The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #126

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    Quote Originally Posted by rintincop
    The Mark Levine books chord/scale method for ii V I in minor is awkward. It consist of the scales: the Locian #2 scale on the ii, the Altered scale on the V7, and the "Minor Major" scale on the i.
    ii V in usually last for a measure (2 beats each chord) in minor and in major too, do you really think it's at all practical to think of two different scales for 2 beats each? Barry Harris has a better system for that. Harris basically thinks of a single scale for a ii V.
    Let's break that down in the key of Cm

    Dm7b5. That's D F Ab C. Locrian #2 makes it the notes of Ebmajor, but raise the Eb to an E. Or, the melodic minor a b3 higher, Fmelmin. That's F G Ab Bb C D E. You can see the chord tones of Dm7b5. Plus, you've got a E G Bb. The 9 and 11 should sound ok. The Bb might warrant some care, but it's going to sound like a #9 when we get to the Galt.

    Now Galt. That's aka Abmel min. The notes are G Ab Bb B Db Eb F. Gets both alterations of the 5th and both alterations of the 9th -- of G7.

    Now lets compare the notes.

    F G Ab Bb C D E

    F G Ab Bb B Db Eb.

    The first four are the same. Then the C D E all drop a half step.

    Finally, we get to the Cminmaj chord as the tonic. The recommendation is for Cmelmin. That's (starting on F for consistency) F G A B C D Eb. A few notes are the same as for Galt. F G B Eb. The rest change. Ab Bb Db are replaced A C D. So, you could say the Bb moved to A, the Db moved to C. The Ab could be seen as moving to G. That leaves the Dnatural. The Eb didn't change, or you could see it as both moving down a half step while also staying the same (because there's both a D and an Eb in Cmelminor).

    Maybe this is a little thick. But to me, it clarifies what's going on. Dm7b5 works with the notes I listed and when the chord changes you drop several of them by a half step. Then, when the chord changes again to Cminmaj7, you drop several notes a half step.

    How do you play over it? You start with a melodic statement on Dm7b5. I wouldn't expect this statement to include every note of Dloc#2. It would be likely to have some. Then, when the chord changes you develop the melodic statement while adjusting the notes that need to be adjusted. You cement this approach by making sure you can hear those half step movements as the chords change. Once you've got those sounds burned into your mind, you won't be dependent on mode names and prepared fingerings. You'll think of a line, your thoughts will have the right movements built in and you play it.

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    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #127
    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    You go down to the B which is diminished on the third of the dominant, connect to the I chord right?

    Thats the simplest. There are other connections you can make too, obviously. Tritone is a big one.
    I saw Barry going up the diminished, yes from B, and then down the V augmented triad or a four note augment scale fragment. He likes that way.

  4. #128

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    Quote Originally Posted by rintincop
    I agree.
    The Mark Levine books will not much help a student to improvise melodically, but instead improvise mechanically. He does not really teach "improvisation" in a melodic sense. Voicings are what he lectures on. His chord/scale method for ii V I in minor is awkward. It consist of the scales: the Locian #2 scale on the ii, the Altered scale on the V7, and the "Minor Major" scale on the i.
    ii V in usually last for a measure (2 beats each chord) in minor and in major too, do you really think it's at all practical to think of two different scales for 2 beats each? Barry Harris has a better system for that. He think of single scales for ii V.
    Well it’s a matter of priority. So we have an equivalent to Levines way of doing it in Barry. You can use the melodic minors if you want (though the m6-dim is even richer) and you will know enough to make them sound like jazz lines by that point, right?

    but that’s not where we start. We start with something more straightforward that you can hear all over the place in bop lines.

  5. #129

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    The Levine/vertical approach also encourages you to worry about all sorts of stupid shit that doesn’t matter.

  6. #130
    Quote Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
    Let's break that down in the key of Cm

    Dm7b5. That's D F Ab C. Locrian #2 makes it the notes of Ebmajor, but raise the Eb to an E. Or, the melodic minor a b3 higher, Fmelmin. That's F G Ab Bb C D E. You can see the chord tones of Dm7b5. Plus, you've got a E G Bb. The 9 and 11 should sound ok. The Bb might warrant some care, but it's going to sound like a #9 when we get to the Galt.

    Now Galt. That's aka Abmel min. The notes are G Ab Bb B Db Eb F. Gets both alterations of the 5th and both alterations of the 9th -- of G7.

