The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #76

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    In your world the school big band is run by a dedicated jazz instructor?
    I think I've completely lost track of this conversation... We didn't have any kind of school band. But, if that is your scenario, then 'big band' implies jazz-based music and therefore should be organised by someone who knows about big bands and that era. If they don't, they shouldn't be doing it.

    I know a lot of jazz musicians who teach this way too
    Sorry, which way? It's been a long day.

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  3. #77

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    I like to mix the two approaches, play the key, then detail some chords, back and forth. I thought that was most common with players.

  4. #78

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    [QUOTE=MarkRhodes;1038040]"Singing" in the sense Herb is using it does not imply singing out loud. Some do. Benson surely does. But you don't have to. And as Joe says in this bit here, he is playing what he hears in his head. That's the guide. I haven't see Wes doing it either but Herb says he did and I give Herb the benefit of the doubt here. Especially with Joe because they worked together often. It's almost as if they could hear the music in each other's heads! They could solo simultaneously and not get in each other's way.

    ...

    I think I let myself get over-exercised and over fixated on this, and derailed the conversation a bit. I do that sometimes. Sorry for that! I personally think "vocalizers" are in fact a pretty special group of improvisers and I always notice that. I can't imagine the word "sing" not involving the voice. But I also realize we all use words in different ways and I am happy to surrender the discussion!

    As for the horizontal, I've always been a diagonal guy myself....

  5. #79

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    Quote Originally Posted by ragman1
    I think I've completely lost track of this conversation... We didn't have any kind of school band. But, if that is your scenario, then 'big band' implies jazz-based music and therefore should be organised by someone who knows about big bands and that era. If they don't, they shouldn't be doing it.
    I was lucky to have one, and it was good for me. It was also run by a director who was a good teacher but not a jazz player. There was also a uni big band, again not run by a jazzer.

    Also you get music service ‘jazz bands’; the one I work at has one for instance. No idea whether or not it’s led by a jazzer, although he do have Pete Churchill in to do sessions.

    So; a passionate classroom or peripatetic music teacher decides to put aside time to run a school big band (which BTW is not an insignificant logistical enterprise) and you want to tell them they ‘shouldn’t do it?’

    I would want to support that person, personally. No one knows everything.

    Also I don’t know if you have much experience with big bands but a lot of the time players aren’t jazz players per se.

    For instance the (excellent) band I play in features an ex principal from the LSO, a lot of West End players often with classical backgrounds, as well as genuine jazzers. The pad is entirely jazz though; Ellington, Basie a little Buddy Rich, which is not true of all big bands, many play TV themes, pops and so on.

    Also, organising charts, sourcing arrangements, band direction, conducting, logistics and so on.

    So even if there was a jazz instructor they might not necessarily be the right person to lead a big band, even...

    Sorry, which way? It's been a long day.
    chord scales

  6. #80

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    [QUOTE=lawson-stone;1038212]
    Quote Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
    "Singing" in the sense Herb is using it does not imply singing out loud. Some do. Benson surely does. But you don't have to. And as Joe says in this bit here, he is playing what he hears in his head. That's the guide. I haven't see Wes doing it either but Herb says he did and I give Herb the benefit of the doubt here. Especially with Joe because they worked together often. It's almost as if they could hear the music in each other's heads! They could solo simultaneously and not get in each other's way.

    ...

    I think I let myself get over-exercised and over fixated on this, and derailed the conversation a bit. I do that sometimes. Sorry for that! I personally think "vocalizers" are in fact a pretty special group of improvisers and I always notice that. I can't imagine the word "sing" not involving the voice. But I also realize we all use words in different ways and I am happy to surrender the discussion!

    As for the horizontal, I've always been a diagonal guy myself....
    ‘Audiate’ is a good word. Singing is a useful tool for audiation. Just because you are singing doesn’t mean you are audiating though, and one can audiate without singing.

    no idea what Keith Jarrett is doing though

  7. #81

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    you want to tell them they ‘shouldn’t do it?’
    I didn't say that. Our discussion on this subject didn't begin with organising a big band, it was about teaching jazz. A music specialist could certainly get a big band together. Quite a different thing to teaching jazz.

    chord scales
    Well, we know about that!

  8. #82

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    [QUOTE=christianm77;1038231]
    Quote Originally Posted by lawson-stone

    ‘Audiate’ is a good word....
    no idea what Keith Jarrett is doing though
    "Adulterate"? ... Jarrett is probably the world's best improvising musician, and yet he cannot sing anything close to what he's playing.
    There can be no doubt he is audiating, obviously, and to a very high level that few of us can ever imagine...

  9. #83

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    Quote Originally Posted by princeplanet
    "Adulterate"? ... Jarrett is probably the world's best improvising musician, and yet he cannot sing anything close to what he's playing.
    There can be no doubt he is audiating, obviously, and to a very high level that few of us can ever imagine...
    For some jazz musicians I suspect it's just grunting (a la Sharapova) for concentration purposes not singing what's being played per se. Other then may be just following the melodic curve they are not hitting the pitches.

  10. #84

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    Quote Originally Posted by ragman1
    I didn't say that. Our discussion on this subject didn't begin with organising a big band, it was about teaching jazz. A music specialist could certainly get a big band together. Quite a different thing to teaching jazz.
    OK I feel a bit like I'm going in circles here.

    I would prefer to remain a member of the reality based community and point out people who take ensembles often have to wear a lot of hats. They might find a resource that offers advice for teaching jazz to ensembles useful if one does not already exist. It could have a whole range of approaches and ideas to try instead of just one.

    But, TBH jazz educators do also teach in the same way. It's a bit of an ingrained culture.

  11. #85

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    OK I feel a bit like I'm going in circles here.
    Me too, that's why I went back to the start of the discussion.

    They might find a resource that offers advice for teaching jazz to ensembles useful if one does not already exist. It could have a whole range of approaches and ideas to try instead of just one.
    They exist. Whether you'd agree with their approach is another thing.

    Jazz Pedagogy for Music Educators - Jazz Education Network

    Jazz Pedagogy | Hal Galper

    Jazz Pedagogy: Book & DVD: J. Richard Dunscomb

  12. #86

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    Most people would scat song horizontal lines because that’s the way people generally hear melodies.

    Also, people do not play their best sight reading chord symbols of course. I think that’s ok. A pro player has enough canned vocab that they can make that sound good right away.

    OTOH experience obviously exposes you to repeated situations.

    I’m with Peter Bernstein when he objects to thoughtless ‘throwing notes on chords’ - you develop that skill ig you are a gigging player because it gets you out of trouble (and also it’s what is generally taught) and it’s a basic level of competence, but if that’s all you do... everything sounds the same
    If I know the tune, I sing to myself and try to play that. It tends to be less harmonically adventurous, because my ear is less developed, in a way, than my ability to play bad notes from a theoretical foundation.

    But, if I don't know the tune and can't "feel" the chord changes on the chart, then, suddenly, chord symbols take over. In that situation, it depends on how a particular chord symbol triggers a body of knowledge for the individual player. For me, I know the chord tones for most chord symbols I encounter, in all keys, mostly without thought. If that knowledge takes flight (meaning I freeze) then the second response is likely to be a fingering pattern, often based on the root. Or, it could be a scale.

    So, for example if I can feel a minor ii V I, I won't think about anything but the melody I'm singing to myself -- and to call that "thought" is to elevate the process. If I see a m7b5 in some unexpected context, I know the chord tones. If for some reason, I freeze, say on a D#m7b5 (which I don't have as burned in to the reptile brain as the Eb version) , then I can find a D# and I'll know the arp by geometric pattern or interval. Or, I might think melmin b3 higher and play an F#melmin scale.

    So, what I'm trying for is generally horizontal and what I end up with includes all kinds of vertical stuff, generally used to cover failure.

    I'm aware that some players make very fine music with a much more vertical approach. Of course, I wish I could do that too, but I have enough to do with the singing approach.

  13. #87

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    That's well known video of Bill.

    What he does at 02:24 can be done only if you are heading to some moment of form. It is almost impossible to come up with stuff like that relating to every chord though in some moments he plays arpeggios in sequence.


  14. #88

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    Quote Originally Posted by ragman1
    Me too, that's why I went back to the start of the discussion.



    They exist. Whether you'd agree with their approach is another thing.

    Jazz Pedagogy for Music Educators - Jazz Education Network

    Jazz Pedagogy | Hal Galper

    Jazz Pedagogy: Book & DVD: J. Richard Dunscomb
    Thanks for the links. Galper I generally agree with, but this is more like a paragraph than a resource.

    the book looks interesting, but I’m probably not going to throw $70 at it until I need to. which I might if I choose to look into this seriously for my course.

  15. #89

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    Well Barry Harris's scale applications to tunes seem very vertical to me.

  16. #90

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    Quote Originally Posted by Tal_175
    Well Barry Harris's scale applications to tunes seem very vertical to me.
    I do not know...

    there is such a thing as harmonic polyphony (Bach is all about it) -- what is it? vertical? or horizonthal? It is both... and that makes so multifolded.. goves so many artistic possibilities, such a complexity of levels and meanings and meters

    I would formulate it like this
    Barry is definitely harmony centered hearing but melody centered thinking

    Pete Bernstein too...

