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I suggest you read up on the augmented scale..there are lots of examples on the net.
Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
To get you started
Play the 1 3 5 arpeggios on
B - B Eb F#
Eb - Eb G Bb
G - G B D
go from one to the other and reverse the order
then do it with the minor arpeggios
then add the 7th to each arpeggio
go slow..you are hearing how each tonal center is basically merging with each other
Do see the sheet music for Giant Steps and just play the chords slowly
hear how the B G and Eb chords work together..as they are the main chords in the tune. You will see some V-I examples here.
dont worry if this dosent make sense yet..it does take some time to digest
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04-14-2024 12:21 AM
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I mentioned augmented scale patterns in another thread but no one responded - your take on it is somewhat different though.
The other thing is, two augmented scales a whole tone apart contain all 12 tones, so it can be a shortcut to practice and connect scales and chords in every key all over the fretboard, the symmetrical character of the scales makes it easier to do this. But as you said, it takes some exploration to realize its potential.
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I mean you could go full Holdsworth/Coltrane and read the Slonimsky book but it won’t help you or I sound any hipper. Resources are fine, but they are only raw materials.
Tbh I feel like 80% of these conversations on these threads are regarding exotica people play at the most 5% of the time, and comparatively little discussion of the music itself.
- I care what Monk, Strayhorn, Wayne and so on do harmonically.
- I don’t really care what it says in books or what you ‘can’ do. You ‘can’ do anything you like, theory can justify any thing at all, but it doesn’t mean it will sound good.
Let’s have a super hip example of the augmented scale from the music itself. Maybe Trane or Brecker? I know Allan played it.
Often the exotica is cited as a way to sound ‘jazzy’ - well anyone who’s transcribed a bit of the music knows that the diatonic major scale sounds super hip when used by a master.
What makes music sound good is a connection to tradition and its idiomatic, stylistic and in the case of jazz particularly its prosodic/rhythmic characteristics. Modernity is in developing that tradition, not ignoring it. Parker played licks from New Orleans jazz; Allan plays bebop lines and so on and so forth.
This is a massive problem I have with so much discourse on improv and jazz. We don’t have to play music as it was in 1923 or 1958 or even 1987, but presumably we are interested in learning from the greats? I don’t know. I am.
Even the altered scale is kind of an ‘exotic’ choice when it comes to the classic bop approach - it’s definitely used but its not the default on a 7b9 chord, say. Not every player even uses it. I’ve taken down Wayne’s solo on ESP, a tune that has several altered dominants in it, and he doesn’t use the altered scale once, even where it would seem to be an obvious choice (like on Fmaj7-E7). And yet every analysis I’ve seen of his music talks about melodic minor harmony.
When it comes to functional standards and bop, I might be talking about me bum, but it does seem a lot of people don’t even seem to know how to use the plain old minor scale to construct jazz lines, which is quite a lot of what people do on bop records. So much of Bud, Bird, Wes etc etc comes out of this. I mean Bach sounded pretty hip for a guy with a wig, and he used that stuff. I find this bizarre… why teach the complicated stuff but not the basic stuff?
Anyhoo, scales.
If we are going to talk about altered options I think the whole tone always gets short shrift. People think it’s old fashioned I guess… but was Monks favourite scale, and his harmony has so much colour. Wes borrowed a lick from him too…. Wayne uses it A LOT too.
Here’s (another) vid I made ages ago….
As a general principle you are always at liberty to utterly ignore ii, or V, or both. Wes relates whole tone to tonic minor too. You learn most from studying those guys. Again you can do anything you like but the responsibility is to sound good. You know what sounds good by using your ears and listening actively to music, not by applying rules.
Sorry for the rant.
Sent from my iPhone using TapatalkLast edited by Christian Miller; 04-14-2024 at 06:48 AM.
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Btw if you guys were under 30 this would totally become a copypasta haha
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preach Originally Posted by Christian Miller
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People who have worked something out and found it valuable are often kind enough to share it.
Sometimes, maybe often, it's different ways of thinking about what can be a very large number of combinations. Often, the posts are too abstract for me to figure out how to utilize the material. Sometimes it sinks in over time, sometimes not. Since it's harder to post examples than just describing the idea in the abstract, it can be hard for me to really understand the application of the material.
