-
they = bebop players etc.
and i'm talking about 'altered dominant' sounds - or the classic reharmonization of the changes in bop. what you call it matters i think - because it shapes you're idea of what is under discussion.
and there are lots of issues about what 'thought about it' means. and i don't want to raise them. to the extent that musicians think about what they're doing and become able to talk about it as well as just doing it (etc. etc.) then i'm suggesting that there's a way of thinking about it all that is so practical and user-friendly that it just must be the way they (mostly) thought about it.
if the change is dm7 to g7 then to alter this harmony you
play a dm6 over the dm7-g7 with a sharped 7 - a 'melodic min' if you will.
play an abm6 over the dm7-g7 again with a sharped 7 - so an mm if you will.
plan an fm6 over the dm7 - g7 - again with a sharped 7 - so an mm if you will.
====
the first one gives you a G7 flat 5 sound - very important indeed
and the next give you a range of different altered sounds in G7 - very useable - very nice. seems parker and rollins are using that fm6 a lot - but all of them use all of them.
and its easy to hear - and easy to play (ish).
no?
so the suggestion is that this is an incredibly practical way to hear the sounds as organized. the mm - is not called 'melodic' for no reason. no.
i bet they thought/heard things this way. (mostly)
-
01-29-2016 01:56 PM
-
I know from playing with guys from that era that they did think more in terms of the minor 6 chords
you see, a D half diminished, a Bb9 and an fmin6 all share the notes D, F, Ab, and C
so like you say, rather than thinking about all these altered notes on a dom 7 chord, piano players used the min6 in a way very similar to what you described
-
I remember reading that Theolonius Monk always thought of a m7b5 as minor triad with a 6th in the bass.
I've also seen older guitar methods and arrangements where what we call Em7b5-A7 written as Gm6-A7.
Renaming Gm6-A7 to Em7b5-A7 makes it easier to fit into the familiar Cycle of Fourths movement.
-
'up a minor third' works well
Fm6 - