What's your approach on giant steps?

[mr. beaumont]

I've never approached improvising over giant steps before--quite honestly, i don't really like the tune--it really always seems to be a exercise in showing off for most cats, and i'm just not a flashy player (read: i'm not fast enough) those of you who have heard me play probably already know if there's a horn player who's inspiring me, it's on the paul desmond end of the spectrum...so i'm at a loss here.

but i have a highly motivated student who in the last year has gotten into jazz, and, within the last few weeks, gotten into trane big time. so i know it's coming, and i'm feeling a little self concious because here i am, calling myself a jazz player, and i've never really looked at the tune...and i'm assuming soon enough he'll ask for ways to approach it.

so what do you all do?

[lkmuller]

I really don't have one because I haven't ever tried to figure it out, but I watched a Larry Coryell video and he translated a lot of the changes into II-V's. I'm at work now, but when I get home tomorrow I'll try to take a look at it and see what he said.

[Chordon Bleu]

You could Teach him "Have You Met Mrs Jones" get him playing that well. Then explain the concept/theory (eg. down in thirds w associated v's between) of "Giant Steps" and once he can sub well in that tell him to figure out improvisation stuff out for himself.

At least thats what I would like to learn(and trying to) at my elementary technical level.
JAI

[Jazzarian]

I've never approached improvising over giant steps before--quite honestly, i don't really like the tune--it really always seems to be a exercise in showing off for most cats, and i'm just not a flashy player (read: i'm not fast enough) those of you who have heard me play probably already know if there's a horn player who's inspiring me, it's on the paul desmond end of the spectrum...so i'm at a loss here.

but i have a highly motivated student who in the last year has gotten into jazz, and, within the last few weeks, gotten into trane big time. so i know it's coming, and i'm feeling a little self concious because here i am, calling myself a jazz player, and i've never really looked at the tune...and i'm assuming soon enough he'll ask for ways to approach it.

so what do you all do?

I'm not wild about it either. Certainly NOT a catchy tune like Blue Train.

[derek]

I like it as a ballad. Joe Pass did it this way, solo on one of his discs (I will look if you are interested), and at first I hardly recognized it, because as you pointed out Mr. B, most use it as a vehicle to blow.

Jimmy Bruno just rips it as uptempo piece on his solo disc. It seems right up there with Rhythm Changes and Donna Lee as sort of a rite of passage for jazz players.

[jazzadellic]

I treat it the same way I treat all jazz tunes --- first I go with the arpeggio as my fundamental set of notes, and then I add in other scale tones or chromatics as I see fit, on the fly. But probably a good 80-90% of the notes I select are chord tones. Doing it this way it is quite easy to solo over Giant Steps. Analyzing key relationships can help too, but the key centers only last for like 1 or 2 bars at most so all that finding those key centers does for you is tell you oh I can play from the same parent scale from the beginning of this bar to the end of the next.

to elaborate a little more ---at all times you are balancing 3 sets of notes:

1. Chord tones (there are 4 chord tones usually i.e. 7th chord)
2. Other scale tones (there are 3 scale tones, which are not a part of your chord)
3. Chromatic tones (there are 5 chromatic tones which are not a part of the major scale that you are using)

The challenge of the jazz player is to balance these in such a way as to bring out the harmony, or create tension with the harmony (i.e. a chromatic note or alteration). Most of the time, we simply emphasize the harmony with chord tones. We use passing scale tones, and passing chromatic tones to simply embellish the chord tones. Always think of non-harmonics as simply an embellishment of the chord tones, i.e. a chromatic tone is leading up to a chord tone, etc...If you give too much weight to the non-harmonics, your solo loses it's flavor and melodic quality! If you don't add in any non-harmonics, your solo sounds bland. It's a balancing act!

[mike walker]

I'll 2nd what jazzadellic says. One of the hard things to do on giant steps is to play rhythmically. Most players play 8ths on it. When you have the arps, scales, pentatonics, etc etc down, edit them. It's all oil in the engine.

[ed@edbarrettjazzguitar.co]

Have your student pick up Aebersold's Countdown to Giant Steps it will walk him through the whole thing in easily managed chunks. The thing is as has already been stated Giant Steps, Rhythm changes and Donna Lee are these "rights of passage" just to remind us mere mortals that we are just that mere mortals.

[Fernando]

My aproach is basicaly to play diatonical over the melodie and chord changes,please see in this link of you tube

I play acompanied with 2 talented pupils in a party of one of this, and trying to play this great composition in Bossa version.
thanks
Fernando

[sc06yl]

My aproach is basicaly to play diatonical over the melodie and chord changes,please see in this link of you tube

I play acompanied with 2 talented pupils in a party of one of this, and trying to play this great composition in Bossa version.
thanks
Fernando

I also like it as a bossa. THe first time i heard it that way, I was like "whats up with this song!" then i realized it was Giant Steps, or as I like to call it...Mamouth Leaps?

[m78w]

Here are some Trane patterns to practice on the first 8 bars of Giant Steps. I'll just write them out in 4 note, 8th notes, patterns, then once you get them seperately there are tons of combinations you can use them in.

1353

3135

5135

1235

5321

87b78

3#123

5345

1357

7531

etc

Another cool thing to do is take Trane's solo, you can find transcriptions of it on the net, and start by looking at the first pattern he uses, then take that one pattern over all of the chords. You can also look at how he builds lines over the first 4 bars, and the second as well, then make up your own 4 bar phrases.

I agree that Giant Steps isn't the greatest tune to play, what I really enjoy is subbing these changes over top of the blues and 2-5's etc.

Here are two of my favorite changes:

F Blues:

F7/F7/F7/F7 becomes F7 Ab7/ Dbmaj7 E7/ Amaj7 C7/ F7

or over a ii-V-I progression:

Dm7/ G7/ Cmaj7/ Cmaj7 becomes Dm7 Eb7/ Abmaj7 B7/ Emaj7 G7/ Cmaj7

MW

[Dennoow]

I've found a tutorial about it. It fesatures the tab and a backing track for the entire song. It's played by Shaun Baxter. I can send it to you if you like? I want to play that song if I attend to the conservatorium here in The Netherlands It's a show off tune and a bit over my head right now. There's also a section on the song in Mark Levine's jazz theory book. It's only 3 tonalities but it's changing quite fast in major thirds all the time.. Good luck and let me know if you need anything!
Dennoow

[bob3dsf]

I really don't have one because I haven't ever tried to figure it out, but I watched a Larry Coryell video and he translated a lot of the changes into II-V's. I'm at work now, but when I get home tomorrow I'll try to take a look at it and see what he said.

This is the meat of the tune anyhow, groups of 2-5's. In the larger picture these 2-5 bars move in Major 3rds (concert pitch = G, B, Eb). I think its a great tune to play. People who play it to show off are the ones who make it a bad sounding tune. I play it on sax and guitar, though not recently, so I'm pretty rusty. Because of the atypical harmonic motion, you kinda need to stay on top of it (at least to me), just like many bebop tunes.

[m78w]

Another thing you can use use over Giant Steps is the Augmented scale. This is a way to get through the whole tune on only one scale, kind of like a way cool blues scale.

The augmented scale is built out of two augmented triads a half step apart, so in this key it would be:

Baug and Bbaug or B D Eb F# G Bb

This scale will work over all of the changes in the first 8 bars, and some modern players will use it over the entire form. It's not going to sound traditional or "outline" the changes. It's more of a modern modal way to play the tune.

The only REALLY important thing to think about with this scale is the note you end your lines on. As long as you end on a note that fits the chord you're on, than the scale can work well and is a nice change from playing patterns and licks over the tune.

MW

[mr. beaumont]

thanks all, this has all been helpful.

i was really only familiar with levine's look at it, so some of these other ideas are pretty cool...the question hasn't come up yet (right now we're dissecting trane's solos on kind of blue) but when it does i feel confident i can give him several options instead of just the one i'm familiar with.

[m78w]

Cool, so you study with Mark Levine?

[mr. beaumont]

nah, i read his books

[m78w]

Ah, well those are some pretty well written books, it's almost like being in the room with him!!

[Tal Farlow]

Ahh, my favourite subject!

First here is a direct link (right-click, save as) to a PDF describing a break-down of The Cycles that govern the movement:
http://danadler.com/misc/Cycles.pdf

Then here are two excellent free tutorials by Corey Christiansen called 'Conquering Giant Steps' and 'Coltrane Style ii-V's':
Conquering Giant Steps

Coltrane-Style II-V-Is

A huge break-down of Coltranes techniques can be found in Corey's book called 'Coltrane Changes':
Amazon.com: Coltrane Changes Book/CD set: Corey Christiansen: Books

Finally another approach...

I saw a video of Greg Howe (Shred Guitar Ledgend) playing these changes on YouTube. He approaches them much like a rock guitarist would. Giant Steps is three keys right? So all you have to do (in the second half) is take one lick over the ii-V-I, then shift it up a Major 3rd, then, do the same again!!! The tune moves so fast that it sounds sick!! Try It.

Long Live Giant Steps!!!!

(But I agree, the song is pretty hard to listen to )

[perhapsguitar1234]

A good way of thinking about soloing over changes is that it's like a microscope. You can zoom completely out and play one scale over the entire chorus, or you can zoom in completely and play modes to each chord tone of the chord. Giant steps is all about added chords, so you can come up with something new everytime your improvise over it.

[sbadreau]

There is a Joe Diorio trick that I like for the beginning using minor pentatonic scales that move by half steps:
Bmaj7(G#mi penta), D7 (Ami penta), Gmaj7 (Emi penta), Bb7(Fmi penta), Ebmaj7 (Cmi penta)
There is a Toots Thielemans album called east coast/ west coast where they play Giant Step (with Scofield among others) but they treat it very musically, not to fast and only one chorus of improv each. I transcribed both toots and scofield solo. (although that was a while ago and I don't know what I did with it)

[m78w]

Here's Trane's solo on Giant Steps, it's in the tenor key, but it's worth looking at!!

MW

[Fernando]

Thank for posting!
SALUDOS

[Trinity]

A robot, or a sequencer can be programmed to play the correct scales/arpeggios over the Giant Steps progression, even in a rhythmically interesting way. No mean feat for any of us.
However, just for a moment, think of the phone book.
The names generate plenty of rhythmic variation, and no two numbers are the same.
Yet who could suffer the torment of having the phone book read to them, except by perhaps, Marylin Monroe, Richard Burton or Sir Lawrence Olivier.

In my humble opinion, the biggest challenge with Giant Steps, is to be Melodic.

[ewit]

I honestly think Giant Steps is no different from any other tune. The only catch is you can't just go "oh, I'll just stick to the key of B and wing it form there..."

So it really forces you to be comfortable in the 3 keys involved and to move fluidly between them. But that's something you should do with all the tunes you learn anyways.

Now, if you specifically want to study the patterns Coltrane played over the changes, and to be able to do it at 300bpm, that's another story...