Basic Bebop Lines

[ragman1]

Played them all again. 2, 3 and 6 are fine.

1) I just don't like it :-)
4) Still not happy with C over Dm.
5) The E in bar 2 before the F# sounds wrong, should be an F.

But a lot better, certainly. Have you checked out this? These really are the right sounds.

20 Classic Bebop Jazz Guitar Licks

[christianm77]

By the way, a quck thought: doesn't that #5 with it's Db-C-B beginning over G deliver the sound of Db7 substitute over V? To me it translates into 1-7-b7 of Db7 scale if you like. I didn't think of it that way actually, I only wanted to maintain the general formula.

Yeah I liked that one. I thought that’s what you were doing lol. Still if it sounds good that’s the main thing, however you think of it.

There are many directions you could take this.

For instance aside from my last post, putting a second arpeggio in there. Running a scale right through G7 for half a bar and Db7 for half a bar, up a dim arp and into C. There possibilities are limitless even with basic formula.

[ragman1]

Well, that's the other thing, putting in subs like the tritone.

[Paulie2]

You might want to checkout Bert Ligon's "Connecting Chords with Linear Harmony." It will show you ways to elaborate and expand on these ideas using three specific Outlines. You're playing Outline #2 to Outline #1 or #3 with variations. The book has hundreds of examples of these ideas from different musicians and analyzes the ideas and how to expand on this concept

[christianm77]

You might want to checkout Bert Ligon's "Connecting Chords with Linear Harmony." It will show you ways to elaborate and expand on these ideas using three specific Outlines. You're playing Outline #2 to Outline #1 or #3 with variations. The book has hundreds of examples of these ideas from different musicians and analyzes the ideas and how to expand on this concept

Whatever you do - play and keep varying the examples in tempo. Start slow if you need to.

[VKat]

You might want to checkout Bert Ligon's "Connecting Chords with Linear Harmony." It will show you ways to elaborate and expand on these ideas using three specific Outlines. You're playing Outline #2 to Outline #1 or #3 with variations. The book has hundreds of examples of these ideas from different musicians and analyzes the ideas and how to expand on this concept

Oh, yes - I've done those outlines many times. I have the book of course.

[VKat]

Chris: Thanks for all your suggestions.
RagMan: thank you for the critical review.

Chris, since you suggested a lot more ways for variations I see it's pointless to put them all on paper. So I'll stop with my last one.

RagMan, thanks again for your honest feedback. I see what you mean. Actually I don't like any of these lines as good practical phrases. I only wanted to see if it's possible to come up with something useable for the dry practice purposes but I agree that most of the best phrases has been already invented by the greats and the only our task is to make them our own hopefully without screwing them up

Thanks for supposrting the experiment!

[VKat]

To everyone: if you like the idea please make your modifications of the lines in pdf to your liking and post here.

[VKat]

Last one -
I feel there’s a missed opportunity to go E D C B Bb Ab, keep the melodic direction going but changing the harmony.

I know you thinking about putting chord tones on the beat, but the rule (half step between G and F if you start on a chord tone on the beta and none if not) is actually more important than this principle imo.

I can see why you put an E flat there and it kind of works, but try without. It’s not one of the standard added notes for a G7 scale.

Chris, sorry if I got it wrong from your reply.
Did you mean Eb in #6 and not #7, the last one?

If it was #6 then I added one more alt line at the end calling it an 'alt for #6'. There is no Eb there but there is a descent from E diatonically down to Bb on the downbeat. So almost no chord tones on the downbeat excluding the penultimate F.

RagMan: I've made one more mod to #1 and to my ear it now sounds acceptable.
What do you think?

Anyway, this is the last mod I've down. Feel free to post your versions.

[ragman1]

Chris: Thanks for all your suggestions.
RagMan: thank you for the critical review.

Chris, since you suggested a lot more ways for variations I see it's pointless to put them all on paper. So I'll stop with my last one.