    Now lets compare the notes.

    F G Ab Bb C D E

    F G Ab Bb B Db Eb.

    The first four are the same. Then the C D E all drop a half step.

    Finally, we get to the Cminmaj chord as the tonic. The recommendation is for Cmelmin. That's (starting on F for consistency) F G A B C D Eb. A few notes are the same as for Galt. F G B Eb. The rest change. Ab Bb Db are replaced A C D. So, you could say the Bb moved to A, the Db moved to C. The Ab could be seen as moving to G. That leaves the Dnatural. The Eb didn't change, or you could see it as both moving down a half step while also staying the same (because there's both a D and an Eb in Cmelminor).

    Maybe this is a little thick. But to me, it clarifies what's going on. Dm7b5 works with the notes I listed and when the chord changes you drop several of them by a half step. Then, when the chord changes again to Cminmaj7, you drop several notes a half step.

    How do you play over it? You start with a melodic statement on Dm7b5. I wouldn't expect this statement to include every note of Dloc#2. It would be likely to have some. Then, when the chord changes you develop the melodic statement while adjusting the notes that need to be adjusted. You cement this approach by making sure you can hear those half step movements as the chords change. Once you've got those sounds burned into your mind, you won't be dependent on mode names and prepared fingerings. You'll think of a line, your thoughts will have the right movements built in and you play it.
    Yes and #2 sounds good for harmony and block chording (Barry uses it, for ex. D-7b5 block chord F-6).
    But what you explain is awkward (too cerebral) in melodic single note improvisation, imo. Also, try that E natural out melodically in a scale step wise line over the D-7b5 of Blue Bossa. It sounds false to me in that melodic context. Barry Harris's theroy is more melodic for the sound of melodic lines on ii-7b5 to V7b9, imo.
    Last edited by rintincop; 03-23-2020 at 05:02 PM.

  7. #131

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    Quote Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
    Let's break that down in the key of Cm

    Dm7b5. That's D F Ab C. Locrian #2 makes it the notes of Ebmajor, but raise the Eb to an E. Or, the melodic minor a b3 higher, Fmelmin. That's F G Ab Bb C D E. You can see the chord tones of Dm7b5. Plus, you've got a E G Bb. The 9 and 11 should sound ok. The Bb might warrant some care, but it's going to sound like a #9 when we get to the Galt.

    Now Galt. That's aka Abmel min. The notes are G Ab Bb B Db Eb F. Gets both alterations of the 5th and both alterations of the 9th -- of G7.

    Now lets compare the notes.

    F G Ab Bb C D E

    F G Ab Bb B Db Eb.

    The first four are the same. Then the C D E all drop a half step.

    Finally, we get to the Cminmaj chord as the tonic. The recommendation is for Cmelmin. That's (starting on F for consistency) F G A B C D Eb. A few notes are the same as for Galt. F G B Eb. The rest change. Ab Bb Db are replaced A C D. So, you could say the Bb moved to A, the Db moved to C. The Ab could be seen as moving to G. That leaves the Dnatural. The Eb didn't change, or you could see it as both moving down a half step while also staying the same (because there's both a D and an Eb in Cmelminor).

    Maybe this is a little thick. But to me, it clarifies what's going on. Dm7b5 works with the notes I listed and when the chord changes you drop several of them by a half step. Then, when the chord changes again to Cminmaj7, you drop several notes a half step.

    How do you play over it? You start with a melodic statement on Dm7b5. I wouldn't expect this statement to include every note of Dloc#2. It would be likely to have some. Then, when the chord changes you develop the melodic statement while adjusting the notes that need to be adjusted. You cement this approach by making sure you can hear those half step movements as the chords change. Once you've got those sounds burned into your mind, you won't be dependent on mode names and prepared fingerings. You'll think of a line, your thoughts will have the right movements built in and you play it.
    And it will sound like shitty first year college jazz guitarist.

    EDIT: Theres nothing wrong or particularly complicated about the theory. (Although the most streamlined approach would be simpler than this. If people end up thinking minor ii V I’d are hard, that’s shitty teaching.)

    The problem is the musical application of this information requires sophistication. Sophistication requires among other things, an intuitive understanding of musical language and tradition.

    People get pissed of when I say that for some reason, but you wouldn’t be a poet without reading poetry right?

    Where Barry is really good is teaching you that sophistication. As I say, you can take the BH rules and use them on the melodic minor modes in Levines book, no problem. And they will sound like lines.

