I-VI7-ii-V7 question

[joe2758]

So A Harmonic minor is kosher, gotcha. Thanks!

Run!

[AllanAllen]

Allan, for a bright guy that's not a very bright question. Self-taught doesn't mean in isolation, looking at nothing beyond oneself. It's impossible in any case. On the contrary, it means you look at everything, read everything, listen to everything.

How many questions by OPs have you seen here that want clarification on what a book or teacher is telling them? Lots, I assure you. Then others come in and the poor OP, confused already, can't understand what they're told.

Don't take what I'm saying literally. Tragically, to be honest, I'm waiting for that sort of response. Looking at everything doesn't literally mean every possible thing. Nor does it mean no one is ever helped here, they definitely are. But the point is there's enough of the other stuff to make it worth mentioning.



Oh, lovely, and totally untrue.

I suppose you can see it that way. I just see questions from green players all at the same bottleneck of musicianship. You need to learn the scale fingerings, you need to learn the diatonic chords, then you need to learn tunes. Jazz is frustratingly simple to summarize, doing it is not so simple and it's easy to get twisted up when you're starting. Even that is deceptive because "when you're starting" is easily the first 3 years, if not more.

[pamosmusic]

How many questions by OPs have you seen here that want clarification on what a book or teacher is telling them? Lots, I assure you. Then others come in and the poor OP, confused already, can't understand what they're told.

Lol

Plenty, but significantly fewer than the “someone tell me what book to get” or “how do you use Mickey Baker” genres.

[Sam b]

Pity the OP - he just wants some crumbs.

[joe2758]

Personally, I've no hesitation in blaming teaching resources. Teachers, books, websites, all of whom say you have to know scales and provide endless pictures of the fretboard with endless coloured dots all over them.

Then you're supposed to run them up and down, then in patterns and sequences, and all that. Then you might have a tune of some kind that says 'Here we play the major scale, here we change it to another major scale' and all that. And so it goes on.

Most of the questions we get here are from victims of these methods because they reflect a tremendous effort on the student's part to understand this stuff and just get miserably confused.

Far too much emphasis is placed on an intellectual approach to the whole thing, as though the practical issues of playing the instrument can be worked out the same way as a math problem or philosophical treatise.

Thank god I'm self-taught.

I just started lessons again after 15 years of self teaching and the complete opposite is true in my particular case. Including "Thank god I'm self-taught"

[ragman1]

"when you're starting" is easily the first 3 years, if not more.

Absolutely. Some might say longer, much longer. I would.

A lot depends on some kind of innate ability, too. Whatever one plays goes into the brain and is assimilated. It's not something that can be hurried or forced through sheer willpower. It all happens under the surface, as it were, and matures slowly. Like a ripening fruit.

[ragman1]

Pity the OP - he just wants some crumbs.

Then crumbs you will get, but not the same crumbs all the time.

What's the next thing after the E7 - Am - D7 - G exercise?

[mr. beaumont]

I would think of E7 chord tones. I think arpeggios sound better than scales. At least for now.

This, or E7b9 will work great. I mean, how long is the chord hanging around, 2 beats? Get the meat and potatoes and get yourself to Am. Or heck, treat the whole Am7 D7 thing as D7 going to G.

Quality crumbs, Allan. Some folks here baking cakes

[Sam b]

A varied diet is good

[ragman1]

I just started lessons again after 15 years of self teaching and the complete opposite is true in my particular case. Including "Thank god I'm self-taught"

There are always exceptions. On the other hand, 15 years of self-teaching must have taught you something, maybe quite a lot. Then going to a teacher may well be profitable because you have a background to fit it into.

[ragman1]

A varied diet is good

That's what I'm saying.

[Sam b]

I definitely play the b9 over the E7 and like that sound a lot. And yes, it's a short E7 in a turn around so there's not a lot of time to play a lot of notes. I just didn't realize that in that context some people think about the Am as a temporary tonal shift.

[ragman1]

It is a temporary tonal shift, no question about it; the G# of the E7 creates it, especially with the b9. But the Am isn't the tonic of the tune so it has a dual function.

[pamosmusic]

I definitely play the b9 over the E7 and like that sound a lot. And yes, it's a short E7 in a turn around so there's not a lot of time to play a lot of notes. I just didn't realize that in that context some people think about the Am as a temporary tonal shift.

Well it’s probably important to differentiate between what a person thinks about a movement in music as a theoretical construct and how they actually execute it.

I think that’s where Christians idea of “getting to ii” is useful. It’s not really that people treat this like a big modulation or tonicization or whatever, but just that it’s a point of tension that resolves at Am and that tension could be a lot of things … or like Mr B says, you might just skip it if you don’t think you need it.

For my part .. is it a temporary tonicization of Am? Of course! Am I worried about it as such when I’m playing it? My god, no.

[ragman1]

But I wouldn't play an F# over the E7b9... Over a plain E7, yes. But 7b9, no. Personally speaking. Not if I could help it anyway :-)

[Christian Miller]

How do I think of it? Tonal shift? Not sure I do.

