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03-20-2016, 04:00 PM #76destinytot GuestOriginally Posted by JensL
I like a good discussion, too - but I don't find online discussion to be as satisfying as I find it (and as you describe it) entertaining.
On the other hand, as MJ sang, "You gotta put your heart on the line if you wanna make it right."
Because the heart has its own reasons which Reason doesn't know - even while BH and Uncle Wes (yes, I'll call him uncle) do.
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03-20-2016 04:00 PM
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Originally Posted by JensL
And anyone in jazz education is kind of in the business of selling things. This inevitable.
So well OK, I don't know re the harmony stuff for sure because I haven't got that far with it.
But having acquired the basics and moved towards understanding some the more complicated examples, as well as exploring the scales from the point of view of improvised two part counterpoint, I can see where I could go with it... That's what I mean about the movement thing - getting away from chords. There's more than one way of doing that, of course.
The improvisation stuff is extending my language, or at least I'm having tremendous fun exploring it... I think it's a really good way of building language. TBH I don't care about any system any further than how interesting and useful I find it. There's lots of stuff on this forum that hasn't yet interested me, for example. Maybe one day it will, maybe not.
I certainly don't expect consistency. I'm a musician, not a music theorist. I want things I can USE.
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Originally Posted by grahambop
It's not an overarching theory in the sense that CST is, and you can find similar groupings of stuff elsewhere, I'm sure, but I do find it addresses pretty much all the changes playing through standards I've come across really nicely.
The 1-7-1 stuff alone is a terrific way to internalise changes. I like to sing through standards changes like this - it gives me the sound of the changes more easily than if I sing arpeggios, for example.Last edited by christianm77; 03-20-2016 at 04:48 PM.
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Originally Posted by JensL
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Is there a particular workshop of his online that is good to start with? Are there a few, and is there a 'good' order to watch them?
To give you some 'current familiarity' context, I have a copy of Kingstone's book, and started working through it a bit. I recognize the "tonic voicing-diminished passing chord - tonic inversion - dim. passing chord - etc" pattern from Randy Vincent's drop-2 book, though I imagine I'll see some differences the further into the BH thing I get, and I know that's just the boiler-plate knowledge for getting the rest of it down.
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Roni Ben Hur's book Talk Jazz is a good place to start I think... EDIT: for the single note stuff...
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Originally Posted by ghoststrat
Howard Rees' Jazz Workshops | The Barry Harris Workshop Video
Howard Rees' Jazz Workshops | The Barry Harris Workshop Video Part 2
You may also want to check out David Berkman's recent Harmony book published by Chuck Sher which has a whole section devoted to Barry Harris. In the context of this thread, it's interesting that Berkman confesses to initially overlooking BH's methods but he's recently become fascinated by their implications.
Like Christian, I found the most immediately useable aspects of the Rees videos to be line-related. One thing I grabbed and ran with was his idea of the chromatic major scale. Basically, it's a major scale filled out chromatically with a jump back to a previously heard diatonic note wherever a semitone would normally occur in the sequence. For example, a descending F major scale - F, E, D, C, Bb, A, G, F - where the semitones occur between F & E and Bb & A would be transformed into F, (G), E, (Eb), D, (Db), C, (B), Bb, (C), A, (Ab), G, (Gb), F. From this scale, I created a 'looped' ii-V-I exercise using a descending scale that covers the whole range of the guitar and starts on the 7th, 5th, 3rd and root notes respectively:
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nice post, PMB.
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I want to post this here, because it is the most interesting thing I have come across for a long time.
https://www.artofcomposing.com/aoc-0...eid=588aece28f
According to this scholar, the important knowledge of great composers from the 'late baroque/early classical era' through to Nadia Boulanger's school was not in functional harmony or counterpoint, but in these 17th/18th century exercises called partimenti. Partimenti (according to this guy) were the key tool that equipped musicians to be able to improvise and compose very quickly according to a set of available licks and material by working from a bass progression. Sound familiar?
According to him roman numeral analysis, sonata form and other classical theory tropes were essentially inventions of the 19th century academic music world. The great composers did not think in terms of functional harmony at all, according to him, but had a vast array of licks and vocabulary they could use to make music.
I find the description of this reminds me of the way the Barry Harris system works (the guy in the podcast actually compares it to Aebersold patterns, he also talks about linguistics.)
To me this is what actual jazz education is about - not about 'rules' or 'theory' but actual examples of language you can use right away.Last edited by christianm77; 03-21-2016 at 10:59 AM.
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Originally Posted by christianm77
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Partimenti style : Instant Mozart
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Originally Posted by rintincop
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Thank you, everyone who posted responses to my question about the BH approach. I'm digging into it.
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Originally Posted by JensL
Your drop 2 chords on the top 4 strings are the same voicings as Alan Kingstone's 'Barry Harris' chords and are applied in a similar way. i.e. his maj 6 shapes are the same as your min7 shapes, and his min6 shapes are the same as your min7b5 shapes (and are used in the same way to cover dominant, altered and min7b5 sounds).
The only difference is that you are leaving out the diminished chords which Barry adds to create the steps between the main chords, if I add these in it's identical.Last edited by grahambop; 03-25-2016 at 05:01 AM.
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Originally Posted by grahambop
I don't know Alan Kingstones book (I somehow managed to learn jazz almost completely without books ) I had a piano teacher and a guitar teacher point out that you could use these chords like that. It obviously works regardless of it being Drop2 voicings.
The way it was presented to me was from looking at the upper part of dominant chords and Maj7(9) chords. I explain that in some of the altered scale lessons in a bit more detail because it is very useful to find an arpeggio over an altered dominant.
Yes you could add a diminished chord to it and get minor and major 6th diminished scales and then use that as a foundation of thinking, but that would just clutter up the usefulness of this with a lot of extra theory that you wouldn't be using anyway when you are trying to play the chords.
I don't know if I would really describe that is "the only difference" since it would kick out diatonic chords and disguise functions as suspensions etc.. But that is obviously just my opinion
Jens
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Hi Jens - it sounds like a system I came up with - I think m7 and m6 personally... Got the idea from Charlie C.
And yes, you can sequence it in with Barry stuff - (he would say 6 not m7...)
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Originally Posted by JensL
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By 'only difference' I just meant that if I add diminished chords in between your sequence of drop 2s on the top 4 strings, the result is identical to the maj 6 dim chord scale in Alan's book, even to the exact voicings used.
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Military bop scales! 'Give me 20 Dominant scales from the 3rd with 3 added half steps, soldier!'
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I like the way he refers to gigs as 'performing musical missions as a saxophonist.'
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Originally Posted by grahambop
I am trying to teach people that with 2 voicings they can play a lot of different chords. I am not trying to teach the scale. If that is the goal then teaching them 2 scales they have never heard of is not important and would just be in the way.
Surely you can see that the principle stands well on it's own with out any mention of 6th dim stuff? (it is after all older than the 6th dim scale)
You should also be aware that the dim chord sound is connected to one style or period and does not fit in all genres of jazz, which can't be said for the voicing idea. You're probably not going to hear a lot of 6th dim from McCoy or Hancock.
Jens
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edit: reg. the musical mission specialistLast edited by joe2758; 03-25-2016 at 08:42 AM.
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Actually joking aside, this video covers the BH approach to improvisation in a really through way, using more familiar jazz edu language. Quite dry though - I'd have fallen asleep in that lecture haha...
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yeah man I couldn't get past the first 3-4 minutes. reminded me too much of work
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