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On piano I prefer to think of it how I was taught by Monty Alexander. I struggled to apply it in real time at first but became effortless after a while:
1. G7 - Abm7, Db7, (to Cmaj)
2. E7 - Fm7, Bb7, (to Amaj)
3. C7 - Dbm7, Gb7, (to Fmaj)
4. A7 - Bbm7, Eb7, (to Dmaj)
For example, i often automatically apply it to the bridge of Rhythm Changes
"Disapproachment" on the Duke Pearson album does it. I have called it side slipping
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02-03-2020 06:14 PM
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Also per Monty Alexander
||: G-7 C7 |G-7 C7 | G-7 C7 | G-7 C7 | Fmaj D7 | G-7 C7:||
becomes
||: G-7 C7 | Ab-7 Db7 | G-7 C7 | C#-7 F#7| Fmaj D7 | G-7 C7 :||
pretty simple to apply in real time. Of course us pianists get to reinforce it with our left hand chords at the same time which is a pretty nice advantage.
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yea Rintin... Love Monty... he is the master of groove Chord Patterns.
I also use that basic chord pattern... add the related II- to the reference V7 of target.
So I tend to expand that same approach with lead lines, usually involving Blue notes licks. By expand I'm just adding a few more chords, even more chord patterns.... by making each chord of your example as a Tonal target. So just like your targeting Cma7 with G7, Ab-7 Db7... I would target each chord, and use rhythmic patterns to keep the approach chord patterns still keep the Functional relationship to the target. (harmonic rhythm)
I can play chords like melodic lines...I may suck but have been doing this approach for many years.... yea I also play piano, just don't have great chops, but I do on guitar.
Anyways... yea... I love destroyin Rhythm changes Bridge... hell I rarely play the "A" sections the same. Depends on who at gig, right...
Generally at Gigs... most don't even know that I'm playing that much. I've taken the time to organize complete pitch collections for Chord patterns in every context. Well really more from composing and arranging for a bunch of years. Anyway... everything I BS about I use in real time every week.
I guess thinking more in Christians point of view... I use chords as spontaneous Improvised ornamentation in a very Horizantal approach. I generally use the lead line for tonal references to targets and use chord patterns supporting that lead line to help create feels and style that create the harmony I choose. (not really my choices... I generally use common jazz practice, basically chord progressions from existing tunes). But once in a while I actually create something...
Like Blues for Alice. F6 going to Bb7, (I7 to IV7), bars 2,3 and 4 chords getting to the IV chord. You can call it a cycle, a sequence, a series of secondary dominants, contiguous II- V's, or a chord pattern... So Labels imply... What? What's the point of the label, what does it imply? OK there are standard implications. Not that complicated... Anyway.... So CST isn't really a vertical concept... it's more like being aware of chord tones and extensions functioning as a single element in horizontal contexts. With all the usual embellishments and ornamentations and how to use them contrapuntally... They have all the same melodic characteristics to work with... Way off target... sorry. I guess my point is that the teaching problems are not all just the labels.... I'm pretty sure I'm one of the first to always say... CST isn't a musical theory... it's just a device, a tool to help become aware of note collections in musical contexts... tune. It's just a label thing. I was taught to use the concepts for arranging... back when you needed to get a big band or large ensemble arrangement out in a couple of hours...
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And cool Christian... so yea as kid My grandmother was musician... I grew on contemporary music, well at least it was back then. Records... I was a pretty hyper kid... my mom would make me stay in my hole until rest of house was up, no tv but had radio, and just liked the classics. And was made aware of traditional theory BS, as least on the piano, parents were separated and spent weekends at grandparents... even played ukulele.
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Ah interesting! I grew up with a lot of orchestral music on the record player although my parents aren’t musicians. A lot of Beethoven and Mahler, but also some Stravinsky etc. I loved Stravinsky right away.... Schoenberg et al came later.
yeah so just to come back to the harmonic knowledge thing, I think people are taught to think of improvisation exclusively in harmonic, vertical terms and it doesn’t work.
the best way out of that for me was simply to transcribe, and use theoretical explanations that seemed consistent with what I was hearing. (After a while it seemed that others had done that work already, but I had to come to that realisation and align with the info that seemed actually relevant to me.)
I think probably most players have this kind of a process. You simply can’t learn to play jazz out of a book. You have to be in the trenches and checking out the real music. Book knowledge can be used by a good musician to make music, but it can’t replace the real process.
Mass market jazz education’s huge ongoing problem is not CST this or bebop that, but that it packages up the information in written or online form as if it is valuable of its own accord instead of celebrating the process of finding out and applying that knowledge - of stealing that info. The original real Book was quite literally stolen knowledge for instance!
You don’t have to steal the info from Parker records as it’s in the Omnibook. This is not necessarily a good thing if the aim is to learn to play jazz, because you need to take charge of your own learning and make an emotional connection to the music you study, not just diligently play it out of a book like a classical player because your teacher told you Bird was an Important Person in Jazz History. And so on.
btw all this stuff tends to attract nerds. That’s ok (I have to think that lol) but we also need entertainers and hustlers is our music. And more actually cool people.
So the present day serious jazz student becomes a sort of monkish figure, avoiding temptations on the path to righteousness! (It may help that I think it’s easier in fact to do it the right way.)
with the decline of live jazz, the need for musicians to generate an income drives a lot of this, but I think we could all be more sophisticated pedagogues and still make a living.
Also if our music was less fucking nerdy and introverted we might attract a wider audience and not need to sell educational products so much. In that case creating a pedagogy that has less in common with some sort of engineering subject and doesn’t alienate talented musicians who are not into that stuff might help.
Who knows. Kamasi seems to be doing ok!Last edited by christianm77; 02-04-2020 at 05:33 AM.
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Sorry that was a bit OT. But George definitely represents that other way of doing things.
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Originally Posted by christianm77
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LOL that was some nice thoughts... are you having some of those awareness moments, putting knowledge in your pockets.
Personally the material just has a bunch or levels of understanding. And most don't really finish and make the transition from knowledge to.... I'm also talking about the teachers.
I guess I always just assume musicians want to put in the organized time. Transcribing is not like a choice... if you can't transcribe... well it's just one of many basic.... Basic musicianship skills. When I was kid... little kid I transcribed music from the radio, there was no other way. Who cares...
Christian... maybe you just don't like harmony. I hate pop harmony... It drives me crazy.
I have always dug GB... obviously.
Other thing... its funny how quotes from pros are so different from actual beliefs or where their from and how they became pros. The one liner things and quotes are very close to the Jazz pedagogy just the other side.
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Originally Posted by m_d
The social environment. It’s not the people, it’s the way they’re put together and expected to function.
look it’s an easy thing to say ‘oo look modern pedagogy innit awful.’ There are some things are better in a formal edu environment at least in theory.
but the nature of transmission supply side education in a classroom environment heavily favours quantifiable information. Worse thing is people think that’s what’s important.
But it’s not the only way to teach!
(Barry’s an interesting case; it’s transmission edu most of the time, but it’s also not a classroom, really. people who expect a classroom usually come away disappointed and don’t go back. People who go for ten years get it .don’t have time to talk about him now really.
Or Legitimate Peripheral Participation models of situated learning/apprenticeship. Suffice to say if you’ve studied jazz history, read Berliner or been a working musician you know what that is already, but the theory can help us design learning environments that better overlap with professional community of practice and equip musicians to deal with actual real world music.
A few jazz edu people have picked up on this which is a concept the authors don’t even apply to music, but to Tailors, midwives, butchers, navy surveyors and... alcoholics anonymous. Turns out the same social organisation can be found all over.
now I need to argue why jazz improvisation workshops should be like Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. I’m serious. It’s a better model.)
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Originally Posted by Reg
So anyway, that’s said, how do we teach people to improvise? Or maybe how do we create an environment people to learn to improvise?
i would say early on, we don’t.
it is more important to play legitimate jazz than to make your solo up from whole cloth. It is more important to sound good than to ‘improvise.’ That’s heretical to some and surprising to me, but I have VERY good reasons from the tradition and from general education perspectives to think that’s the way to go.
for ways to do this we can turn to Wes, Parker, Louis, Konitz, Peter Bernstein and others...
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I teach them to improvise using the things I learned from Barry Harris.
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Originally Posted by christianm77
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So are we going in the... if you don't play what's true jazz , at least to those who are judging... it's not real.
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Originally Posted by christianm77
"Back when I taught, the students would say, 'I want to be original.' What? You can't even play!" (Start at 2:00 mark)
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Originally Posted by Reg
beginner’s can’t be original on account of them being shit (if you excuse the technical expression). They have to relate to a tradition and you can call it as a value judgment - does this sound like other music? They can call it too,if they have a good ear.
(So potentially some of the most naturally musical people get discouraged by improv right away, which is an interesting thought I think.)
But teachers worry about teaching improvisation because they see it as important to Jazz because everyone gets hung up about improvisation because classical music ditched it so form a European mindset it’s a Big Deal when practically every culture does it.
At this stage it isn’t.
you don’t expect a beginner languages student to speak Spanish by reading a grammar and vocabulary. They start by learning phrases and simple conversations. Recordings and the teachers own speaking is used a reference for accent and pronunciation.
You don’t expect them to able to improvise in the language. But it is also understood that this is not the end point of the process. And they can try their Spanish phrases as soon as the opportunity arises. They are legitimate for asking for the menu, in a Mexican restaurant, for instance.
And yet that is how jazz is often taught as if the map and the territory are the same. It’s fantastically unsophisticated. Actually it is unacceptable. I can’t imagine any classroom languages teacher making this mistake. We imagine that a beginner will share their process with Bill Evans.
Good jazz educators get this. I’m sure you get it right? You are a native speaker.Last edited by christianm77; 02-05-2020 at 04:48 PM.
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TL;DR - you can teach a beginner to play jazz or to improvise (non-idiomatically). You can't do both.
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Originally Posted by m_d
You know, that's the thing about the Berliner book? Everyone is extraordinarily self-directed. People used to put obstacles in the way to test a young player's dedication.
