Experiment

[rpjazzguitar]

I'll avoid a discussion of the correct amount to think during a solo.

One thing that occurred to me is that you were playing a vanilla solo with easy fingerings over a somewhat different set of changes.

Am7 Gm7 F F7
Bb7 Bb7 Am7 Abm7
Gm7 C7b9 F7.

[garybaldy]

"It's all the right notes but not necessarily in the right order"

[pamosmusic]

Changed my mind. I think Christian's trying to force different changes over a dom blues

How very dare he

[djg]

I was wondering if some keen forum members might indulge me in a little experiment.

[ragman1]

Changed my mind. I think Christian's trying to force different changes over a basic dom blues. Something like:

FM7 - Bb7 - F7 - Cm7/F7
Bb7 - % - Am7 - Abm7
Gm7 - C7 - F7 - %

But we'll see.

[Christian Miller]

Ok

Thanks for posting everyone. I don’t know if people are pretty familiar with how I think but I’d say a lot of people were pretty much spot on, djg, Peter, Ragman, dasein and probs some others, esp on the A-9 Ab-9 G-9 dooberry

The big thing people didn’t get was that in bar 2 I ignored the Bb7 completely, continuing the F major scale stuff we before terminating with a 4 phrase which I think BopHead noted. The first three bars are F major, then I anticipate F7 in bar 4. The rest very much as djg outlines it.

When I transcribed I noted my inadvertent use of the Bb lydian dominant in bar 2. Didn’t go through my head. Djg said Bb7, which amount to the same thing.

Kudos for dasein noting the Wes Montgomery style shape and other details. Nailed.

Though process- this was an attempt to apply some stuff I noticed in Birds blues solos for a video. So the use of major on the first 3(ish) bars, the blues on IV, the use of the chromatic half steps down is all stuff Bird uses in his solos and often played in the comping, albiet with a faster harmonic rhythm than in my line. (There’s often a strong Fmaj7 tonality in bar 7 in birds lines.) My changes are more like Chi-Chi (although the Chi Chi melody although not the comping are based on blues for Alice changes… so yeah.)


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[Christian Miller]

Oh as other have noted Bird often plays F major in the blues - but I should note the rhythm section is very often playing F7. So that’s what I’ve done here.


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[djg]

When I transcribed I noted my inadvertent use of the Bb lydian dominant in bar 2. Didn’t go through my head. Djg said Bb7, which amount to the same thing.

i actually had you on C7. that was fun.

[pamosmusic]

I kind of love this as an exercise

[Christian Miller]

i actually had you on C7. that was fun.

Yep sorry, that’s what I meant


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[ragman1]

in bar 2 I ignored the Bb7 completely

Well, it's possible you got lucky because what you played sounded lovely over the Bb7. There's a hangover of the #11 from the previous bar (lovely sound) and a tiny return to the F with the A nat at the end, barely noticeable.

The rest is a great line over a Bb7: D C Bb-- G Ab (3, 2/9, emphasised root, 13, b7). No prob there at all.*

As I said before, using the M7 over the dom has become almost usual. But it was obviously bars 7 and 8 that were strange over F7 - D7. I'll be honest, I thought at first you might be playing with that triad stuff :-)

Can I ask, did you play the solo over the basic dom blues backing or use the Bird-type chords and then put the F dom ones on the transcription? How was it done?

* Incidentally, I often ignore the IV7 in bar 2 and just carry on with the one. It nearly always sounds good, strangely.

[Christian Miller]

Well, it's possible you got lucky because what you played sounded lovely over the Bb7. There's a hangover of the #11 from the previous bar (lovely sound) and a tiny return with the A nat to the F at the end, barely noticeable.

Thanks

The A can be understood as a pushed third of the next chord, even though it's a short note ...

As for the E, that's a happy accident, maybe, but this was after a few takes and I think I was starting to refine my ideas a little, so I might have just moved towards that by ear.

Which raises an interesting question about analysis, doesn't it? What is intentional and what is intuitive or unconscious.

The rest is a great line over a Bb7: D C Bb-- G Ab (3, 2/9, emphasised root). No prob there at all.

As I said before, using the M7 over the dom has become almost usual. But it was obviously bars 7 and 8 that were strange over F7 - D7. So it wasn't what you were playing, rather the chords at that point. I'll be honest, I thought at first you might be playing with that triad stuff :-)

Can I ask, did you play the solo over the basic dom blues backing or use the Bird chords and then put the F dom ones on the transcription? How was it done?

Here's the solo as I recorded it.

The comping changes are indicated on the sheet music above the treble clef (along with the tab and some notes on analysis, including my sub changes above the tab) and are a standard jazz blues with the exception that I comped F6 | A-7 Ab-7 in bars 7-8 rather than the more customary F7 | A-7b5 D7. These half step changes are a little different from what most do (but is what you hear the piano doing on the recordings of Nows the Time and Billie's Bounce.)

[ragman1]

Thought so :-)

So why did you put the dom chords on the transcription? Sorry, I have to ask...

[Christian Miller]

Thought so :-)

So why did you put the dom chords on the transcription? Sorry, I have to ask...

Because that's what the rhythm section is playing. So if you were analysing a solo off a record you'd probably start by writing out the solo over the basic changes of the song, or what you heard the rhythm section playing.

I didn't want to do the analysis, that would have defeated the point.

