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Sorry if this sounds like marketing, but in terms of the method, my book is the most complete and up to date. Conrad agrees with this and has said so on the Google Group. When I helped him bring out the last edition of his book, I tried to iron out some remaining wrinkles. What seemed mostly missing was a consistent analysis (not just prose) of a large body of songs to prove the method. And so I wrote my book which came out in 2009 and I used roadmaps that shows exactly where the bricks and joins occur in relation to the chords.
I tried to remove all ambiguity and I also extended the method to cope with what I came across in analysing the 238 songs.
I agree Conrad's book has a lot of wisdom about teaching and playing jazz and this is what makes it so long and interesting. But it lacks rigour in defining and applying the method to its 24 example songs.
My book has a section on where to start when learning. It is important to understand that this knowledge builds in layers. So, I would not start with Cherokee, for example, since that requires that several bricks and joins are already learned at the first hurdle.
Conrad wrote his book with the intention that non-instrumentalists could understand it. So he deliberately avoids musical technical terms like major and minor. My book is aimed at players who want to learn to play jazz and are prepared to learn the basic terms.
However, Conrad's concept it fantastic and is exactly the correct approach for jazz.
I hope this helps. I am happy to talk more when I notice these messages.
J
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05-06-2012 10:24 AM
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I'm going to get J. Elliott's book.
Conrad Cork's book is $78 at Amazon U.S. That's a bit steep for me as I'll have the material I'm looking for in Elliott's book.
Perhaps that won't work for the study group?
There is the google group though. I'm such a big believer in study groups, they are motivating for me and keep me on track.
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Just for info, Amazon is a bit of a red herring. They list all books with an ISBN, whether they can supply it or not. If you are a small publisher, they simply puy "out of stock" and will not engage.
The only source for Conrad's book now that he is retired it Jazzwise.com. They sell it for £25 +P&P, I believe. And it is not available for sale in ebook form.
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Hey Rich... thanks for the free down load of your book...
Pretty incredible resource, took a while to get through.
I like your systematic approach, some what mechanical, but as resource and system for visualizing, cool.
The next step would be to view material from different aspects, different tonal systems as base for understanding relationships.
Or not, but again thanks, really cool. Every musician should go through this process.
Moving on to memorization of tunes...
I play gigs all the time and in all types of settings, players etc... I find that I usually am able to quickly hear tunes and remember very quickly by relating to forms, general functional harmonic movement and quick analysis. Generally I can hear or know the tune before we finish reading through. Obviously I understand music from a few view points, and my ears are well developed... but when I was young, before the educational process, years in the music business etc
I decided to hear music in shapes and forms... The form concept has not changed, has become more developed and the shape thing now reflects harmonic concepts.
Long story short.... If while you learn or play jazz standards... begin to hear or better yet, make quick analysis of the harmonic progressions. You will begin to become aware of Chord Patterns, simple two, four or eight bar harmonic phrases. Those are chord patterns, all the standards and even more contemporary tune are composed from them.
Different harmonic settings will have influence as to where the changes come from, the source for complete pitch or note collections. Same changes will have different implied subs. or directions of development.
The settings will also inform as to how sections are connected, standard jazz practice... at least starting point, reference to what might be used.
Part of this hearing process is being aware of jazz concepts, when you try and use basic Functional Harmony, basic major-minor tonal system as only reference... your going to miss things, which leads to conflicts, which leads to.... difficulty of memorizing tunes.
I would thing going through this learning process would be more beneficial than having someone else tell you... somewhat the nature of jazz.
But 99% of jazz tunes as well as where improvisation may go... use these concepts. Even the simple use of altered tension usually implies a source or direction where improve may go.
Somewhat simplistic, but I always play with all the basic jazz doors open, (the doors are my metaphors for basic jazz concepts), They all influence what I'm playing, even if they're never entered or referenced.
Part of mechanical chordal memorization techniques are the behind the basic chordal details. If your going to play in a jazz style, generally the memorization system needs to reflect those aspects... or not. Reg
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You definitely need to learn through experience. And you need to learn in layers. The difficulty beginners have is knowing what it a substitution and what it the regular form.
A quote from my book:
Building from the ground up
Here I show one possible order of learning bricks and related concepts based on the frequency in which they occur in the songs in Annex B.Starting with a minimal set of the following bricks (see Section 2):- Regular Cadence and Launcher
- On and Off
- Hover
you can learn the following songs from Annex B:- Blue Bossa
- Solar
- Recorda Me
- Tune Up
- What’s New?
Adding:- Dropback, Pullback, dropping and pulling back in general (see Section 5)
- Approach chords (Section 2)
you can memorise the following additional songs:- Baubles, Bangles and Beads
- Ceora
- I’ll Remember April
- Perdido
- Rosetta
- Star Eyes
Adding:- the concept Nowhere and the Nowhere Cadence
you can memorise the following additional songs:- Alone Together
- Bernie’s Tune
- Flamingo
- Lullaby of Birdland
- Lullaby of the Leaves
- Summertime
- What is This Thing Called Love?
Adding:- the concept Two-goes (or more) Cadence and the TTFA dropback
you can memorise the following additional songs:- Corner Pocket
- Scrapple from the Apple
- Secret Love
- Shiny Stockings
- Under a Blanket of Blue
- I Love You
Adding:- the Slow Launcherconcept (Section 2)
you can memorise the following additional songs:- ‘A’ Train
- Blue Moon
- Don’t Go to Strangers
- Invitation
Adding:- the Long Cadence(Section 2)
you can memorise the following additional songs:- I Got It Bad
- Love for Sale
- Ornithology
Adding:- the Overrun (Section 2)
you can memorise the following additional songs:- Beautiful Love
- Broadway
- Thunderbirds
- Whisper Not
Adding:- the Starlight Cadence (Section 2)
you can memorise the following additional songs:- Airegin
- Alice in Wonderland
- The Christmas Song
- Confirmation
- I’ve Never Been in Love Before
- It Don’t Mean a Thing
- Minority
- Soul Eyes
- Teach Me Tonight
- That’s All
- Woody ‘n’ You
Adding:- the Rainy Cadence (Section 2) and the Raindrop (Section 5)
you can memorise the following additional songs:- A House is Not a Home
- Autumn Leaves
- Here’s That Rainy Day
- Let it Snow!
- The Nearness of You
- Out of Nowhere
- S’Wonderful
- There’s no You
Adding:- the IV n Back family (see Section 8)
you can memorise the following additional songs:- Anything Goes
- Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea
- Blues
- Honeysuckle Rose
- I’ve Got Rhythm
- If I Had You
- Lady Be Good
- Li’l Darlin’
- The Masquerade is Over
- Misty
- Remember
- Saint Thomas
- Santa Claus is Coming to Town
- September in the Rain
- There’ll Never be Another You
- Too Close for Comfort
- You Go to My Head
Adding:- Yardbird Cadenceand the concept of Yardbird substitution(Section 4)
you can memorise the following additional songs:- Avalon
- Every Time We Say Goodbye
- Everything Happens to Me
- Groovin’ High
- Stardust
- Stella by Starlight
- Sweet and Lovely
- Too Marvellous for Words
- Violets for Your Furs
- When I Fall in Love
- Yours is my Heart Alone
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I didn't mean to kill the discussion, sorry.
J
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Re: the list at post #31
What I really like about that list and the organization of the book is using that as the order to learn ones repertoire. Trying to develop the repertoire, knowledge of this 'brick' analysis and develop the ear all at the same time and in a systematic logical order.
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I somewhat dropped out to stay out of the way... I already know most of those tunes... I don't have difficulty memorizing tunes. And usually can hear where most tunes are going. I'm more concerned with harmonic implications and form. Who plays the same changes etc... every time a tunes called. Reg
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I'm ready to get going with this if others are -- work is still busy (in a good way) but I can make the time.
Based on Gersdal's and John's suggestions, it would make sense to start with a couple of basic "bricks" and look at a simple song like Blue Bossa, which has just hovers and cadences. Of course I know the tune to hum but I've never played it, so for me this seems as good a place as any to start.
Here's my understanding of things from Part V and the changes given in Part VII:
"Hover" means you just play one static chord for an extended time
"Straight cadence" is a major ii-V-I
"Sad cadence" is a minor ii-v-i
The analysis Cork gives is:
Two measure sad hover, Highjump to another 2 measure sad hover.
Sad Backslider
Straight Cherokee
Sad Downwinder
I'm not sure how well the "joins" work for me at the moment -- anyone comment on this? To me thinking of the tune as moving away from the tonic minor to the major a semitone above and then back is kind of important, and is obscured by the analysis above.
Comments / corrections?
For inspiration, here's a famous take on the tune:
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It might be educational to view this simple tune in the LEGO terms was as well as in the conventional Roman numeral way which might be:
Hover (I) for 2 measures
Hover (IV) for 2 measures
Sad Cadence home (IIm7b5 V Im)
Straight Cadence up a semitone (II V I)
Sad Cadence home (IIm7b5 V Im)
The assumption is that, unless stated, a cadence is over 4 measures.
I'd ignore the first join since this is simply Chord Im followed by Chord IVm. If you think in Roman Numerals for simple tunes, you do not need any joins at all. I would recommend avoiding joins unless you need them.
The problem with thinking "Straight Cadence up a semitone" is that you need to calculate where the new II is (i.e. #II). The Cherokee join is the one that gets you up a semitone. From home (Cm) you go up a minor 3rd to new II chord. After the Straight Cadence you are at Db. So the lesson is, if you need to shift up a half step using a regular cadence, start up a minor 3rd from the original key. It is named after the tune Cherokee. In Bb, the bridge starts on C#-7, i.e. up a minor 3rd and gets us to BM7, a half step up.
We should not need to be told where to start the final cadence home since it starts on the original II chord. But, for the record, the Conrad named this join a Downwinder because it gets you a half step down. And you need to memorise that you start your cadence a half step UP from the previous temporary home. i.e. Db -> Dm7b5.
I would recommend that you try to think in Roman Numerals as well as LEGO and see what works for you. Try this song in another key and see where you get lost. Try easy keys such as Gm, Dm, Am, Em.
J
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I like J Elliotts illustration of the joins. You'll find them in the presentation on his page. Modulation from C to Bb would be two steps clockwise around the circle of fifths, hence a New Horizon ... A modulation from C to F would be one step and hence a Bootstrap etc.
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Nice! BTW I'm I'm definitely intending to get John's ebook as soon as I can -- having to watch the cash just now but it does look like excellent value.
So, a couple of days later I've come back to Blue Bossa and played it through without checking the chords; seems like I've got it in my memory bank for the moment at least. Of course, as John says this is a simple tune and I might have remembered it anyway, but it's good to start somewhere.
As for the others in this category, I've been playing Solar quite a bit lately: I think of it just as a minor blues and blow on it by ear, but thinking in "brick" terms might give me some more options. I last played Recorda Me maybe 15 years ago... long forgotten now... so those two might give me something to look at over the weekend.
On another note:
Are others here interested in pursuing this line of study at the moment? It seems like it could be fruitful for folks looking to build basic repertoire as well as those wanting to learn about the Lego approach. But if it's just me getting generous help from John and Gersdal then it might be easier for them if I hike over to the Google Group.
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I suspect there are lots of members of the LEGO Google Group that would benefit from a beginners discussion, so please come over and propose it! http://groups.google.com/group/lego-bricks
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So I've posted a thread in the LEGO group to discuss Blue Bossa. Time to get busy
https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=...ks/aQqM4oL2r-Y
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Just so you know, there is a study of Blue Bossa and the LEGO approach just starting up: Jazz_Harmony_LEGO_bricks | Google Groups
Hope to see you there.
J
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The Book(s)
Buy Now – Insights In Jazz
The Method
The Method – Insights In Jazz
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Ahhhhh! Nice, Guy!
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I ordered the PDFs (both: the Cork book and Elliott's "Insights" book) and have received the downloads.
I'm looking forward to working through this material.
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In Elliott's companion book "Insights in Jazz", he mentions a list from the Manhattan School of Music's "Jazz Student Handbook". They say, "12 tunes say it all!"
Elliott adds the Blues to make for 13 and these are them:
1) The Blues 2) Rhythm Changes 3) Cherokee 4) Sweet Georgia Brown (Dig) 5) Indiana (Donna Lee) 6) How High the Moon (Ornithology) 7 Out of Nowhere 8) Perdido 9) Honeysuckle Rose 10) Whispering (Groovin' High) 11) All The Things You Are 12) Night and Day 13) Lover.
Elliott's focus (like Cork's) is not on the melodies but on the forms, the progressions, the patterns that turn up in so many jazz tunes and the ways they connect (joiners).
Elliott's book contains over 200 "roadmaps" to standard tunes, far more than Cork focused on in his book.
I'm going to work through the 13 listed above and see if the names Cork came up with stick with me.
Anyone else working with this material?
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Today was a travel day so I read about 150 pages of Lego Bricks in various airports today. Love it. This obviously doesn’t qualify as “working through it” because I haven’t been able to do the accompanying listening yet but I’m going to double back next week after I’ve caught up on my other work
Gibson N225?
Today, 11:08 AM in Guitar, Amps & Gizmos