that creates a sus effect? Isn't that something worth learning? Originally Posted by ragman1
And more importantly, breaking things down can allow us the opportunity to give our ears the chance to learn what a thing sounds like (like a C minor triad over a Bb7 chord) and can give our fingers a chance to break away from any usual habits (like jumping straight for mixolydian or a 1-3-5-b7 chord tone outline) and bring in new ideas. Adding in one tension note against a triad at a time gives us the opportunity to not rely on visual scale patterns and muscle memory and to make sure our ear knows exactly what a 4 will sound like against a minor triad... the bluesy type of tension it offers, how it likes to move, and what types of melodic ideas we have the potential to create with it.
Beyond that, it seems silly to dig too much deeper here since I already took the time to put together a study guide with over 30 minutes worth of video footage, multiple pdf downloads, multiple examples of variations that can be created within these particular triad structures, and multiple practice ideas for learning from them and internalizing them to create more improvisational freedom... and all of which is free and available for the rest of the month... at which point it disappears because next month we're going to look at new material from the triadic standpoint in our next free study guide. So if you're interested in learning more, it's already all been laid out in far more detail with video and pdfs than I'd be able to do typing things out here. And if you don't feel it's worth trying, than you're free not to register for it as well.
It's just another perspective to look at things from.
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Yeah i usually teach students interested in bop, swing etc - but recently had to teach people more interested in rock, blues, fusion etc.
Basically there wasn’t one student that didn’t get a tremendous amount out learning triads. They are super flexible. The other thing is a lot of jazz students hadn’t practiced them, which I feel is a product of the idea that jazz lines and harmony are always based on four note+ chords, which is demonstrably false.
One interesting thing we worked on was Dave Gilmour. He certainly plays arpeggios, but even his bending is based around triads. So yeah.
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Here's a lead sheet in C. There are two instances of Fm7/Bb7 and both go into CM7 - but closely followed by Bb7 and then A7. Like a descending line from C to A7. Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
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That's fine. I'm not trying to trick anyone here or trying to convince anyone to play something that's going to sound terrible by throwing around fancy theory or intellectual arguments to prove otherwise. I was pretty upfront that I changed things here and in the study materials. Like I said to Christian, if you don't like the sound of it, then don't worry about it. For me, regardless of the original harmonic context, I don't find anything offensive about repurposing this and learning from the contour of the melody. But to each's own. If your ear doesn't like it, then go with that. You're not going to find a defensive argument to convince you to hear it any differently from me. Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
You're also free to take this break down, unchange the one note/chord that I altered, and learn from it using the same triadic analysis but for the purpose of applying it to this exact harmonic situation where in we slowly moving our way towards the II7 of a key... I just generally prefer learning things that can be used in LOTS of situations... be it a harmonic movement towards the II, or a basic ii V I or any other variation thereof. I find it the most helpful for me in my own learning process of learning how melody works against chord movement to think in terms of underlying architecture and structure and in smaller chunks and segments so that I can get comfortable with them and build them up into anything I want them to be.
But like I said, if it doesn't work in your ear, that's cool too.
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How many times will this forum let me like this comment ^^^^ Originally Posted by christianm77
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Well, I already knew that one. In fact, I recently used it in something, forget what now. But, yes, it's good to know. Originally Posted by jordanklemons
I hear what you say about triads and there's certainly a case for analysing their use over certain chords to produce certain sounds. And one should probably know them. And implement them too, of course, otherwise it all stays theoretical and abstract.
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Cool. Sounds like we're on the same page then and you found the answers to your question already. You just listed several of the reasons I enjoy breaking things down into triads, learning from them intellectually and sonically, and then taking small steps to implement those sounds and ideas into my playing to develop a larger comfort zone of melodic ideas to choose from when improvising over or harmonizing tunes. Originally Posted by ragman1
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Thanks. I hadn't looked at a chart of this tune for some time. I go to a 3 6 2 5 when I play it, not a 1 6 2 5. I may go back to 1 6 2 5 now that I've paid some attention to it.
And, maybe I don't understand the meaning of "resolve". Using the chart's changes, it still doesn't sound/feel like a "resolution" to Cmaj. To me, that implies that the Cmaj would resolve tension and not feel like it's leading somewhere else.
In this case, it sounds/feels like it's the start of a descending line to A7. Even though it's a Cmaj in the key of C, it sounds to me that it has a kind of instability. It feels more like a necessary passing chord on the way to A7.
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Without going into Jordan's method, except I can guarantee, as much as my word is worth, triads are never wrong, in any method, take it or leave it ...
The way to analyse Parker is down to fact he was junkie and mechanics of playing saxophone. The rest are chord tones, enclosures and chromatic approaches, organized into licks and synthetic scales.
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