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Hey Jon... I do always enjoy your tongue and cheek...
So when we get right down to it... CST is just a visual aid... if your going to use as a concept of defining a tonal system... you need more than a simple application of looking at the note collections...
I don't believe it explains anything except... here... use this collection of notes at any given point because I say so...
Most musicians don't really understand tonality or expanded tonality more than some system of relationships between pitches with a central or tonic pitch...
Some make have basic theory with maj.& min functional harmony and some voice leading guidelines concepts... maybe understand versions of Schoenberg's Theory of.... or Structural Functions of... or earlier or later versions of... usually because someone told them so or have read and studied a few years with someone noteworthy...
If you want to understand theory and harmony... most need years of composing and playing.... along with those 10 or so years of serious organized study before you start... who has that... who would even want to...
Of course Chord scales work well... they're fast and you don't have to do the work... who in there right mind wouldn't choose CST as the answer to playing jazz... very easy to see... easy to verbalize, and bottom line... you don't need to understand anything... just plug and play... as to explaining everything that wasn't explained before... that is a different subject... which requires understandings of many concepts to even be able to discuss.
Lets skip the bias thing... do you really care... his concepts are as you pointed out... a reflection of his experiences... He's been around.
I see most of his examples as just that... examples that you might be able to hear what marks talking about... I'm sure if Mark wrote the book now it would be different... but would still reflect his views of how to play and compose in a jazz style...especially latin jazz.
Sorry the metaphor of a set of groves... was my tongue and cheek attempt at representing having musical knowledge...
Jon... I don't think I've ever heard your playing... so no basis of commenting... I do know Mark's in many contexts... he covers very well.
I always enjoy your posts... would dig hearing some music to go with the words...
Yea...I always enjoy visuals aids for music... Reg
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04-26-2012 04:40 PM
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I loved this!! So to the point it's refreshing. I do think he's unnecessarily harsh about some academic notions though it's understandable based on what he's trying to convey.
Originally Posted by JonR
Personally I think both toolsets are important to explore. I tend to think in terms of chord tones and passing notes or approximations, but I sometimes feel like I lack flavor that way, so I'm striving to broaden my substitution vocabulary so that I can mix it up a bit. In the end though you yourself are the ultimate judge for what kind of music you wanna make.
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Dead Ends:
"Modes" - within a diatonic progression, a waste of time, since no one plays straight scales anyway.
Outside of one, unecessarily complicated - just add chromatic tones to taste to the parent major scale.
Melodic Minor scale - why bother, when a tritone sub gives you the same b5, #5, b9 and #9 without all the grief?
I'd rather spend my time developing an ear and learning tunes.
Just my findings!!
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Mine too! Originally Posted by boatheelmusic
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I don't know in practice and playing, but logicaly, seam to me: Originally Posted by boatheelmusic
"Modes" - In comunicating, instead of expalining each chromatic and out note, you simply give the name of mode(s) that cover them all.
"Melodic minor" - Maybe it serves as an answer to a question "what is the result of tritone sub"?
And then, it seams, all you did to original scale, subs and f*q ups, now you can do to this new one,
and still be in tune with original song. All that you get, you can relate to original scale, but there you,d have 2 steps away to explain. By naming the result of first awy step, and using it as new starting point, you ease up on communication, ie. it's easier to explain two simpler things, than it is to explain more complex, if only one.
I really think they are all labels for communication of ideas, nomenclature.
With your logic, you can easily question use of each and every term, because you could certainly explain them all without nomenclature (afterall, someone had to do that before giving it the name), but in many more words and in much more complex references to some axiomatic terms.
Starting from 440Hz, play me 4 notes at the same time, each being .....,
Just play me A7, man.
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But modes don't cover them all. Originally Posted by Vladan
In this particular example (altered dom7 and tritone sub), yes, a mode of melodic minor happens to match the 7 notes in question - at least if you change a few enharmonics.
But the point in practice is the alterations and the sub (and the chromatic voice-leading) not a scale they happen to resemble.
IOW, the reason for either the sub or the alterations to the V7 is to get some neat half-step moves (on to the tonic, and maybe from the previous chord). That's all you need to know.
Of course, if you know all your melodic minor scales well, then that can be a formula to help you remember the notes. But it's a pattern-based short cut, not a piece of useful musical knowledge. It's just as easy to think about the 4 possible alterations to the V7 (or to use the tritone sub of course) - and it's more musically logical.
No, the "result" of the tritone sub is a different kind of resolution to the tonic, involving half-steps that can also be seen as alterations to the original V7. Originally Posted by Vladan
The melodic minor connection is coincidental.
Not sure I follow you there... Originally Posted by Vladan
Yes, you can use any of the 12 notes at any time.
In the case of the altered scale (or lydian dominant if you want to refer to the scale on the tritone sub), those notes are "inside" on that particular (7alt) chord, and have quite fixed functions concerning the voice leading - which doesn't mean one can't still use passing notes between those notes. It's all about "in" and "out", and resolving the line.