RagMan, thanks again for your honest feedback. I see what you mean. Actually I don't like any of these lines as good practical phrases. I only wanted to see if it's possible to come up with something useable for the dry practice purposes but I agree that most of the best phrases has been already invented by the greats and the only our task is to make them our own hopefully without screwing them up

Thanks for supporting the experiment!

To be honest, there's not much mystery in it. Use Dm, FM7, Bm7b5, etc, then the altered scale, b9 scale, wholetone, tritone subs, backdoor, chromatic stuff... just the good old ways of doing jazz. You don't need any more unless you want to get all 'modern' and slide way out of the ball park. But the secret, of course, is to make it listenable, that's all...

Keep it simple, keep it sweet :-)

[ragman1]

By the way, which way round are you doing this? Are you composing these lines on paper and then playing them? Or playing them and then writing them down?

I can tell you now that composing with your mind rarely works. It nearly always sounds artificial and contrived. It's got come from you. Play them, maybe quite a lot of them, find which ones really sound good, improve a note here and there perhaps, then write them out.

Much better

[VKat]

By the way, which way round are you doing this? Are you composing these lines on paper and then playing them? Or playing them and then writing them down?

I can tell you now that composing with your mind rarely works. It nearly always sounds artificial and contrived. It's got come from you. Play them, maybe quite a lot of them, find which ones really sound good, improve a note here and there perhaps, then write them out.

Much better

For this exercise lines I used the "write on paper" in Crescendo method but I didn't listen to them in the process of writing and untill I heard your feedback.
Actually if I was composing free flowing lines (not the lines constricted by the rigid rules that I initially set in this case) I would have 90% success just writing by sight. I know because I've done it before.
I'm not a genious composer of course but it's pretty easy to get away with 100% verified Bop cliche lines that will sound good by definition. Variations on them often also sound good.
By the way, those genious composers of the past were able to write their multi-voice counterpoint just by sight as far as I know from the academic research on their artistry (not mine but I read it).

[VKat]

You might want to checkout Bert Ligon's "Connecting Chords with Linear Harmony." It will show you ways to elaborate and expand on these ideas using three specific Outlines. You're playing Outline #2 to Outline #1 or #3 with variations. The book has hundreds of examples of these ideas from different musicians and analyzes the ideas and how to expand on this concept

By the way, I like a lot Bert Ligon's book. It's perhaps as many confirmed one of the best on its subject.
The only restriction I see is that it alsmost exclusively focuses on 7-3 resolutions which is the strongest conection one can make in change running of course but if one does only that it becomes pretty obvious.
It's probably worth diluting those strong lines with some less direct connections. Hence I tried to explore all the extensions over Dm.

[ragman1]

For this exercise lines I used the "write on paper" in Crescendo method but I didn't listen to them in the process of writing and untill I heard your feedback.
Actually if I was composing free flowing lines (not the lines constricted by the rigid rules that I initially set in this case) I would have 90% success just writing by sight. I know because I've done it before.
I'm not a genious composer of course but it's pretty easy to get away with 100% verified Bop cliche lines that will sound good by definition. Variations on them often also sound good.
By the way, those genious composers of the past were able to write their multi-voice counterpoint just by sight as far as I know from the academic research on their artistry (not mine but I read it).

Well, I suppose some people can do it by ear simultaneously to paper. I can too, more or less, but I wouldn't trust it till I'd heard it. There's also licks that sound terrific inside the head but are really awkward to finger.

As for genius composers, I know. But that definitely ain't me :-)

[DS71]

I've googled a bit on this. The best one I've found so far is right here on this site! All these examples sound very, very good to me. Excellent in fact, I don't think you could do better.

20 Classic Bebop Jazz Guitar Licks

Some nice lines there with good insight. Gonna work through all those.

