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I would be interested in this material but in a future perspective. Right now I'm still learning the prerequisites: closed and open triads, drops and so on.
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05-14-2020 03:32 AM
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If anyone has any anecdotes or experiences with anything related to this material, please share. Thanks ahead of time.
A few observations from myself, it's a slow process, but one, like immersion in a country with a different language, changes the way I speak my own native language. I still have my own way of hearing and articulating, "grabbing" a chord, but there's also a very elegant language of movement where the sound of a chord is made up of moving lines.
After working with the cycles, I had seemingly limitless and unimagined routes to get to the next chord; and I heard many more routes of movement and my fingers also had many more things they reached for without even being able to identify the underlying chordal structure, but rather something akin to "here's how I'm going to introduce tension in the line that leads to the II chord of Ab." and Ab is a series of movements that can take many shapes.
I'm working with triads myself. I want mastery of triadic forms because as a 7 string player, triads over bass notes are structures that allow a huge spectrum of tension and consonance "colours". Others I've known like working with cycles of 4 part 7ths, and then elaborating with the space between individual chords with chromatic passing notes to form a tapestry of chromatic movement.
I'll post some "maps" of the fingerboard that will maybe show how this can be visualized. Because the voice leading cycles are dynamic, it really helps to visualize movement. There's a visual, a theoretical, a kinesthetic, an aural (ear trained), and an emotionally expressive aspect to using this material. I look at is as an answer, or antidote to my own feeling boxed in to my own playing. I'd say for anyone who's caught themselves saying "Oh No! Not THAT way of playing All The Things You Are again! Why do I ALWAYS ride this same train?" there might be a way of stepping off the train and seeing an infinite landscape of getting from F-7 to DbMaj 7 in 6 bars.
Anyone else had thoughts working through voice led cycles?
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Then this might be a good time to give it another go. I was introduced to an exercise from this book by a teacher about a decade ago and found it really hard. Coupled with the fact that it didn’t have obvious applications right away it fell by the wayside.
Originally Posted by Jimmy blue note
but I have worked on systematic fretboard mapping and voicing stuff since then and I might well have more of a chance of getting somewhere with it. If I can feed it small but regular chunks of time (and this sort of work requires high concentration I find) then you can build up a head of steam; at least if it’s like Jordan’s quadrad voicings which I’ve had simmering away for about 2 years and is starting to become something I can use.
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Christian, I actually had you in mind when I put that caveat in there that it might not be everyone's cup of tea. I know you'd said that you'd been put off by this material in the past. It's why I wanted to take the time on this thread to really build the ladder that gets one to the plateau level that the almanacs assume. Believe me I can relate. For many, buying a train ticket and being told you have to build your road to the train, then pull it when you get there...too much like doing a lot of work and getting nowhere. Originally Posted by christianm77
I can't assure you it'll pay off, but I'll put some ideas out there.
Here's one example of where I'm getting to: All The Things You Are. First tonal area has a VI chord voiced with a third on top. That fits really nicely with a series of drop 2 root in the bass chords. Great! Chords AND melody. Cool.
Fast forward 10 years and everytime some players start playing All The Things, they think of Joe Pass and play the same chords struggling with how to make them more interesting than the last time. Well the root movement is up a 4th, cycle 4 we call it, and if you played even with triads, F- voiced 153, move up the neck so your II chord (Bb-) is voiced 513, you're creating moving voices that are not parallel and you've got a nice common tone. Move again so your V (Eb) chord is voiced 351 and you're moving your chordal structure up a voice led line up the fingerboard. Your following I chord will be 153 with that melodic 3rd on top. Of course with command of your inversions and a solid idea of where the notes are, you can move across the fingerboard just as easily by shifting string sets whenever you want.
This is a short example of using cycles over an existing song form. If you used cycle 6, you'd have two chords per written change of the piece. And when these are played, it does not sound like chords moving up in 4ths, it sounds like lines moving, not unlike a Bach Chorale meets jazz.
There are times when you may want this, and times you don't want this sound. But command of the fingerboard vision that study of this material imparts allows you CHOICE and that's the real end result of familiarity with the almanacs: a broader perspective.
Talk to any good piano player, this stuff is not foreign to the jazz application at all. But it's at the crux of the division between the way Wynton Kelly approached the instrument and the way Bill Evans did.
Just another cup of tea on the menu.
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So just to check I know what you mean (I don’t have the book) we have
Fm7 | Bbm7 | Eb7 | Abmaj7 | Dbmaj7
which becomes
Fm7 Dbmaj7 | Bbm7 Gm7b5 | Eb7 Cm7 etc
but tightly voice led?
