Mark Turner and triads

[jordanklemons]

Hey guys...

I was just lucky enough to have my 2nd 2 hour masterclass session with Mark Turner tonight (1st one was last week). I love Mark's playing and writing. And I once watched a video of a Rosenwinkel masterclass where someone asked something about playing and Kurt just laughed and said that he's just trying to keep up with Mark...effectively hinting at the idea that a lot of what sounds so cool and modern about his playing stemmed from hanging out with, playing with, and trying to keep up with Mark.

I just thought some of you here would get a kick out of knowing that roughly 70-80% (ish) of what he talked about during the 4 hours total with him was just triads. And almost all of what he talked about tonight was centered around triads.

I know we generally are all looking for big, heavy, complicated stuff. I think in a lot of ways, Mark is sort of a figurehead for the modern sound of what jazz has been these last many years...and especially on modern jazz guitar (because of his work with, and influence on Kurt)...and I just love how much he stressed triads. And not in some "you guys are still not good enough and need to work on your triads" type thing. He said he still spends a huge chunk of his time on it. In fact at the end of the masterclass, after almost everyone else had left, I walked over to thank him...he was standing by himself at the piano and was playing some stuff he'd been showing us that he'd been working on...it was all just triads. hahaha

Back to the basics.

[christianm77]

Yes, triads seem to be big in contemporary jazz. Lage Lund uses them a lot as well.

It makes sense - they are very recognisable to the ear, so when put in an unusual/polytonal context they create their own harmonic space.

TBH the more I learn the more I realise that thee are only basics.

[nick1994]

You always hear about the greats just really digging into the fundamentals

[Nabil B]

Hey Jordan,

Could you please share some of the information he gave about using the triads (which triads in which context for example) ?

Thanks

[marcwhy]

Cool, thanks! I love Mark's playing.

I believe he studied with Garzone, who is all about triads. Even though triads are "basic," how these guys put them together is far from that!

[jordanklemons]

Hey Jordan,

Could you please share some of the information he gave about using the triads (which triads in which context for example) ?

Thanks

I'll do the best I can, but it was a ton of information...and much of it he simply communicated to us by playing...not always explaining verbally exactly what it was. My ear is good enough to spot that much of what he was doing (when broken down) was super simple...but not necessarily good enough to tell you every exact little note.

As far as which triads...all of them.

As far was context and examples....

If you think you can play all of your triads everywhere on the instrument, pick a cycle (like moving up or down in half steps, whole steps, minor thirds, major thirds, etc) and try and string the triads in the cycle together. Try not to just play each one starting from the root. Go slow enough that you can voice lead through them so it doesn't sound like an etude. If that starts to get easy, than try and move in the opposite direction from the triads. So play your single note lines ascending as the triad cycle is descending, or vice versa. This almost guarantees that you can't fake it or rely on patterns. Almost. You really have to pay attention and focusing on navigating through the movement in real time. Which is really the point.

He is VERY big on playing basic cadences on the piano using ONLY triads. So for instance, pick a basic cadence...like a I-IV-I or a I-V-I or something like that...and sit at the piano and explore that harmonic movement only with triads. First just to get the sound of the basic structure and movement of it into your ears, but then to begin to really focus on the voice leading for each individual note. Use inversions or closed versus open triads to find ways to move between the triads that are pleasing to your ear. Contrary motion is great, especially between the lowest note and the highest. If it's contrary motion and you like the sound of it you could even use it within a composition...give the bass player the lower notes and turn the highest notes into the melody with the middle notes as harmonic accompaniment. He seems to write a lot of his tunes this way, from hearing him talk about it. Once you explored all the different single chord cadences you can think of triadically, then you can move on to 2 chord cadences (I-IV-V-I or I-ii-V-I etc...be creative, it doesn't have to be the traditional ones, but those are great places to start). Then 3 chord cadences and 4 chord cadences...then maybe start away from the I chord and see if you can move to it using a chord sequence...always with triads. He brought up how much amazing music was written structured predominantly (and sometimes ONLY) with triads. Not just rock and pop, but think of all the great classical music that's basically triadic. He specifically talked about how much he loved Beethoven and how all the stuff that guy wrote was mostly structured around triadic movement, sometimes employing tension notes but not relying on them, and usually just using them and then moving on pretty quickly. He pointed out multiple times that often times when we start adding 7ths, 9ths, 11ths, and 13ths...we're really doing that because what's there is boring and we want to spice it up. He felt it's better to spice it up ONLY with triads using really strong voice leading...AND THEN once it sounds gorgeous only with the triads, if you want to, you can start to add color notes and tension notes...as a conscious decision, and with a better idea of how they will function since they will be heard and respected as a tension note against the basic harmony.

