Anybody use the Goodchord Voice Leading Books?

[Christian Miller]

Oh, it wasn't a reply to your post. It's just something that I'm working on atm. The more I play it the more it seems to evolve.

There's a funny time signature, perhaps 9/8 but not phrased that way. Also the form is 5 bars each for both sections so experimenting a little with form as well.
It's good fun and keeps me busy anyway.

No I didn’t understand the explanation you gave as to what you were doing

[Liarspoker]

I don't use the 7th string for low notes, but to give me more options of range within a set span of frets. Did you ever play something around the 7th fret, want access to notes below the fifth fret?

I'd love to finger those Bach chorale G chords at the 7th fret with the bass on the low E string. Moving them up an octave loses that authentic sound.

Hmmm nice excuse to buy another guitar. Anyone know of an affordable lefty 7 string for sale from an EU country?

[Liarspoker]

No I didn’t understand the explanation you gave as to what you were doing

It's just A Harmonic Minor starting with cycle 4. The second A chord is a three part 4th chord but with the A in bass as well. I bring that down to the E7 then play cycle 3.
Varying the picking pattern makes the cycle go longer.

[Jimmy blue note]

Goran’s guitar looks basically like a guitar version of a theorbo…. Ooh another chaconne


did you know Weiss once had a cutting contest with Bach?

Weiss is hands down my favourite Baroque composer. I studied the Bach lute suites when I was in school, the Lorimer editions had the original manuscripts in facimile. I am convinced he was so inspired by Weiss that he, not being a lute player himself, had an instrument built that sounded like a lute with a keyboard which he wrote the lute suites on, so he could himself capture Weiss's essential beauty. The original Bach lute suites were written two part as keyboard pieces or adaptations of a cello suite. Of course that doesn't diminish the beauty of them.
The Weiss works, of which the entire catalogue is massive and impressive, all have a lyrical quality I liken to Lester Young's playing as I think of Bach as the Coleman Hawkins of the Baroque.
Yeah, Weiss is the hidden treasure of guitar composers, for sure.

[Christian Miller]

Weiss is hands down my favourite Baroque composer. I studied the Bach lute suites when I was in school, the Lorimer editions had the original manuscripts in facimile. I am convinced he was so inspired by Weiss that he, not being a lute player himself, had an instrument built that sounded like a lute with a keyboard which he wrote the lute suites on, so he could himself capture Weiss's essential beauty. The original Bach lute suites were written two part as keyboard pieces or adaptations of a cello suite. Of course that doesn't diminish the beauty of them.
The Weiss works, of which the entire catalogue is massive and impressive, all have a lyrical quality I liken to Lester Young's playing as I think of Bach as the Coleman Hawkins of the Baroque.
Yeah, Weiss is the hidden treasure of guitar composers, for sure.

I like the analogy… Frankly it’s amazing Bachs lute suites are playable! He must have had some expert advice from lute players in his circle… one name that springs to mind is David Kellner who was in Leipzig as well, whose music I also really like…. (Also an influential theorist apparently.)

Weiss otoh while hardly easy is a lot more guitaristic perhaps but IIRC easier on lute. Of course the Bach guitar editions are all transposed to easy guitar keys which helps haha

I’d also shout out to the very idiosyncratic Kapsberger as a favourite lute composer of the baroque era… very ‘modern.’

[Liarspoker]

did you know Weiss once had a cutting contest with Bach?

Sylvius Leopold Weiss: The Lutenist Who Challenged Bach

[Christian Miller]

French chaconne

Dm Bb/D Gm/D
C Am/C F/C
Bb Gm/Bb Eo/Bb
A A+ Dm/A Asus4 A :||

(3 step Cycle 3 on descending tetrachord
OR C3 C3 C4 x4 then cadence. No reason why the pattern couldn’t be taken further)

If this doesn’t make you feel like an effete 17th century aristocrat, nothing will

Sorry it's becoming Baroque corner, but I noticed this in Ted Greene's site materials today:


Basically what I was playing. I note that the chord symbols are different, so Ted was thinking of this another way, but the music works out the same. Obviously he was understanding it as a cycle 4 progression.

[Liarspoker]

Interesting Christian. I'll try both out later today.

And don't worry, I'm baroque. I just need to earn more money so that my wife would let me practise 3-4 hours per day

Also I went back to the Mortensen book this morning. Figuration prelude. And applying it to harmonic minor cycles....seems like I need an extra finger or two!!

Using harmonic minor and no launch note for the sequence gives more freedom in style and harmony. Mort recommends using the natural minor for a correct stylistic approach.

Will be fun going through the book using the cycles and more modern harmony. No doubt I'll end up writing a load of rubbish but there's always a diamond or two in the rough following the 80/20 rule.

[Christian Miller]

Cycle 4 …

So the VLA vol 1 has the version where you start in root position and go
Cmaj7 Fmaj7/C Bm7b5 Em7/B Am7 etc

This is kind of a four voice expansion of the 7-6 suspension chain which for not classical people is the same thing but in shell voicings … so

Cmaj7(no 5) C6(no 5) Bm7b5 (no 5) etc

However there are some very nice versions of cycle 4 using diffeeent bass moves

cascade
C F/A Bo Am/G Am
Cmaj7 Fmaj7/A Bm7b5 Em7/G Am7

bach style bass
C C/E F F/A Bo Bo7/D Em Em/G Am
Cmaj7 Cmaj7/E Fmaj7 Fmaj7/A Bm7b5 Dm6 Em7 em7/G Am7

(try also with secondary doms every second chord.)

‘tied’ or syncopated bass (6-4 2-6)
(C Dm7/C G/B to launch if you want and then)
Cmaj7/B F/A Bm7b5/A Em/G Am7/G etc
or
Cmaj7/B Fmaj7/A Bm7b5/A Em7/G Am7/G etc

So if you haven’t, try those in harmonic and melodic minor as well.

Going into the cycle unprepared is more jazz/modern. You can add in alterations and tritone subs etc.

for baroque and classical you want to prepare the dissonances at the start and resolve at the end but these are idiomatic as all dissonances in a cycle 4 are prepared and resolved in any of these cycles (even though each chord is dissonant.)

[Liarspoker]

Cycle 4 …

So the VLA vol 1 has the version where you start in root position and go
Cmaj7 Fmaj7/C Bm7b5 Em7/B Am7 etc

This is kind of a four voice expansion of the 7-6 suspension chain which for not classical people is the same thing but in shell voicings … so

Cmaj7(no 5) C6(no 5) Bm7b5 (no 5) etc

However there are some very nice versions of cycle 4 using diffeeent bass moves

cascade
C F/A Bo Am/G Am
Cmaj7 Fmaj7/A Bm7b5 Em7/G Am7

bach style bass
C C/E F F/A Bo Bo7/D Em Em/G Am
Cmaj7 Cmaj7/E Fmaj7 Fmaj7/A Bm7b5 Dm6 Em7 em7/G Am7

(try also with secondary doms every second chord.)

‘tied’ or syncopated bass (6-4 2-6)
(C Am7/C D7/C G/B to launch if you want and then)
Cmaj7/B F/A Bm7b5/A Em/G Am7/G etc
or
Cmaj7/B Fmaj7/A Bm7b5/A Em7/G Am7/G etc

So if you haven’t, try those in harmonic and melodic minor as well.

Going into the cycle unprepared is more jazz/modern. You can add in alterations and tritone subs etc.

for baroque and classical you want to prepare the dissonances at the start and resolve at the end but these are idiomatic as all dissonances in a cycle 4 are prepared and resolved in any of these cycles (even though each chord is dissonant.)

Thanks for that Christian. I played through it and experimented for a out half an hour.

I think the 7-6 sequence sounds best unbroken in whatever voice. Using drop 2 I was playing an alternating 7-6 for C, 3 for F, 7-6 for Bdim, 3 for Em etc but it didn't sound as good as a straight ahead 7-6 imo.

I know that 6-3 etc are often used in classical. Apart from the Mort book I also pulled out the Job Ijzerman book. Not sure which is better but I appreciate both. Ijzerman is more in-depth.

Also I actually use some of the Bach chords and bass lines in an original tune that I play life. Hadn't played it in a few months.

I found myself back in the music room shortly after for a few hours as the rest of the family watched friends but I wrote a little solo guitar tune, recorded it and made a video for it. Simple chords and I suppose it sounds a little classical (influences seep in from everywhere).

Btw I was going for a more modern sound with harmonic minor ie the augmented second and the unlaunched sequence. All interesting stuff to experiment with. Can't wait to see where we'll be in 5 years time with this especially with the monthly meeting as motivation to keep working with this stuff.

Anyway tomorrow is another day to work on the cycles

[Jimmy blue note]

Just go at it and let's share our impressions as they soak in.

[Liarspoker]

Just go at it and let's share our impressions as they soak in.

I just spent some time with this and figured out my approach.

Really like the contrary motion followed by parallel movement.

Years ago there was a fellow who called himself Pierre on this forum. His tag line was something like 'Time on the instrument.....', well that's certainly the case here ( but it's a great time ).

Edit. When is the next meeting David? I'll see if I can get this ready before then

[Christian Miller]

Thanks for that Christian. I played through it and experimented for a out half an hour.

I think the 7-6 sequence sounds best unbroken in whatever voice. Using drop 2 I was playing an alternating 7-6 for C, 3 for F, 7-6 for Bdim, 3 for Em etc but it didn't sound as good as a straight ahead 7-6 imo.

I know that 6-3 etc are often used in classical. Apart from the Mort book I also pulled out the Job Ijzerman book. Not sure which is better but I appreciate both. Ijzerman is more in-depth.

Also I actually use some of the Bach chords and bass lines in an original tune that I play life. Hadn't played it in a few months.

I found myself back in the music room shortly after for a few hours as the rest of the family watched friends but I wrote a little solo guitar tune, recorded it and made a video for it. Simple chords and I suppose it sounds a little classical (influences seep in from everywhere).

Btw I was going for a more modern sound with harmonic minor ie the augmented second and the unlaunched sequence. All interesting stuff to experiment with. Can't wait to see where we'll be in 5 years time with this especially with the monthly meeting as motivation to keep working with this stuff.

That's definitely how I heard it. I thought it was a nice mixture of sounding a little Bachian but also more modern. Cool stuff. I liked the way you embellished the cycle too, made it sound very musical.

I was explaining to someone why I like the baroque/classical improv stuff so much, and I said 'you know when you've got it wrong, and when it's right, it's so stylistic' (and you refine your understanding of the style through improv and composition as well as repetoire.) That seems to me completely diametrically opposed to the ethos behind the VLA stuff? There's no right or wrong here, it's open ended. I like the way the two things have a completely different mindset even though they are related.

[Christian Miller]

Just go at it and let's share our impressions as they soak in.

Thanks. Good to have a focus for study. I was also meaning to move onto these, so I'll check 'em out.

I suppose all the cycles are canons, but this seems like a really nicely defined one, mi-fa-sol in the melody, then sequencing upwards in diatonic steps, and in different positions in the other voices. It's a very identifiable pattern melodically.

[Liarspoker]

I recorded the little harmonic minor piece. Just a prelude for now but will add to it in the future.

Onto the three part fourths!

[Jimmy blue note]

Here's another related area that's on my list of things to explore and tie together. I have a suspicion that these two families may have something in common, but time and practice will reveal what exactly that can be.
I'm loving harmony in 4ths. It's thought of in traditional harmony as quartral harmony or suspended harmony, but Mick saw it as just one part of the intervallic universe and he didn't see tertiary harmony as the centre of the universe.
We've all been indoctrinated into thinking of everything built on thirds, as being the "natural order of things" against everything is an alteration of. Mick didn't see things that way so his harmonic concept was one where there was equality in the families of 4 part harmonies.
In striving to acquire a footing in 4th based sounds, I naturally gravitated to 3 part 4ths.
But let me throw another possible family out for consideration. TBNII, or triad over bass note 2. This is the 4 part chord that includes a triad and the inclusion of the 4th degree; one of the the TBN groups he saw as an essential harmonic ordering. These TBN families are nice because they integrally employ interval groups that we normally think of as clusters. TBNII has 4 1 3 5...a really cool confluence of 3 4 5 in there and more significantly for me, the inclusion of the notes 5 1 4, suspended or 4ths.
No idea of if this will work but I want to check these out and maybe in fractional form (voiced in dyads or triadic combinations within) the cycles will cough out some interesting things to work with, some sounds I can use in my own playing.

What're you guys thinking about this? Throwing it out there.
Cool?

[Jimmy blue note]

Saturday March 11 3PM Eastern US time.

I'm going to try to touch on four areas each meeting:
1) Some new idea or concept from the Almanacs and why I think it has some importance. It might be how to use a scale, it might be how to use some guideline on the cycles page...
2) An open discussion on the different ways we look at the improvisational process and some ways that the Almanacs can expand or reframe our ideas so we can open up new possibilities.
3) Some practical take away that can show a useful way to expand our improvisations.
4) Collective discussions on ways we've discovered to practice this in our pursuits to sharpen our ears, visualization, kinesthetics and theoretical guidelines (awareness and direction).

On the thought list:
Suspended sounds, an abstract and concrete discussion of quartral harmony, what it means to us, how it's useful and practical applications in general.
The page from the Almanac volume 2 on 3 part 4ths.
A discussion of TBNII and how these cycles relate to these suspended applications.
Throwing it out to all of you to be adventurous and drag back any revelations and nuggets you've flushed from the underbrush. I'm going to talk a little about using suspended blocks in a melodic context.

Maybe we'll have a theoretical train wreck and we'll have a month to sift through the debris, maybe we'll discover sounds we can't wait to change our sounds on the guitar. Either way, I welcome you all. Newbies are always welcome.
Launch Meeting - Zoom

[Liarspoker]

Another topic for discussion is how to teach this stuff so that it's interesting for students.

To be fair I haven't had many students at this level. Most are happy to play rock and pop tunes ( which of course is fun too).

I have a few students interested in more advanced harmony, one in particular, so I'm planning to bring up the cycles this week.

Does anyone here teach the cycles from the almanacs? If so how have your integrated them into your lessons and what has the response from students been?

[Jimmy blue note]

Another topic for discussion is how to teach this stuff so that it's interesting for students.

To be fair I haven't had many students at this level. Most are happy to play rock and pop tunes ( which of course is fun too).

I have a few students interested in more advanced harmony, one in particular, so I'm planning to bring up the cycles this week.

Does anyone here teach the cycles from the almanacs? If so how have your integrated them into your lessons and what has the response from students been?

Really great question. Would anyone like to make this a topic of discussion for our live Zoom session? I ask because this is a huge conversation and an important if not essential one: What are the Almanacs there for? What are we teaching? Is it fingering patterns? Is it theoretical visualization? Is it a primer on 19th century ear training and polyphony? Who would want to know this and what can you do to make it practical? Is it in any way practical? If it just for the exotic theorists with too much time on their hands?
Mick was aware of the non linear nature of learning and the enormous scope of harmony and movement. He tried to teach it as a group -once- shout out to those who attended that Goodchord camp, and even Berklee didn't sanction a classroom course on it. But that didn't stop him from passing on huge chunks of information to individuals in private lessons.
What can we do in a classroom? Who's interested in spending time on this discussion?

[Jimmy blue note]

It should also be noted that the pre-sale assembly kit is a hefty one. I outlined before I created the Email invite a list of things it's really helpful to know before going head to head with this stuff.
I asked the first week we met "What do you see in this body of knowledge and how does it relate to your individual MO as a composer/improvisor?" We can revisit that question.
Anybody?

[supersoul]

But let me throw another possible family out for consideration. TBNII, or triad over bass note 2. This is the 4 part chord that includes a triad and the inclusion of the 4th degree; one of the the TBN groups he saw as an essential harmonic ordering. These TBN families are nice because they integrally employ interval groups that we normally think of as clusters. TBNII has 4 1 3 5...a really cool confluence of 3 4 5 in there and more significantly for me, the inclusion of the notes 5 1 4, suspended or 4ths.
No idea of if this will work but I want to check these out and maybe in fractional form (voiced in dyads or triadic combinations within) the cycles will cough out some interesting things to work with, some sounds I can use in my own playing.

What're you guys thinking about this? Throwing it out there.
Cool?

5 x 6 4 5 x

E major triad with an A in the bass... would this be a TBNII chord?
I've been messing around with it lately, as a voicing for both AM7 and Am(M7).

[bako]

supersoul,

TBN I is 1 5 7 9

TBN II is 1 7 9 11

In the almanac these structure are also inverted and voice led through the cycles.

[Jimmy blue note]

The thing about these chord families is they're not necessarily just the way we think of the 'source' chord. This family is called TBNII, and in some form, it's a 4 part triadic structure over a bass note that can be seen as the second note of the source scale.
Here's the TBNII another way.

This is where the way we are taught is a triad over a bass note differs from the ways we can treat those four notes as a sonic structure.
You can see that in the first page here, second row, second chord is indeed a C triad over a D. You can also see in the second example, second row second chord is a more familiar voicing of the triad over bass note.

Maybe it helps a little to think about these chords not specifically as triads over bass notes per se, but the ORIGIN chord as something that looks like three notes a third apart over a note that's the second note of that scale. Mick realized that we are tied into a way of thinking of harmony that holds the seventh chord (4 notes built in thirds) as the basis of an entire block of sound that we can get just about all of Western Classical music from. He also saw that given how many distinct 4 note groupings that can be created, he could create every permutation of 4 of the 7 notes and give them a name and voice lead them. This means we don't need to just speak one language of sound, but find other alternate universes of systematic sound based on a different source orientation of 4 notes.

Take a minute. Take a few minutes here and think about this. Then think of how one can create etudes where the chordal and melodic potential of these 4 note systems could be laid out and studied.
That's what we're doing here and this is what we're trying to meet and greet as harmonic textures we can use and be conversant with in the room full of people speaking tertiary harmony.

Kind of cool, eh?

[Liarspoker]

I had a student cancel this evening so I recorded the three parts 4ths that David posted above as a little figuration prelude.

Looking forward to messing with these and other three part 4ths maybe in conjunction with TBN II voicings.

[Jimmy blue note]

I had a student cancel this evening so I recorded the three parts 4ths that David posted above as a little figuration prelude.

Looking forward to messing with these and other three part 4ths maybe in conjunction with TBN II voicings.

Inspiring! I could definitely see these with a melodic bass line and an arpeggiated prelude like a Leo Brouwer piece. Cool. Thanks for making these little gems Liarspoker!