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Much later i edited as i am realised this is or can be daunting, ie Non Functional harmony, this is really more less experienced musicians.
When i look around at take Wayne Shorter as an example i see the interpretation of the Harmony ie whats this chord doing here. to be very variable not only the playing but analysing. Think about Standards for a moment most can be whittled down conventional 2 5s or turn around etc..
one way of hearing Non-Functional harmony ala W. Shorter + others
consider this progression EbMaj7#5 to Amin9 one may think there is no apparent key relationship, but scratch below the surface
you may see/hear a normal function. give a specific mode to each chord.
1. EbMaj7#5 has the same notes as B altered scale the Eb is Lydian Augmented Eb f G A B C D Eb
which is C melodic minor scale = B7#5#9 for EbMaj7#5
2. Amin9 is Dorian A B C D E F# G A which is E Aeolian (Pure minor) E F# G A B C D E
so Am9 is E min7
recapping Ebmaj7#5 to Amin9 (kind of unrelated, so it seems) now can be treated with the same language/vocab of B7#5#9 E min7
So can be boiled down to a V i in Emin ....................... simplified B7 to Em7
wondering what can i do with this, good point, music like W Shorter and others is full of relationships like this. so you can take yours or anyone else (if you can hear it) vocab lines phrase whatever and play over the new chords.
Non Function as the name suggests can and is a different game entirely, as all those conventional pillars structure whatever you want to call it are not there, or perhaps not so obvious
So this is really just a approach/way to take what seems unconnected or unrelated and .make some kind of sense.
back to the point. think about the most simple guitarist thing you know it's probably that Pentatonic A min and Cmajor C D E G A C C Major
rename it A min Pentatonic A C D E G A ok same notes just another name simple.
perhaps i should not have even attempted this. Who know's? nothing ventured nothing gained. reflecting on this post, i dont hold out much hope, because even my dealings in the Wayne Shorter and beyond land of harmony have mostly surprised me in as much as that it is VERY wide open to different interpretation, one can hear that in the different soloing over tunes, not many cliches and lines in common between players ( im generalising here). Is that old devil poking his head over the hedge again. The above can be partly derived from dare i say it melodic Minor. I guess i should have quit last time i mentioned Lydian augmented. however Wolflen enjoyed it.
I leave it there. should anyone have a question do ask.Last edited by Durban; 04-26-2020 at 05:07 AM. Reason: purely to clarify what can be complicated to describe or convey.
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04-25-2020 05:21 PM
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Are you going to flip out and start talking about sausages?
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no i promise to be good.
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Fwiw, Shorter has said that playing his tunes is “not about playing the changes” but about just coming up with melodies that work/sound good. Yeah, look at the chords and figure out the common tones.
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thank you. That’s how his tunes sound to me.
Originally Posted by whiskey02
He bases a lot of his soloing on the melody. I’m sure there’s others that can be invented, but often that melody tells you a lot about how to play the changes.
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Not wanting to be critical or contentious, that opening piece didn't sound right to me at all. Didn't seem to fit.
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Which one? Deluge?
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The first thing you played. Don't know what it's called. But it probably is Deluge because that's the name on the video :-)
Except I've listened to it and it's not the same rhythm. Well, sort of, at a stretch.
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Works just fine to me.
Shorter tunes are all about the melody, and finding a reduced melody or reduced countermelody that flows through the changes, and playing off those.
Actually...that works great on any tune
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Poo
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Yea... I don't agree at all... while Shorters tunes and his playing have beautiful melodic life. Many of his tune are about blocks of harmony and how their connected. Some of his melodies... sound like random notes with out harmonic references.
I also tend to believe if one just expands organizational aspects of harmony... which expands Harmonic Function or the movement aspects of harmony... the non functional thing is gone.
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It still functions...plenty of tension and release.
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Isn’t non functional jazz code for ‘it’s not a ii v i’?
I often feel Reg interprets what I’m saying as either/or, when actually one thing informs the other.... the way the melody of Speak No Evil suggests an elegant way to move through the tricky changes in the A section... The melody is the US voice leading.
