Jazz Theory Resources by Bert Ligon VS Jazzology by Robert Rawlins

[JonR]

Great posts everyone, but still, what I cannot understand is why should somebody choose one approach and ignore any other.

Thinking with scales, doesent mean you cant also think voice leading, guide tones, across the bar line phrasing, chord tones, non harmonic approaches to them, etc.

Very true. The reason I'm down on CST (inasmuch as I am, which is not totally!) is I regard scales as low-level information. The "music" happens at levels above that, from intervals to chords to melodic shape, and rhythm of course. As I said before, thinking in scales is thinking about the bark on the trees instead of seeing the forest. It's looking with blinkers on (or blinders as I think you say in US of A).

I mean, of course, one can see the big picture as well as the detail, as you're saying! It's only the crude approach, or a simplistic misunderstanding, that promotes CST as the only (or even best) way of thinking.

The problem, seems to me, is that there's a common attitude that CST offers some kind of "secret", as if it's a key shortcut to being able to improvise jazz. It seems like a failsafe "system" of rules one only has to absorb and follow to be able to tackle any jazz piece. It may not be any teacher's fault, but it's a seductive notion to a beginner who is intimidated by jazz. But of course it doesn't lead to good music. It leads to what Joe Henderson called solos that "sound like the index of a book".
It encourages the notion that a jazz tune is an assault course one just has to get through, unscathed. "Phew, managed to play the right scale on all the chords! I did it!" (Yes, I've been through that kind of workshop exercise too...)

To me it seems more logical to try to get the most out of every piece of information that I can find, linear thinking has its strengths and weaknesses, but so does CST and modal thinking. When a great musician like Levine or Ed decides to write a textbook with his way of thinking on music it can only be a good thing. Then, if I find it appealing and can get something from it thats another thing to discuss.

Right. In a sense, the only problem with Levine's book is its title: "THE jazz theory book". Bound to mislead. "A jazz theory book" would be better.

Some anti-CST folks badtalk about it but then they talk about Hexachords, Octachords, 7 note pitch collections and etc, isnt it a bit hypocritical?

Well, you won't get me talking like that!
I DO think it's useful to think of chordal harmony as a hierarchical stack. That can (I guess) mean a 7-note chord-scale in the sense of 1-3-5-7-9-11-13. But not all the notes are equivalent, that's the point. (And the 5 chromatics have a role to play too.)
And I would still think more in a linear (horizontal) way than the harmonic (vertical) way. Both dimensions matter, naturally, for the whole picture. I just like to put linearity in the foreground, because I've personally found it more productive and musical that way round. (Perhaps because linearity includes rhythm and timing, as well as pitch values.)

IMO most of today's great improvisers use a plethora of approaches.

Quite. It's pretty much impossible to disentangle the modal aspects from the functional aspects in modern jazz harmony. Since the 1960s, it's been clear that jamming the two together produces lots of fertile offshoots. The only reason to consider them separately (and to look at individual approaches like CST, linearity, "let the melody be your guide", etc) is to appreciate how the history developed, how we got to where we are. It's good to know what kind of giants we're standing on the shoulders of...

[JonnyPac]

Good post!

I think using scales as pools of notes with which one can mine for interesting (and modal and/or functional) sounds is 100% ok. You just have to be thoroughgoing and make it work and understand the details within. I'm starting to think this "CST produces lazy sloppy soloists" argument is a straw man- I don't hear any method directly producing any level of musicianship. Put boldly, anyone can suck and anyone can become a well balanced musician. Deep thinking and applied concepts, exposure to common practice (listening), and about 10,000 hours in the shed is what it takes, IMHO. No particular school or method, just life. Doing it all the way and making the pieces fit together with your mind and body. A collection of reputable books can help guide our efforts, that's all.

"The one beef I have with the "chord scale movement" is that it sort of suggests all seven notes are equally cool, when in fact that's really not the case. There really are usually four notes you want to land on that are the really, really, good ones. Then there are the others you want to get through and some you barely want to touch them. That degree of weight thing is usually not discussed because it is usually presented in the form of modal thinking rather than voice leading. My advice to people is yes, learn the chord scales but also make sure you can solo using just the chord tones. A big chunk of early jazz history was largely improvising using chord tones and improvising around the melody. Those are two valuable entry points" -Pat Metheny

From my book:

It is a common pitfall for students of chord-scale equivalency theories to give every note within a chord-scale equal treatment. There is a tonal hierarchy that must be recognized. The core triad needs to be thought of as the lower structure, the seventh as what I call the “gateway” tone, and the other chord-tones as “upper-structures” or “extensions”. Every note besides the core triad may be treated as a “tendency tone” (meaning a tone that is unstable and naturally tends to resolve either upward or downward to a more stable tone) depending on the immediate context. “Avoid” notes or “handle with care" notes are the most unstable tones within each chord-scale. Tonal hierarchies within each chord-scale can fluctuate depending on the harmonic conditions of the music at hand. Use your ear to determine the level of complexity that is appropriate.

