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I agree that Countdown is the Rosetta Stone to decipher Trane's music, at least up to the Giant Steps album. As I said previously, we could spend the entire semester on this. Good candidate for chord melody, though,
Originally Posted by christianm77
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08-25-2019 09:08 AM
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I think looking at the root movements of just the first 4 bars at the piano for an hour might be very helpful. It's a V I pattern simply modulating down by a 3rd like the "Have You Met Miss Jones" bridge. It can be memorized slowly as a routine, so that it's no longer difficult. The second and third lines do the exact same thing. Line four is like Tune Up .
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Yes, understood. I've spent some time learning Miss Jones as the foundation for Countdown. I might be able to play the tune at 20 bpm. Originally Posted by rintincop
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I didn’t say that. Trane changes are one technical aspect of Tranes music. Originally Posted by buduranus2
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Sorry. Didn't mean to put words in your mouth. Originally Posted by christianm77
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Sorry for being a grump. Coltrane is very special to me. I see him as more than a Sax player who played interesting notes.... although he was certainly that.
the fact that people focus on stuff like Trane changes, while cool and impressive neglects so many things I find more interesting about his music.
It’s like turning his music into a crossword puzzle sometimes the way it’s taught....
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No offense taken, of course. I think Trane is special to all of us. BTW, I went to the Saint John Coltrane Church when I was in San Francisco. I agree that music taught in an academic setting can be, well, pedantic. What infuses life into music can't be found in a book – it's the intangibles, like tone, vibe, blusiness and swing, among others. To me, that's the difference between playing it "correctly" and playing it "right." Perhaps an apt metaphor for my aspirations is that while I could place no one higher in the pantheon than Trane, I could listen to Dexter Gordon all day. That said, just to have an inkling about "Trane changes" is a big deal to me, although it's unlikely I'll ever be able to apply them. In closing, much appreciation for your many suggestions, recommendations and observations on this thread and previously. Originally Posted by christianm77
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WHAT? Tell me I'm dreaming.Saint John Coltrane Church
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Oh no this is a thing. Originally Posted by ragman1
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You're right, I've looked it up, and I'm not saying a word.
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I don't think there's a good way to 'simplify' Countdown, beyond just playing Tune Up. Which is why I don't think Countdown is really going to to anyone any good in an intermediate level jazz improv course. Can you get together with the other folks in class without the instructor, and work on some simpler tunes, concentrating on dynamics, rhythmic density, phrase lengths, articulation, interaction, trading 8s & 4s, stop time, intros endings, all useful and practical things to go over in a combo setting, and let Countdown patterns be an individual at-your-own-pace practice goal, until they come out naturally in group playing situations? Best wishes for your music!
PK
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Thank you for your thoughtful perspective. I couldn't have said it better! Originally Posted by paulkogut
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OK, I'll do it. Here's the link: Originally Posted by ragman1
Coltrane Church
Who knew?
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Pianist Michael Wolfe has a great YouTube on Giant Steps concepts. I especially like his Big V shortcut, where he plays a dominant altered scale over the first few chords leading to the I of the new key change. For example, play Bbalt over the beginning chords finally resolving to Ebmaj7, continue the same over the next sequence.
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Yes a have a vid demoing this idea more generally
So countdown would go from
Em F7 | Bb Db7 | Gbmaj7 A7 | D
to
Em | Em7b5 | A7alt | D
by this logic. Which is basically Tune Up.
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Man, I wish you were teaching the class. I think I kinda sorta get it, not necessarily to the level that I could explain it. I'll experiment. Originally Posted by christianm77
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Em | Em7b5 | A7alt | D
Which means you're going up in m3rds: Em - Gm - Bbm - (D).
Mind you, I don't know if any of this actually simplifies the playing of it because it's so fast.
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I think it would be ok, to play ii-V-I you probably have more chops. And it’s easier to improvise. Originally Posted by ragman1
What your talking about is more patternsy to my mind.
Really the Coltrane thing comes down to patterns. You can then apply those patterns on simpler progs or vamps, which is what Trane did.
But pattern based playing... well it can be a bit relentless so it’s good to have different tools.
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It looks like a lot of us are agreeing that for each 4 bar section, you find a single chord shape/key/scale that has as much commonality as you can, & use that to construct your solo melodies.
Then find the next chord shape/key/scale that has as much commonality as you can for the remainder. That's a good definition for "Countdown harmony simplification."
Here's my simplification method:
Over E-7 to F7, Play the blues in D Minor. D Minor seventh works against the E minor seventh because it is the II of DMA7 (The actual tonality Coltrane is implying, and where the first 4 bars end. And D Minor seventh is the Phrygian expression of B-flat major seventh. So that one harmonic center serves the E minor seventh, F Dominant seventh, And B-flat major seventh.
Then against the D-flat 7th to Gb major 7th, play the blues in B-flat minor. Bbm7, like the earlier Dm7, is the Phrygian expression of Gbma 7 which is where you end up, right before going back to D major seventh by way of A7, where you can return to the D minor (or D7 or Dma7) blues.
Then do the same thing On bars five through eight a whole step down.
And the same thing on bars 9-12 a whole step down again.
There's other names for these "source scales/keys" besides the ones I've given but they work for me when I want to tell a blues story over those quickly modulating progressions.
It's a real economical way to start playing the song especially if you intend to transpose it into all 12 keys as I am. If you can hear the blues in Countdown you can hear it in Giant Steps and just about any other song in the world. It's a real "medicine ball" song.
Haven't looked very closely at a transcription of Coltrane's solo but I suspect that those 1235 pentatonic licks are not picked for their random harmoniousness with the underlying chords. It's more like he's spelling out the money notes of the underlying chords and the 5 note pentatonic structure is as much as you can fit in at that speed.
As far as resolutions, no one's mentioned the fact that in the recording there is no harmonic accompaniment .
If you ask me in an effort to show the shear muscularity of his accomplishment at that tempo, he missed the opportunity that "playing against the changes" would've afforded.
Of course in those days it would've taken the adventurousness of a Keith Jarrett or Herbie Hancock to take advantage of harmonic opportunities afforded by those modulations.
One a the funnest things I do as a pianist is Countdown into my Amazing Slow Downer app & slow the tempo down and throw in the Harmony Underneath Trane's playing. There is an amazing amazing amount of common tones and common chords you can discover that unite the seemingly separate key centers.
writing out the chords to the song and slowing the tempo down to ballad tempo is a great way to get your ear inside these chord changes.Last edited by jeffparis; 05-19-2024 at 01:21 AM. Reason: Add to comment
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Originally Posted by buduranus2
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I ran into them at SFO (San Francisco International Airport) in - I wanna say the early '80s' - where they were soliciting donations. I thought to myself, "only in San Francisco!" Originally Posted by benrosow
I gathered they were playing Trane's later period music, A Love Supreme, etc., at their masses, rather than say Blue Train or Giant Steps.
They weren't very good at the fundraising thing, didn't seem to have a clue that the average person would consider them somewhat deranged, not say to Hari Krishna magnitude but still... not sure why the airport admin permitted it, perhaps for comic relief from airport stress?
I advised them to at least offer people a Coltrane CD for a minimum donation, if you want someone to pay you to enjoy music, you should let them do so in return.
Re: the subject of this thread, the only simple approach to following the changes (vs playing outside them) is to play the V-I progressions as they move down in major thirds - 1 bar of each - F7/BbM7, Db7/GbM7, etc. But I suppose that's obvious.
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I agree that Countdown is considerably more difficult than Giant Steps. Other than the opening changes, there's a simple pattern in Giant Steps of ii V I then down a half step (the new chord becomes a V7 in the new key).
Countdown's one redeeming feature is that it's the same 4 bar pattern in three keys.
So, first order of business is to get the sound of that pattern deeply into your ears. To the point where you can play it in any key.
Then, to look for simplifications.
Warren Nunes taught that there were two kinds of chords. Leaving out the explanation it's this:
Cmaj7 = Em7 = Gmaj7 = Am7 (actually, I can't recall how Warren handled the F# in the Gmaj7, so I'm going to gloss over it).
Dm7 = Fmaj7 = G7 = Am7 = Bm7b5.
Now, the first four bars of the tune are a iim -> Coltrane embellishments -> V7 > I.
So, the Em7 is, arguably, the iim in D. That means, per Warren, that it's also Gmaj7, A7, Bm7 and C#m7b5.
Let's pick one, say, Bm7.
The next chord is F7, which Warren will tell you is also Cm7.
The one after that it Bbmaj7, which Warren will tell you is Dm7.
So, let's review the first 6 beats of the tune. Play a lick on Bm7, raise it one fret for the F7 and raise it two more frets for the Bbmaj7.
Now, that Bbmaj7 lick is also a Dm7 lick, per Warren and the next chord is Db7. So, you drop down a fret and make it major.
One more difficult chord and then we finish the original over-arching ii V I.
Gbmaj7 = Abm7 = Dbmaj7= Ebm7
The last chord we played on was Db7. Now all you have to do is stay with the Db triad.
That brings us to A7, which is the same, per Warren, as Bm, which is almost a Dmajor,
So, now the tune is Bm7 Cm7 / Dm7 Db / Db D/ D.
Perfect? No. But it can get you started and if you didn't skip the step about getting the sound of the chord progression in your ears, you should be able to embellish this without undue difficulty.
Certainly not the only way and I wouldn't suggest that it's the best way, but it's a way.
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Countdown – Any way to simplify it?
I doubt it. A look at Coltrane's solo shows that all he's doing is rather obvious lines over each chord, nothing very clever. The story is that he had to practice for a whole year before he could get through Giant Steps in a studio. And Countdown may be worse than that. So it looks like the way to do it is just practice till you get it. If you can actually play at that speed at all, of course.
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I don't think the advice given to think of different chords than what's on the chart is helpful and if the goal is to be able to hear and respond to the chord changes, it can actually be counterproductive.
The first step in mastering a tune is to map out the tonal centers. In this tune, they change every 4 beats (V7/I)
We've got: Em7(b5) F7/ BbM7 = Bb major >> Db7 /GM7 = Gb major >> A7b9 /DM7 = D major
That's major keys moving down in major thirds. Then it goes to the parallel minor (Dm7) and continues the same pattern, etc.
Here is what Trane played:
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A tonal center approach is simple, even obvious. That's a great way to play it, if you count it off slow enough to make those changes.
But, the tune is at 300 bpm (which is 5 beats per second) and the tonal center is moving every 4 beats. So, every 0.8 seconds you have to think of a new tonal center, in the middle of the bar, and the key changes are not simple.
Coltrane did it, but the story is that he practiced it assiduously.
Thinking of a different chord than the one in the chart, as a means of improvising, is a tried and true technique. Worth considering if you have trouble with other approaches at this tempo.
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