  17. #91

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    Re the previous post, i also think you can play both, this gets fuzzy here, i mean you can play with chord tones or arps etc chord to chord, but play vertically in the sense, you connect it ia way that makes a continuous melody i realise its difficult to know where this starts and ends, but it is the connection. or how you connect or join, that determines whether just ( im play over chord to chord) meaning the connection/joining makes a melody, as opposed to play over a chord/s also WHERE this happens ie pickup or playing ahead or after the bar.

    i guess its not a simple case of Horizontal or Vertical, i dont normally pay attention to this kind of thing, but playing what you hear as being correct/good/musical for what ever tune, but use/think different approaches for different songs, i mean there are
    different strategies for say ( Autumn Leaves ATTYR ) than say E.S.P Inner Urge Recordame etc

  18. #92

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    Quote Originally Posted by marvinvv
    Re the previous post, i also think you can play both, this gets fuzzy here, i mean you can play with chord tones or arps etc chord to chord, but play vertically in the sense, you connect it ia way that makes a continuous melody i realise its difficult to know where this starts and ends, but it is the connection. or how you connect or join, that determines whether just ( im play over chord to chord) meaning the connection/joining makes a melody, as opposed to play over a chord/s also WHERE this happens ie pickup or playing ahead or after the bar.
    Fuzzy is good! The problem is - worry. People get worried. They can do what they like IMO if they aren't worrying about irrelevant bullshit like 'oh no what if I play this note over this chord?' That kind of thing makes the creative process much harder. And you know what - I STILL DO IT!

    I'm in favour of whatever approaches reduce worry. Which is not the same as making excuses for bad music. Actually it creates the mental space for good music to happen.

    i guess its not a simple case of Horizontal or Vertical, i dont normally pay attention to this kind of thing, but playing what you hear as being correct/good/musical for what ever tune, but use/think different approaches for different songs, i mean there are
    different strategies for say ( Autumn Leaves ATTYR ) than say E.S.P Inner Urge Recordame etc
    In general, vertical or modal or post-functional tunes have changes that stick around for longer than 2 beats. The psychology is obvious - you want time for the listener to be able to appreciate the sound of these rich, sometimes unfamiliar, chord/scale sounds.

    Wayne uses unusual changes which move faster, but they tend to have some sort of cadential nature, and you can drive a truck (i.e. go II-V-I) through them if you really need to.

    You can certainly make Inner Urge a lot more vertical/bop if you want. First section is a lot like Cherokee B, or Tune up, or even how High the Moon (in F), without the II-V's. Main difference is bop players tend to accentuate the dominant rather than the tonic - and Inner Urge is mostly tonics moving around.

    The tricky bit is of course the turnaround, but even that is one chord a bar.

    | E | C# | D | B |
    | C | A | Bb7 | G |

    But also (bVII sub):

    | E | Eb7 | D | Db7 |
    | C | B7 | Bb7 | G |

    That bit is also Cherokee. Clever huh? Functional after all.

    But then - reverse the polarity - and play Inner Urge on Cherokee or whatever...

    By the same token, you can also play Autumn Leaves, ATTYA etc in a much more modal of non functional way.

    The PROBLEM - which a lot of even very good players don't get and is really the key to playing things like Rhythm Changes well is that verticality in soloing doesn't follow the changes, it simplifies the changes and adds complexity in over the top.

    That's why you have so many players doing things like swapping between Eb7, Ebm6 and Eo7 in bar 6 of a Rhythm A for instance. Even in the same head (Bud Powell's Wail is a good example.)

    Steve Coleman calls this 'invisible paths'. The pathways are between chords that have a relationship to the basic tonality - but they are not themselves related to the other chords.

    The #1 mistake people make is to assume that they are. If they find Rhythm Changes hard to play, it's usually because of this.

    This is why I advocate ignoring anything that acts as a passing chord and then adding your own shit in. All good straight ahead players do this. People like Peter Bernstein take this to the nth degree.

    (You also have to know the melody to do this well with a singer etc, and Peter is a stickler for knowing the original chords too, so it's not either/or.)

  19. #93

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    This is why I advocate ignoring anything that acts as a passing chord and then adding your own shit in. .....
    Yeah, but what would you classify as a "passing chord"? To take a progression you think is shite , ii - V - I - VI7b9 , would you ignore the maj 3rd and b9 in the VI chord ? - after all, it's just a passing chord (#1 dim7), no?