[VKat]

I've just realized that what I tried to explore, actually on a whim!, is not practical in terms of traditional Bop language when going beyond perhaps even A as a starting point of the D-7 arpeggio. In the latter case it will start on the offbeat with an approach to A as G#-A, so A falls on the downbeat and as Christian said the idiomatic way would be to play an ascending triplet as A-C-E and then langing on G on the downbeat to proceed down through Gb to F which will already fall on the dominant in the next measure as the 7th of G7.

Many weird arps that I suggested beyond that point can hardly be related to traditional Bop language as I now realize. Once again, I did that on a whim trying perhaps to invent something new. As I now see it RagMan is absolutely right that what I suggested is a part of some kind of modern sound that probably could be ironically defined as 'Bop Nuovo'

As far as understand Bop being in its essence nothing but a Tonal music cannot rely heavily on solely extended sounds over current underlying harmony (except for dominants). Thus playing something like C-E-G-B-D as a series of suspended sounds in a raw over D-min as RagMan correctly noted sounds more like nonsense in the Tonal context. Why did I do that? Well, I already told you I did that on a whim. It's like answering your own question when you know in advance that the answer is going to be negative. I sort of pretended I wouldn't know that.

Playing altered sounds over dominants in Bop is of course a different story and I must confess I don't fully understand yet how it works. I know, I know - "Extreme tension before resolution" but still it's a little bit of mistery to me - in terms of traditional Western harmony.

[christianm77]

I've just realized that what I tried to explore, actually on a whim!, is not practical in terms of traditional Bop language when going beyond perhaps even A as a starting point of the D-7 arpeggio. In the latter case it will start on the offbeat with an approach to A as G#-A, so A falls on the downbeat and as Christian said the idiomatic way would be to play an ascending triplet as A-C-E and then langing on G on the downbeat to proceed down through Gb to F which will already fall on the dominant in the next measure as the 7th of G7.

Many weird arps that I suggested beyond that point can hardly be related to traditional Bop language as I now realize. Once again, I did that on a whim trying perhaps to invent something new. As I now see it RagMan is absolutely right that what I suggested is a part of some kind of modern sound that probably could be ironically defined as 'Bop Nuovo'

As far as understand Bop being in its essence nothing but a Tonal music cannot rely heavily on solely extended sounds over current underlying harmony (except for dominants). Thus playing something like C-E-G-B-D as a series of suspended sounds in a raw over D-min as RagMan correctly noted sounds more like nonsense in the Tonal context. Why did I do that? Well, I already told you I did that on a whim. It's like answering your own question when you know in advance that the answer is going to be negative. I sort of pretended I wouldn't know that.

Playing altered sounds over dominants in Bop is of course a different story and I must confess I don't fully understand yet how it works. I know, I know - "Extreme tension before resolution" but still it's a little bit of mistery to me - in terms of traditional Western harmony.

It's all a pick up to the final note. Rhythm and harmony work together. The notes are nothing without phrasing, and the correct phrasing can legitimise the weirdest note choice when you land on that chord tone.

Ultimately - I think it's best to find someone who you think can play bop to a high level and see what they think. Don't bother asking someone who sort of plays it or dabbles or 'does their own thing' if you want to master what is in this era a very specific and somewhat classical language.

Not all jazz musicians - even professional, very good ones - play bebop well, without licks or cliches. It's a niche skill. College players can learn to fake bop in a few semesters, but to truly internalise the music takes much longer.

That's how it works with Barry Harris - he's on a few of my favourite records, and the advice I am giving is based on what I understand, no doubt imperfectly, from his teachings.

But he isn't the only one.

[gggomez]

Some nice lines there with good insight. Gonna work through all those.

these are great. Have to work them into my Tune Up practice on weekend

[ragman1]

Playing altered sounds over dominants in Bop is of course a different story and I must confess I don't fully understand yet how it works.

In a nutshell, b5, #5, b9, #9. Stick those into your dominant licks and Bob's your auntie :-)


G7 ordinary scale is G A B C D E F G
With subs as above becomes G Ab Bb B C# Eb F G. Try it out