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I sure do. Thanks!
Originally Posted by princeplanet
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08-23-2016 02:32 PM
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Agree, of course. I started from zero, from scratch, but I got to study the foundations with the absolute best teacher here. The best advice he gave me was that the best student ultimately becomes her or his own teacher, cultivates an inquisitive mind and knows how to focus while always asking questions and seeking knowledge that will present its own perpetually generated follow up questions. Learning is a never ending process, we are all always students at heart. Originally Posted by christianm77
that said, I have a good program and know generally what I want to accomplish---to play the guitar like a piano. Generally getting up to 4 hours pracrice time a day in now. I can actually see a light at the end of this tunnel. Which will of course lead to other pathways ...
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I don't blame Wes there's only so much to say in a song then you start to meander! Don't get me wrong I love that Trane stuff and jam band type music but I can also see where the other cats are coming from. Listen to Bird he'd say everything he needed to say in a matter of minutes. Originally Posted by NSJ
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I kinda feel that the less form a tune has, the longer you can go. You're essentially creating form, at that point, the solo can have a much wider arc... Originally Posted by FZ2017
In the compartmentalization of a standard, repetition in the form becomes much more apparent.
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Can you be more specific about how one goes about playing a guitar like a piano.
Thanks
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Watch lenny breau and Pasquale Grasso play. They're the quintessential prototypes. Grassos hero was Bud Powell. Originally Posted by jameslovestal
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George Van Eps
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I wish I heard it and could just play it heh. Originally Posted by docbop
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Pardon my ignorance but what is CST stand for? Some kinda method? Originally Posted by christianm77
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I don't know how you couldn't see them as a descending scale but what do I know compared to most of you guys on here. Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
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That makes sense also. That's probably how the bop players would've seen it right? Sense we've mentioned before that they thought in terms of chords/harmony. Originally Posted by Stevebol
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I can see the scale too. Originally Posted by FZ2017
But, I asked myself, in what situation would I be most likely to play that sequence of notes?
And, I responded to myself by asking clarifying questions - what's the phrasing?, which notes are getting leaned on? What is the bassist doing?
I couldn't answer those, but it still looked like this: I might use those notes in playing against an A dominant probably leading to a Dm. The G at the outset leaning to a C# gives the 3rd and 7th. Then, as the line descends, you reach C and B. In this context, I'd be likely to want to hear the b9, which resolves nicely to the A in Dm. So, in a way, I know I'm going to want Bb and not B. What's left is whether or not to play the C. It sounds ok to me, but sometimes you want to interrupt a line that's too dense -- meaning throw in an interval larger than a whole step.
That took a paragraph to explain. Just thinking DHM is simpler, but, in fact, I never really spent a lot of time thinking about the theory of HM (I'm starting to now, a little). I always glossed over the formal study because I thought it was a sound I could already hear. The point is that there's more than one way to get to those notes.
I generally only transcribe when something catches my ear. When that happens, it usually turns out that it was a simple line, often mostly an arp, but not played against the usual chord. Last night's visit to the Omnibook revealed a nice A7-looking line -- simple stuff really, but played against an Ab7 chord.
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I’ve totally forgotten what is being discussed on this thread
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@ RPguitar I'm glad you raised the Omniboook - using it together with the relevant Parker recordings is the fastest and most reliable way to get to grips with bebop lines.
Re your point about Parker playing an A7th scale/lick/arpeggio over Ab7: my guess is that it's a tritone into I or I7. But please give the tune and bar reference - I'm geeeeeeky enough to want to explore!
Re your comment about harmonic minor: imho a trained musician of Parker's stature would almost certainly know about the HM, but equally certainly he (and the rest of the beboppers) would not think this way when improvising. They were outlining changes and staying close to them (the trick is figuring about which reharms and alterations they pre-applied, but actually these reharms are limited in type and pretty straightforward). In my numerous BH studies - in class and with videos and books, I do not remember the HM being recommended, but I could be wrong.
I have attached the last few bars of Donna Lee, which amply demonstrate my point. I am genuinely interested to know where, how, and why anyone would get worthwhile mileage out of analysing them in harmonic minor terms.Last edited by sunnysideup; 03-08-2018 at 11:01 AM.
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@djg No it doesn't (unless my couple of post-prandial glasses of red wine are laced with LSD); and even if you were right it wouldn't answer my question "where, how, and why would anyone get worthwhile mileage out of analysing it in harmonic minor terms".
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Thanks for expanding and elaborating @djg.
- so you've answered the where and how; what about the "why"?
- do you play this kind of music on guitar? if so, do you really think of this line as a Bb harm min line?