[gingerjazz]

Well if Pat metheny says learn chord tones ,then thats what im gonna do,i reckon he knows whats going on.

[JonR]

Uh-huh - what PM said is exactly what I would say (and often have) myself. And of course what Jonny also says! (Great minds... )

Like Jonny says, it's all about tonal hierarchy. My personal view is of three levels (covering all 12 notes):

1. The 4 notes PM refers to as "really really good ones". I don't know if he'd agree, but I'd say this was the 1-3-5-7 of the chord (or 1-3-5-6 if it's a 6th). You can't fail with those.
But if you ONLY play those, that's arpeggios, and it will eventually sound stilted or boring, UNLESS you have a fast moving sequence with lots of interesting chords. (Most of Charlie Parker's melodies and solos were largely arpeggios, with small embellishments, but he was playing over fast changes.)

2. What Johnny calls "upper structures" or "extensions" (I'd just say the latter). These are additional notes (usually no more than 3, sometimes less) that will sound good if targeted over the chord: can be held or stressed without sounding bad, and will usually have a characteristic emotional impact, enhancing any function or mood the chord already has. They are usually - but not always - the remaining diatonic notes of the current key. They will in any case act as good passing notes between the 1-3-5-7 of level 1.
I don't necessarily agree these are "tendency tones", in the sense of unstable tones with an implication towards resolution: they can be, but don't have to be. (You can usually hang on to a 9 without having to move it anywhere; #9, 11, #11 and 13 have more sense of tension, but still don't always require resolution.)

Level 1 plus level 2 results (pretty much) in "chord-scale theory". They are all "inside" notes (even if an occasional one is outside the key, it would sound "inside" on the chord). But the difference between the levels is significant. (And I would say diatonic key relationships can have more weight than consonance-with-chord relationships. Eg, the notion of a chromatic #11 on a tonic maj7 chord works as an "inside" chord extension, but a P11 may often be preferred as melodic solo note.)
And I'd agree with Jonny that my level 1 could be split into the triad and the 7th - because the 7th adds significant functional colour to the triad: a very important note (at least in jazz), but arguably not a "base level" tone.

3. All the other notes . These are what jazz players call "outside" notes, and usually chromatic (outside the key), and usually sound bad if held over the chord, because they make awkward intervals with other chord tones. But they can all be used in passing between notes of level #1 or level #2. (One of these notes is recognized in the theory of "bebop scales" - but in practice you can use pretty much any chromatic passing note.)
They don't have to be on weak beats either: they can be accented, as long as they are resolved before too long.
(Even there, there are exceptions: as long ago as 1938, Django Reinhardt was playing a tune with melodic phrases which began on accented chromatic approaches and ended on the unresolved b5 of a major tonic chord. Listen to "Appel Direct". It's dissonant, of course, but the dissonance is the point.)

[gingerjazz]

Hey jonr ,after reading through,thinking through,watching tuition videos and talking to other jazz musicians and disregarding what does not seem to work for me,i have pretty much distilled every thing down to what you say above,but you say it so much better than i ever could.Peace.

[JonR]

Hey jonr ,after reading through,thinking through,watching tuition videos and talking to other jazz musicians and disregarding what does not seem to work for me,i have pretty much distilled every thing down to what you say above,but you say it so much better than i ever could.Peace.

Thanks. That's pretty much how I arrived at it myself: years (and more years) of just playing the stuff, spotting patterns, distilling it down.
It's like starting with a 1,000 piece jigsaw: aaaargh what a mess! But each tune you learn to play is like giving you a few of those pieces joined together. The next tune joins some other pieces, or those first pieces in a different order (that still works).
Eventually you start to see the big picture, and the whole thing gets simpler. Any missing pieces, it's clearer where they might fit.

Three-word lesson: LISTEN AND COPY. (Judge results by ear.)

That happened to work for me (hard as it was at the beginning). (No one told me, I just had no alternative.) It can take longer than having lessons - years, decades - but it's impossible to go wrong that way, because you're following in the footsteps of the greats. And reading books may or may not help (you need to be lucky finding the right book for you).
Naturally you might make mistakes copying a tune - but either you spot them by ear (and work out how to correct them); or you don't, in which case they can't be very significant. (Those kind of mistakes are like details you can polish up later, as your ear and technique improves.)

[gingerjazz]

You speak the truth my friend,i really like that saying that everything you ever wanted to know about jazz guitar is right their in your cd/record collection.As you rightly point out who wouldn't want to learn from Wes or Charlie christian.Oh well gotta go now got a lesson booked with django.Peace.

[JonnyPac]

Great posts. I dig where this is going. Have a happy new year!