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I have read mostly all of this and clearly there are just many different approaches. I would think about D melodic minor and C dominate but in reality the longer I play jazz it is more about thinking chord tones and where to take them. In listening just recently to Joe Pass play Night and Day on his Django recording the min7b5 chords all are progressing to a point and he seems to work right on the chord tones. It is almost as if he outlines the changes completely waiting for a point that frees him longer passages where the changes are not every 2 beats. Since as noted it usually is just 2 beats I am not thinking any scale for 2 beats for sure. In fact these days I try and stay away from that thinking.
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02-27-2020 03:46 PM
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Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
No, you asked "who plays straight scales?" Not who plays scales when improvising
I answered students and masters. I don't really want to argue with you. Please try to maybe ignore everything I say from now on, thanks.
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Of course it's about chords tones. That's the explanation of why the Barry harris scale is custom tailored to fit the minor 7 b5 and V7 b9 . It's not a normal or straight scale. It's not even up from a root. It's a disguised descending harmonic minor pool of notes. All the stuff of C7 will work over E-7b5 A7 b9. The famous 5432 phrases of C7 work on E-7b5 A7b9. You won't like trying to pull 5432 phrases off of an E-7 Locrian or a A7 dim scale...
Did Thelonius Monk not know what he was doing? And Parker too?
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loads of people if you mean like a run of about an octave or so. Very often. Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
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Over 2 beats, remarkable! Originally Posted by christianm77
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Correct Originally Posted by christianm77
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On the bandstand, I know what a minor ii V sounds like and I play a melody over it that sounds right to me. Originally Posted by princeplanet
As some have been saying, let's just substitute "pitch collections" for "scales" so we can keep the discussion going. I'm interested to know what some of you prefer to pull from over the min 2-5 in various contexts. Do you address both chords? Do you just play V7b9 stuff over both? Do you favour certain PC's - like the harmonic minor?, alt scale? Chord tones? Extensions? Subs?, Chromatic embellishments? Licks? Devices?
Let's face it, min 2-5's (and indeed minor keys) are not as commonly found or used in Jazz as much as it's counterpart in major. Personally, I'm beginning to prefer minor keys these days, so the more discussion about it the better!
In the practice room ... well, I've never tried to isolate minor ii V's as a point of study. They come up in tunes. Then, it's knowing the tonal center, chord tones, consonant extensions and the remaining, more outside, notes. But even then, I'm practicing imagining a suitable line and executing it instantly.
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I gather many of you are not teaching large numbers of jazz beginners. I can't tell a student simply play what sounds right to you because they simply do not know. I can't tell them to imagine a line and execute it instantly. I can't tell them play what Mark Levine's books say to play on minor 7 b5 dominant 7 b9 progressions.
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Perhaps a bit of a newb question but how would Dbmaj7 work? I understand the C7 as its basically the same as E-7b5, the Eb7 is the tritone of A7 but Dbmaj7? Over the A7b9 the notes of that chord are: Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
Db: 3rd
F: #5
Ab: 7
C: #2
So that are pretty good notes with the exception of the Ab, the maj7 of A7b9? Perhaps my mind is just poisoned by CST but playing a the 7 over a dominant chord (not as a chromatic or passing note) is considered not so nice?
Thanks!
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Good points. Originally Posted by rintincop
Might the following work?
1. Check the student's ability to play what they imagine by asking them to play Happy Birthday, starting on a random fret/finger/string. If they can't do that, then it might be a worthwhile thing to work on. How? Time on the instrument - copying things, reading things. Maybe even playing scales, arps and triad exercises.
2. Check the student's ability to scat sing. If the student can scat sing over a set of changes, part of the battle is won. The student can then be assigned to learn to sing and play solos, starting presumably, with players who don't play a lot of notes, like Paul Desmond or Hank Mobley.
3. Then, as the student's ear becomes more attuned to the vocabulary of jazz you can point out how the theory can be helpful. Let's take an example. Bb blues. The transition to the IV chord is sometimes anticipated with a Bm, or Bm-E7. To my ear, that's a part of classic jazz vocabulary. So, the student learns to play and sing something over that bar that fits the altered harmony from a recording. Then, you can point out the theory e.g. how it's an upper neighbor leading into the IV7, or however you want to conceptualize it. Then ask the student to write/play and/or sing a line of his own using the idea.
I taught guitar back in the day (and a little more recently) but not much jazz. So, I'm bullshitting here. But, based on how I learned, I think this approach might be a pretty good one. What I would try to avoid is what I think of as combinatorics. That's, to take an extreme example, a post which suggests working through every possible triad pair against every possible bass note. Maj min dim aug triads and maybe other tone clusters. And, four years later, when you're done with that, you still have no idea how to use them in a tune. My thinking is to try to introduce one sound at a time. So, that Bm counts as one. A simple tritone substition on a V I would be another early candidate. Hearing b9, #9, #11 and b13 is four more sounds, and they can be combined.
Always with real life examples from recordings.
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I just wante to chime in again and say that threads such as this is why I visit this place. As a beginner/intermediate I learn a lot. The C7 over Em7b5-A7 is a very useful simplification I probably wouldn't have figured out on my own. So far my simplification for fast minor ii-Vs has been to target the V7. This opens new sounds.
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Worth checking this out, he shows how that basic method can be expanded to create lots of lines. In this case the example is Bm7b5 - E7 to Amin, the dominant scale used is therefore G7. Originally Posted by Average Joe
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I'm not entirely sure if I understand what you mean by 'who plays scales?' Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
Music as I see it is treading a fine line between chaos and boredom.
Scales are predictable - too many of them you will bore the bollocks off people.
On the other hand people recognise scales instantly (whether they no it or not) so they are a useful musical object for creating melodic lines. Scales have been in existence for thousands of years...
So I went through the thing of 'no-one plays straight scales' when I was deep into the chord tones and embellishment thing and then I started to transcribe more horn players and was like 'oh.' I think guitar players go out of the grips more, which is to be expects, but you even get scalar runs in Django and Charlie Christian.
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No I think that's all good common sense stuff. 2) is reminiscent of Tristano's ideas. Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
A lot of my lesson is singing and playing lines at students and getting them to repeat them back. So the assessment is right away and I can tailor my approach accordingly.
(Usually they try to distract me by asking nerdy questions about theory haha. That usually works.)
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Dbmaj7 is not a harmonic choice in that sense. You are using it as a moving chord, voice leading. Originally Posted by Lark
For instance
Db F Ab C --> D F A C
It's got two common tones and two lower neighbours.
People freak out about Ab's on an A7, as it's a false relation with the G but you can 100% get away with it if they resolve to A - in the Dm7. Night in Tunisia has a nice example (well technically it happens on Eb7, but try it on A7. It works)
Somebody mentioned that CST is really the study of extended chord voicings, which is a good way to look at it. Not every note in a solo is part of an overall chord voicing (in fact I'd argue conceptually that none of them are, but that's another story...)
Now with harmony too, not every chord needs to be pretty sounding and euphonius in that dreamy CST way - some can be very harsh, but if we set them up with a good resolution, they will sound awesome. Of course classical harmony used this principle for centuries.
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Originally Posted by christianm77
I mean, of course people play scales. I like to use exaggeration to make points sometimes, which I always need to remember cannot necessarily be picked up in type.
I was really responding to the comment I made about "What is this thing Called Love?" being so very harmonic minor sounding in the melody, and then rintin said the straight up harmonic minor scale sounds like crap, to which I replied, "who plays scales?" Meaning, who plays straight through a harmonic minor scale on a minor ii V.
I think you've done more transcribing than me, and more bop players for sure. I transcribe guys I can hear, and who I like, Paul Desmond, Chet Baker, Grant Green, Hank Mobley, Philip Catherine, Abercrombie, and in my experience I have encountered very little (in some cases, none) of straight scale playing. There's always a leap or a double back or triplet or a chromatic connection. So I balked at the concept of HM being somehow "not good" and another approach being "good," when they contain basically the same notes. And no matter what approach you use, the strong notes are the same, aren't they?
I mean, there's only 12. To my ear, over a minor ii V, the "consonant" notes are HM, getting specific, that Phrygian Dominant sound. So that's 7 notes accounted for. I also think that if you play those notes in order, it sounds like some 50's mood music fake flamenco thing every time.
So I mean, what are the notes, right?
A Bb C# D E F G
Ok, but what about the other 5? C sound ok? sure does. Add it to the pool
A Bb C C# D E F G
B and F#? Not my favorites. Maybe in passing.
D# and G#? Hang on, no. Approach, sure.
Getting stupid long already. I guess I'm just so anti "play this over this" Levine school I get all antsy. How many young players read that part in Levine and never look at the musical examples. Surprisingly many, to listen to them!
What are the strongest notes? Which ones move me through the harmony? Which ones pull to the target (D minor)
Those are all the things I think about.
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It's interesting to see how we talk about playing.
Just a note... CST is not a system for playing, it is just examples of note collections and possible musical organizational between them, as well as possible sources of linear and horizontal relationships.
Like using relative and parallel relationships, you can call them melodic or harmonic.
If one just transcribes examples from any example of any player... you can come up with note collections, you would still need some type of analysis to label use of note usage. Which would reflect a root and organization of rest of notes.
Which as I was trying to explain in 1st post.... D- E-7b5 A7b9.... can be use as three root references.
D, E or A.... meaning you could use as your tonal reference.... Dmin. E-7b5 or A7b9... What actually happens... is that reference also changes, depending on what you want to do. And of course... melodic characteristics, developments of and generally rhythmic characteristic....
Obviously... rhythmic functional aspect can control or change melodic and harmonic organization... always.
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Then why do so many people teach CST as if it is a system for playing?
i mean I get stick for misrepresenting the system but I see people doing it with my own eyes!
and then I come here and get gaslighted by fumblestudent or jazz fingers or whatever he was calling himself haha.
but that’s the serious point. People do this and it sucks.
(the really interesting thing is everyone knows it’s shit, but they do it anyway. I don’t think it’s bad teachers, I think it’s the lack of better toolkit for teaching groups jazz.
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It's just lazy advice.
Like "transcribe."
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I don't think it's particularly helpful to think of m7b5 + altered dom7 extensions as coming from a parent melodic minor scale (at least definitely not in real time). It might be nice to note after the fact, but the end goal of using those approaches is to access nice color tones that we normally wouldn't use if we're just sticking to the parent major scale reference.
If I want to use the natural 9 over a m7b5 chord, I'm not going to practice a mathematical conversion between Em7b5 and GmelMin and then switch to GMelMinor, I'm just going to practice knowing where the natural 9 is in relationship to the rest of the chord/scale tones, what it sounds like, and how to use it in a melody etc. Same goes for altered. After you're completely comfortable and have automatic fretboard access, you can then exploit all of the triads/arps/runs of MM provided that you've done the work.
This is just the shortest (but takes real work) path for myself, and it might be easier in different ways for others. They all hopefully get to the same place of understanding no matter how we talk about it.
Taking the path of least resistance is always an option too, but if someone has something to contribute and it seems difficult or cumbersome, it might be a good indicator of something worth taking a hard look at and enjoying a new challenge. Those connections will always get faster, and the more approaches that you can make use of in real time, the better IMO.
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I think it's for a couple of reasons. There are fine players who use it. The jazz programs promote it. It's easier to learn this sort of verbal material than it is to learn sounds, at least for many people. Also, it is presented in on-line forums as the golden key to the jazz door and everybody wants one of those. Originally Posted by christianm77
And, it's a bottomless well, so, at any given time, there's always something popping up you might choose to work on.
So, it's seductive.
And maybe there's a lack of blunt, accurate feedback. It can be challenge to figure out how the musicians you play with are reacting to your work. When another player gets a gig that you were hoping to get, it's easier to think, "oh, he's got a lot more CST under his fingers than I do" while ignoring the possibility that he's also got better time, a better sound, knows more tunes, listens better -- all that fundamental stuff that you can't get from a book.
And, even if you are aware of your faults, what are you going to practice? Great time feel is elusive for some of us. Getting to the point where you know what reharm the pianist just introduced on the fly -- how do you develop that in today's practice session? A great player can pick up your gear and get a better sound -- how do you work improving your touch on guitar? etc etc.
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(There are other tools available)
but - Meldhau made some funny comment about the players in his high school big band that didn’t actually listen to jazz playing the chord scales.... jazz played by people who don’t listen to jazz lol.
well the solution is usually lug holes, but I’m keen to play around with sone melodic variation techniques with a group. Maybe I’ll get a chance at some point.
A lot of students I find really aren’t in the place where they can do the Barry Harris stuff. That takes a lot of working towards. Their brains just collapse. He attracts a self selecting hardcore of absolute bebop nutters who are willing to stick it out.
the pathway mapping approach I came up with a few months backs might be good as well. Variation techniques are the key, I think. That way you always have a good thing to play, you can give them a guide tone line or whatever and suggest ways of varying it. Or a bunch of alternative lines and choose which one goes where. Maybe a card system.
I think it’s encouraging for people to play good sounding stuff, especially the ones who can tell when music isn’t right, but may not have the skills yet.
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As this thread is in the Improvisation section rather than the Theory section, yet theory heavy folks are in abundance here, you may enjoy the perspective of an ear player on this question; or just consider this as an entertaining interlude.
Played the chords to hear them, played all the lines below kind of instantly, but then it took about ten minutes to reverse transcribe myself.
Eight note line of static harmony spanning both Em7b5 and A7b9, good for very fast tempo:
Em7b5 -> A7b9 ...descending C A# A G F C# C A# (I hear this having a D# tonic)
Four permutations of eight notes that distinguish the two chord harmonies, maybe for slower pace:
Em7b5 ...descending F# D# (A# or B) G ... I like the B natural version despite the b5
A7b9 ...descending A F# C# (G or G#)
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Theory or not your enharmony just ruptured my spleen
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Here's how I think of it:
I'm in C Major, and I'm playing over a ii-V of ii (Dm).
So, I just modify the C Major scale to include a C# and a Bb and end up on a chord tone of the Dm target.
Simplistic, yes, but it seems to work pretty well to my ears.
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