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Yes, that's using a cycle 6 to fit a cycle 4. In the same way you could walk up the scale (cycle 2) and hit your chord every 4th chord, except when you voice lead the lines they work as little canonic melodies. Originally Posted by christianm77
Mind you this is only one application of the materials. Once your get the feeling of "seeing" the scale laid out all across the fingerboard, you can combine different "passing chords", insert chromatic alterations, base your scale on melodic minor to get altered dominant sounds, get mysteriously beautiful progressions by basing your cycles on harmonic minor, or start to intuitively feel voice movement and have your hands naturally gravitate towards close and open voiced movement. Those are some of the possibilities that I've discovered by working with this stuff.
As you can see, the almanac cycles by themselves mean very little without context, but used as a primer for chord movement, fretboard navigation, ear training in 4 voices, discovering small passages you can easily plug in place of your well practiced II V's or just a way of finding alternative chords to break old habits... it's all in there if you invite the challenge; if you truly see the need for it in your own world.
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OK, so I've already practiced this type of thing and use it a lot, but I didn't know it was a Mick thing as well. It actually comes to me from 17th/18th figured bass voice leading stuff I looked at (as you do). I didn't realise until I tried to play it, and was - 'oh yeah I know that.' Originally Posted by Jimmy blue note
It's nice to know its familiar... there's a finite amount of stuff out there, but the names proliferate sometimes with people thinking different ways.
I do a lot of stuff moving 7-6 in the inner voices, probably like a lot of players. It's a classic baroque voice leading move, which is why it sounds like Bach of course, as well as George Van Eps/Freddie Green things. Cycle 6 is an elaborated version of that.
So Cycle 6 from root position gives what we would call in figured bass terms 7 5 3 --> 6 5 3 --> 6 4 3 --> 6 4 2 voice leading on a descending bass. So, in chord symbols:
Fm7 Fmb6 | Bbm7/F Bbm6/F | Eb7 Eb6 and so on
The only difference is that in the baroque version you would begin and end on a straight major or minor chord, and the minor keys might be handled a little differently (combining the minor modes rather than sticking to one, as I imagine Mick does.) The 2nd inv is like root displaced, and the 1st and 3rd inversions have a different voice leading going on.
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So the cycle 2 thing would be like:
Fm7 / Gm7 Abmaj7 | Bbm7
is that right?
but you’d voice lead like
Fm7 Gm7/F Abmaj7/Eb | Bm7/Db
in drop 3 for example?
definitely less familiar
It’s interesting that you can also view all of these progressions from the bass up too, and see suspensions in the middle voices etc.
You can see chords into voice leading or voice leading into chords. Duck/rabbit.
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Right! Exactly! The rules for voice leading, going from one chord to another with the most elegant (least unnecessary) movement is not new, but it does have an internal logic to it. It's timeless that way. You can say that logic held sway until Debussy when the relationship of horizontal and vertical changed. But the "rules of the voice" for each cycle are the same ones Mick uses. In the Almanacs, he just lays out each possible intervallic possibility and runs these cycles through for all the inclusive inversions. He does this for triadic, tertiary in 7ths, chords built on 4ths, triads and bass notes that are structured outside of tertiary harmony, and intervallic chord groupings and synthetic combinations outside of the traditional scale systems. It mathematically covers all note combinations as moving entities exhaustively. Originally Posted by christianm77
So there's something old, taken to its logical conclusion, something new, taken to its cluster conclusion. And these pages can be used in their entirety, or one might say "Gosh I never heard that before! How about I build a chordal line that I can use in situations where I want a IV chord sound?", or for some, they're rigorous warm up exercises (the way Tristano would use Bach inventions as a warm up before a gig), or as a mental springboard or backbone to hang chromatic resolution or voice doubling on. Compositional and improvisational possibilities are all within.
See why it's elusive at first glance, but can in itself form a philosophical and practical way to envision the possibilities of improvisational construction?
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Having looked at those two examples today, I feel it’s more of a process type thing. With any of these fretboard harmony things it’s as much about working the process and developing flexibility as it is about the end product. Does that sound right to you?
Keep feeding it, keep it on the boil and let it reduce down to a delicious sauce.
Hang on not sure where that metaphor was going...
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The effect I often have when I'm listening to these is "What IS that chord?" because I do hear from the bass up. And when I look at them and realize it's an inversion simply voice led with a delayed resolution in one of the voices, I'm amazed. That's why it takes a long time to integrate and assimilate these things, because first you get it in your hands, then you see it on the fingerboard as a movement, then you follow the root movement and then it becomes kinesthetically familiar...THEN your ear hears the potential. But after that, you start to play the most intricate movements by ear. That's the gold ring. Originally Posted by christianm77
More traditional ways of organizing chords and chord melody can be hand or individually shape centric; play by grab. This leads to a proficiency at a more manageable level but it can allow for the dangerous pitfall of letting a player develop hand habits that bypass the potential of the ear. Hearing the contribution of 4 voices is surely a more ambitious endeavour but the potential for subtlety and control within a developing line can be greater. It's up to the player, once they can see the field, to see how far they want to run.
