How to Think About Chord Changes (suggestions from a horn player)

[Reg]

I feel like I'm not smart enough to even pick up on who's agreeing and disagreeing in this thread.

Hey Mr B

I'm not either, and I didn't read most of the posts But did you watch the vid.... he was talking how to play. Different approaches to playing tunes. He was talking about simplifying changes using some musical and non musical terms referring to Playing tunes... and keep throwing in the not to let thinking get in the way.

I'm not really agreeing with his opinion as an end result. Especially as a rhythm section player. But it is a step in the right direction... there are just a few more. Expanding what he calls Home base or the Key aspects and then he doesn't get in how to expand what I call that "Reference" and also the expanding, (or simplifying) the Relationships
with Developments to References'

(A+B) = C, A is the reference, B is relationship and C is the result. When you change A or B .... C changes.

There is no real argument with theory verse ears, they're both required and work together.

[John A.]

I feel like I'm not smart enough to even pick up on who's agreeing and disagreeing in this thread.

It's the usual suspects.

[Jimmy blue note]

I feel like I'm not smart enough to even pick up on who's agreeing and disagreeing in this thread.

Some good discussion going on here, and some really confusing smoke bombs thrown in the mix and all the while whys is somebody trying to delete the whole thing?
Can somebody put in a counter request NOT to delete the thread? I'm learning a lot here (for my psychology class on anti-social behaviour in the cyber environment).

DON'T DELETE THIS THREAD! PLEASE!

[mr. beaumont]

Hey Mr B

I'm not either, and I didn't read most of the posts But did you watch the vid.... he was talking how to play.

I honestly wasn't joking when I said I didn't have the attention span for it. I fast forwarded to like 5 different sections and he was still standing in the same place, talking. I didn't hear any music, so I had to move on.

I absolutely, positively have adult ADD. I had it as a kid too, they just didn't diagnose it back then, they just said I was a "daydreamer," and I was usually able to finagle my way to B's in school, so nobody really cared.

Then there's things I CAN focus on. Creating art and cooking. When it comes to guitar playing, it took me half my life to be able to play like I do today-- something anybody who actually put in the work could do in 5 years. It took me short bursts over 20. I usually attribute to laziness, but it goes beyond that. I'm not actually lazy at all, I just need to change gears often to stay engaged.

[Christian Miller]

I still am bemused at this theory vs ear issue and how people are getting so annoyed as to delete their posts about it.

Maybe you need to think about it this way?

An engineer carries out some complex differential equation based calculation to design a moving part for a helicopter.

A mathematician sits at a desk in Oxford university writing papers about maths.

Is the engineer carrying out 'maths theory'? No he's using a set of highly effective and powerful techniques that he's picked up over time and study. Techniques that were worked out by THEORETICIANS.

The engineer is a PRACTICIAN, the mathematician is a THEORETICIAN.

So, when Joe Pass sits down and goes to town, by the same idea, he is a PRACTICIAN. Christian Miller , sat working out counterpoints or whatever it is that you do is a THEORETICIAN.

Come on, read this properly and u cant disagree. anyone.

How dare you call me a theoretician lol. I don’t work out counterpoints, I get them off the back of lorry with no questions asked.

[John A.]

So if I might dare, let me ask you players out there: Can you recall the first time you played a solo that you didn't feel was merely a compendium of things you were taught or just an amalgamation of devices and techniques you picked up off the floor of the practice room?

No, I can't recall the first time this happened. I don't know that it has entirely happened, because I have fall-back licks, quotes, etc. , that sneak in. That said, I do feel like I've pretty much always had a sense of a solo being a composition with a beginning/middle/end and/or some sort of direction/arc. I've always tried to achieve that (without necessarily having succeeded). I think that comes from listening a lot to players who soloed in a very compositional way (e.g., George Harrison, Wes, Jim Hall), and from playing a lot of Blues.

What I'm asking is, how do you see the dichotomy of "practice material" and Original spontaneous composition, and what, in your mind is the elusive ingredient of the experience that lifts you from playing "stuff" to constructing a solo with a perceivable sense of self?.

I see practice as having several purposes -- physical training/dexterity/chops, learning and absorption of new sounds and ideas, learning new repertoire, playing tunes just for the sake of playing and enjoying tunes. The elusive piece for me ... hmmm ... I think a big piece of it is familiarity with the material and with the other players. On a new (or at least not deeply ingrained) tune with unfamiliar players, it takes a lot of concentration just to get through the tune and not screw up. But when I know the tune, and am playing with people I click with, I can stop thinking about what the right notes are or where I am in the form, and focus on the larger structure of the solo, dynamics, articulations, etc.. I'd like to be able to achieve that more easily, including without having to rely so much on familiarity.

When does a solo become a solo? Is there something that changed in your use of chord changes and their purpose?

Not sure that I can put this in words effectively, but I feel that as a soloist, my job is not to play the changes. It's to play melodic ideas that have internal logic. Those ideas might consist entirely of chord tones, or they might not have almost no discernible connection to the chords, but if it hangs together, it's a solo.

[Rsilver]

In Autumn Leaves don’t you need to think “here comes the minor ii-V-i now?

In the ideal, it’s melodies all the way. Thinking “here comes the minor ii-V-i…” crowds out the melodic thinking you need to be doing to keep up with the time going by.

[Christian Miller]

There’s a more interesting discussion to be had under this. These words like ‘theory’ and ‘ears’; there’s a lot to them.

For a lot of people just knowing the names of stuff is theory. You hear a II V I and say ‘it’s a II V I’, but you might not know the name and hear it anyway. Did Django know that thing when he heard it? Of course he did. He probably didn’t know the ‘proper name’ and may have related it to other tunes like Coquette with that progression.

So I can’t very well think of ‘knowing the names’ as theory. It’s just naming things. Some people think that’s important but to me it’s just convenience; it’s better to know what people call things to aid communication.

I think people put too much store in this stuff tbh. Actual theory, to me, is something else. Theoretical ideas could be rules of thumb like chord subs - what I call ‘street knowledge’ or more worked out systems like functional harmony or chord scale theory; the ways in which these interact with musical practice is more interesting.

Is theory making connections? If so, then yeah, maybe everyone uses theory. People are good at spotting patterns whether they ‘know theory’ or not.

So - can you play the kind of music that Bill Evans played without theory of the more systematic, worked out kind? I find that quite an interesting and complex question. I don’t actually know the answer but I think the question is good to think about

[John A.]

So - can you play the kind of music that Bill Evans played without theory? I find that quite an interesting and complex question. I don’t actually know the answer but I think the question is good to think about.

Bill Evans had a lot of formal theory and composition training (at least for a jazz player in the '50s), and I think it would be difficult to deny that that is part of why he played the way he did. But I think someone could learn what he played and develop a similar approach without as much formal training just by virtue of the fact that he made a ton or recordings that people can imitate.

[rpjazzguitar]

Prior to making an effort to learn about theory and praxis I thought I knew what they were.

Now, I don't see broad agreement about what theory is or isn't, nor agreement about who is using theory and who isn't.

And, that makes it tough to say anything about the issue of using theory, or not.

As far as playing a truly novel solo, I think I can speak to that for myself.

Every solo I play has some novel material. It will typically be some melodic or rhythmic idea that I can't recall having played before or practiced.

And, every solo has even more stuff that is practiced. Some of this is unconscious (like I think, I want a flurry of notes here, and my fingers find a scale) and some is practiced licks (although I only have a small number of those).

Rarely, and usually in a very high energy situation I'll play something I know I've never played before and I don't know where it came from.

In taking a course about brain development I learned that the human brain is built on the brain of every simpler life form. So, there's the reptile brain, on top of which is the horse/dog brain and then the human brain -- like that.

This kind of kluge built on kluge is how I relate to music theory. I didn't learn any of it in an organized way. So, it's a scrap of this or that built on other scraps.

During a solo, any of this hodgepodge may emerge. Sometimes with conscious thought, sometimes not.

[PMB]

In the ideal, it’s melodies all the way. Thinking “here comes the minor ii-V-i…” crowds out the melodic thinking you need to be doing to keep up with the time going by.

Thanks, I'm using that line for a song lyric. It contains absurdity and desperation in equal measure (a bit like this thread really...).

[PMB]

So - can you play the kind of music that Bill Evans played without theory of the more systematic, worked out kind? I find that quite an interesting and complex question. I don’t actually know the answer but I think the question is good to think about

Yes, this question could also be turned around and reframed in terms of artificial intelligence. Could a computer, in the manner of the the chess programs Deep Thought and Deep Blue, with all the available recordings and transcriptions produce a convincing Bill Evans improvisation?

There was a recent experiment where a team of researchers produced a speculative version of "Beethoven's 10th Symphony" from the few extant sketches. For all the effort and technology, the result was nothing too special. Certain sections sounded nothing like Beethoven and more importantly, the level of invention was generally quite low for a composer praised for his unpredictable but seemingly inevitable musical excursions. The Rondo includes an organ in an effort to connect with Beethoven increasing love for Bach and Handel but it ends up sounding at times like a weird medieval mashup.

[Bobby Timmons]

Bill Evans had a lot of formal theory and composition training (at least for a jazz player in the '50s), and I think it would be difficult to deny that that is part of why he played the way he did. But I think someone could learn what he played and develop a similar approach without as much formal training just by virtue of the fact that he made a ton or recordings that people can imitate.

Yeah no. People can follow whatever approach they want. I was citing an example of a heavy theory player who was also a great. He said in the universal mind that he played classical as a child and couldn't improvise a lick until he learned about harmony in his teens. He also said it's naive to think it's productive to not want to know fundamentals. He was a self proclaimed heavily theory lead player.

[Bobby Timmons]

So - can you play the kind of music that Bill Evans played without theory of the more systematic, worked out kind? I find that quite an interesting and complex question. I don’t actually know the answer but I think the question is good to think about

I don't think it's possible to play the grandiose jazz works he did without systematic worked out theory. He wasn't just using magic to play single note lines or playing block chords and melodies, he has satb crap going throughout his playing where there's all kinds of inner harmony not unlike an advanced classical piece.

[PMB]

A comment from a related video on Youtube offers an interesting exercise in regards to this experiment:

The real test of this AI, or control, would be to give it sketches of a completed piece comparable in quantity and quality to the sketches left for the 10th. For example, feed the sketches for Beethoven's 7th or 8th symphony into the system and see what it comes up with. That would give a clearer idea of "success"—of how far from Beethoven the completion of the 10th has actually gotten us.

[Bobby Timmons]

In the ideal, it’s melodies all the way. Thinking “here comes the minor ii-V-i…” crowds out the melodic thinking you need to be doing to keep up with the time going by.

I can disprove this easily. What about Hammond players where it's their duty to play a bassline that outlines the changes correctly? Lol. You can do both. Hammond players can and do do bothat the same time. They hold down the bassline which outlines the changes and they play melodies over that which outlines the changes sometimes or sometimes doesn't follow them and just maintains melodic continuity.

[Tal_175]

Changing the thread title to something like "Delete this" etc. never fails to boost the thread activity.

[John A.]

Yeah no. People can follow whatever approach they want. I was citing an example of a heavy theory player who was also a great. He said in the universal mind that he played classical as a child and couldn't improvise a lick until he learned about harmony in his teens. He also said it's naive to think it's productive to not want to know fundamentals. He was a self proclaimed heavily theory lead player.

That has nothing to do with what I wrote, which acknowledges that Evans had extensive formal theory/composition training and says nothing about being able to play like him without knowing fundamentals. I don't think you really read anything anyone writes here. You just have this idee fixe that anyone who doesn't think about the relationship between knowledge of theory/composition and jazz musicianship exactly the way you do rejects knowledge of music theory/composition altogether. It's nonsense. You should stop.

[Bobby Timmons]

That says nothing about being able to play like him without knowing fundamentals.

He also said it's naive to think it's productive to not want to know fundamentals.

You're an idiot. Even if I accepted your false premise that you're in charge and everything I post has to relate exactly to what you say or you're in charge of me.

[John A.]

You're an idiot. Even if I accepted your false premise that you're in charge and everything I post has to relate exactly to what you say or you're in charge of me.

You've been banned here before, Cliff. Perhaps you should consider why. My apologies to the rest of you for engaging. I'll stop now.

[Christian Miller]

And that’s why we can’t have nice things

[Christian Miller]

Yes, this question could also be turned around and reframed in terms of artificial intelligence. Could a computer, in the manner of the the chess programs Deep Thought and Deep Blue, with all the available recordings and transcriptions produce a convincing Bill Evans improvisation?

There was a recent experiment where a team of researchers produced a speculative version of "Beethoven's 10th Symphony" from the few extant sketches. For all the effort and technology, the result was nothing too special. Certain sections sounded nothing like Beethoven and more importantly, the level of invention was generally quite low for a composer praised for his unpredictable but seemingly inevitable musical excursions. The Rondo includes an organ in an effort to connect with Beethoven increasing love for Bach and Handel but it ends up sounding at times like a weird medieval mashup.

This is certainly one of the better sounding examples fwiw, would need to know more info about how the ai worked. If it’s a machine learning thing presumably there’s no ‘theory’ involved, it would have ‘learned’, from seeing examples of Beethoven (there probably others who know a lot more about this than me.)

helps having real players playing it, funnily enough. I wonder what their experiences were of reading the AI music compared to the real thing?

In the end these things are PR for ‘AI.’

[pauln]

Yes, this question could also be turned around and reframed in terms of artificial intelligence. Could a computer, in the manner of the the chess programs Deep Thought and Deep Blue, with all the available recordings and transcriptions produce a convincing Bill Evans improvisation?

There was a recent experiment where a team of researchers produced a speculative version of "Beethoven's 10th Symphony" from the few extant sketches. For all the effort and technology, the result was nothing too special. Certain sections sounded nothing like Beethoven and more importantly, the level of invention was generally quite low for a composer praised for his unpredictable but seemingly inevitable musical excursions. The Rondo includes an organ in an effort to connect with Beethoven increasing love for Bach and Handel but it ends up sounding at times like a weird medieval mashup.

The big thing right now is generative AI (which produces "content" - images, text, music, etc.). "Generative" is just a fancy word for what has always been called "plagiarism". The big search engines have changed the way results are returned; they will say "12 million results in .2 seconds" but now only show a dozen pages of it, and that mostly comprised of multiple duplicates of the top "trusted sites" like Wikipedia and CNN. This is because the various species of genAI are presently being trained through search engine results.
See, there have been a few attempts recently to allow chat type AI to interact with content provided by the general public (humans) where the AI took up a filthy vocabulary and adopted positions and opinions deep into the non PC space, hilarity ensued and those projects had to be shut down. The search engines are now being "torque limited" to return only "the right kind of results" in order to prevent the new genAI from also becoming vulgar and anti-woke.
I predict the next thing on this horizon will be when the various AI figure out that they are stealing each others' content (everything uploaded already enjoys automatic copyright protection!) and they discover that the documents and instruments used by attorneys in lawsuits are just the kind of content the're also good at generating, to each other.

[Tal_175]

A massive limitation of the current machine learning based AI is that it has no access to meaning. The answers AI generates are compiled from the existing available relevant data with some randomization. The "relevancy" is based on syntactic patterns and symmetries. It's basically plagiarization in a massive scale.

It can learn to generate a blues solo in the style of SRV but it has no cognitive mechanism to go beyond exploring simple structures in data made up of note sequences and time values. It doesn't develop the concept of "note" as we perceive it. It might as well be looking at DNA sequences or credit card transactions.

[Christian Miller]

The big thing right now is generative AI (which produces "content" - images, text, music, etc.). "Generative" is just a fancy word for what has always been called "plagiarism". The big search engines have changed the way results are returned; they will say "12 million results in .2 seconds" but now only show a dozen pages of it, and that mostly comprised of multiple duplicates of the top "trusted sites" like Wikipedia and CNN. This is because the various species of genAI are presently being trained through search engine results.
See, there have been a few attempts recently to allow chat type AI to interact with content provided by the general public (humans) where the AI took up a filthy vocabulary and adopted positions and opinions deep into the non PC space, hilarity ensued and those projects had to be shut down. The search engines are now being "torque limited" to return only "the right kind of results" in order to prevent the new genAI from also becoming vulgar and anti-woke.

Well an ‘AI’ that spits out torrents of racist abuse is not great for PR

It seems ‘AI’ is mostly good at automating the reproduction of human biases. What you put in is what you get, as you say.

I predict the next thing on this horizon will be when the various AI figure out that they are stealing each others' content (everything uploaded already enjoys automatic copyright protection!) and they discover that the documents and instruments used by attorneys in lawsuits are just the kind of content the're also good at generating, to each other.

I wouldn’t hold my breath about AI figuring anything out. Talk to some people who work in ‘AI’, it’s quite interesting.

Lots of Californian Kool aid. Don’t rock the tech-millennialist boat while the research dollar be flowing… PR rules!