But the truth is look through the tunes and you’ll see many example of things that are a series of diatonic chords with tension chords setting them up.

So for example
Cmaj7 C#o7 D-7 D#o7 E-7

Is just the first three chords of the key with tension chords - dim7s a half step below in this case.

I wonder if one thing people might not realise it’s a good idea is to always practice a chord with its dominant, weaving in and out. Use whatever dominant you want - or even some other kind of passing chord - but get used to weaving in and out of the chord dynamically, not just sitting on it.

I tend to do this even when playing modal vamps.

Sometimes this is already baked into a scale. The harmonic minor scale is just what happens when you add a minor triad together the V7b9. The harmonic major is what happens when you add a major triad to a V7b9 chord. Lester Youngs tickle toe is a great example of tune written that way

And if we add the 6th we have the Barry Harris scales.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Mick-7]

I saw an instagram ad "Intermediate jazz guitarists, are you tired of playing the same 3 licks over every song?!?"

I was surprised to learn that I'm an advanced guitarist. LOL

You're up to.... what, about 5 licks now? I've been told the advanced stage is 6 or more, but I may have been misinformed.

[ragman1]

How do I think of it? Tonal shift? Not sure I do.

Why not? It is unquestionably a temporary modulation because of the b9.

If you have GM7 - G#o - Am7 then that G#o is exactly the same as an E7b9 inversion (G#FBD) and G#o is the leading chord of A harmonic minor.

Don't see the issue, really.

[Christian Miller]

Why not? It is unquestionably a temporary modulation because of the b9.

If you have GM7 - G#o - Am7 then that G#o is exactly the same as an E7b9 inversion (G#FBD) and G#o is the leading chord of A harmonic minor.

Don't see the issue, really.

The thing is I find the distinction quite academic.

The reason I don’t hear it as a tonal shift is because these kinds of secondary dominant chords are so common in relatively diatonic music that they don’t feel like structural key changes. Especially if the chords don’t hang around.

So if pushed I would say that the A section of Confirmation is kind of in one key, while the B section modulates properly.

But to play the changes you want to express that move to Dm and Bb (and to G7 or Gm) in the A section, so you will play them. That said you might not play every chord. Sometimes players are really general, they don’t express those secondary dominants.

So yeah, different people may well look at it differently.

I remember a discussion about whether the IV chord in just friends counts as a key change. I’m still not sure.

But the main thing is that we can play just friends. This doesn’t really affect things.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[ragman1]

The thing is I find the distinction quite academic.

I'm not an academic. To me, it's what it sounds like.

The reason I don’t hear it as a tonal shift is because these kinds of secondary dominant chords are so common in relatively diatonic music that they don’t feel like structural key changes. Especially if the chords don’t hang around.

I understand that. Not every introduction of a secondary dominant needs to be heard as, or treated as, a modulation. But I think in this case, and from the perspective of the OP and his question, it's fair to make the distinction.

This whole thing isn't really about the Am but the function of the E7 in that progression.

[AllanAllen]

I'm not an academic.

Well, like it or not, you quack like one.

[ragman1]

I can't duck that one.

[pamosmusic]

I'm not an academic. To me, it's what it sounds like.

I think this is what people say when they want to sound a bit hipper than they are.

For example I don’t call it a “temporary tonicization” because that’s how I hear it or whatever. For me, hearing stuff is way more abstract than that … home, away, crunchy, pretty, dissonant, consonant, restless, resolved.

I call it a “temporary tonicization” because that’s what they called it in the first jazz theory book I read, so that’s what I call it.

The operative question is … what would you do differently if it weren’t?

[pamosmusic]

I can't duck that one.

well shucks. I like to make get on your case but that is excellent work.

[Christian Miller]

I think this is what people say when they want to sound a bit hipper than they are.

For example I don’t call it a “temporary tonicization” because that’s how I hear it or whatever. For me, hearing stuff is way more abstract than that … home, away, crunchy, pretty, dissonant, consonant, restless, resolved.

I call it a “temporary tonicization” because that’s what they called it in the first jazz theory book I read, so that’s what I call it.

The operative question is … what would you do differently if it weren’t?

You can always put more in as well!

But it also relates to single lines.

When a bass player plays a lower chromatic neighbour on 4 before a chord they are making a linear ‘tonicisation’.

When you play an enclosure on a chord tone, you are playing a tonicisation of that note.

Usually it’s half steps. A dominant chord moving to the I chord in a major key has two and those notes clearly establish the tonality along with the target triad. In minor we only have one, so if we add in the 9th (which is usually flat in minor) this adds an extra pull. And that’s what we see with this harmonic minor scale. If we use a natural 9th as was common pre bop, the sense of pull and of a temporary key change is lessened.

In jazz (and classical music over the past 200 years or so) it is customary to add in more and more of these half steps. This is done by altering the dominant.

In the example above they tune the G7 into a G7b9 because it adds another half step - another melodic tonicisation of the C chord.

And then you have chords and scales which are effectively tonicisation. The altered scale is a set of enclosures around a chord a fifth higher.

If that makes any sense.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk