The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #26

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    Let me put it this way.

    Would you agree that there is value in a chord scale analysis of Mozart’s music?
    Many jazz educators might see value in a CST analysis of Charlie Parker (who historically didn’t use CST consciously) so what’s the difference?

    should we analyse music using whatever tools we like, or only tools available to those that created it? Either our tools have some ahistorical platonic truth to them, or we follow a historical craft centred approach.

    it seems quite hard to argue a middle position.
    The difference is in the aesthetics.
    Fucntional tonality really describes the principles of Mozartian aesthetics. Yes, it does.

    Maybe CST also describes the aethetics of Parker to some degree.

    The conception of using historic tools for analysis is one of the basic HIP idea (Harnoncourt, Kuijken talked about it many times). I find it interesting to learn and be able to recognize, it can teach some practical things but in general there is no need in it.

    You see I can understand when people have problems with understanding early medieval music but with Mozart.

    I know what his music is about, I know an dhear how it works becasue I still belong to this tradition, I was born like that... and for me it does not matter what tool is chosen to decribe it, it will not change anythng about the contents for me.

    Often I feel like people do not hear it and begin to invent (or look for in history) some tool to decode it.

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  3. #27

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    Quote Originally Posted by Jonah
    I think any system can be viewd as functional in that sense (modal music too has some functions).
    I just believe when we say functional we often drop out that we speak about functions in terms of European fucntional tonality.

    yes excellent point Jonah , and what i meant, but did not................... damn Trumpish of me

  4. #28

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    Quote Originally Posted by Jonah
    The difference is in the aesthetics.
    Fucntional tonality really describes the principles of Mozartian aesthetics. Yes, it does.
    Simply stating this is not an argument.

    Maybe CST also describes the aethetics of Parker to some degree.
    OK so, there is some 'leakage' of Aesthetics into the basically Praxis oriented ideas of jazz. My argument is actually that early stages jazz education should be more aetethic (i.e. professionally legitimate) and less praxial (process oriented) but I think for instance CST actually does a poor job of recreating the aesthetic of Parker's music for instance. That's why people study bop by transcribing...

    So why analyse it that way?

    OTOH as a praxial 'hands on' tool CST is effective - try this. Here's a cool scale... (Somewhere it went from 'try this scale on Dm7' to 'this scale is Dm7' and that's the problem... I don't think this was every done on purpose.)

    Reg is actually much more praxis oriented than me, notice.

    The conception of using historic tools for analysis is one of the basic HIP idea (Harnoncourt, Kuijken talked about it many times). I find it interesting to learn and be able to recognize, it can teach some practical things but in general there is no need in it.

    You see I can understand when people have problems with understanding early medieval music but with Mozart.
    How do you know you are not simply looking through 19th century lens at Mozart? Perhaps you are comfortable with this. But then, how is it different 21st century lens.

    It seems like you are arguing from a continuity of tradition. All these traditions are continuous to some extent. Mozart's musical language formed the bedrock of musical materials for Bird too... He may have used them in a very different way, but there is a continuity there.

    I know what his music is about, I know an dhear how it works becasue I still belong to this tradition, I was born like that... and for me it does not matter what tool is chosen to decribe it, it will not change anythng about the contents for me.
    All I conclude from this statement is that you are not willing to look into it philosophically and that's no use to me writing my essay sonny Jim (although I might use you as an example of typical Aesthetic thinking in classical music education... actually that's quite useful.) The correct way of looking at Mozart is whatever they taught you at music school. Cool.

    Look, someone who was actually contemporary to the tradition that produced Mozart's music could argue that position with greater strength. Obviously that's an academic point because we are not in fact Necromancers. OTOH, Barry Harris thinks jazz is an outgrowth of the classical tradition. So, do you think he's wrong? Maybe someone else thinks you are wrong and thinks Barry is right. So who's right?

    Your answer would reveal that the analysis of the Aesthetics of music is (of course!) grounded in the social realm... Subjective. There is not platonic aspect to this. Which is - FINE! - but one has to admit that. The positivist and relativist/post modernist perspectives have a moment of alignment here.

    Anyway; I think jazz could be a little more careful in who it untangles the Aesthetic and the Praxial in its teaching. CST being the whipping boy, but it does encapsulate these problems perfectly.

