-
...I'm lost for words ... Seven??
There's seven!
Kind regards
Mick W
-
06-09-2023 05:00 AM
-
Here are some memories of Mick, on what would have been Mick's birthday, from guitarists such as Ben Monder, Wayne Krantz, Randy Roos etc.
As a start-up we need all the help that we can get so please feel free to share the article with everyone, wherever you can. Appreciated.
-
Question for the group...
A friend of mine who attended and graduated from Berklee in the 1970s said that back then, the school core study was the Schillinger System of Music Composition. He is responsible for me getting all three volumes of the Almanac of Guitar Voice Leading, the Factorial Rhythm book, and the later Creative Chordal Harmony For Guitar.
He told me that in order to understand and make sense of the Almanac series, I would need to become familiar with the Schillinger System. To that end, I did find online an original set of both books. The books reference Walter Piston's Harmony, so I found a first edition of that from 1941 because I had read in a number of places that subsequent editions of that book contain much material that did not come from Walter Piston.
Since I was working full time (this was back in the 90s, I believe), I set all of this aside for a time when I could dig into all of this material. During that time, I did dig into the Almanacs from time to time and just play through parts of it since I know where all the notes on the fretboard are, how to build chords, etc. In my personal experience, connecting what I was playing out of the Alamancs to doing something on my own was too large a gap to cross. Listening to what Liarspoker has been coming up with has served to re-ignite my interest in resurrecting these books.
But in reading some of this thread again, I remember that I had all these books and dug them out. The Schillinger books are really deep and will take time to get into. I am glad I had a lot of math in the course of getting my Comp Sci degree, so that should help since these are essentially math books (i.e. mathematics applied to the arts).
I am curious to know if those who are really digging into the Almanacs and maybe those who are familiar with Schillinger, do you feel that there is that connection and that Schillinger's books would really help to get more out of the Almanacs?
I have not seen that in any of the thread here to indicate such a connection, but maybe those who attended Berklee back when Schillinger was a focus may have some ideas about this. By the way, my friend said that back then, students couldn't afford the Schillinger set and therefore had to check it out of the library. Back in the 1990s, my set cost me about $450 from an online used bookstore, so that really WAS expensive. The first edition Piston book only cost me about $15 at the time. The Almanacs cost me $30 each back in the 1990s when they were in print. I don't remember what the Factorial Rhythm book cost back then.
Anyway, I have been enjoying reading this thread and listening to some of the music posted by participants, so thanks for all of that.
Thanks,
Tony
-
Hi Tony. When Mick, John Abercrombie, Keith Jarret, Bob Moses were all at Berklee together (imagine those classmates!) Berklee was located in one building on Newbury Street and it had just changed its name from the Schillinger School to Berklee. There were only 6 guitar students, everyone was wondering what ever they would do with so MANY guitarists, Jack Peterson was teaching them and everyone was scared to death that that kid Keith Jarrett was SOOO good on piano, was it true that he was that good on guitar too? Oh yeah, Jack DeJohnette was the local drummer.
Originally Posted by tbeltrans
It was a different scene, and the idea of a school dedicated to jazz was as much a novelty as much as a new adventure.
Back then, Piston, Perschichetti, Hindemith, Schillinger, Schoenberg and Slonimsky were considered staples, at least in my training. But something happened around that time. Bill Evans and Coltrane were setting the grounds for an informed, compositional yet improvisational new artform that embraced the roots of Western Classical but held the most rigourous standards of Miles Davis, Monk and Ellington at its core.
This new synthesis also opened up the possibilities of a synthesis with popular music and rock. There was an open book and these young musicians were not only learning to read the classics but writing the new books every day.
In short, the rules were there, but what you took from them, how you applied them, who's rules you played by and what validation you received was up to the musician. When I first talked with Mick about Schillinger, Shenkerian counterpoint, the possibility of improvisation being learned and taught in a polyphonic language, it was before he'd written the almanacs. He wanted to create an almanac that provided a guideline for controlling melodic voices, harmonic horizontal improvisation and the means by which the historical break that occured when harmony broke from the horizontal to the vertical (about the time of post Mahler/Wagner and the revolution created by Debussy occured) and bring back that broken bridge...in the improvisational realm.