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I use the soup analogy all the time with people who are getting into this. There are familiar pieces, but when it's boiled down, it takes on an entirely new identity. It's soup that you can, or more satisfyingly can't identify the individual parts of. Originally Posted by christianm77
One thing I'm emphasizing in the book is: Be patient! It will not come quickly, but it will infuse deeply.
Ben (Monder) said he worked almost exclusively with these things for six months without being able to figure out where they would fit in to his playing. Then one day he found he was playing remarkable things and wondering where they were coming from. It was the undercurrent of the voice leading movement. It was soup.
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A funny comment: there are people in the world who have six fingers. It would be remarkable to watch them play 5 moving lines on guitar.
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For me, the spread triads are some of the hardest material to play.
Closed triads and 7th chords tend to only have one practical fingering per string set (sometimes 2 for certain things like Drop 2 and 4). But spread triads can have at least 3 viable fingerings, depending on the string set.
So when working through the cycles with them, you're often faced with tough choices. Do you keep a moving voice on the same string, even if it requires a wider stretch? Or do you move to a more ergonomic fingering, even if it means that the moving voices (and maybe even common tones) switch strings and become more disjointed on a visual level?
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Exactly! But being fluent with every way to play a voicing all over the entire fingerboard is so liberating too. And when it comes to mixing different cycles, and spread with closed voicings (yeah, try mixing them, or altering one of the voices and resolving it...cool!) I find options I never considered before. I'd played the tight voicing for decades and never even touched the every other string skip voicing. But the almanac did force me to expand my comfort zone. Originally Posted by dasein
That's why he never told the user how to play them, and that's why I said TAB is not an option. Welcome to the club!
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Diatonic cycles and chromatic ones as well are pathways travel from here
to there. They offer a logic to forge supplemental and alternative paths to
travel or not. In a tertiary scenario, cycle 3 or it's inversion cycle 6 move through the extensions of a given chord.
I believe I posted something similar many pages ago.
So let's say in theory that one can start on the 7th chord built on
the 7th, 5th, 3rd and root of the chord of the moment. There is no guarantee that resultant sound will please everyone/anyone but these
chords represent:
From the 7th: 7 9 11 13
From the 5th: 5 7 9 11
From the 3rd: 3 5 7 9
From the root: 1 3 5 7
Sticking to diatonicism for All The Things 1st 8:
Fm7: Ebma7 Cm7 Abma7 Fm7
Bbm7: Abma7 Fm7 Dbma7 Bbm7
Eb7: Dbma7 Bbm7 Gm7b5 Eb7
Abma7: Gm7b5 Eb7 Cm7 Abma7
Dbma7: Cm7 Abma7 Fm7 Dbma7
Dm7: Cma7 Am7 Fma7 Dm7
G7: Fma7 Dm7 Bm7b5 G7
Cma7: Bm7b5 G7 Em7 Cma7 or lydian Cma7: Bm7 Gma7 Em7 Cma7
If pitched high enough these notes can be heard as extensions,
and voice led through cycle 6 or 3. Chromatic variants can be added
or not within this diatonic paradigm in the same fashion as when one is
referencing the basic chord progression.
Note to self and others: The above construct is mechanically conceived,
an idea carried to it's extreme. It is a study tool to expand aural and conceptional awareness. Moderation and balance is always a good thing
to consider in the quest for the application of new tricks.
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So you can hear some small examples of the voice led cycles
These examples are played by Kenji Herbert, with whom I'm collaborating on the book project. We're introducing ideas on how to approach, practice, assimilate, innovate and apply these sounds, through exercises, etudes, ear training exercises and suggested assignments on making your own compositions and chord passages.
The materials in the almanacs, once learned and brought into your comfort zone, provide almost infinite ways to combine cycles, make chromatic tensions, arpeggiate and create linear phrases, and much more...in real time.
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So, put simply, there are many ways to go from one chord to another. Even just going up the harmonized scale, there are lots of C chords and lots of Dm chords. Guitarists, for a large part have ways that come naturally. But what comes naturally is not necessarily the only way, and what's learned as being practical can lead to habits that are predictable and ultimately limiting if you want to stay open to possibilities.
Take the progression of going up the scale, here we use the triad as the simplest form; using 7th chords gets even better. In the voice led formulation, the root movement goes up a step at a time, cycle 2. But here we can play with a voice movement that actually descends.