He also then talked about conceptualizing more challenging and densely vertical harmony using basic triads. So anyone who's read any of my diatribes on this forum regarding the simplicity of treating specific harmonic chords with the basic triad that's there rather than just jumping to the scale that approximates or generalizes the chord will recognize a lot of what Mark says. Though Mark has an even simpler starting point than where my teacher starts and what I've been exploring. But almost the same thing. Basically, know the triad that creates your upper extensions! So an F7#11b9 is really just a BMajor triad sitting over an F7 chord. Know that. In all keys. For all different types of extended chords. And take the time to explore the sounds you can get simply by getting rid of the vertical density of F-A-C-Eb-Gb-B...and instead just play with the B triad...B-D#-F#. Learn to hear that triad horizontally as a melodic tonic...so the root note of the melody line actually becomes the B note...not the harmonic tonic 'F'. He mentioned that there are many tunes where it actually calls for approaching the melody and the improvisation JUST using these triads and little to nothing else. Of course, that's only the starting point. He takes the ball and runs with it from there. But as someone who's been spending a lot of time on doing what's I'm talking about in the paragraph...I can tell you it's a BIG first step that if you really want to get good at it, it takes a lot of time sitting, thinking, poking around at the piano, listening, experiments, composing, analyzing tunes, writing out etude ideas, re-organizing shapes on the fretboard, letting go of habits and assumptions, developing new muscle memory, etc etc. To me, the idea with this thing is to get to a point where it's so obvious and simple and almost boring that you naturally want to start evolving it to find new approaches. But if your go to assumption of a chord like F7#11b9 is not an immediate recognition of the BMajor triad in the upper structure of the chord, and is instead (or ONLY) to think of it as a big clunky chord with tons of notes that we can use the half-whole diminished scale over...then you're going to be missing the 'secret' door hidden inside the simplicity of it...which once focused on can lead you to much more interesting and complex areas...while still being rooted in very simple ideas and understandings. One current goal I'm in the process of working towards is if I'm looking at a real book (where the harmony listed is often terrible) or at someone's original piece of music who's maybe not 100% specific about what kind of harmony they want...I want to be able to see the melody note and the chord and IMMEDIATELY know what all of my upper structure triad options are based on the relation of the melody note to the chord. So if I see that Gb note in the melody against the F7 chord, I will immediately know that I can choose between a Bmajor triad, a DMajor triad, a Gbminor triad, and a C diminished triad (both in my comping and in my single note improv lines). There very well may be others that I haven't found yet and aren't thinking of at the moment. I've been mostly focusing on major triads in the upper structure...so I know B and D are the only major triads that contain the b9. But there may be other minor, diminished, and augmented triads that would function there as well. But it opens FAR more options to improvise, harmonize, and voice lead through this chord when we can immediately be aware of all of our options rather than just rely on some clunky chord shape and a scale that has all the right notes PLUS a whole bunch of other notes that we may or may not be using correctly to color the tonality.

Hope that helps inspire some practice ideas.

[Nabil B]

Thanks a lot man, really appreciate it !

[gggomez]

Outstanding contribution jordanklemons, thanks for putting in the time. This is appreciated and valuable, for me at least. Will dig out my daughters keyboard tomorrow and do this.

[jordanklemons]

Glad to help triple G. As a guitar player, I often feel like when people tell me to do things on the piano, that they're only saying that because they don't get it, and that I'd be better served spending my time doing the exercises on guitar instead. I've found that, for me, it's important to find double the time. Spend the time doing stuff like this on the piano AND on the guitar. They just bring different experiences and pieces of knowledge to the table for me. Hearing this stuff at the piano is invaluable to my ear. Things like this just don't sound exactly the same on guitar. And it forces me to slow down and really think about things, listen, find relationships, etc. Whereas the guitar...that's our language, you know? We need to spend time with it on guitar if we want to stand a shot at being able to really internalize it and use it. Mark mentioned that he does all this stuff on the piano AND on the sax. I supposed we should take that to heart.

Hope your daughter won't mind you stealing her keys for it! haha

[gggomez]

I am doing lots of reading biographies etc and what you say is echoing what I keep reading eg Miles told everyone learn the piano and he was echoing what Dizzie apparently taught him. Just read a Lage Lund interview and he said he does his song writing on the piano for those reasons you mention above. I have mucked around admittedly only a few times with the keyboard and I really enjoyed it and it was immediately clear why people write on a piano, I was able to develop some cool stuff (to my ears) straight up. I am now committed to bringing this in to my practice in a more structured way.

[bako]

Jordan,

Thanks for the detailed journalistic contribution.

Re: foundational triad studies

Something like this?

Voice lead major triad arpeggios through an ascending half step cycle:

C E G / F Db Ab / F# A D / Bb G Eb / B E G# / F C A / F# A# C# / B G D / C Eb Ab / E C# A / F Bb D / B F# D# / C E G

Triads alternate up/down

[jordanklemons]

Yeah, that's the idea bako. Though even playing them like this still a bit too patterny. Might be a good starting point, but eventually move further I to an improvisational approach. Play around within one triad for x number of beats and then whatever note you finish on, slide up to the nearest note for the next triad (if the cycle is descending). That way it starts to become more randomized and less like a pre-worked out pattern or exercise.

[bako]

So essentially a chord tone improvisation addressing using whatever progression cycle chosen as a song form.

[jordanklemons]

@bako
I don't want to put words in Mark's mouth, but the sense I get is that we shouldn't look at this in JUST one way or with JUST one use. Based on a few things he said, as well as my own feelings on things, I would say that the more systematic approach you originally asked is probably a great starting place. Just playing the 1-3-5 in one direction moving through each triad going against the grain of the cycle's movement. If we don't go against the grain, we will end up playing the exact same intervallic shapes (inversion) of each interval and it'll sound pretty drab. It's a good way to get started for someone that's totally brand new. But as quickly as possible, I'd flip the direction of the voice leading to go against the movement within the cycle. Then from there, open it up into a more free improv where we're still resolving/voice leading into the next triad in the opposing direction that the cycle is moving.

From there it's really up to each of us to do what we want with it. We could just see it as an exercise in opening our ears and developing dexterity. This can be used great when we're playing solo, maybe during an intro or outro cadenza where we're setting up a tune, or creating tension on our own to resolve us to the ending chord while the band waits. These cycles could theoretically be used if the band is burning and the rhythm section is getting crazy out there and we want to step away from the actual harmonic form of a tune to build some dissonance which maybe we would resolve at the bridge, or the top of the form, or bring back the melody or something. Or it could be used over a modal tune if we're vamping on a minor (or major) chord for 4 or 8 or 16 bars...this can create some movement and interest. We could also write a tune with the cycle, which maybe is what you were sort of getting at in your last post? Often times these tunes sound contrived to me...but they can work...depending on the cycle and how we employ it. I mean, that's what Giant Steps and all the Coltrane changes thing was. He just put the dominant chord in front of each tonic to tonicize each new Major chord...and sometimes the ii-V. We could also take the triads in the cycle and view them as upper structure triads and compose a chord progression that maybe doesn't sound as symmetrical and pattern oriented because the root and harmony of the chord is not systematic, but the upper structure is...which would make it sound a little more organic, but the melody could still be voice leading through the triads and we could improvise over it JUST with the triads if we wanted to. An example might be if the triad cycle is moving down in minor 3rd starting from C...we'd get

CMajor AMajor F#Major EbMajor

Maybe, just as an exercise, I decide to have the bass movement go up (against the triad cycle) and maybe I'll do it in half steps (this is completely arbitrary...I'm just making it up as I type...no idea what this will sound like) so that bass movement is