Miles remarked that Wayne would compose the bass too, so it seems evident the outer voices were of the greatest importance to him, at least in this era.
(I actually think this is true of any composers using non functional or modal harmony whose music has integrity and coherence. That and the motivic thing. Take the Kenny Wheeler example on the other thread... and Kenny was writing things like imitative counterpoint and stuff as well ... he liked his early music.)
You can drive a truck through it as well but seems a waste. There’s stuff going on in the composition itself.
Anyway, the main interest for me is listening carefully to the music itself. These are above all, brilliant sounding records.
On that record the highly (proto?) chord scalic approach of Herbie contrasts with the more melody oriented approach of Freddie and Wayne himself.
I’ve not heard a Wayne tune that I feel is random notes in the melody. Ana Maria was an example we had before, but that has very clear motivic thing going on.Last edited by christianm77; 04-30-2020 at 05:09 AM.
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Originally Posted by christianm77
Not at all, lots of music does not has 2 5 1 and is functional, Christian there are areas where this becomes woolly, Thinking about Indian music which does not have 2 5 per se. Thats largely functional. from an Indian Classical point .
Take Modal yes a lot has 2 5s but you dont have to have it is not a requirement,
with Shorter in many cases he does have (to coin Reg's term) camouflaged 2 5 as you mentioned in your Speak no Evil vid going to the bridge is 2 5 in Gmin at that point. using that logic, WS is full of that whilst on this Your c min pentatonic vibe was interesting to a point, (not a Christian bash here) hey i enjoyed your video ( i do know what is going on re a lot of those tunes, i made it my business no big deal)
It did a recent post which did not gain much traction .MAJOR pentonics, .............i have gone off topic here i know, it was( 2 5s etc )
back to your Speak no evil, you mentioned F Hubbard playing C min. .yes Cmin can also be Eb maj pentatonics used over both Eb Dominant or Eb major. add some chromatics yes can be construed as Cmin but additionally just adds extra Targets references that is all. In fact could be Lydian getting back to your lose the b9 etc on Cmin.
i have departed from your Isn’t non functional jazz code for ‘it’s not a ii v i’ ........ it saves the to connected to your video, you get my drift. i like your videos, wish i could make one, just cant seemed to get close, dont take what i said as dissing , its not,
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I still realte 'functional tonality' to classical notions.
So that means T, S, D are big areas which are fundumental in the form. Starting from high baroque and till very late romantics.
These areas form the basis for expression of very complex plots, ideas, images - they allow to build cathedrals and create wrolds landscapes with forrests, mountains, spritis, humans - interacting. They are complex as complex is the life and reality. They are cultivated to the subtlest detail.
The conception of functional tonality represents the universal conception that came to life in late renaissance: In general circular system, a system of mutual forces and tensions, sort of planetary system where the center of force can switch from one planet to another while one moves through it... it brings in unparralleled ambiguity which made it such a powerful and creative tool for art.
And also it represents philosophic coceptions of the day: Tonic is total rest (that is why in traditional classical there is only one chord of Tonic function - total peace is absolute cathegory), Dominant is the utmost tension (at the edge of becomieng a new point of total rest), and Subdominant is in the middle (not really stable, but not so much tension - in my opinion to modulate to subdominant is more difficult than in dominant because - paradoxally - it 'idoes not want; to become a new tonic wheras Dominant is just crazy about becoming it))).
Turnaround ii - V - I (or IV-V-I, or just V-I) is not necessarily functional tonality.
It can be easily interpreted as modal... and mostly it is about linear voice-leading (intervalic tension maybe rather then harmonic)... they began to notice it more and more in late Renaissance.
Yes this turnaround is the basis for development of functional tonality in European music but it is not it yet.
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I think any system can be viewd as functional in that sense (modal music too has some functions).Thinking about Indian music which does not have 2 5 per se. Thats largely functional. from an Indian Classical point .
I just believe when we say functional we often drop out that we speak about functions in terms of European fucntional tonality.
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i was being sarcastic/taking the piss. Of course there are other functional chord progressions... It’s just the sort of thing a lot of jazz musicians who have never really dug into classical music, say. Or prewar jazz for that matter... camouflaged ii v’s? Sure if it helps you. I don’t even view ii Vs as ii Vs anymore so the notion becomes rather abstract for me.... Originally Posted by Durban
it’s quite hard to make videos. It’s taken me years to get this crappy haha.
with Wayne and for that matter Freddie there’s often a heavy blues reference in what they play on the Cm Dbmaj7 vamp. Herbie alternates dorian and Phrygian modes in his solo (or C dorian Db Lydian if you prefer.)
There are some obvious commonalities with Deluge...
anyway, I’m just listening and copying what they do on the record. I could play out of the chord scales etc sure, but I’m interested in what great musicians actually play, not so much what people say you can play (because 1) there’s loads of options and 2) what they do sounds better and more interesting to me than what most people do. Perhaps this is because they didn’t have stuff so worked out in terms of systems etc.)
One thing about Waynes 60s stuff ... this music has a lot of blues and a massive swing feel.
I hear a lot of players who don’t include this in their interpretations and I also feel people take away ‘non functional harmony’ from their studies of Wayne and write noodly, floaty shit with it. Wayne has that melodic and rhythmic centre.
Wayne in particular is a brilliantly quirky improviser, he’s almost hilariously funny sometimes. I fail to get that from most contemporary musicians playing his music. They sound like all the right notes like out of a book. It’s just a progression to them.
I think most people would look in Herbie because it’s obviously chord scalic in that way... but there’s value to be had in following the road less travelled...Last edited by christianm77; 04-30-2020 at 07:56 AM.
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No. Functional harmony is a retroactive 19th century analysis of earlier music. You can talk about tonality, but the idea of functional Originally Posted by Jonah
harmony is the brainchild of 19th century music theorists. functional harmony is a tool in the study of what we call tonal music, not the music itself.
(And it is to some large extent an abstraction (because for instance obviously different inversions of the tonic chord for instance have different functions in classical music.))
the use of the term in jazz is less problematic because most of the composers who wrote the standards were trained to think and hear this way.
can’t Chaconnes and similar vamp pieces in the baroque can be thought modal? I suppose that’s maybe why they were eventually abandoned or developed into less repetitive forms.
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No, Christian. Originally Posted by christianm77
Terminology comes later it is true. But I am not talking about terminolgy. It often takes time for theoretic apparatus but who cares when it was developed if it works and describers things respectively?
The aesthetics was already at prime in the high baroque.
any piece (I mean close to any except maybe some rare anachronistic works by Bach) of Vivaldi, Bach, Corelli, Locatelli and hear these tonality masses and how the operate with it.
Handel's opera's dramaturgy, psychology of the characters, expression of action in great deal are built on it.
Bach's music contents is all built on functional tonality (whether he knew the term or not).
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sorry I embellished my response above. Give it a read. I was a little short there. Originally Posted by Jonah
there’s a philosophical distinction here between analysis and craft. Between the thing itself and how it’s understood.
It might be pretty academic with reference to jazz.
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Yes, I consider Chacconne essentially modal as any purely variational form. And this is one of the reasons that it became less and less popular during baroque and almost gon in classical period. From pov classical tonality thee is nothing going on.Also, by your reasoning can’t Chaconnes and similar vamp pieces in the baroque can be thought modal?
By the way .. what Bach does with Chaconne is scaringly functional! Only he could do that.
Variation forms were heavily influence by functional tonality aesthetics - rondo-sonata is one of the classic examples of this permustation.Last edited by Jonah; 04-30-2020 at 08:25 AM.
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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. I think it kind of has to be one or the other.
(I haven’t made my mind up though)
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I think it is important to stress that I refer not to theory, real practice (methods, eduction), but mostly I refer to aesthetics which is behind it all to me and not necessarily consiously throught through byt artists themselves (that is why I do not really take in consideration what artists say but rather listen to what they wrote or played). Originally Posted by christianm77
Probably can bring in some mess in discussion.
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