Melodic Minor Courses Online? or Favorite Book Must Have

[Christian Miller]

What about Pat Martino and his few brilliant books and videos?

Yes I was thinking of Pat when I wrote that. Pat Martino’s ideas aren’t mainstream even among guitar players and I would say they are largely guitar specific.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Christian Miller]

Btw I find it surprisingly hard to track down a lineage for modern mainstream jazz theory (ie chord scales etc), but off the top of my head I would say - Tristano, Russell, Mehegan, Pomeroy and others at Berklee - were all influential and none were guitarists and all were big on scales. I’m sure my list could be improved upon.

In the next decade I expect Barry Harris methodology will become mainstream in higher jazz education. More scales!

In general I would strongly suggest any serious student of jazz spend some time at the piano because it all makes a lot more sense. Of course they encourage people to do that at the schools. In this sense jazz is carrying over similar tendencies from classical music. The piano remains the centre of the theoretical universe whether you are a Barry Harris devotee or a chord scale head. (Or both.)


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Christian Miller]

Apparently you don’t need to.

I guess for myself the obvious answer is that sometimes I play stepwise stuff and the scale organizes the notes in stepwise order, whereas a chord doesn’t.

Also worth mentioning that guitar can rarely voice chords in thirds, which is the way that we play single notes. So scales are more flexible for me to think about than chords and extensions.

Not every stepwise note is heard harmonically while notes arrived at by leap generally are.

So if you play something in thirds it sounds like harmony. If you play something in steps it will sound like chord tones and passing tones.

Which is of course how Barry taught it. He said intervallic playing is freer than scales.

But imo if you want to understand bebop lines you have to start with things like CPE Bach’s Solfeggietto - that’s got the I-V-I-V-I alternation in minor and the cycle 4 and so on and it even has the jazz minor. In jazz keys too. Makes a good bebop etude lol. And in fact the historical name ‘Solfeggietto’ is one given to a pedagogical ‘model’ piece and the piece remains a staple of intermediate piano exam repertoire to this day.

There’s a reason Bud Powell recorded it. I don’t think he was trying to ‘do classical’ (it’s very much refracted through bud’s unique style shall we say) - I think he was telling us something about his musical lineage. Which he shows by improvising on it.

And Bud of course is the basis of all modern jazz piano playing. Chick, Herbie, everything. I mean Got A Match is very much a chip off that block.

(A lot of jazz line etudes are spiritually very similar to this sort of thing.)

Pianists are all over that stuff as kids and even if they don’t understand it, it’s in their muscle memory and ears, so when they come to jazz rhythm and the more jazz specific harmonic concepts all that European harmony stuff is there, Guitarists by and large don’t have these things in their fingers and ears so get confused by basic harmony. Imo. I know I did.

So when they hit college level jazz guitarists start to get interested in things like the JS Bach solo string works and so on, because it teaches the fundamentals (although JS is a bit problematic because frankly his music is too interesting.)

[kris]

Yes I was thinking of Pat when I wrote that. Pat Martino’s ideas aren’t mainstream even among guitar players and I would say they are largely guitar specific.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Pat Martino's 'LinearExpressions" is one of the best jazz guitar books in my opinion.
"This book will give guitarists an inside glimpse at Pat's unique approach to jazz guitar.I strongly recomend that any serious player investigate its content"
Joe Pass

[Christian Miller]

Pat Martino's 'LinearExpressions" is one of the best jazz guitar books in my opinion.
"This book will give guitarists an inside glimpse at Pat's unique approach to jazz guitar.I strongly recomend that any serious player investigate its content"
Joe Pass

Sure. That’s kind of my point. It’s a guitarists eye view of the guitar. It’s geometrical, two dimensional, in shapes that correspond to intervallic relationships.

But you go to jazz school and you learn the piano theory, which is one dimensional, notes going lower to higher, left to right. In scales.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[pamosmusic]

Not every stepwise note is heard harmonically while notes arrived at by leap generally are.

So if you play something in thirds it sounds like harmony. If you play something in steps it will sound like chord tones and passing tones.

Which is of course how Barry taught it. He said intervallic playing is freer than scales.

But imo if you want to understand bebop lines you have to start with things like CPE Bach’s Solfeggietto - that’s got the I-V-I-V-I alternation in minor and the cycle 4 and so on and it even has the jazz minor. In jazz keys too. Makes a good bebop etude lol. And in fact the historical name ‘Solfeggietto’ is one given to a pedagogical ‘model’ piece and the piece remains a staple of intermediate piano exam repertoire to this day.

There’s a reason Bud Powell recorded it. I don’t think he was trying to ‘do classical’ (it’s very much refracted through bud’s unique style shall we say) - I think he was telling us something about his musical lineage. Which he shows by improvising on it.

And Bud of course is the basis of all modern jazz piano playing. Chick, Herbie, everything. I mean Got A Match is very much a chip off that block.

(A lot of jazz line etudes are spiritually very similar to this sort of thing.)

Pianists are all over that stuff as kids and even if they don’t understand it, it’s in their muscle memory and ears, so when they come to jazz rhythm and the more jazz specific harmonic concepts all that European harmony stuff is there, Guitarists by and large don’t have these things in their fingers and ears so get confused by basic harmony. Imo. I know I did.

So when they hit college level jazz guitarists start to get interested in things like the JS Bach solo string works and so on, because it teaches the fundamentals (although JS is a bit problematic because frankly his music is too interesting.)

lol Solfeggietto was the final exam for fourth semester practical piano at my college.

MEMORIES

[kris]

lol Solfeggietto was the final exam for fourth semester practical piano at my college.

MEMORIES

"Solfegietto' lessons I had in the first grade of the Music Primary School-the school of classical music.
These lessons were compulsory.
It was in the school program-also writing musical dictations.It was not a jazz school.

[pamosmusic]

"Solfegietto' lessons I had in the first grade of the Music Primary School-the school of classical music.
These lessons were compulsory.
It was in the school program-also writing musical dictations.It was not a jazz school.

ah well clearly your music education was superior to mine. Or maybe I was referring to this:

Also not jazz school. Mandatory piano skills for a classical performance major.

[Christian Miller]

"Solfegietto' lessons I had in the first grade of the Music Primary School-the school of classical music.
These lessons were compulsory.
It was in the school program-also writing musical dictations.It was not a jazz school.

Nice. I went to a normal primary school so we had horrendous plastic recorder shenanigans instead. I believe this explains a lot.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[pamosmusic]

Nice. I went to a normal primary school so we had horrendous plastic recorder shenanigans instead. I believe this explains a lot.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

My wife refuses to teach recorder

[kris]

Nice. I went to a normal primary school so we had horrendous plastic recorder shenanigans instead. I believe this explains a lot.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

My wife studied at the piano from 6 years old.
There was probably no recorders then and the teachers were extremely demanding.
On the diploma she played a very-very difficult repertoire of Bach.

[kris]

ah well clearly your music education was superior to mine. Or maybe I was referring to this:

Also not jazz school. Mandatory piano skills for a classical performance major.

I meant the exercises of solfege in the voice.
The piano was obligatory for every student.
I remember it nicely.

[Christian Miller]

Yeah, well my wife is off to sight read some Orlando Gibbons one voice to part in a flipping church m8.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[pamosmusic]

Yeah, well my missus is off to sight read some Orlando Gibbons one voice to part in a flipping church m8.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I’ll bet you think you’re special

[pamosmusic]

m8

[Christian Miller]

m8

Do you fancy a cheeky Nando’s?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[AllanAllen]

ah well clearly your music education was superior to mine. Or maybe I was referring to this:

Also not jazz school. Mandatory piano skills for a classical performance major.

I recognize this piece from a commercial.

[Mick-7]

G13#9#11 is a 7 note chord, so thinking of the chord is thinking of a scale.

If you start with the chord, it gives you the scale.

Actually, it doesn't tell you the precise scale, because the scale would have the natural 9th (A) and the #9th (A#/Bb) of G13 in it, and the chord name won't imply that the scale includes both notes. It also suggests that G is the root of the scale.

Furthermore, it tells you nothing about how to use the scale. The most common applications of this scale are: (a) Altered Dominant or Altered Minor 7th chord, which written as chords are: C#13b9/#9/b5/#5; and C#m13(alt), which if spelled out would be: C#m13b5/b6/b9/b11.

Another common application of the scale is over the relative Major 7(alt) chord, i.e., Fmaj7b5/#5 (like the Melodic minor scale).

[Mick-7]

I recognize this piece from a commercial.

What were they selling?

My wife refuses to teach recorder

Given the choice, radicals prefer the penny whistle over the recorder.

[pamosmusic]

What were they selling?

elegance, an aspirational life style

[Mick-7]

elegance, an aspirational life style

I was imagining either a vacation site or a drug, say an antidepressant.

[GuyBoden]

m8

Manchester, Postcode M8, Strangeways Prison. (or part of the 'The Cheetham Hill Gang')

[pamosmusic]

Actually, it doesn't tell you the precise scale, because the scale would have the natural 9th (A) and the #9th (A#/Bb) of G13 in it, and the chord name won't imply that the scale includes both notes. It also suggests that G is the root of the scale.

Sure it would. It’s a 7-note chord …

G B D F A# C# E … so …

G A# B C# D E F G

It’s a weird scale, but it’s a scale. Actually it’s a B diminished scale, just missing the Ab. Probably sounds cool, but I’ll let one of you goobers try it and tell me

[Mick-7]

Sure it would. It’s a 7-note chord …

G B D F A# C# E … so … G A# B C# D E F G

It’s a weird scale, but it’s a scale. Actually it’s a B diminished scale, just missing the Ab. Probably sounds cool, but I’ll let one of you goobers try it and tell me

No, the scale referenced was the combined Harmonic/Melodic minor scale (8 notes); D hm is: D-E-F-G-A-Bb-B-C# - so it would have both the nat.9th and #9th of the G13 chord.

[Christian Miller]

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk