Jazz Theory

[cravingmusic]

I'm a complete newbie to Jazz

But I'd like to know all the theory behind it so I can understand it while I play instead of just learning the music from tab.

So as far as improv goes I've learned that you solo over the chords and not the key unlike other genres. Minor chords use the minor arpeggio with whatever key the chord is it and the Dorian mode. The major chords use the major arpeggio and the Ionian/Lydian mode. The only problem is when I go to play it it doesn't sound "jazzy" if you understand what I mean. Like if I play a Ab Dorian scale over an Abminor7 it doesn't sound jazzy per say. Help a newbie out here?

Explain arpeggio's, scales, and chords further?

And does anyone have any suggestions for "teach yourself books"? Thanks guys! Keep jazzing it up!

[mr. beaumont]

try using some of the notes "in between the notes"--chromatic passing tones.

so, take this Ab minor lick




----------------4-----------------------------
--------4---7----------------------------------
-----4----------------------------------------
--6-------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------




and then try...






-------------------4--------------------------
-----------4---7------7-6-5-4----------------
-------4--------------------------------------
---6------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------



The next step is to use those little chromatic licks to connect the arpeggios you'r using for each chord.

Then, look for ways you can target the 3rd and seventh of the chords. Watch how the third in one chord might turn into the seventh of the next, or move a half step to the next chord. The third and seventh are the defining tones of a chord, the "meat and potaotes" as I like to call 'em.

That's all a gross oversimplification, but it's a start. Keep posting and hunting around all the threads here--lots of good info.

[jazzninja]

I'm a complete newbie to Jazz

But I'd like to know all the theory behind it so I can understand it while I play instead of just learning the music from tab.

So as far as improv goes I've learned that you solo over the chords and not the key unlike other genres. Minor chords use the minor arpeggio with whatever key the chord is it and the Dorian mode. The major chords use the major arpeggio and the Ionian/Lydian mode. The only problem is when I go to play it it doesn't sound "jazzy" if you understand what I mean. Like if I play a Ab Dorian scale over an Abminor7 it doesn't sound jazzy per say. Help a newbie out here?

Explain arpeggio's, scales, and chords further?

And does anyone have any suggestions for "teach yourself books"? Thanks guys! Keep jazzing it up!

All the theory???!!!! Damn, you'll be here a while!
THE CARDINAL RULE FOR THEORY - IT IS A GUIDE NOT A SET OF RULES. IF IT SOUNDS RIGHT TO YOU, THEN DO IT. Jazz would not exist if people had not started going outside the established "rules".

You do solo in the key (unless you're playing outside(the key not your house )) but in many jazz tunes the key changes during the tune so you will end up playing in many keys. Its worth remembering this cos you dont want to be thinking: Dm - dorian, G7 - mixolydian, C - Ionian when you can just play in C.

You have 2 approaches:
1) Practice many scales and arpeggioes and play up and down them in straight 8ths, just like everybody else.

2) Learn to play the blues. Learn to phrase using rhythm as well as interesting notes. Get the sounds of these in your ears:
a) Major scale and modes
b) Pentatonic
c) Diminished (both whole/half and half/whole. WH works on dim chords and HW works on dominant (7th) chords with a 13 in them.
d) Jazz melodic minor - 1,2,b3,4,5,6,maj 7, and its modes.
Listen and learn the solos (on your instrument if you can) that move you.

Work on playing what you hear in your head, not just responding mechanically to the chords on the chart.

Get Scott Hendersons Jazz Rock Mastery dvd and Jamey Aebersold vol 21 gettin it together.

Above all, have fun and enjoy your music

[Aristotle]

Explain arpeggio's, scales, and chords further? And does anyone have any suggestions for "teach yourself books"? Thanks guys! Keep jazzing it up!

This site has an extensive reservoir of basic materials.

Free Jazz Guitar Lesson : Guitar Modes

[Jake Hanlon]

Jazz is far more about Feel and phrasing then the name of the scale you're playing. It's a highly chromatic Music, scale Vs chord theory is 1 possibly application of how to get the right notes... but the right notes are not important until you get the right feel, sound and articulation for the Music.

[JonnyPac]

And does anyone have any suggestions for "teach yourself books"? Thanks guys! Keep jazzing it up!

Click my signature. I made a friendly guitar book on theory and improvising. Let me know if you have questions.

[Aristotle]

Jake makes an excellent point about feel. Knowing what brings you to jazz, Craving, might help people advise you. Did you grow up listening to your great grandad's Bix Beiderbeck records? Or your uncle was always putting on Coltrane? Or do play other styles and want to expand you repetoire?

So as far as improv goes I've learned that you solo over the chords and not the key unlike other genres.

Just FYI, this is not completely true. Blues lines in jazz just cut right through the same way they do in more other blues settings.

Also, one of significant developments in jazz was Miles Davis (Kind of Blue). In this style of jazz (called modal), there weren't really chord changes. So the soloist was free from chordal constraint.

But you will be bombarded with chord-scale, chord-scale everywhere you turn.

[Jeremy Hillary Boob Ph.D]

Some of you guys make the chord-scale argument into some kind of straw man, IMHO. Players that use it and teach it sound just as good/bad as anyone else. It's just an economical way of thinking. All of the line-based or chord-tone approaches still apply.

It's like your saying playing scales in sequence sounds clunky, but that is true of playing chords in sequence without voice leading. The chord-scales just need a little bit of voice leading and they too blend very musically and open up lots of doors...

Crappy chord-scale playing sounds crappy; it is not fool-proof, just like everything in music. Make it work well, and it works well. It's no snake-oil...

[ksjazzguitar]

Some of you guys make the chord-scale argument into some kind of straw man, IMHO. Players that use it and teach it sound just as good/bad as anyone else....

Sorry, I just don't like the sound of chord/scale playing, even when done by pros. They are great players, I can admire them for a bit, but after a while it just get's boring to me. I hear a lot of flash in chord/scale players, but I don't hear enough of the musical subtleties that I like. I'm not trying to open up the argument again, but I'm just saying that it's not as simple as saying that we have created a straw man - some of us genuinely don't like the results that chord/scale playing generates, at least not when applied to the extreme that it is today.

I think the OP should learn both approaches (as everyone should.) Both are completely necessary in some situations, and many times either is possible. But I reserve the right to not like the sound of it without being accused of creating a "straw man." There are a lot of fanatical chord/scale players out there who think that it is some kind of an improvisational panacea - indeed, it's hard nowadays to find educational materials that are not built around it. Even expressions like "playing the chord changes" have been diluted down to "playing the right scales" - practically the opposite of what it used to mean. Sadly, many new players nowadays think that the chord/scale approach is the only approach and that it has always been that way. I'm disgusted how many people think that that is what bebop was. (Huh?!?)

But if you like that sound, go for it - I'm not telling you how to play. I find that players for whom their entire jazz language is based on the chord/scale approach are missing some very important things - things that I value in solos - even the really good "chord/scalers." But we've argued about that before in the forum. I just want to make the point that this is not some abstract critique of the theory, but that we usually don't like the results. If I could get the sound that I want out of the chord/scale approach, I would - it certainly is much easier. But I spent 15 years doing it and never liked what I heard. Until I got an old-school bebop teacher that showed me how jazz used to be taught. Then I started to hear what I was missing. Many of us anti-chord/scale guys have a similar, "road to Damascus" conversion story.

It's all subjective of course. I think people should learn it all and then play what sounds best to them.

Peace,
Kevin

[Aristotle]

Some of you guys make the chord-scale argument into some kind of straw man, IMHO. Players that use it and teach it sound just as good/bad as anyone else.

"You guys" is a bit "straw man" itself. Unless you have a more specific point...

It's just an economical way of thinking.

Is it? Then what do you consider to be the less economical alternatives?

It's economical for 8-second passage that goes:
|Dm G7 |C A7 |
to be whispering in your own ear: D-Dorian, G-Mixolydian, C-Ionian, Bb Jazz Minor? Not for me.

I'll elaborate on Jake's point. Feel. And I'll add original melody.

The OP may well be better off learning the head to some old standard (or a few old standards) like All of Me, listening to some now readily-availiable versions of it on YouTube, and employing a couple of positions on the neck; master playing the melody in different ways, at different speeds and in different moods, from balladic to swung hard. Along the way, he'll learn things like incorporating the good-sounding mistakes he made, and incorporating some of the nuances he hears from recorded versions: the slides, trills, perhaps the occaisional Django-esque tremelo.

Here's what he said:

The only problem is when I go to play it it doesn't sound "jazzy"

I think what I am suggesting is an important acid test. If you can't make one head sound "jazzy" after a couple of months...

On the other hand, this is what he is going to get from most everyone else. Memorize scale patterns, then arpeggios, etc. And run up and down the forms rotely on the changes of All of Me.
2 meausres of C-Ion, 2 measure of E Harmonic Minor, 2 measure of A-Mixolyidian?
IMO you could do that for years, and still not sound "jazzy?" It won't mean thing, if it ain't got that swing.

[Reg]

I was taught as a kid to develop, embellish or what ever you want to do with the melody, whether, its the original or a new one you've created from original or from scratch. There have been methods for going through this process around in jazz for 40 years, probable more... that's my experience . Hey that gets boring also...
Eventually you get to a point where you can play what ever you hear, or at least to the limits of your abilities. Most people have problems with those limits. And many have problems with what they hear or think they hear. I think of melodic and harmonic concepts as one... every melodic attack has a harmonic implication... Sometimes one has more control over what I'm playing... but that's one of "my" characteristics . I have fun burnin at gigs... contrary to how Kevin views this practice... I can have a great time and interact with other player, who also have the skills. Don't knock it until you can cover it. I also love playing ballads with octaves that sing... I usually don't think about chord scales, arpeggios or anything else except the moment and the line I'm trying to get out. What ever method you choose to express what you hear... get good at it... Reg

[Aristotle]

I was taught as a kid to develop, embellish or what ever you want to do with the melody,

Hey that gets boring also...

What ever method you choose to express what you hear... get good at it

Not disagreeing, but some things are missing, here.

First, the guy is saying he is a beginner and can't get a jazzy sounding melody. He's not going to "burn" on a gig any time soon. Should he: 1) see if he can play a known melody in a jazzy style (or if he can scat a few measures like Ella, or 2) take years to memorize the notes and fingering of every scale and mode, in every positition, and every key?

As far as boring goes, I can't listen to anything for more than 15 minutes.

And finally, what I was suggesting is that chord-scale theory is not a "method." It's more part of how you learn the instrument, not how you learn to make music.

[Jeremy Hillary Boob Ph.D]

You and Kev are not straw men. I knew both of you would swoop in with some hate for CST. To each his own. You will never convince me there is a "right" way to solve musical problems. CST is valid. It helps one sound jazzy at times too. The OP should explore his options without an aversion to CST based on your heavy opinions.

[Aristotle]

Yyou would swoop in with some hate for CST.

Hate? So learn the heads of a few standards to test whether he can develop a feel for jazz is an unsound practice? Did you go straight to the Charlie Parker Omnibook or did you learn the heads first?

Just listen to the words: Chord Scale Theory. Regardless of the subject matter, theory is not method.

The OP should explore his options without an aversion to CST based on your heavy opinions.

But what options would he get from your posts? You didn't answer a similar question a few posts back - what is CST more economical than?

Besides even if one had an aversion to CST, a jazz musician would have an easier time avoiding all taxes, than avoiding CST.

[Drumbler]

No one way is the best. Use some of each as appropriate.

[matt.guitarteacher]

If I could get the sound that I want out of the chord/scale approach, I would - it certainly is much easier. But I spent 15 years doing it and never liked what I heard. Until I got an old-school bebop teacher that showed me how jazz used to be taught.

What's the scoop on this? I'd be interested in hearing more about it. If it's been discussed in another thread, could you point me toward it?

Thanks,

Matt

[Jeremy Hillary Boob Ph.D]

Read Burt Ligon's books. It is all explained in detail. Everything worth knowing in jazz theory. Serious. Dude is the man!

[mr. beaumont]

What's the scoop on this? I'd be interested in hearing more about it. If it's been discussed in another thread, could you point me toward it?

Thanks,

Matt

There's no scoop. Be-Boppers didn't shed chord scale theory, they shed chord tones, arpeggios, chromatics. What you practice is what you sound like--

Try this little exercise--play arpeggios from the third of the "chord of the moment" on the way up, then come down chromatically. Sounds like bop, right?

Again, although I'm feeling I've led a dead horse to water and I'm attempting to beat it, It's all visualization. A versatile player will need to pull from what style best fits the music, meaning, a grasp on various ways of navigating the fretboard.

To paraphrase a quote from my "jazz mentor" of sorts. "Anybody who tells you there's one right way to do things is doing it wrong."

[matt.guitarteacher]

Alright. Thanks, Mr. Beaumont.

[JonnyPac]

Read Burt Ligon's books. It is all explained in detail. Everything worth knowing in jazz theory. Serious. Dude is the man!

I just picked up the rest of those. They are amazing. I'm sold 100%. I'm gonna revise some of my book to incorporate his clear explanations and so on. He sees the pitfalls of CST, but does not disregard it completely. Hot dog!

[Aristotle]

He sees the pitfalls of CST, but does not disregard it completely. Hot dog!

One cannot "disregard" CST any more than one can disregard basic chemistry when cooking. But neither tells you how to mix ingredients to make something tasty.