I put A-7b5 D7b9 to be a little cheeky, and to make a little trickier, not that it stopped anyone from getting it. And I would 100% play that sub over those changes.

[ragman1]

Because that's what the rhythm section is playing.

Not on your video. That's clearly Am - Abm.

[Christian Miller]

Not on your video. That's clearly Am - Abm.

Oh you mean the F7 and the minor II-V? See above.

Again, I'd have no problem playing these changes over those.

[ragman1]

FWIW, I used to play with this kind of thing some time ago, maybe years ago now, to try to get new sounds on the blues. Playing simple changes over a more complex progression usually worked okay but not the other way round. More complex soloing over simple changes usually clashed... and nothing much worked over the Bird blues except playing it as written.

Oh, and I often play a Bbm line over the C7 to get that b9 sound. Either that or C#m for an alt. Not as fluent as you but okay :-)

[Boss Man Zwiebelsohn]

Thanks

The A can be understood as a pushed third of the next chord, even though it's a short note ...

As for the E, that's a happy accident, maybe, but this was after a few takes and I think I was starting to refine my ideas a little, so I might have just moved towards that by ear.

Which raises an interesting question about analysis, doesn't it? What is intentional and what is intuitive or unconscious.



Here's the solo as I recorded it.

The comping changes are indicated on the sheet music above the treble clef (along with the tab and some notes on analysis, including my sub changes above the tab) and are a standard jazz blues with the exception that I comped F6 | A-7 Ab-7 in bars 7-8 rather than the more customary F7 | A-7b5 D7. These half step changes are a little different from what most do (but is what you hear the piano doing on the recordings of Nows the Time and Billie's Bounce.)

Shouldn't there be one flat in the key signature?

[ragman1]

Shouldn't there be one flat in the key signature?

You asked that before. He covered it here:

Experiment

[pamosmusic]

Someone else want to take a solo, post a transcription, and let the vultures pick the carcass?

[ragman1]

Bop Head -

Call it a modern convention, if you like. This beboppy stuff has all kinds of altered notes in it. It might be alright reading it in F with only one flat but try it in Ab or Db, etc. It's hard enough keeping pace with the altered notes without having to worry about the key sig as well.

I think it's a good idea

[Christian Miller]

For bop actually I usually like a key signature, it usually simplifies the notation.

I think for transposing horn parts it can be a bit unecessary, depending on the key

In this case I used it because if I screenshot something for a video and I don’t include the key sig the pitches will be wrong.

But it’s a common convention for transcription books etc. less so for tunes and to be fair solos are usually more chromatic than tunes.

but that annoying thing the NRB does when they only put the key signature on the first line can naff right off.

Why do they do that?

Why do jazz musicians have to be special???


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[Boss Man Zwiebelsohn]

For bop actually I usually like a key signature, it usually simplifies the notation.

I think for transposing horn parts it can be a bit unecessary, depending on the key

In this case I used it because if I screenshot something for a video and I don’t include the key sig the pitches will be wrong.

But it’s a common convention for transcription books etc. less so for tunes and to be fair solos are usually more chromatic than tunes.

but that annoying thing the NRB does when they only put the key signature on the first line can naff right off.

Why do they do that?

Why do jazz musicians have to be special???


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I think it is bad practice to put no key signature, put it only once and also to put a clef only on the first staff. I am a frequent (though mostly passive) visitor of the notat.io forum and what i learned there (from pros mostly engaged in classical but also in jazz music) is that musical notation should be all about quick and unambigous transmission of information. I like to have a key signature for my first orientation.

Why do jazz musicians to be special? Probably because they are MOFOS, mofo. They also like pseudo-handwritten music fonts (I think I have said the latter before) ...

[Christian Miller]

I think it is bad practice to put no key signature, put it only once and also to put a clef only on the first staff. I am a frequent (though mostly passive) visitor of the notat.io forum and what i learned there (from pros mostly engaged in classical but also in jazz music) is that musical notation should be all about quick and unambigous transmission of information. I like to have a key signature for my first orientation.


Yeah I tend to side with team key sig. Once again I find myself agreeing with Ethan Are Polychords Problematic? | DO THE M@TH

In real world jazz practice outside of internet forums, trust me when I say there’s no general rule. Tbf I think for some tunes it’s clearer not to include a key sig.

(I think I remember Reg saying he was taught at Berklee not to use a key signature but I might be misremembering. It’s one of those things like universal four count ins for odd time tunes).

There are some charts of my tunes that I’d probably remove the keys on. For anything non functional or contemporary it’s kind of a bit annoying even if your tune is technically a contrafact on Out of Nowhere or whatever. Why do that?

The New Real Book tends to write functional tunes out with a key sig and contemporary tunes without which seems a good common sense idea. I think that book has good notation conventions by and large.

But I’m lucky to work with beast sight readers who really don’t care.

If you are interested in reading jazz charts in the wild you need to get used to both, because you will see both. It’s a bit like chord symbols discourse - you can justify the ideal solution, but unless you sit on an ivory tower you need to deal with different ways of writing things out.

So, there ya go, consider this an introduction into the vagaries of jazz notation.

Why do jazz musicians to be special? Probably because they are MOFOS, mofo. They also like pseudo-handwritten music fonts (I think I have said the latter before) ...

This is an affectation I do not understand. It’s like comic sans in music form.

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[Bobby Timmons]

I was hoping it would sound better than ragman's midi jamz.