The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #1

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    anyone have suggestions on improvising in his style? i love the way he plays bebop

    im talking about rhythm and note choices mostly not tone obviously since i play guitar.. maybe some suggestions of substitutions he uses often? a lot of his improv is really dissonant but i love it

    thanks for any tips

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  3. #2

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    hm, Thelonius was a piano player
    "Round midnight"
    what do you mean by "dissonant"?
    try to compare it with " a night in tunisia"
    any subs allowed, if you hear it.
    But first of all, try to sing it.
    happy birthday

  4. #3

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    Hola seagullc:

    See Tree basic aspects in Monk's Music&Improvisation:
    1)The use of sounds(Pitch) that coming from the Whole Tone Scale.
    2)The use of space(silence)betwen notes.
    3)The acentuation and rythm aspects(Try imitate and singing his phrases)

    MUCHOS SALUDOS

    Fernando


    Quote Originally Posted by seagullc
    anyone have suggestions on improvising in his style? i love the way he plays bebop

    im talking about rhythm and note choices mostly not tone obviously since i play guitar.. maybe some suggestions of substitutions he uses often? a lot of his improv is really dissonant but i love it

    thanks for any tips

  5. #4

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    Monk was always faithful to his melodies, he most often played his own compositions. Listen to him in recordings with Trane and you can see the style contrast. Don't think about scales, think about the tune, the melody, contour and rhythm of the melody.

    Throw in some intervals of a 2nd. Be very quarternote based and you'll start to get elements of his style.

  6. #5

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    Don't forget to utilise dominant 7 flat 5 chords where the listener expects something else. I always have great fun 'Monkisizing' my chord melody playing, finishing phrases on something like A7b5 where you'd expect a Cmaj7. Monk for beginners: try playing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star in C major, finishing it on, say, F#7b5, and so on.

  7. #6

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    Quote Originally Posted by gazda
    Don't forget to utilise dominant 7 flat 5 chords where the listener expects something else. I always have great fun 'Monkisizing' my chord melody playing, finishing phrases on something like A7b5 where you'd expect a Cmaj7. Monk for beginners: try playing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star in C major, finishing it on, say, F#7b5, and so on.

    Interesting ideas. I love the idea of Monkizing tunes. Could you expound on this a bit more? Have you seen things he frequently did to achieve some of his sound that you incorporate?

  8. #7

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    I have been doing this for fun and by ear, going for a limited set of pseudo-Monk effects, like using odd 7b5 or 6/9 chords in turnarounds or endings, or landing on a long note half a step up from the target note or a tritone away, playing minor seconds when possible (difficult but pianists can do it easily) and so on. Even more than that, I've played with timing, which is also a very important Monk device: playing "right" notes but in a slightly "wrong" place. Works best with Monk's tunes, but standards can also be Monk'd.

    In addition, I have got an excellent Monk fake/real book (isbn 0634039180) which is an invaluable source of insight into Monk's ideas, chord utilisation and in some case even complete voicings. I studied a few tunes that I like, like Pannonica and Misterioso (note to Jazz Police: I confess, I play both Misterioso and Blue Monk with capo on the 1st fret), but I had by far the best time and result putting together a chord-melody arrangement of Ruby My Dear, which seems to suit nylon string classical guitar so well, with movement in bass and some big 5 and 6-string chords.

  9. #8

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    There's also the m2 you can add to a melody line...but the rhythmic aspect is the hard part...it is fun to play though.

  10. #9
    Thanks for the tips everyone. Interesting that you say to be quarter note based, I found this seemed to be a weakness in my attempts to get a bebop sound that I usually end up playing slow phrases rather than eighth and sixteenth note runs like many horn players.

    When you say to utilize 2nds do you mean to use the 2nd of a given chord scale or to harmonize 2nds with whatever notes are being used? I guess what I mean is are you saying to use the whole tone scale (moving a 2nd up from every note) or should I use the 2nd of a scale?

    In what instances could I sub in a dominant seventh flat 5 chord?

    thanks again everybody

  11. #10

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    GP magazine did a story on this a few years ago where they showed how to incorporate some Monkism's. I'll nose around and see If I can find out what issue it's in.

    Hey Gazda, Maybe you could share that Ruby my Dear CM you do and post it in the CM section

  12. #11

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    Quote Originally Posted by JohnW400
    GP magazine did a story on this a few years ago where they showed how to incorporate some Monkism's. I'll nose around and see If I can find out what issue it's in.

    Hey Gazda, Maybe you could share that Ruby my Dear CM you do and post it in the CM section
    Two outstanding ideas. I have been a GP subscriber for a couple of decades, but don't recall that one. Probably was during my prejazz days.

  13. #12

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    I've also been a steady subsriber but they did thi in the last 10 years. or maybe it was Just Jazz Guitar. I'll have to look tomorrow.

  14. #13

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    Quote Originally Posted by gazda
    In addition, I have got an excellent Monk fake/real book (isbn 0634039180) which is an invaluable source of insight into Monk's ideas, chord utilisation and in some case even complete voicings.
    Good suggestion, gazda. It's is a great book to help work out what makes Monk so special. (Thelonius Monk Fake Book, publ. Hal Leonard).

    How about this as an explanation for the minor 2nd debate earlier — he would play a major 7 chord using just the root and 7th. No 5th, no 3rd, his voicings are very open.

  15. #14

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    Yes, lots of open voicings. Sparse stuff. Single notes in bass. (See Misterioso.)

    For the minor second interval, if we play root and major seventh, that is a "major 7th" interval. Play them inverted, and it is a "minor 2nd" relative to the lower note, like playing Eb and E next to each other at once on piano (such an interval can be seen as an inversion of R and M7 from Emaj7). Sounds quite different...

    Hitting neigbouring notes on piano creates a very specific sound. Monk used it often on melodic notes for "piano out of tune / honky tonk Monk" effect, not only in the context I mentioned now (maj7).

    As I said, it is a bit problematic to execute such a thing on guitar to the same effect.

    When it comes to my CM Ruby My Dear, with 15 minutes a day for jazz (of which now 5 minutes go to this forum ) I am afraid I won't have time to write the arrangement down any time soon, not even if I make a New Year Resolution to do so. Life is ephemeral, and I spend 98.96% of it well away from jazz and guitars. (Note to myself: what the *beep* am I doing? Is there a better way?)

    I can definitely find time to record Ruby My Dear on the Spanish guitar one evening and post it, so that you can hear the idea and the sound of "Monk on nylon".

  16. #15

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    Fascinating stuff. I will think about and try to hear these things when I listen to Monk now.

  17. #16

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    You can get a lot of the sense just by playing or singing some of his more unusual tunes like Epistrophy, etc..

    Lots of tritone and m2 interval stuff indeed. The soloing seems to stay very close to the melody and ryhtmic variations approach.

  18. #17

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    It's pretty obvious, but the m2nd interval can be had with fretted/open string voicings or with adjacent strings and you can get an effect like TM's 'closed' M7 voicing, etc. I think it's kind of jarring for people to hear it on guitar; not an typical sound...that's always fun to play with. Try a dom 9th arpeggio with m2nds added...

  19. #18

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    Maybe I should post it elsewhere, but I reckon it is best included in the thread. I found a couple of minutes to record Ruby My Dear, and here it is. I used Yamaha Pocketrak 2G recorder, my Burguet 2 Spanish guitar, no post-processing.

  20. #19
    Thanks again for all this info guys, I'll get to work on it.

    Gazda, great sounding chord melody there, thanks.