    You could also do that by transcribing a lot. But that’s what led me to Barry’s constructive approach so it’s all holistic.

    as an educator information doesn’t just float around in a vacuum. Some of it is more appropriate to the student than others.

  8. #132
    I will say Levine screwed up my thinking for melodic improvisation when I studied extensively with him in the 80's. I had to deprogram my brain with Barry Harris in the 90's:

    (play = practice)
    We play the scale to the 7th (up, down, up and down, down and up (half step rules apply for ranging beyond the 7th: add one or three, add none or two).
    We play our scale 1-5, 3-7, 5-7 (and descending 7-3, 5-1, 3-1).
    We play our scale in melodic 3rds.
    We play our scale in melodic triads arps.
    We play our scale in melodic 7th chords arps.
    We play a chromatic approach to all of the above.
    We play 5,4,3,2 phrases (also 8,7,6,b6 phrases) and the ascending forms.
    On E-7b5 to A7b9 we play the C7 scale descending from Bb to C#.
    We play balanced chromatic scales (borrow a note from above).

    We play the diminished and whole tone scales (they are V7 scales).
    We don't play ii scales... we play major, tonic minor, and V7 scales (also whole tone and diminished) .
    Last edited by rintincop; 03-23-2020 at 05:08 PM.

  9. #133

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    Yeah it’s about the time you spend teaching and learning music itself as opposed to some third party abstraction of the bits somebody thought was important (or more likely, teachable.)

  10. #134

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    Quote Originally Posted by rintincop
    On E-7b5 to A7b9 we play the C7 scale descending from Bb to C#.
    I think Barry is more likely to say, play C7 down to the 3rd of A. Where you start depends on where you are in the line. The target is the third of the dominant, from which there are many possible routes home.

  11. #135
    Quote Originally Posted by pcjazz
    I think Barry is more likely to say, play C7 down to the 3rd of A. Where you start depends on where you are in the line. The target is the third of the dominant, from which there are many possible routes home.
    Sweet!
    How's this ?
    On E-7b5 to A7b9 play C7 (Bb down to C#, the 3rd of A7): Where you start depends on where you are in the line. The target is the third of the dominant, from which there are many possible routes home.

  12. #136

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    Quote Originally Posted by rintincop
    Yes and #2 sounds good for harmony and block chording (Barry uses it, for ex. D-7b5 block chord F-6).
    But what you explain is awkward (too cerebral) in melodic single note improvisation, imo. Also, try that E natural out melodically in a scale step wise line over the D-7b5 of Blue Bossa. It sounds false to me in that melodic context. Barry Harris's theroy is more melodic for the sound of melodic lines on ii-7b5 to V7b9, imo.
    It seems easier to me, but I learned it this way. Basically, for me, it's "you're in Cm. Three flats. The chords don't fit perfectly, so adjust the offending notes by a half step using your ear. Don't run scales or arps. Don't follow rules. Make melody. Make it work with the harmony. Learn new sounds one at a time".

    If the E doesn't sound good, don't play it. These adjustments can/should, in my view, be made by ear, not by thinking of a scale/mode with a completely different name when all you're doing is moving one note to match the next chord. Obviously, my opinion. I'm aware that there great players who don't do it this way.

    I haven't studied BH so no comment there. If he has a better approach, great. But, speaking only for myself, I have very little interest in applying rules, even if I end up sounding more like a bop player. Clearly, other players have done well with his approach.

  13. #137

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    Quote Originally Posted by rintincop
    Sweet!
    How's this ?
    On E-7b5 to A7b9 play C7 (Bb down to C#, the 3rd of A7): Where you start depends on where you are in the line. The target is the third of the dominant, from which there are many possible routes home.
    OK, but you don’t always have to start on Bb!

  14. #138

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    I don’t think you can be chasing down “rules” like that in the midst of an improvised melody. You just have to play tunes with those changes (many examples) and use your ears to play lines over those changes that sound good to you.

    You can practice that C7 idea as an exercise, but at performance time just play by ear and maybe that idea will come up.

  15. #139

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    Quote Originally Posted by rintincop
    Sweet!
    How's this ?
    On E-7b5 to A7b9 play C7 (Bb down to C#, the 3rd of A7): Where you start depends on where you are in the line. The target is the third of the dominant, from which there are many possible routes home.
    '

    Em7b5 contains the notes E G Bb D. That's a C9 without the root. So, BH's line hits C mixolydian without the root. Then, where C mixo (or, more accurately perhaps, E locrian, same notes) would reach the C, the chord changes to A7b9 and he hits a C#. It has a very strong sound because it's the major 3rd of A7.

    Sounds fine. But, equally fine would be any lick on Em7b5 (tonal center Dm, without leaning on the 4th) resolving to chord tones of A7b9 will work too. C# would, arguably, be the strongest of the A7b9 notes.

    Stated another way, E locrian to A7b9 arp.

    Many other possibilities, of course.

  16. #140

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    Quote Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
    It seems easier to me, but I learned it this way. Basically, for me, it's "you're in Cm. Three flats. The chords don't fit perfectly, so adjust the offending notes by a half step using your ear. Don't run scales or arps. Don't follow rules. Make melody. Make it work with the harmony. Learn new sounds one at a time".

    If the E doesn't sound good, don't play it. These adjustments can/should, in my view, be made by ear, not by thinking of a scale/mode with a completely different name when all you're doing is moving one note to match the next chord. Obviously, my opinion. I'm aware that there great players who don't do it this way.

    I haven't studied BH so no comment there. If he has a better approach, great. But, speaking only for myself, I have very little interest in applying rules, even if I end up sounding more like a bop player. Clearly, other players have done well with his approach.
    Look you have to let people find their thing. The problem I have with CST type books is they present things in a certain way - just so. It’s bogus. I think that’s the reaction to Levine. Not that the sounds aren’t cool. I mean if you like Bill Evans you’ll hear them, right?

    but you know that isn’t the journey for many.

    And Bill with his emphasis on doing music exactly rather than some version or approximation of it.... well there’s plenty of players out there doing a sort of a version of Bill based on those books, as Ethan Iverson rather cruelly noted. Ironic really.

    Jazz is more personal and more connected than that. but if it gives people pleasure to paint by numbers , that’s ok I guess.

    to me checking out the tradition is part of developing a personality. You can’t learn all of it so you choose what speaks to you. It’s a liberating thing, not a prison. Theory, books, methods are useful only in how they serve you in that journey.

    The alternative - trying to express yourself using raw materials - always sounds bad to me. Unless done by someone who has gone through all of that process.... which is why I think we should concern ourselves with music first and improvisation second.

    (Also overlooking the diatonic minor options is pretty silly esp as so many ‘alterations’ come from the familiar minor key notes.)

  17. #141

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    Quote Originally Posted by rintincop
    || D-6 | E-7b5 A7b9 :||
    I don’t play any scales over this progression. I play musical phrases built from vocabulary I have learned from great players on recordings and the variations I have created through experimentation and practice, using my ear and my judgement to tell me what sounds good, given the context of the preceding bars I just played and the chords that I am headed to next. At any point, I may play any note in the chromatic scale, what matters is context and direction.

    If you search YouTube for “Alone Together” you can find at least 1000 great musical phrases played over that progression by the greatest jazz musicians who ever lived - why would you want to spend time playing a scale or two or three?

    Have fun!

  18. #142

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    do you think it’s possible that
    different people need different
    learning methods ?

    chordscales
    arps
    BH
    Joe Pass ‘ignore the 2 chord’
    someone else ‘ignore the V chord’

    have you seen the Abersol
    chordscale silibus ?
    theres a LOT of work there !

    (I like to mess with the arps
    and add in some mm Alt stuff
    but that’s just me)

    i once saw a seminar by Gary Burton who was saying you need all the modes for all the chords in all keys ....

    and he he sure can improvise beautifully ....

    he was in a band with
    Getz and said that Stan would have to hear the chord first and then he could play over it (because he didn’t know the chordscales/modes)

    (i hope ive represented the
    great man accurately )

    i should be that ignorant !!

    i found that learning the scales / modes didn’t help me at all

  19. #143

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    Man... Last time I checked... Levine's books are... Jazz theory... not Jazz Truths and the piano book is for pianist... as Mark say's..."Nobody has ever learned to play Jazz Piano from a book only. This one will help guide you while you study with a GOOD teacher, listen to as much live and recorded jazz as you can, transcribe solos and songs as much as possible."

    There are a million ways to play a melody which covers a II-7b5 V7b9... Harmony isn't about creating melodies it can help you develop melodies, or help frame the melodic shape etc... just as melodic developmental approaches work. If you don't like something don't use it, but at least become good at whatever you like.

