Modern harmony analysis

[JonR]

I do this too. What in CST says I can't?

Nothing. (As I hope we established elsewhere, I'm more in agreement with you than this stage of the thread seems to suggest, but I feel like responding anyway...)

Why should I be bothered about determining an entire scale? Are you bothered about determining the whole arpeggio? This may be the root of the problem. A misunderstanding of how CST is/can be used.

Not exactly.
My point was only that one can improvise perfectly well in jazz without thinking about CST at all.
That doesn't mean CST is useless - still less that it "dictates" dumb ways to play. It means - as I said elsewhere - that it isn't an improvisation strategy, and the mistake (not yours, natch!) is to think it is.

HG's beef seems to be based on an impression that CST masquerades as a strategy, which it doesn't. I think he was just trying to make sure that his students didn't fall under that impression, as it seems (by his irritation) he must have encountered many that have. He did it by emphasising a real strategy, but without putting CST in its proper context.

Is that what I'm doing, showing everyone I know my scales?

Surely not...

The more likely who will get buried? Someone who doesn't understand how to use chord/scale stuff?

Yes. It isn't the fault of CST, but of an absence of strategy.

Who's idea is it to skate gracefully over the surface? Maybe there are more ways than that?
What if I don't want to touch down on chord tones for a while? Then bring them in gradually?

Sorry, yes, I was imagining just one scenario: the kind where there are too many chords for full exploration of each one to make much sense.
Again, I accept CST is not about suggesting one has to explore every chord.

Less is not necessarily more, and sometimes it's just less.

Sure. I think I said the same thing somewhere... I did say here that experience is key. If you don't know what's important, then less certainly is less.

Dig deep, ya might find something ya didn't expect.

Of course. Question is: would you know what to do with it? (I mean, I know you would...)
Personally, I find I play things I didn't expect all the time; keeps me on my toes .

[JonR]

.. and then JonR said yikes (but did he know he was not yikesing the tune he had analyzed but the second tune?)

I did know that.
But I just managed to find The Cross, and you're welcome to a "yikes" for that one too . It's a lot less frantic in mood, of course, but I've just spent a fruitless couple of minutes trying to work out the metre of the opening section (I know - or at least I'm reasonably sure - it goes to 12/8 later...)

I find that kind of thing tiring, but probably just because I'm getting old. (As a young man, I suspect it would have been inspiring.) It's OK, don't mind me. The nurse will be along shortly with my medication...

[mike walker]

Jon, I think this is more of a problem of how some interpret CST rather than CST
itself. That, I think, seems to be something we are, fundamentally,
in agreement on.
But, hopefully not flogging a dead flea here, just one point you make about
not needing CST to improvise well:
The 'thinking' is left to those strategies that can be adopted in the practice room. And many things are not needed to improvise well.
Indeed, we can purposefully omit certain aspects of playing, arpeggios, 16ths, certain systems, blah blah.

All good, man.

[Jazzpunk]

Yep, that sums it up nicely.

Sometimes I think the anti-CST, anti-modal - new term for me, thanks JonR - crowd is that they assume that people will just mechanically play scales with no acknowledgement of where the tune is going. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Bingo.