The Almanacs do not require any other previous reading to be utilized, but the DO make the assumption that you know basic diatonic harmony (in practice and by ear), and that you have a comprehensive and confident knowledge of the cyclical fingerboard (repeat at the 12th fret) and that your fluency in chord families (drop system or mathematically based 4 part harmony including inversions) in order to fully integrate the exercises that will lead to practical use.
In other words, you need to know enough about the guitar and how music goes together so venturing beyond "grabs" and "licks" in all keys doesn't freak you out.
That's why it's so important that you have access to some resource, teacher or working group to provide the perspective needed to work within the matrix of a harmonic structure and re-compose (improvise) a new articulate harmony that is both personal and respectful of the given harmony.
That's why I have this thread, and an ongoing Zoom group that lets us share revelations, practices, questions, answers and exercises to train one to hear and understand this material.
It comes in steps. There are distinct areas of proficiency you need: Kinesthetics, Fretboard understanding/vision, syntactical understanding (theory) and a solid trained ear awareness. These things are not specifically addressed in the almanacs. And they don't come from any one book per se, and that's why so much of this requires assembly on your own part.
But true improvisation at this level is extremely liberating but there's a learning curve even before you start on the first cycle/scale/chord/voice.
In short, Mick saw a chance to take the given canon of music and the underlying understanding of it and find the next level of awareness so anyone can move from a one voice with accompanying chords approach and enable anyone to become a multi-voiced player with control of texture, consonance and dissonance at every point in the composition we call a solo.
I hope this answers something of what you are curious about.
Ask questions. Drop in on our zoom. Dig in and leave your preconceived notions about what is possible at the door.
The door is open.
-
Thanks for the in depth response! Fortunately, I am familiar with much of what you mentioned one should know: diatonic theory, the fetboard and drop chords. With regard to the ear, I am comfortable learning material from recordings by ear (i.e. have relative pitch) developed both by playing in MOR bands and learning from recordings. I may just drop into a zoom group.
Should I watch this thread for announcements? I have seen mention of the zoom group here, but I believe there is usually a link to the session along with a start time. I am familiar with zoom, having had a number of meetings via that platform.
Thanks,
Tony
-
The next Zoom meeting is tomorrow 3pm EST Tony. I'm sure that David will post a link here before then.
-
Launch Meeting - Zoom Originally Posted by Liarspoker
All are welcome June 10 3PM. Bring your questions, general and specific. I'm always humbled, enlightened and inspired by the answers YOU'VE found in working with harmony. I'd like to have a discussion about applying voice led cycles to solos. This goes straight to what we approach our individual solos with, what they're based on, our thought processes. There's so much attitude and assumption re-direction to using these cycles-it's always a revelation.
See you soon!
-
Please tell us more about this guitar. Originally Posted by Jimmy blue note
-
This is one of seven 7 string guitars made by the master luthier Jimmy D'Aquisto. It's the last one he made, not long before he died. I've been a luthier for over 3 decades and played countless guitars in my time, but the moment I picked up this guitar, I knew this was the most exquisite example of lutherie I'd ever touched. Originally Posted by Jazzjourney4Eva
It's a New Yorker model 17" fully tuned and notably light, this was from the era when Jimmy was making the artful fully acoustic instruments that marked his last era. It has an even response where every note stands out and chords are strangely even and harmonically rich no matter where they're played. It inspires me every time I pick it up.
Mick expressed his gratitude for the fact that I would always be his care taker and let him live his life his way by his side to the end. He also knew that when I was caring for him 24/7, my only outlet was a 7 string guitar I kept at the place.
But it was still the greatest surprise of my life when this came into my hands: Jimmy D'Aquisto's ultimate 7 string given to me posthumously from Mick Goodrick to thank me for the time we shared.
The guitar itself is the lightest construction of any archtop I've known. I play fingerstyle so my touch is light and aside from a concert grade classical, I've never felt an instrument with more response and nuance. The neck is also remarkably shallow. It's perfect for my hands which aren't huge. It's easy to see how Ibanez taking their specs from Joe Pass's D'Aquisto came up with a neck contour that was so fast compared with the convention of the day.
This was signed by Jimmy D'Aquisto as #1207 built in 1988.
That Almanac in the photo is the one Mick gave me personally.
Now it's just a matter of spending the rest of my life doing justice to what he left me.