    With all of that said I'm deeply aesthetic in my feelings about music. I do in fact believe that Bach's music has intrinsic value, and this value can be understood in an objective way. I play a form of music that serves little social or commercial function because I think it's beautiful, and I believe that its initial teaching should be oriented towards the aesthetic/legtimate rather than the praxis/process oriented.

    Right, better go and read Regelski to work out what Praxis actually means here haha.
    Last edited by christianm77; 04-30-2020 at 09:24 AM.

  5. #29

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    BTW, when I say Aesthetics I mean, a study of great past music using branches of music theory to work out why it’s good as opposed to people just naturally liking certain sounds or music.

    Aesthetics can be perhaps best understood as the role education to refine music appreciation.

    there isn’t to my mind a jazz music theory of Aesthetics away from practice. Mostly we gain an aesthetic sense through immersion in the music itself.

    However if we realise Aesthetic theory is itself grounded in identity and social constructs the only difference between it and individual intuitive taste is that the former occurs within a wider community and takes the form of a series of elaborate rationalisations, and the latter occurs at the individual level.

    Given that this probably happens anyway through cultural immersion, I do end up feeling this sort of stuff is ... superfluous?

  6. #30

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    You see today's humantiy is much about 'bing something else' , 'looking from somnebody else's point of view' etc.

    Somebody from mozartian time could argue something... someone next door can argue something too.

    I mean do I have a purpose to recreate what particular person in Mozartian time though about particular piece of Mozart? No.

    Mozart is not the only theing I know about that time - time before - and yes - time after that. It is a big scope of things .. really big.

    (By the way historic perspective is only one way of looking at things, and in my opinion it is often contraditcing artistic mentality. In concern of perception (not analysis) of particular piece of art it often does not matter what was after or before, usually great piece of art excludes othe worlds and cisumes you completely). Whe we make comparative we think in terms of art history, but it is not art.


    do in fact believe that Bach's music has intrinsic value, and this value can be understood in an objective way.
    I would say - conventional, I do not believe that anything objextive is really possible about it.

    Look, someone who was actually contemporary to the tradition that produced Mozart's music could argue that position with greater strength. Obviously that's an academic point because we are not in fact Necromancers. OTOH, Barry Harris thinks jazz is an outgrowth of the classical tradition. So, do you think he's wrong? Maybe someone else thinks you are wrong and thinks Barry is right. So who's right?
    There is nothing wrong about being wrong. Really, I am always wrong from someone point of view but I am not going to change my point because of that.
    When you say people that you think they are wrong they often get mad about it... but there is no reason for that. We should not be right for anyone.


    But coming back to our topic: if someone takes you by the hand and leads to - for example - Mona Lisa and says: Look I discover new tool and we know how people thought of this painting. Actually we know they saw it was an elephant?
    You ask: why?
    He says: I do not know, it is jus the tool.. we are wrong, they are right..

    What should I trust more: my involvement in Don Giovanni, my compassion to characters, my fear and admiration of how that music manage to express the personalities without even using leitmotives? Or shoudl I trust some tool taht tells me that people thought it was all different?
    Actually I can believe Barry Harris not because he lived those days but becasue I hear it when he plays, because I hear he hears.

    PS
    There was one air by Bach that actually was almost a sonata allegro form, I will find it later and post.. just would be interesting how you would hear it.

  7. #31

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    Quote Originally Posted by Jonah
    You see today's humantiy is much about 'bing something else' , 'looking from somnebody else's point of view' etc.

    Somebody from mozartian time could argue something... someone next door can argue something too
    .

    ah, but the very basis of Music Theory proper is that we can make these arguments as to the greatness of the Western Canon etc. It’s its raison d’etre. It wasn’t simply enough to say ‘this is Western Art Music and it is our culture’; the Enlightenment intelligentsia had to link it to something eternal and immutable. They called Rameau ‘the Newton of music’, right? (Earlier it was linked to cosmology of course via the Greeks and medieval Christian theologians)

    For example, someone who says on a jazz guitar forum that modern pop is shit because it only has four chords is basically doing this on a low level. (some arguably great music is really shit by that logic of course, so again we see the unsatisfying limitations of this type of argument.)