- if you do - then why? what does it give you that a changes based approach doesn't?
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I think your answer to "why" is based on a misunderstanding of my question. Yes, sure you can fit HM over the changes, but I don't think that's what the beboppers did. I believe they were thinking of the changes, not an HM scale.
I think what I'm saying is borne out by BH's approach. Like him or not, at least he understands the way the beboppers thought, as he was there at the time. Not that I'm a BH devotee at all; I think the rigidity with which his acolytes are interpreting his rules is extremely damaging.
But I'm still trying to understand what benefit you get from thinking about it as HM rather than just following the changes.
It's possible that we think of the term "functional" in different ways. Classic bebop is overhelmingly dominant-tonic in conception, as demonstrated by the BH approach, not HM.
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@djg I do appreciate your replies.
I have both of BH's videos, but have never really gone into video 2. But based on your prompting I've checked the contents and sure enough there are a few refs to the harmonic minor scale in video2.
As I mentioned earlier, you can shoe-horn or overlay HM onto some Parker passages, as you can with the melodic minor. But exactly the same note choices can be arrived at just by following a changes-based approach. And for me at least this is a much easier and more efficacious way of doing it.
Back to my mini-pdf of Donna Lee, and your analysis of it. Why think of the first bar as Bb HM, when really it's just diatonic to Ab (Donna is in the key of Ab), with one standard bop alteration (just one non-diatonic note) ?
(1) the first bar for me is more easily analysed as per the chord symbols from the Omnibook, with the addition of a flat 9 on the F7 (V1domb9 is common in bop right).
(2) the HM scale approach only works in a few places, as does the melodic minor approach, whereas the simpler diatonic approach with altered chord tones works universally in Parkeresque bebop.
I'm not saying that what you're saying is wrong, but it does seem to me to be superfluous for playing this kind of jazz; it's adding an extra layer which isn't necessary in bebop from that period.
The benefits of the changes-based approach that I'm advocating (as are numerous major players) are that (1) one is not constrained by scale tones; one can simply add whatever altered chord tones that are relevant, as in my preferred way of thinking about bar 1 of the Donna excerpt (2) one doesn't have to think about other scales.
Also worth bearing in mind that BH has had half a century or more to elaborate his theory. Parker didn't have that luxury.Last edited by sunnysideup; 03-08-2018 at 02:09 PM.
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Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha
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I recommend the Barry Harris DVDs to interested parties, beyond that, I'm out of here.
EDIT: also the Roni Ben Hur my music masterclass video on minor blues covers running chords in to the 3rd of the dom 7 and it's a bit cheaper for those skeptical about such a big investment as the DVDs....
(BTW In Donna Lee it's Ab7 running into the third of F7. I think that's how Barry would see it...)
For anyone not interested, nothing to add...
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@djg I have got my head around what you're saying, it's simple enough.
But it's not the way the beboppers thought about it. Neither is this approach recommended by Barry Harris in either of his videos, unlesss I've missed something. Out of interest, and courtesy to you, I have followed up the references to harmonic minor in Barry's 2nd video/book. They relate to min 2-5-1, and they cover 2 or 3 pages out of a total of 300.
If you want to think of lines over III-VIdomb9 as harmonic minor of a diffferent key, be my guest. If you want to think of the first bar of my excerpt from Donna as harmonic minor of a different key, then please feel free to do so.
But thinking in this way will imho limit you, as there are numerous potential lines through that simple change that are not remotely connected to HM. And I'm still not seeing what you think it buys you to think in that way.
In addition to the BH vids, and a couple of week long BH workshops, and a very long playing history, I also have Alan's book.
I have recommended it many times - it's a harmonic method, not a method for line construction. I do not remember any reference to harmonic minor in it, and there is no reference to HM in the table of contents.
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It is the notes of BbHM.
The downbeats spell F7. The upbeats spell Ebm7.
And, as has already been pointed out, it looks like scale and arp with a note or two thrown in.
We know exactly what he was thinking: "forget it and just blow".
Well, I have been thinking about what it takes to play a line at that tempo that guys are analyzing decades later.
I find it hard to believe that he would have been thinking one chord at a time. These are more likely well practiced lines or, at least, bits of theory that wouldn't require a new concept every quarter or half second.
Tonal center, chord tones with well practiced alterations, or maybe even a harmonic minor scale. Chord tones on the downbeats, interpolation on the upbeats. Hard to say.Last edited by rpjazzguitar; 03-08-2018 at 09:15 PM.
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I appreciate your rational reply @RP. Here are some of my thoughts on the lines.
Seeing that phrase in the context of the 2 bar III-VI-II-V that it's a part of. Does that line sound in any way minor to you? It doesn't to my ears. It sounds very jolly, amost trite in its resolution. Wild horses wouldn't persuade me that CP was thinking of harmonic minor. Imho It's a simple III-VI-II-V with a standard bop altered VI dom, the b9 of which is the only note outside the tune's key centre of Ab.
I agree CP wasn't thinking one chord at a time when he was improvising. But he was combining well practiced lines which were based on the changes. I feel that these lines relate to specific chords and their alterations, rather than a scalar approach. Joe Pass summed this approach up perfectly when he said "when the chord changes, you change with it".
This excerpt is taken from the end of the head of Donna as you know. So it really is a very well thought out line - it's not spontaneous in the least.
The irony for me personally is that I started out playing scalar, vaguely modal stuff. And increasingly worked towards a changes-based approach, which might be the opposite direction of many people.
Finally, you're right, the line spells ut BbHM, but to me it's really spelling out III-VIalt as per the changes.
As you said in an earlier post, there are many ways to get to the same conclusion, and I have no problem with anyone who takes the HM approach. Personally I reserve HM for genuine minor moods .
Your idea of using lines from the Omnibook as the basis for analysis and discussion really is excellent. Trying to discuss these things in generalised abstractions is very difficult and prone to all sorts of misunderstandings. A thread on that would be great, but I'm not volunteering :-)
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Was Donna Lee composed, with Parker sitting with a pencil and paper for a few hours? For some reason, I'd always assumed it was improvised and then written down. But, I can no longer remember where I got that idea. Thin air, maybe.. Originally Posted by sunnysideup
I'm willing to accept that HM has some applications which simply do not sound "minor". This is clearly one of them. Might Parker have already appreciated that and played accordingly? I don't know, but I wouldn't put it past him <g>.
I haven't any idea what he did in the practice room to reach a point where he could play this spontaneously, if that's what happened. It does occur to me that I could think "harmonic minor, from the 9th, with the root a step lower than the root of the iim" -- and get the right notes. After enough practice, I might be able to use it on the fly.
Or, I could do something more like what I'm already doing most of the time -- being aware of tonal center and chord tones, and them embellishing them by ear. Should a young player work at thinking this way? Seems like some talented players and teachers on here might not recommend it. But, when the planets line up, this approach allows me to play exactly the solo I want to play. And, when it heads south, it's usually a failure of my finger to find the note in my mind. I could avoid that clam with CST and geometry, but then it wouldn't express what I'm trying to express.
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Well personally I go with the approach you outlined in your final paragraph, but using embellishment guided by the subs and or alterations that I want to use. And by being aware of the various lines advocated by Barry Harris and many others, and not least of all by the musicians I've listened to, including CP.
I can't find any reference by BH to thinking about this kind of line as HM in this III-VI-II-V context; if there is one tucked away somewhere it's definitely not a core part of III-VI-II-V. But he does reference HM in the context of minor 2-5-1, as I mentioned earlier (it occupies 3 or 4 pages out of 300, which gives an idea of how unimportant it is in the BH approach). This fits well with the way I think about it - who wants to think of a jolly little line like the Donna excerpt as a harmonic minor?
Another reason that I think the changes approach is more useful is that it helps get the chord tones on the strong beats, which is considered key to a strong bop line.
Yes, you could "think "harmonic minor, from the 9th, with the root a step lower than the root of the iim" -- and get the right notes", but it's much easier to think in terms of the changes as you already know them, isnt't it? There are stock alterations to changes as you know, and they soon come under the fingers, as you also know.
Re my posted excerpt from Donna, if CP had decided not to use the b9 of the VIalt, which would be perfectly valid though slightly bland, then the line would not be interpretable as HM at all. The dom6alt is so common in bop I think of it as (almost) diatonic anyway.
A scalar approach would obviously be much more in line with post-Parker jazz. Parker's solos are usually just 2-4 choruses in 2-3 minutes! Not the 20 minutes or more of the modals.
There are many talented players and teachers on this forum, and they evidently don't all take the same approach.
My advice to anyone wanting to learn bop lines is to work through the Omnibook with the relevant recordings. And to analyse the lines. It's the fastest, easiest, and most authentic way to get Parkeresque playing under your fingers. It's much faster than BH's method. Obviously it's fantastic for developing the ear and the time feel too, and it's free.
These days I'm just enjoying hacking through solo standards. I do regularly insert Parker quotes and allusions into them, but I'm not trying to further develop my bop lines at the moment. To some extent I feel they have detracted from the lyrical side.
Anyway, that's enough from me on this topic, over and out, have a good day.
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