The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #26

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    Quote Originally Posted by kris
    This is a great learning tool.This helps a lot in quickly applying the appropriate notes in improvisation.
    Simplified thinking brings quick results.I think a lot of musicians do that. First understood this when I watched Emilly Remler's training video a long time ago.
    For reasons of simplicity — other than Mike Stern and some posters before me — I also prefer to think “MM a half step above the root of a dominant works for altered sounds” and to learn to hear how it sounds against that dominant instead of learning a mode of that MM scale as “Altered Scale”.

    The origin of the use of MM as altered scale are the architects of bebop playing what Barry Harris calls “the tritone’s minor”.

    I remember reading an interview with Dizzy Gillespie where he tells how he started to experiment with playing things an tritone away at an early point in his career. (Might have been in Cab Calloway’s band — I have yet to find that interview again). This means e.g. instead of playing a Dmin arpeggio over a G7 — which yields a G7/9 — you would play an Abmin arpeggio which yields an altered sound. IMHO it is much simpler to think “A min arpeggio a half step above a dominant’s root works” and to practice it in order to learn hearing the sound of it than to think “Now I play b9 — 3rd — b13 (respectively #5)”.

    IMHO the thinking behind bebop (the origin of modern jazz harmony) is much simpler than the way theory is often taught today.

    Take Dizzy’s intro to ’Round Midnight.

    'Round About Midnight : Tempo Jazz Men : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

    It starts with three minor II-Vs in a row: Amin7/b5 – D7 – Gmin7/b5 – C7 – Fmin7/b5 – Bb7

    Over Amin7/b5 (which was Cmin/A — “Cmin with the 6th in the bass” — in the thinking of the original boppers; IIRC Dizzy talks about that in said interview as well, Barry Harris recalls Thelonious Monk calling it that way) he plays a Cmin arpeggio approaching the third from the 2nd, 4th as passing tone to the 5th, 9th – 6th – 5th two times (he is leaving out the C root), then on D7 he plays an Ebmin arpeggio (tritone’s minor, half step above root) starting 9th to root, going down 5th, 3rd, up to 11th (“octave-displaced” 4th). Then the whole thing is sequenced down a whole tone twice for the following minor II-Vs.

    When I realized how simple the weird sound of that intro melody was actually constructed

    • it felt like cracking a code
    • suddenly made sense
    • was easy to play on guitar because it means just shifting an arpeggio shape up three frets (plus adding some embellishing tones)
    • I started to really hear the melody (meaning I can imagine the melody now in my head without any accompaniment, in my “inner hearing”).


    BTW: A nice way for comping an altered dominant sound is using Barry Harris’ “Minor Sixth / Diminished Scale” (which could be described as a MM scale with a chromatic passing tone between fifth and sixth) a half step above a dominant’s root
    Last edited by Bop Head; 08-24-2022 at 04:37 PM.

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  3. #27

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    Thanks for the reply Reg ! ...look out for that iceberg Mike... LOL
    You say:
    Tonic is generally the Tonal Center.... the tonic. one pitch
    You purposely typed "one pitch" = one note ? I'm going to take you literally, until you stop me.. would you stretch that one pitch to be any note in the chord ?
    The rest of that paragraph, you seem to be talking about more than chasing key centers through a tune. Is that true ?

    The rest of your post I'll be saving, and may ask questions as I start to understand. Let's see how I do with this little bit first

    -cheers,
    Mike

    PS: that nugget about dorian / mm is brilliant !

  4. #28

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    I side with those who don't encourage naming something differently than what it really is, even though I play by ear and don't name things, I recognize things different ways informing what it really is with respect to musical context

    "What it really is" for named things relates to how enharmonics effects organizing structures. There are popular named changes that imply a certain harmonic organization that gets corrupted if renamed with enharmonic note letters. If one thinks of them schematically by their scale degree names, scale degree numbers, Roman numeral scale degrees, or even Solfege names, those organizational relationships are altered when a root pitch is unchanged but the note's letter name is changed.

    A guitarist thinking about E major to F major

    -Solfege, root "do di" or "do ra" ?
    -Flamenco, is it I -> #I ?
    -Rock, thinking I -> bII ?
    -Jazz, thinking "I -> Valt/tritone sub" construction path artifact, and does he really go through the steps of starting with E major, taking the second scale degree F#, applying the bII accidental (F#)b=F, or just getting the tritone of B=F, and rooting his second chord construction from there?

    Another layer of "what it really is" relates to formal training and education where the standard methods present "little lies" which comprise what first appears to be a simplification of a concept. Only later does one learn the next level which reveals the simple version was actually misleading and wrong to varying degrees. This process of coming to realize your understanding was compromised as things proceed with more complexity results in a continuous rebuilding of the foundations going forward. After the fact, you may accept the use of the "little lies" as a necessary path of approximation by successive superior reorganizations.

    In music, common practice presents the major/minor scales from which other harmonies are constructed by modifying the degrees of the scale that sound as chord tones, extensions, and alterations. If one uses verbal labels, these mechanics allow a method (e.g., Lydian Dominant = major with #4 b7), but as one who plays by ear... hang on, I feel a Haiku coming on...

    I don't want to hear within
    Sounds not to be played,
    No construction artifacts.


    The method of the "little lies" does not work for playing by ear; the construction process itself would cause an aural disturbance and distraction... even worse if compounded with more transformations, e.g., Major changed to Lydian changed to Lydian Dominant.

    In jazz, the "little lies" of using major/minor harmony as the construction foundation for the actual harmonies works to the degree that the construction is by habit, or mechanical, or by rules, experience, or otherwise aurally suppressed until the final construction is complete... because the actual organization of the intended harmonies is not expressed by the major/minor foundations, only by the harmonies after the construction is completed... even those that name and construct things want to hear only what they intend to play coming out of the instrument, right?

    This is not to say that one can't choose in performance between different finished harmonies that are already organized, just that the grinding of the gears from developing organization be reserved for the woodshed.
    Last edited by pauln; 08-24-2022 at 09:00 PM.

  5. #29

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    Quote Originally Posted by Reg
    So simple question.... what's a resolving and a non-resolving dominant chord.
    A resolving dominant chord is a dominant leading somewhere — usually according to the cycle of fifth respectively a half-step down as tritone sub; a backdoor cadence in my view falls in the same category (same “family of four dominants”, some call it also “Bartok substitutions”).

    A non-resolving dominant in my view is e.g. a blues tonic chord with a minor seventh, a blues subdominant with a minor seventh (sometimes in conjunction with a normal major I chord, e.g. beginning of “If You Could See Me Now”) or a bIV7 chord that is not leading to V7 resp. bII7, e.g. “Out Of Nowhere”: two bars of G, Eb7 in the third bar, going back to G in the fourth bar. In an old German jazz theory book from the fifties I saw those chords referred to as “Blue Chords”, I don’t know know if the author got the term from American musicians or if it was his own invention – in any case I like it.

  6. #30

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    Quote Originally Posted by Bop Head
    I remember reading an interview with Dizzy Gillespie where he tells how he started to experiment with playing things an tritone away at an early point in his career. (Might have been in Cab Calloway’s band — I have yet to find that interview again). This means e.g. instead of playing a Dmin arpeggio over a G7 — which yields a G7/9 — you would play an Abmin arpeggio which yields an altered sound. IMHO it is much simpler to think “A min arpeggio a half step above a dominant’s root works” and to practice it in order to learn hearing the sound of it than to think “Now I play b9 — 3rd — b13 (respectively #5)”.

    IMHO the thinking behind bebop (the origin of modern jazz harmony) is much simpler than the way theory is often taught today.
    Found the interview: https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/234728566.pdf

    Not quite easy to read as this is a pure transcript of Dizzy’s “bop jive stream of consciousness”, but an eye-opening (IMHO) insight into the mind of one of the founding fathers of Modern Jazz and of an absolute practitioner.

  7. #31

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    Quote Originally Posted by Bop Head
    A resolving dominant chord is a dominant leading somewhere — usually according to the cycle of fifth respectively a half-step down as tritone sub; a backdoor cadence in my view falls in the same category (same “family of four dominants”, some call it also “Bartok substitutions”).
    i see it differently. resolving dom chords resolve down a fifth into a chord within the ladder. take this progression:

    Cmaj7 B7 Bb7 A7

    the B7 is a resolving dom chord (goes into E chord), the Bb7 isnt (goes into Eb chord), the A7 is (goes into D chord).

    take a look at the mirrored progession with tritone subs:

    Cmaj7 F7 E7 Eb7

    naturally it is the exact opposite. F7 non resolving, E7 resolving, etc.

    this is the basic relationship between tritone subs with regard to resolving/non-resolving.

  8. #32

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    Quote Originally Posted by djg
    i see it differently. resolving dom chords resolve down a fifth into a chord within the ladder. take this progression:

    Cmaj7 B7 Bb7 A7

    the B7 is a resolving dom chord (goes into E chord), the Bb7 isnt (goes into Eb chord), the A7 is (goes into D chord).

    take a look at the mirrored progession with tritone subs:

    Cmaj7 F7 E7 Eb7

    naturally it is the exact opposite. F7 non resolving, E7 resolving, etc.

    this is the basic relationship between tritone subs with regard to resolving/non-resolving.

    The tritone in B7 consisting of the third and seventh (D# and A) with the tendency to resolve to the root and 3rd of E (E and G#) are enharmonically speaking the same notes as the 3rd and 7th of F7 (A and Eb) which have the tendency to resolve to Bb and D (root and 3rd of Bb). As the 3rds and 7ths of dominants a tritone apart are basically the same just swapped they can resolve in either way. That’s how and why tritone substitution of dominants works. So I don’t get why every other of a chain of dominants going down in half steps should not be resolving. B7 to Bb7: A -> Bb and D# -> D — — Bb7 to A7: D -> C# and Ab -> A —— etc.

    What’s the difference?
    Last edited by Bop Head; 08-24-2022 at 06:31 PM.

  9. #33

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    Nah, I reckon there’s a story in there somewhere….

  10. #34

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    Quote Originally Posted by Bop Head
    For reasons of simplicity — other than Mike Stern and some posters before me — I also prefer to think “MM a half step above the root of a dominant works for altered sounds” and to learn to hear how it sounds against that dominant instead of learning a mode of that MM scale as “Altered Scale”.

    The origin of the use of MM as altered scale are the architects of bebop playing what Barry Harris calls “the tritone’s minor”.

    I remember reading an interview with Dizzy Gillespie where he tells how he started to experiment with playing things an tritone away at an early point in his career. (Might have been in Cab Calloway’s band — I have yet to find that interview again). This means e.g. instead of playing a Dmin arpeggio over a G7 — which yields a G7/9 — you would play an Abmin arpeggio which yields an altered sound. IMHO it is much simpler to think “A min arpeggio a half step above a dominant’s root works” and to practice it in order to learn hearing the sound of it than to think “Now I play b9 — 3rd — b13 (respectively #5)”.

    IMHO the thinking behind bebop (the origin of modern jazz harmony) is much simpler than the way theory is often taught today.

    Take Dizzy’s intro to ’Round Midnight.

    'Round About Midnight : Tempo Jazz Men : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

    It starts with three minor II-Vs in a row: Amin7/b5 – D7 – Gmin7/b5 – C7 – Fmin7/b5 – Bb7

    Over Amin7/b5 (which was Cmin/A — “Cmin with the 6th in the bass” — in the thinking of the original boppers; IIRC Dizzy talks about that in said interview as well, Barry Harris recalls Thelonious Monk calling it that way) he plays a Cmin arpeggio approaching the third from the 2nd, 4th as passing tone to the 5th, 9th – 6th – 5th two times (he is leaving out the C root), then on D7 he plays an Ebmin arpeggio (tritone’s minor, half step above root) starting 9th to root, going down 5th, 3rd, up to 11th (“octave-displaced” 4th). Then the whole thing is sequenced down a whole tone twice for the following minor II-Vs.

    When I realized how simple the weird sound of that intro melody was actually constructed

    • it felt like cracking a code
    • suddenly made sense
    • was easy to play on guitar because it means just shifting an arpeggio shape up three frets (plus adding some embellishing tones)
    • I started to really hear the melody (meaning I can imagine the melody now in my head without any accompaniment, in my “inner hearing”).


    BTW: A nice way for comping an altered dominant sound is using Barry Harris’ “Minor Sixth / Diminished Scale” (which could be described as a MM scale with a chromatic passing tone between fifth and sixth) a half step above a dominant’s root
    Yes, in the sense that Barry didn’t have the concept of altered scale at all and that we would instead have ‘tritone’s minor’.

    I don’t know about anyone else, but I didn’t hearing him talking much about 9s, 11s and so on over this or that chord - he didn’t like compound interval nomenclature in general, and the improvisation class was much more like ‘here’s a cool scale/chord sub/movement, play this’ and let the chips fall where they may rather than ‘let’s work out what intervals these notes are over the root of the vanilla chord.’

    (One of the last things I learned from him was to play B Cm over G7 Cm.)

    So who’s right?

    I don’t think it matters so much. See also the discussion of ‘parallel’ and ‘derivative’ scale use from Mick Goodricks the advancing guitarist (p 92 iirc). I feel the terms ‘modal’ and ‘parent scale’ are clearer maybe?

    Despite Mick saying ‘learn both’ it seems that many lean one way or the other; Adam Rogers on the former side, Holdsworth on the latter for instance. It may also depend on how you practice and hear scales.

    I do think thinking too much about the chord of the moment all the time can be limiting. The altered dominant is ultimately about voice leading 90% of the time; so dissonance is fine if it resolves logically. Otoh the other melodic minor modes are more about colour. But generally, that colour is about one pitch. There’s no reason that that note has to belong to a seven note scale.
    Last edited by Christian Miller; 08-25-2022 at 04:13 AM.