    If you accept its all based on culture (and it is) you have to put this idea in the dumper to some extent. YMMV on how much can be salvaged from it. Emotionally I feel it’s not dead wrong... but this sort of thing is a fucking rabbit hole.

    but that’s not my principal concern... that is actually how this Music Theory leaks into the music theory we use in jazz etc. To make music, and how we get confused in our methods of teaching. That’s actually really practical despite all this high falutin’ talk.

    I mean do I have a purpose to recreate what particular person in Mozartian time though about particular piece of Mozart? No.

    Mozart is not the only theing I know about that time - time before - and yes - time after that. It is a big scope of things .. really big.

    (By the way historic perspective is only one way of looking at things, and in my opinion it is often contraditcing artistic mentality. In concern of perception (not analysis) of particular piece of art it often does not matter what was after or before, usually great piece of art excludes othe worlds and cisumes you completely). Whe we make comparative we think in terms of art history, but it is not art.

    I would say - conventional, I do not believe that anything objextive is really possible about it.
    Post Modernist!

    i actually disagree here. I have no convincing evidence for this though.

    There is nothing wrong about being wrong. Really, I am always wrong from someone point of view but I am not going to change my point because of that.
    When you say people that you think they are wrong they often get mad about it... but there is no reason for that. We should not be right for anyone.


    But coming back to our topic: if someone takes you by the hand and leads to - for example - Mona Lisa and says: Look I discover new tool and we know how people thought of this painting. Actually we know they saw it was an elephant?
    You ask: why?
    He says: I do not know, it is jus the tool.. we are wrong, they are right..

    What should I trust more: my involvement in Don Giovanni, my compassion to characters, my fear and admiration of how that music manage to express the personalities without even using leitmotives? Or shoudl I trust some tool taht tells me that people thought it was all different?
    Actually I can believe Barry Harris not because he lived those days but becasue I hear it when he plays, because I hear he hears.
    So yes I respect this precisely because it is not trying to make an argument. See above.

    I feel many things I can’t prove.

    So how does this impact on music education? Should we be teaching music appreciation and aesthetics and on what basis?

    i have no answers for this btw

    but these arguments are being made at the state level. They are deeply politicised.

    PS
    There was one air by Bach that actually was almost a sonata allegro form, I will find it later and post.. just would be interesting how you would hear it.
    cool

  8. #32

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    There’s also some weird attitudes in my course.

    So, many of the teachers are classical musician but at odds with the way music is taught. Wanting to reintroduce aural and improvisation elements more. That’s all good I think...

    But generally they seem to have a very idealised concept of other musical cultures, jazz for instance. endless blinking lectures about the failings of classical music education. All of which is both irrelevant to me and annoying.

    I actually often find myself arguing the corner for trad classical music education haha. (Although a lot of these things they want to incorporate used to be part of western music....)

    I’m an aesthete in so much as I want music to be excellent. That’s always going to keep me away from purely praxial arguments...

  9. #33

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    Sorry for the massive derail. I am a divergent thinker.

    Anyway, back to Wayne.... perhaps we should just avoid functional harmony as a term. In a sense no jazz has functional harmony.

    Conrad Cork argued this, and used the phrase ‘the song as Raga’ which connects to what Jonah was saying about vamps.

    From the point of view of the improviser we simply have more and less common successions of chords. We tend to practice the common ones or simply have more experience with them.

    Wayne introduces more diversity into these successions and that’s one of the problems in playing his music, we are not as well prepared to deal with these unfamiliar combinations as we are with the more common and familiar ones. So far so obvious, right?

    my contention is simply that the melodies (again obviously) offer elegant and helpful solutions to playing lines through these successions and that this is reflected in the choices made by many of the musicians who play on them, including Wayne himself (again obvious if you listen carefully to them).

    Furthermore the blues and pentatonic ideas are often a reference point for these melodies.

  10. #34

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    So now I'm a Praxial Elitist Snob. LOL. Well maybe... as far as philosophy of music ed. ... I just missed out on most of the privileged aspects. While I was teaching at UCLA... I had to gig, write music for film,TV...all the dirty parts of Music.( I needed the $). Funny how that works...

  11. #35

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    Maybe if we come up with some definitions of what Function is. I obviously have preached too much of how I think.

    Maybe even keep historical perspective, (by that I'm implying 18th and 19th century common practice), as what it is and try to apply concepts to playing jazz. (Only because we're on a Jazz Guitar site and I'm a praxial snob).

    Anyway we might come up with a few classifications of Function, which could lead to guidelines of different styles and forms of Jazz. Which could help give clarifications to functional and non-functional harmony in different musical Jazz contexts. Maybe get in to Melodic Function...

  12. #36

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    Non Functional harmony is summed up by Chief Bromden's first words "Mmmm..... Juicy fruit."








  13. #37

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    Quote Originally Posted by Reg
    Maybe if we come up with some definitions of what Function is. I obviously have preached too much of how I think.

    Maybe even keep historical perspective, (by that I'm implying 18th and 19th century common practice), as what it is and try to apply concepts to playing jazz. (Only because we're on a Jazz Guitar site and I'm a praxial snob).

    Anyway we might come up with a few classifications of Function, which could lead to guidelines of different styles and forms of Jazz. Which could help give clarifications to functional and non-functional harmony in different musical Jazz contexts. Maybe get in to Melodic Function...
    I would say the aesthete is much more snobby haha! I know I am.

    I don't think you are actually completely praxial ... you do tend to frame theory in terms of options while I tend to frame it in terms of style and precedent. But not entirely by any means.

    The fact that you think you are is a case in point of what I'm talking about. This is 'vanilla', that is 'muddy', you don't like diminished seventh chords and so on. I think you have the two in a mix, like most jazz musicians. You don't really think that your aesthetic is objectively better... well actually maybe you do ... anyway you don't separate the two out.

    All jazz education is aesthetically oriented to some degree (classical musicians DO NOT understand this by and large), otherwise we would non idiomatic improvisers.

    But in any case you are not by trade an educator... so, you get on with it... OTOH I have to write essays about BS lol. I do find the ideas quite interesting though. Although they are strongly nudging me in the direction of more praxis based music education (community groups etc) and I'm not really interested in that TBH. But I do it for the course...

    In my experience most jazzers use 'functional harmony' to relate to progressions that are derived from typical progression we find in the GASB. These progression are indeed functional, but in jazz that function is somewhat relaxed. (We don't care so much about resolving the leading note for instance.) In this understanding, Wayne is 'non functional' harmony.
    Last edited by christianm77; 04-30-2020 at 12:32 PM.

  14. #38

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    yea Juicy Fruit, I like that.

    Yea, I agree with the snob arrow.

    So if leading notes are functional, what makes them functional. (yes trick ?)

  15. #39

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    I reckon - tuning.

  16. #40

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    This is what Regelski, Mr Praxis, has to say:

    "Instrumental reason, especially in the traditional theory of Anglo-American philosophy and social theory, at best can tell us how the world is, not how it ought to be. Because positivism is its epistemology, and because empirical proof of what is true, real, or good necessarily omits any future or ideal states, instrumental reason either refuses to talk rationally about right and wrong, or takes its means and immanent ends as being good or good enough. In music education, for example, considerations of curriculum – namely what of all that could be taught is most worth teaching – cannot be determined by empirical research and thus are all but ignored in the present “how to” climate of instrumental reason. Furthermore, various teaching methods take for granted that good means (i.e., “good” methods) automatically bring about good results, although these results are never validated by comparing actual results to claims. Instrumental reason thus leads to the authoritarian, how to, orthodoxy where the method is revered regardless of results – where, in any case, results are not even noted because full faith is placed in good methods.

    Even more problematic, the availability of a multitude of teaching methods leads to an attitude of relativism or nihilism that amounts to “do your own thing” or “what works for me” with regard to curriculum, method and evaluation. Values, in this technocratic view of teaching, are nothing more than statements of opinion. Thus the conviction arises that one method is as good as another as long as it is followed properly, which is to say with single-minded devotion.

    A second platform in the agenda of critical theory is the argument that traditional theory (of all kinds in philosophy and the social sciences) is Idealistic, with a capital “I.” It goes beyond the actual conditions of life by analyzing and describing human action in universal and absolute terms that are abstract and thus unreal. Once again I would point to the continued teaching of Rameau’s common practice theory versus, for example, the functional theory of the jazz musician’s fake books. Such idealism unconnected to functional reality is ungrounded, and realism of the positivistic kind is both aimless and blind because no amount of knowledge of the?way things are can tell us how they ought to or could otherwise be. This tension between theory and practice is a major issue addressed by critical theory. It seeks to avoid being idealistically utopian or unreal, while simultaneously remaining critically “down to earth” concerning human nature and actions. According to this view, any theory-and this includes music theory-that doesn’t inform practice, or that impedes it, is at best false and at worst an ideology."

    Critical Theory as a Foundation for Critical Thinking in Music Education By Thomas A. Regelski

    Not sure if I agree... But kind of relates to my screeds...

    TL;DR he embraces the jazz idea of 'functional harmony'. Adorno would not be impressed haha.

  17. #41

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    "Seventh, as a result of this “how to” kind of techne that lacks the direction given by a rational determination of right results, attention is misdirected to getting things done effectively or more efficiently without clarifying or telling us what things are good or best to do. In music education, for example, curriculum is all but ignored and the techno-rationality of this or that method is dictated by authorities via ideology and orthodoxy as doctrine, and the ends which such means are supposed to serve are all simply taken for granted as inherent to the instrumental reason offered by the method. Because adherence to the doctrine and its practice comes close to worship of religious idols, I call this technological approach to music education methodolatry."

    Hehehehe. Definitely agree with this bit. Oh man.

  18. #42

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    LOL so maybe in like 10 words or less.

    So maybe.... leading note has function because of it's implication of movement.

    So Function is movement or lack of.

  19. #43

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    Me: Hello Doctor would you please issue me another prescription for some more Prozac .

    Doctor: Ah, been on the Jazzguitar forum again, have we.

    Me: Yes Doctor, but more specifically engaged in a Non-Functional discussion this time.

    Doctor: I see not, not to worry, as a Junior Doctor in Afghanistan i heard a lot of that music played, mainly by the Taliban shortly before an explosion.

  20. #44

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    I'm trying to decide whether to discuss this thread with a music teacher, a philosopher or maybe a psychiatrist. <g>

    I hope it's possible to play decent guitar without understanding this thread.

  21. #45

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    Quote Originally Posted by Reg
    LOL so maybe in like 10 words or less.

    So maybe.... leading note has function because of it's implication of movement.

    So Function is movement or lack of.
    Yes. But jazz relaxes that. Early example I always use is Struttin With Some Barbeque. So it’s not a new thing either.

    So anyhoo I have a theory about this but it’s quite irrelevant to anything really.

  22. #46

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    Quote Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
    I'm trying to decide whether to discuss this thread with a music teacher, a philosopher or maybe a psychiatrist. <g>

    I hope it's possible to play decent guitar without understanding this thread.
    Nope. Impossible.
    Last edited by christianm77; 04-30-2020 at 05:49 PM.

  23. #47

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    Also I was kind of blathering for the sake of it, but nothing I posted was that hard to understand or totally irrelevant.

    A bit general perhaps, but given the amount of numbers and Greek spouted here, and endless technical info and boring discussions of gear, it’s a little rich. You don’t get to make that joke lol.

    how we think about what we do in a wider sense is important.

    the idolatry of a method - regardless of a results it produces - is one thing I think people on JGO should be more aware of. Regelski was talking about classical music education, but is it EVER true of jazz. Holy shit.

    Also Analysis - how we do it, what we expect to find. Interesting thing to be aware of.

  24. #48

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    Its a mystery
    simple things with repetition have hypnotic effects
    they put you in a place ....
    and the complex things can just swim around that

    I think a lot of this argument here is semantical

    we know all the music based on the white notes
    V I resolution , the Tritone thing ....
    can't we agree to call that 'functional harmony'

    (probably not )

    (we all know there are other 'functions' going on of course !
    just talking about what we call things

  25. #49

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    Sorry if a bit OT there .....

  26. #50

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    I find it's teachers that get most caught up in trying to understand some abstract stuff so they can codify it. They can't seem to validate themselves unless they figure out how to put that "lightning in a bottle", so they can sell it to others......"this is the way it works"....

    I like jazz because you just make it up as you go.