The altered scale is "out" relative to the diatonic context (probable chords either side), and is admittedly a formula in itself: one doesn't have to use every alteration! (One doesn't have to go with a full tritone sub.) It's one option for getting some good functional chromaticism. (HW dim is another formula with a similar purpose.)
Yes, if you see the melodic minor mode as "1 step away". It's an apparently simple step, but one that explains nothing, and doesn't help you use the scale musically. Talking about alterations, subs and voice-leading is more complicated, admittedly, but fits right in with what the music is doing - with the point of the alterations. And it's also more open in terms of improvisation and creativity. Originally Posted by Vladan
Precisely. It's all labels. A label on its own doesn't have to explain anything. Originally Posted by Vladan
The question is which labels are best for the situation. That might depend on what one knows already. Eg, total familiarity with all 12 melodic minors would be a good basis for referring to those scales when talking about 7alt and 7#11 chords; it could switch a light on, in connecting something new (7alt, 7#11) to something familiar. That still leaves a slight mystery as to what 7alt and 7#11 chords are doing. And it runs the risk of cookie-cutter solos (running melodic minor scales because one knows they fit).
My experience learning jazz was that I thought the melodic minor mode business was fascinating intellectually, but had no connection with music as I heard or played it - I couldn't apply that knowledge - UNTIL I realised it was all about those half-step resolutions. Once I saw how the alterations (and the tritone sub) moved to various chord tones and extensions on the tonic, I understood. I then ignored the melodic minor connection and went back to working with chords and melodic phrasing as I always had. (Which is not to say I don't sometimes use prepared licks built on melodic minor arpeggios - I can be a sucker for cheap formulas as much as anyone
.)
Last edited by JonR; 05-07-2013 at 09:49 AM.
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It would be nice to hear or see musical examples of your views of playing jazz... You seem to miss most references and relationships. You don't have to play something well, but you need to be able to play examples of your approach... beyond lead sheet version.
Just because you don't hear or understand something doesn't mean it's not going on or is wrong.
Reg
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Are you talking to me, Reg? Just want to be sure before I reply... Originally Posted by Reg
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Dear Jon,
please note, I did not claim any knoweledge about subject. All I did was to explain the logic behind possibility something could be worth learning. Ie. all I said was in rreference to quoted text, I took as a premise, ie. took it as a truth. So, if it is true tritone sub provides all mentioned alterations, same as melodic minor, than my example was correct, too, eventhough it's corectness is of no importance in regard to that logic process I was talking about, you agreed with it later in your post. Hope this is clear now.
There where you said you lost me, I proposed a posibility that after aplying some operation to original subject, thus aproducing a new subject, you could aaply same operation and get another new subject, more remote, or maybe closer to the original one, but nevertheless conected to it, because it'd be the direct product of it, just 1 same operation, repeatd twice, though, away.
OK.
I don't know if Reg talked about you, or me, or somebody else, but my playing is in my signature, so it's probable I was not the object of his post.
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Understood. Admittedly I was talking about a narrow functional context; and I also admit I don't see (or rather hear) how the idea you describe (which I have read about elsewhere) - of a kind of sub of a sub I guess? - would work. That's my problem, of course, not yours Originally Posted by Vladan
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I'm not very advanced as a player; I only talk about what I can understand from what I can hear and play.
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Well, it was the attitude "why would Ilearn ..., I don't need it in real life", you propably remember such from highscholl and so on, that struck me, while it's obvious there could be plethora of good reasons, so I just addressed the attiude with couple possibilities. Hey, ho, let's go, further.
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Ha! Originally Posted by Vladan
I learned a whole load of stuff in high school I haven't needed since, but never objected at the time (how could I know I wouldn't need it?). Probably the most useful thing I learned, in fact was how to read music, even though I was way down near the bottom of the class in that subject.
My current attitude is based on long experience - IOW, what I "haven't needed so far in real life". I'm always open to new ideas (honest!), but - in music anyway - my attitude is often "if it ain't broke..."
My jazz playing (over some 40 years) has always been amateur, and somewhat at arms length. Some of it I love, but there's a level beyond which I feel unable to go, mostly to do with advanced post-modal harmony. I wouldn't dare pronounce on that stuff.
I suspect what you (and maybe Reg) are talking about is in that region, which my ears are simply not attuned to.
Fine by me Originally Posted by Vladan
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Er, khm, please, excuse me from advanced music theory discussions. I could be of benefit only, may be, in some lateral aspects, as I already have explained
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Originally Posted by JonR
Are you talking to me, Reg? Just want to be sure before I reply...
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LOL - I knew that would sound threatening, and of course it wasn't meant to, I couldn't think of another way of saying it...
(sorry Reg)
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Yea... I'm still laughing. No worries Jon. I had late night...
Comments are in general and directed towards all...It's a subject I understand and will try and post something for reference... Reg
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