So you see why it's not only handy, but kind of a pre-requisite to know where these notes are on the guitar, and the triad shapes for all needed qualities (triads for major, minor and diminished) and an ear to be able to anticipate movement and find it on the guitar in a moment. But with that knowledge, one can navigate root movement throughout the fingerboard, from string to string, and give thought to what these three voices are actually doing in relationship to one another.
Notice that if you follow the lines through the progressions, they are actually little cannons? The same little melody repeats in different voices offset in beats. Pretty neat, eh?
This forms the baseline by which a player can chose to improvise linearally in multiple voices, or simply control tension in chords by knowing how to alter the lines within a progression.
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And here's triads in 4ths. This is a common intervallic movement, so this is kinda handy. You can see that at the end of each line, you've got a VI II V and in the next line you'll have the I and then the IV in the next inversion.
See how these chords can form a melodic voice lead progression? Hint: if you take these chords and put them into Ab, you get All The Things You Are.
That's why I said you need to be able to think in Roman Numerals, transpose into different keys.
I know some people are going to say "That's a lot of trouble and it's not like grabbing something in the key of the chart" but that's the challenge (if you can call it this) and the beauty of it, it sets a plateau where you need to have the fundamental skill set at your fingertips.
Is this level of knowledge above the average player? I shouldn't be, and I really think if it is, it's well worth while to acquire this level of proficiency. It will serve you well for all things and really free you up to hear, play by ear, see relationships in chords and chord progressions. These abilities are the skillset of the creative composer whether you chose to voice lead or not.
What's anyone think of this?
And I'm giving this cycle in triads. You can extend this to be done with 7ths, 7ths based on melodic minor, harmonic minor which utilizes the harmonic structure that includes the altered dominant chord, lydian dominant and 7b9b13 chords.
This is where the fun begins.
Feedback? Anybody out there?
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Yes - so many cool ideas just in Vol One!
I wrote out Cycle 4 (with seventh chords) for my quartet (sax, bs, gtr, dr) -- the sax and bass played one line each, and I played two lines -- it was a blast watching their faces as we played through the cycle! Fun, too, to hear things in different registers, and with the instruments' different timbres ...
I just used letters, not notes, like in the book, so they played whatever octave they wanted.
Count me in on any "working group!"
Marc
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Try using cycle 6, two changes per bar. Every other chord of cycle 6 is cycle 4. Or you can use a chromatic approach note in between and create an altered sound, like modern chromatic Bach counterpoint lines. And that's just one of countless things... Originally Posted by marcwhy
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Hi Dasein Originally Posted by dasein
The lower half of the chart that jimmy blue note posted tonight — the fourths cycle with spread voicings — is a really good way into this family of shapes. This exercise sounds great played low and slow, and you might choose to drop an octave, back to the lowest possible set of pitches at the start of each line of the chart. Controlling the individual voice volume levels, from chord to chord, is also an interesting area to explore once these are comfortable. You can hear this control very clearly in Kenji Herbert's video clip when a lovely 'middle voice' melody is foregrounded beautifully towards the end of the video.
All the best
Mick W
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I have been (finally) working for 1hr/day on the almanacs for a couple months now. I find it is, as I think you said somewhere above, more like an approach or process (working through all inversions, hearing voice leading, etc) than a repository of licks or static grips. Of course a lot of immediately useful stuff does come up. For example, practically any sequence on any melodic minor page gives some nice sounds over Balt going to E. , D-7 / Ebmaj7#5 -> Emaj7. Originally Posted by Jimmy blue note
I mentioned above that I'm also going through Dave Creamer's Octatonics book, using (among other things) the almanac 'process'. One of the harmonizations of octatonic scale #40 (the bebop major scale) is : Gmaj7, A-7b5, Bm11, CmMaj7b5, D9sus4, EbmMaj7b5, EmMaj7, F#-7b5. Using Drop 3 cycle 2 gives the voicings in the attachment, some of which I didn't know, really like, and probably wouldn't have found otherwise.
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Kenji has been working a long time on these. One of the things he's been doing has been using suspensions where the voice leading is a whole step. He'll voice the chord with the passing tone and resolve a la Bach suspension, or simply use a chromatic passing tone between. All these things not only dress up the basic cycles as written, but they're great for teaching you to hear inner voices, and once you can do that, I find using motivic ideas in the inner voices comes very naturally. Very useful things come out of having one's mind bent through this material. Originally Posted by Mick Wright
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Fun game with some cool possibilities, anticipating notes, gradual morphing
of a chord into the upcoming one.
Cycle 4:
CEG > CFA > DFB > EGB
can become:
CEG//CFG > CFA//CFB > DFB//EFB > EGB etc.
Cycle 2:
CEG > ADF > GBE > FAC
With a 3 note differential there are many possibilities. Here's one:
CEG//CDG//CDF > ADF//ADE//GDE > GBE//FBE//FAE > FAC etc.
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