And, often in music in various ways, there's mission creep. Recently I took a handwritten chart my band has been playing for years and I entered it in Musescore to make a neater copy. No change in the usual arrangement. This triggered a sequence of events where various people weighed in on the changes, including tell me that my changes were "wrong". If my chart was presented as an accurate transcription of a particular version, well, then it was wrong. It was an arrangement with different harmonic choices -- which had been working fine until I decided to enter it in Musescore. The final version, which emerged from the crucible of band discussion, was hardly any different in sound.
So mission creep. Was it just neatening-up the old arrangement or was it an effort to produce an accurate version of a particular performance?
With this thread, I tried to extract just a couple of moves from Christian's video. Arguably, he could be seen as suggesting any possible triad from melmin. That's somewhere around 200 possibilities, depending which triads you allow into the discussion and how you count them. But, of course, he broke them down to a few useful ones and I took that even further, checking his out and picking the one or two that I liked best, and for which I could understand how to apply them. One of the triads happened to be an augmented triad. I was thinking about C+ against D9, or something like that. I also tried to distinguish between a dominant leading to the tonic (talking alt) and secondary dominants (which, as I understand it may take lyd dom, so the #11 becomes quite important and you can find that, among other ways, with the augmented triad). And, since an old rule of thumb I recall from somewhere is that you can move augmented licks in whole steps. So, that gives a total of 6 additional choices. More than enough to check out and work on.
Others, of course, have gone much deeper into the subject of augmented sounds and shared some additional knowledge. I appreciate that effort, even when I find it difficult to comprehend the material. And, even if I do comprehend it, it may take endless drill to get the sounds into my playing.
So, I return to chord tones, extensions, tonal centers, scat singing and melody -- and the occasional triad to find extensions. Not necessarily because it's optimal, but because I can do it that simple way.
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"Let’s have a super hip example of the augmented scale from the music itself. Maybe Trane or Brecker? I know Allan played it."
I get your point, getting too abstract can take you down an unproductive rabbit hole - as opposed to a productive one.
Yes, the whole tone scale, the augmented scale's kissing cousin, with similar applications.
I think the most important idea I got from Slonimsky's book is that of altering a melodic phrase so that it goes and out of the prevailing tonal center - I've heard this referred to as tonal-atonal oscillation (I think he has a more formal name for it). You hear the intrinsic order of the phrase and so the atonal "outside" part of it doesn't just sound like an odd lick or pattern you stuck in there for effect.
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More formal than “tonal-atonal oscillation?” Originally Posted by Mick-7
I shudder to think …..
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Hey, at least that's descriptive - going in and out of the tonal center. Slonimsky uses terms like "dodecaphonic" for which you need an interpreter, but I'll post a couple of examples later. Originally Posted by pamosmusic
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ahh..my fave is Sesquiquinquetone--holy moly..there are 3 (count em 3) Qs in this term Originally Posted by Mick-7
Slonimsky must have wondered why he didn't have any friends
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Someone posted the video below in a new thread recently but I can't find the thread anymore (removed perhaps). Joe Scofield is a Berklee grad who also worked with Gary Burton. The way he teaches improvisation here is very similar to Gary Burton lectures I've seen online. They teach 10 or so chord scales derived from modes. Students are asked to get conversant with each chord individually. Meaning they learn to come up with phrases inside each scale first. Then work on connecting them. Originally Posted by pamosmusic
This is similar to the approach I use except instead of going up each mode of a scale, I have worked on common chord types. In other words, instead of working on each mode of the major scale in order and thinking about what chords I can apply the mode to, I start out with chords and work on the chord-scale I can use with them.
Is the teaching method shown in the video by Scofield part of the "uniformity" in the US or is it a Gary Burton thing?
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Interestingly, he also talks about the parallel/derivative thing at 9:34. Glad to see Joe's position on this aligns with how I approach it.
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Both sort of. Originally Posted by Tal_175
Berklee, IU, and UNT were massively influential on the development of jazz pedagogy in the US, partly because they were first out of the gate and partly because they had (particularly in the case of Berklee and IU) very talented, thoughtful, and charismatic educators—Gary Burton, Mick Goodrick, and others at Berklee, and Dave Baker at IU.
Im not saying jazz ed is uniform, but there’s a lot of consistency with these big programs for a couple reasons. The first is that schools have to have curricula to achieve legitimacy, even if they don’t adhere to it strictly, and the natural place to start looking for curricula is in the programs that have done it already.
The other is that thousands of players and educators have been through those programs over the years. My first consistent jazz guitar teacher did undergrad at UNT and MM at Indiana with Dave Baker.
But big programs (say NYU or Peabody) are going to have lots more flexibility because their programs are established, they have more resources, and they attract gigantic influential musicians who teach in their own way. And even in smaller programs, every teacher has idiosyncrasies. My guitar teacher definitely did lots of hardcore jazz ed staples (every scale in every position in every key with every pitch as the start/end note, for example) and it was great for me. He also did some odd things that were his own vibe which were also great.
I loved going to music school — not knocking it. But it has its pros and cons, ups and downs, patterns and points of variation.
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Good ole Joey Sco? Originally Posted by Tal_175
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Sco on chord scales
“JS: Scale theory was the way I was taught by Alan Dean. He wrote out those chords and then he wrote out a scale for each chord. On his chart of “How High the Moon” it would be G ionian, then G dorian, then C mixolydian.
I didn’t know what the fuck he was talking about. “Why do you play this scale? That’s not that song.”
He said, “No, those are the right notes and then you just improvise using those scales.”
And that didn’t help me at all. Actually, it kind of hung me up.
Sure, the scales are absolutely correct. But knowing some of the older musicians, they didn’t know scales, really. My man Steve Swallow said he didn’t know the modes until he went to teach at Berklee.
The older guys were like, learn the chords so you can play the changes. Playing the changes meant connecting the notes for the changes with whatever the hell you want in between — which ends up being scales doesn’t it — but the chord tones give you the sound of the harmony.
Scale theory is very important and very accurate, but, also, scale theory doesn’t teach jazz.”
Interview link here
John Scofield on Charlie Parker | DO THE M@TH
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Originally Posted by Christian Miller
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In the video, he talks about this a bit (starting after around 9:34) when he says (paraphrasing) you should align scales to the chord tones. Which is what I mean by parallel orientation. Originally Posted by Christian Miller
The truth is playing chord tones doesn't teach jazz either. Chord tones and scales as foundational skills in my experience. They are useful for ear, fretboard knowledge, learning tunes and technique. These don't contradict with learning jazz vocabulary, they facilitate it.
Perhaps one can skip chord tones and scales and dive right into the vocabulary. But then this isn't 1920's when players were left to their own devices to figure things out. One can of course romanticise that type of learning and all the power to them. But I think jazz pedagogy and resources have evolved since then.Last edited by Tal_175; 04-15-2024 at 03:02 PM.
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I appreciate all the thought that has gone into analyzing how to play and how to teach others how to play.
But, now and then, I find myself in a situation where I think, "how far from reality such discussions can get!" So much of playing this music is about feel, for rhythm, melody and big ears. You can do it knowing precious little theory (not that more theory can't help). But, all the theory in the world won't help unless it is applied to good feel and the ability to hear what else is happening in the band.
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For the record, I do believe this has been Christians main point for going on a week now. Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
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I think you are combining (at least) two topics that I prefer to keep separate. Originally Posted by Tal_175
What I am trying to say is that deriving jazz language from raw materials doesn’t, generally, seem to work for beginners. Exposure and immersion in actual music by ear is very much the priority. The use of language to teach jazz remains a feature of present day jazz pedagogy at conservatoires.
Derivative thinking is very powerful here.
Maybe chord tones worked for Sco straight out of the box. Some people are able to get started right away with raw materials - the main ingredient is time and rhythm. Sco may be blessed with more of this intuitively than your average learner.
I’m not talking about learning to play your instrument. That should be an undertaking for any style of music. Intervals are intervals, scales are scales. (Although there is an intuitive path for this too…. I think people under value the ears sometimes.)
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LOL, I'm looking at that section: Sesquiquinquetone: "Equal division of eleven octaves into twelve parts." But there's actually some cool ideas there.... Originally Posted by wolflen
Q: What's for lunch, Nicholas?
Nicholas: "A delectable infra-inter-ultrapolation of cured Sus domesticus meat, Lactuca sativa, Solanum lycopersicum, and Triticum vulgare.
( = bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich )
I used to have a car bumper sticker that read: "Eschew Obfuscation." Maybe it's a Slonimsky quote?Last edited by Mick-7; 04-15-2024 at 04:02 PM.
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As I understand it Slominksy said it was all a joke and he never expected people to take it seriously. (Perhaps a sort of musical satire on the mechanistic nature of much of the music of the time?) I don’t know how true that is, or whether it was just what he was saying that day.
Also he could play Chopin with an orange.
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