-
Lately I have been getting involved with the 7 string. That guitar you have is absolutely beautiful as is the provenance story behind it. My two 7 string guitars are an Emerald X20-7 carbon fiber model built in 2018 that I bought used from a friend of mine and a Jimmy Foster archtop (build date unknown other than prior to 2011) that I bought locally via Craig's List. Jimmy Foster died in 2011, so there will be no more built by him and Alistair Hay at Emerald is still cranking them out. There is no provenance story behind either other than that I got them both at bargain prices.
Tony
-
@jimmybluenote well, words fail me a bit, but you two seem to have had a deep connection with each other.... By the way, which tuning do you use for the 7-string?
-
Low B, so the 4ths are intact for the low string. It facilitates melodic lines easier if I'm using the low string as a melodic and counterpoint string, which is what it's all about on Mick's vision of the unitar total guitar. Originally Posted by mheton
There was a period he was playing an Epiphone Sheridan (you see it on the cover of In Pas(s)ing) and for a while he played baritone tuning, down a 4th. He really liked that a lot, which is why I thought he'd like playing 7 strings. But he couldn't get his head around it. It freaked him out.
With the 7th string B, it's like a baritone and at the 5th fret, it's like a 6 string with instant access to higher frets without shifting.
The almanacs, because they're written as they are, assume you can shift string sets without difficulty and 7 strings are a delight to work with, especially with the D'Aquisto because that low string is so clear.
-
Would love to hear you guys play some quartal harmony.
The piece below uses the first three rows in volume 2 based on major scale 3 part fourths.
-
Don’t know if this will help anyone (probs if you are into the Alamanacs you know this stuff already) but here’s a quick vid
-
An excellent example of the first 3 part fourth chord in volume 2 is the first chord after the intro phrase in the following tune.
How Ben fingers this chord is interesting. D and G notes at the 12th fret on the same strings but the C note at the 8th fret high E string so that the next note that he plays, which is an A, 10th fret B string, can ring into the chord.
This is why Ben might play more difficult fingerings. That ringing effect is an important part of his solo guitar playing.
Last edited by Liarspoker; 07-09-2023 at 12:13 AM. Reason: Additional text
-
Have you guys heard of Tom Lippincott? Very nice guy, does Mike's Master Class videos etc.
Tom was kind enough to not only write a tribute to Mick Goodrick but he also provided a lengthy video and PDF lesson.
Tribute to Mick Goodrick by Tom Lippincott (and a Lesson) - Modern Guitar Harmony
Enjoy
-
Yes I've seen him play live. Great player! He was doing a tribute to Mick Goodrick then too Originally Posted by Liarspoker
-
This Saturday July 15 at 3PM Eastern Time, I'll have a Zoom discussion of the Almanac group.
One topic I want to discuss is "Reducing the Cycles to bite sized pieces when teaching and learning".
So often the difference between theoretical esoteric abstraction and real music is the ability to make it real.
I want to look at ways to do that, to create real usable bite size segments that have real every day use in composition and in harmonizing standards and blowing tunes.
There's always so much to talk about so bring what's on your mind too.
Launch Meeting - Zoom
If you're not on the mailing list for these meetings, you can PM me or drop in and see if it's for you, and let me know after you've seen what/how we delve into Mick's voice leading.
-
Enjoy!!
-
Hi Jimmy, I'm interested in going on the mailing list. I wasn't able to PM you
-
There has been a new Discord group set up where participants do something with one page of the Almanacs per week.
This is the first week and the focus page is the first triads in C major page in Volume 1.
Submissions are due on Sunday but I'll be away so just threw this together. If you want to join the Discord group just send me a pm.
-
Sounds manageable! I can definitely dedicate a bit of my time doing this every week. Thanks for the great idea, I'll send you a pm Originally Posted by Liarspoker
-
Originally Posted by Liarspoker
As a submission what do we have to do. Record a video or an audio file ?
-
Any of the two. A PDF is also welcome. Originally Posted by mheton
Best way to join is to message Andrew Dow on Facebook with your email address.
-
Random thoughts and slightly ropey playing into exploring some of the more basic VL cycles through the perspective of counterpoint. I'm certain you could go a lot further with this..
Last edited by Christian Miller; 09-11-2023 at 02:03 PM.
Reply With Quote
Grant Green, What is This Thing
Yesterday, 01:59 PM in Ear Training, Transcribing & Reading