  20. #94

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    Quote Originally Posted by Tal_175
    Well Barry Harris's scale applications to tunes seem very vertical to me.
    So I’m using vertical here to mean ‘relates to the chord of the moment’ as opposed suggesting chords and in the line using arpeggios, thirds and so on. They might overlap but they are not the same thing.

    Or the difference between playing the changes and playing changes.

    Im not certain if this is a distinction people are getting, but it’s basically how you play bop.

    So with BH, we run simple little scale exercises on a reduced version of the changes, for instance, and build up from there.

    Not everyone uses the same language, but everyone chunks down progressions in one way or another, and then plays lines on the blocks.

    So, Lester doesn’t do this as much. His lines are more horizontal. He introduces some movement, but not as much as Parker.

    But, in bop, just as swing, you think in a blocked, generalised way. You aren’t thinking about every #9 or b13 because the line is kind of it’s own thing - you are thinking ‘line on D7’ or ‘line on the tritone of D7’ or whatever.

    The chips fall where they may harmonically, and there may be ‘clashes’ as we continually see in the actual music.

  21. #95

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    Quote Originally Posted by princeplanet
    Yeah, but what would you classify as a "passing chord"? To take a progression you think is shite , ii - V - I - VI7b9 , would you ignore the maj 3rd and b9 in the VI chord ? - after all, it's just a passing chord (#1 dim7), no?
    Haha you haven’t worked out what I’m going to say?

    you don’t have to classify - you get to CHOOSE.

    So, no, not if I didn’t want to.
    Last edited by christianm77; 06-05-2020 at 10:19 AM.

  22. #96

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    so in practice, I might choose whether or not I play that chord. Or perhaps choose a different one that achieves a similar role. Maybe - I dunno - bIIIm11. Or nothing.

    I mind VI7b9 less than VIm which I find incredibly non descript (really it’s an artefact of the bass, there’s never a reason to actually play that chord.)

    Or maybe I’ll just play I or V over the whole thing.

    For a bop improviser it’s important to realise the VI7b9 is a pickup to another chord. It’s not really part of the II V I by the way.

    So what I would do on beat 3 of the second bar would depend on what I was doing in the next bar. This is kind of a rhythmic thing. The chords on beat 3 are usually pickups or passing chords to the next bar. Even in Giant Steps.

    This is why I prefer things with more motion.

    But mostly I just play things intuitively, like harmonic vocab. I don’t think chord on chord - I think melody down.

  23. #97

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    Reg calls this weak side BTW - the chords on the weak side of the beat.

    Here is Kurt demonstrating the concept clearly


  24. #98

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    Here's an example: The chords going down chromatically near the end of the progression of Autumn leaves. It's common to play something along with each chord going down (arpeggios etc), Emi, Ebmi, Dmi, Db7. At some point I thought why not just keep the improvisation pretty much in the Emi blues scale during that section? It sounds less contrived and more natural IMO. Neither approach is wrong - let your ears be the guide.

  25. #99

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    so in practice, I might choose whether or not I play that chord. Or perhaps choose a different one that achieves a similar role. Maybe - I dunno - bIIIm11. Or nothing.
    ....
    Ah, you're talking about comping, I thought you were talking about ignoring passing chords when improvising against them...

  26. #100

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    "Let your ears be the guide."

    You get more options, right?

    Barry said - 'The more ways you have of thinking about music, the more things you have to play in your solos.'

    So I'm really saying - lets be pro or against anything (although I think trying to track every chord in a bop tune is definitely not the way to get good at bop) - I'm actually saying, let's junk this idea there's a right and a wrong, that we have to do this or that thing or we are not doing it right.

    If Lester, Miles and Bird et al show us anything, it's that these constraints are more relaxed than we might think.
    Obligations like:
    - the obligation to invent new music on the spot
    - the obligation to play the changes
    - the obligation to play a line which agrees with the written chord symbols
    and so on

    Players get frustrated by 'not sounding like jazz' - but there's only really one way around that which I think everyone pretty much agrees, and that's to immerse yourself in the. music and try to imitate it.

    This is not a negative rules thing - "don't do that, don't play that note, that's a clam, make sure you don't sound like a rock player' - but rather learning a vocabulary of things to say that sound good because they are the language of the music, and most of all, because you hear them. More positive - 'try this phrase, try to copy this musician's sound and phrasing, listen closely, DO play these notes'; and so on. That's a framing thing.

    And this goes for any level of ability. You can take the minor pentatonic scale and teach people to play jazz with just that if they cop the phrasing and sound.

    It's a particularly difficult lesson for guitarists because we are chord people, and I don't know about you but I get a bit scared if I'm not outlining harmonies clearly when playing with just a bass player... but I have to let go of that too.