Actually he still does it sometimes - took a 14 year old in a class for not knowing ATTYA. All the Londoners take a sharp breath.... WTF?????
But, you know, Peter Bernstein met Larry Goldings at 13 and they could already play. Even here, I know plenty of guys who were working clubs at that age. It's really no excuse haha. But yeah, can't do that here...
Maybe Barry just forgot he wasn't in NYC. Also - why are you here? Pushy parents? Besides, I've seen him be incredibly sweet, patient and kind even as he'll test and push a young student.
I told don_oz Barry liked him.... he didn't believe me.... but you can tell, he was pushing him. (Now he's in NYC studying with Pasquale.) But obviously I don't know him like some do on this forum, just my perceptions....
But here in London and for the likes of me at this level it's like, we have to encourage the next generation.... we can't rely on students arriving self directed... we can't scare them off! We don't have NYC to work with. We've got some kids who need to give the bug.
Why? Well because I want everyone to dig jazz. Mainly because I love it and want to share it, but it makes sense for other reasons. Not everyone wants to deal with pro Musician BS, some will start clubs and buy music and teaching courses...
Anyway went off on a riff. I should probably start a new thread... But this takes me back to my theme.
When I first went to a Barry class I thought improv was the main thing about jazz and you just do your own thing. That was self evident to me, and I'd been told that by almost every educator I'd had contact with. I could not get my head around it - why was this old dude telling me what to play, why weren't we doing any improvisation in the improvisation class? But I kept going, until I realised the depth of history, the aural tradition. I'd had no contact with it. It was only when I started studying bop, of course, that the actual material made sense.
It's possible if that was my first contact with the music that I might not have stuck with it... but I think we owe it to our students to represent the music as a tradition. We don't have to get super Wynton about it, (but TBH I think Wynton became a counterbalance to a dominant force.)
There is no doubt a very valuable role for jazz as freedom, improvisation in the moment, no rules. Sure - but, you can't do both at once, at least not at the start. It just leads to bad results... You can't feed in pitch choices over chords and expect jazz to come out of kids who haven't listened much to the music, fo instance playing solos on a Big Band gig.
You might be able to use the same resources do some cool sound painting, systems music, non idiomatic improv and devised composition stuff. TBH, quite a lot of the European 'jazz' world is bands like that. I wonder why?Last edited by christianm77; 02-05-2020 at 05:18 PM.
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Thank you for posting your thoughts and the Peter Farrell Harmonic region stuff ( Schoenberg). O find ot very interestinag and i love watching Peters video( Which i am surprised at not in the books!) and trying to work things out. A bit like an advanced 3d cross word puzzle!!! Having said that this forum has been useful and a great insight especially the secret 2 chords appiled in other ways. I have also been having a go at transcribing some of Peters teaching which again has been positive in guidance. Like you. whilst I would love some of the booksI just can't really afford that level of expense as pensioner, perhaps the odd Christmas present. I contacted Peter to join his facebook group and that is £152 per month for all the extended videos, which having few some 65% is him somewhat display his technique and skill rather than teaching hence transcribing. I would be very interested in what you think as you sound a very accomplished player best Sibbs
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Originally Posted by Sibbo01
If I understand correctly what you are saying (you mention transcribing twice)... for me it would make more sense transcribing George Benson for free, than transcribing Peter for £152 per month...
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That price is absolutely ridiculous. I highly recommend not doing this, it is taking advantage of beginners who are still in that phase of looking for "the" method. The best of the best teachers charge around $100 for an hour lesson. So he is charging the price of two in person hour long lessons with one of the best in the world for video lessons, 65% of which is performing.
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No, he's charging that amount for 4 lessons per month. Lessons are from 1-2 hours (sometimes 3h). He doesn't 'perform' on lesson unless he is showing something.
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Originally Posted by mikostep
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Originally Posted by Alter
I think working with triads allows one to sound coherent even while straying from the standard changes yet not having to think hard about what you're doing.
Patterns. It's all about patterns... ;o)
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What I have been doing is working out the notes he plays, input them put them into guitar pro for capture and then move them across in strings to get neck positions and watch the video solwed down. i can also cut and paste and put into all 12 keys !!!! I use the app Transcribe to slow down thesound/ video . I not a great transcriber i am getting better but I often first put the line into 8th or 1/16th notes and then use my ears. Most are scales and arps so fairly even rhythmically. I hope this helps thanks Sibbs
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Originally Posted by corpse
IMHO, he is one of the best teachers I've ever encountered and I've took lessons with some extremely famous names in jazz. So, his price is shockingly low. Even GB talks about him with deep respect because he managed to dissect his entire approach and transform it into understandable approach.
I know I sound extremely biased here, so take this with grain of salt. But, there is nothing to loose for people who ought just to follow his free material and transcribe.
One more thing, I think that his students gain a lot by just listening him playing and using that stuff in different context and by listening to small, on the road advices that he collected from George and pass on students.
Getting hung up on rhythms when transcribing
Today, 11:59 AM in Ear Training, Transcribing & Reading