    Lets play a couple of tunes that use 7b5s to V7b9.... or any versions of. Porters.. "I Love You" and Blue Mitchells.."Fungi Mama".... Or what ever and actually show how different approaches work... whatever that is.

    rintin... your a pianist, so maybe you could post pn versions. Since you studied with Mark... your latin chops should be cool. I'll put together swing and latin versions.... I'll try and keep the tempos slow as I can with out lousing feels.
    \This just to actually hear some of the possibilities... no good bad, right wrong... just examples of. Christians a pro and he loves to post ... long post. (More playing).

  20. #144
    Let's consider improvising sophisticated block chord solos in the style of a horn section,or George Shearing, or Barry Harris or Oscar Peterson. I don't believe knowing the pathways of scales is something negative as some seem to imply. Are those who say we don't need scale shapes concepts really fluent in improvising block chords well over minor ii V i ?
    Last edited by rintincop; 03-24-2020 at 01:15 AM.

  21. #145
    Berklee School, Levine, and Harris all do an admiral job of teaching how to block chord. And they do it via scale.

  22. #146

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    Quote Originally Posted by pingu
    do you think it’s possible that
    different people need different
    learning methods ?
    It’s possible; I just offered mine - do I have argue for every approach?

    I just think that the chord scale/music theory approach to jazz is like learning to write poetry by studying grammar and spelling. Yes, the grammar is in there - the spelling is in there, but you learn to write by reading great writers and modeling their styles and techniques (and seeing how effectively they break or ignore rules) until you blossom into your own identity. Grammar and spelling don’t get you there.

    And still, why would you want to learn grammar from Levine, Harris, and Baker when Parker, Coltrane, and Montgomery have published hundreds of hours of poetry for you to learn from, if you’ll just listen.

    Barry Harris didn’t teach Charlie Parker, or Thelonious Monk, or Miles Davis, or Stan Getz, how to play jazz. Barry Harris in 1950 didn’t learn to play jazz from Barry Harris in 1980. They all learned it a different way; I would argue the best way, by imitating and eventually transcending their idols.
    Last edited by bengruven; 03-23-2020 at 10:26 PM.

  23. #147

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    Quote Originally Posted by Reg
    Man... Last time I checked... Levine's books are... Jazz theory... not Jazz Truths and the piano book is for pianist... as Mark say's..."Nobody has ever learned to play Jazz Piano from a book only. This one will help guide you while you study with a GOOD teacher, listen to as much live and recorded jazz as you can, transcribe solos and songs as much as possible."

    There are a million ways to play a melody which covers a II-7b5 V7b9... Harmony isn't about creating melodies it can help you develop melodies, or help frame the melodic shape etc... just as melodic developmental approaches work. If you don't like something don't use it, but at least become good at whatever you like.

    Lets play a couple of tunes that use 7b5s to V7b9.... or any versions of. Porters.. "I Love You" and Blue Mitchells.."Fungi Mama".... Or what ever and actually show how different approaches work... whatever that is.

    rintin... your a pianist, so maybe you could post pn versions. Since you studied with Mark... your latin chops should be cool. I'll put together swing and latin versions.... I'll try and keep the tempos slow as I can with out lousing feels.
    \This just to actually hear some of the possibilities... no good bad, right wrong... just examples of. Christians a pro and he loves to post ... long post. (More playing).
    I don’t have the luxury of playing much at the moment. I’m not a pro anything right now. I’m childcare :-)

    EDIT: looking after a toddler, one good activity of course is finger painting. The thing to do is to pick two or three colours that mix together to produce a third nice colour, like blue and green or red and yellow. That way your little one can muck around and make a mess and you are left with something that isn’t brown, and once dry other colours can be added. So it’s not obviously ever going to be more than a toddler’s picture, but at least it isn’t a brown, undifferentiated mess.

    This reminds me a bit of how improvisation is often taught at the beginner level.
    Last edited by christianm77; 03-24-2020 at 04:53 AM.

  24. #148

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    I’m kind of keen not for this to turn into a ‘is CST bad’ thread. But I will say this, the jazz education community seem pretty united in seeing it as a bit of a problematic approach for teaching improvisation.

    But the problem isn’t even CST - and this is where I would agree with Reg, Levine etc. It’s expecting students to make up music from raw materials. The results usually speak for themselves.

    I am pretty forgiving of Aebersold etc because he was putting it together in the 70s .... and he’d tell you to go out and transcribe. In fact I know one pianist he taught who he reprimanded for playing too correct with scales...

    it’s just that this stuff has got totally out of hand, plus nowadays I think we can do better from almost 50 years of hindsight. And this is quite personal for me because I walked into this trap day one.

    Furthermore, I’d argue that learning jazz does have some deep unity, a single correct way of doing it - and generally it’s about interrogating the music itself. If you are not doing this, then you are not going to get anywhere.

    You have to become a specific, detailed listener. Aebersold stresses this, Levine stresses this, but no one actually reads those bits lol.

    If you do that all this shit will become simply one tool in your toolset. If not it threatens to dominate the discourse and distract you from what’s actually important.

    My other beef with CST is usually that it presents itself a complete system for analysis of jazz pitch sets and not as what it actually is, which is a theory that is useful sometimes.

    But that opinion is based on checking out the music. Anyway that’s a separate issue.

  25. #149

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    And it will sound like shitty first year college jazz guitarist.
    .
    Or, it might sound a lot like Warren Nunes or Paul Desmond.

    Really? "Play melody within the tonal center(s) and adjust the ill-fitting notes by ear" strikes you as a recipe for college freshman level improv?
    Or are you thinking there's no prior listening in the approach I outlined?

  26. #150

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    Quote Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
    Or, it might sound a lot like Warren Nunes or Paul Desmond.

    Really? "Play melody within the tonal center(s) and adjust the ill-fitting notes by ear" strikes you as a recipe for college freshman level improv?
    Or are you thinking there's no prior listening in the approach I outlined?
    As I have literally no idea how you actually play, I can’t comment on what you are doing. Which is a shame, because it kind of limits the scope of these kinds of discussions and how much I can learn from you. I get more out of hearing players. It’s all fairy stories until you actually experience it.

    You try to make up melodies when improvising. Great. I mean that’s what we all do with varying levels of success?

    But the idea of ‘ill fitting notes’ I don’t like that as a way of thinking.

    The idea of avoiding ‘wrong’ is a problem with the way CST frames things as an improv approach. I don’t want to not play wrong, I want to play good.

    So from that point the theory would seem superfluous if you have good stuff to play. that's how players used to learn, right? They played things they thought were good off records and got really good at that until the elders forced them onto the next step which is to come up within your own good sounding shit.

    That’s where Barry is good, if you like bebop, because he gives you good shit to play and it doesn’t sound like canned Omnibook licks either.

    Jazz education overegged it by trying to make it into a (pseudo)science, partly in response to an education system that was deeply involved with scientism and the need for a demonstrable, apparent pedagogy. This has a really interesting tension with the practical side of the music.

    (They should have listened to Paul Desmond ‘jazz cannot be taught but it can be learned!’. I think all good jazz educators are super aware of this actually whether or not they put it in these terms and whether or not they use CST.)

    Again the expectation that you should express yourself in the moment or be original is a problematic expectation. That’s something you develop over time, right?

    (I can’t imagine anyone disagreeing with this, and yet we often go down the toddler pictures route because we are so concerned with improvisation. One problem with this is not everyone learning jazz is a musical beginner, and may be able hear that what they are playing is not sounding like jazz. This is something I find all the time.)

    (Of course this is not to say you shouldn’t practice scales, but that’s separate.)

    Over emphasis on consonant pitch choice and lack of shape in terms of phrasing, swing and a sense of resolution in functional changes playing are all things I tend to hear in players who have learned primarily via the CST route; sometimes even very accomplished ones. it can even be a bit of style when done well but when it is down well there’s usually a greater musical sophistication below the surface. Often it’s more about having that sense of the phrase and the rhythm than pitch stuff, which you can then apply to CST generated ideas.

    It’s not either/or, but how we teach things especially early on is important I think.

    Bop had often acted as a counterweight to that tendency in the pedagogy but it’s not the only game in town and a lot of people find bop a bit academic and difficult.

    In the case of Paul Desmond, I couldn’t tell you how he learned music off the top of my head (though now I have to research it!) but I would guess using the ear was a huge part of it.

    Also, I think often there’s a disconnect with jazz musicians of a certain generation between the ad hoc and experiential way they actually learned and the highly systemised approaches to teaching they develop.

    TL;DR nothing wrong with learning licks!
    Last edited by christianm77; 03-24-2020 at 07:16 AM.