F#-G-G#-A

We could treat them just as basic slash chords (triad over root note)...but that it a little lacking to me. It would give us

C/F#-A/G-F#/G#-Eb/A

I'd personally prefer to fill out the chords and get a richer sense of harmonic movement. There's multiple options for some of these. I'm just picking them at random

F#7#11b9---GMaj13#11,9---G#9sus---A7#11b9

I don't know what this will sound like, I'll check it when I get my hands on my guitar later, but I know I can assume it will sound a lot more organic and like a piece of music than just playing a bunch of major triads in a specific cycle.

The options are kind of endless how we want to put all of this together.


@jazzmus
Yeah, Mark talked about his vertical approach to creating harmony and voice leading on the sax too. Mostly he just played a lot...really didn't talk too much about it. But it is pretty scary. He can hold onto so many different voices at the same time. And keep the melody going. That guy can play without piano or guitar and make you feel like there's a chordal instrument in the mix too...he knows how to play the harmony with great voice leading so effectively. It's ridiculous.

[eh6794]

So I have considered ordering the Lage Lund video; from what I can tell, you are talking about a similar concept as his, in regards to harmonic movement.

Would the concept be as follows?:

As an example you could play single notes, where the bass note and triad would start at Gmaj 3x543x

Then the bass could move down a minor third, but the triad move up only a minor second 0x654x, x4765x etc etc etc

That may not be the best sound example, but is this the general concept?

[christianm77]

So I have considered ordering the Lage Lund video; from what I can tell, you are talking about a similar concept as his, in regards to harmonic movement.

Would the concept be as follows?:

As an example you could play single notes, where the bass note and triad would start at Gmaj 3x543x

Then the bass could move down a minor third, but the triad move up only a minor second 0x654x, x4765x etc etc etc

That may not be the best sound example, but is this the general concept?

The Lage video is good. He outlines a few different concepts....

[jordanklemons]

Yeah, I agree with christianm...I ordered the LL video and REALLY like it. I studied with Brad Shepik, and much of what we did was talk about a lot of the things in that Ben Monder lesson email that went around (not sure if you guys saw it). Basic triad stuff, 7 chord inversions, finding new applications for basic voicings, etc. I read the Monder email a long time ago and utilized some of it, but it wasn't until working with Brad that I really saw just how far you can take that stuff and run with it in the practice shed. Lage's video reminds me a lot of that stuff, but he's got his own spin on it and how he explains it...and I found it REALLY helpful. A little different than what Brad and I would work on, but very complimentary.

As for the similarities between Mark's thing and Lage. I'm sure they're there. We're all working with the same 12 notes. But I'm not entirely sure that their specific ways of dealing with those 12 notes being offered in Mark's masterclass vs Lage's video are the exact same. Similarities, I would assume...but Lage talks more about finding all the inversions of a chord, and then finding all the different chord types you can sub those voicings in for...and then comping over changes using the same exact shapes and fingerings, but putting them on different chord tones to create a moving harmonic structure. And he talks about using the triad notes to create a Bach style thing with some voices moving and other voices staying still.

Mark was more about voice leading, exploring cycles, exploring cadences, etc. I suppose that Lage did talk about the importance of voice leading with triad notes a bit as well...so in that sense, I think they're on the same idea. But different takes on it and different directions for sure.

At least, that's my take.

[christianm77]

In workshops, LL has talked about interesting ways to use triads in lines very similar to the ideas mentioned here. He doesn't talk about it in the video.

I get the feeling Lage is quite eclectic in his approach. Rather than just learn one thing, I reckon he gets a new idea and then works on that for a bit, rather than be the sort of player who internalises one concept alone. At least that's the vibe I get.

[jordanklemons]

Yeah...I assume Lage is more like what you're saying and less 1 dimensional than I made him sound. With Mark, we had like 4 hours together...and I was able to ask a ton of questions and poke and prod.

My only knowledge of Lage's stance on things is the Jazz Heaven video. Which is far more limited and structured.

[princeplanet]

Can you point me to a Mark Turner solo where he best typifies his triadic approach?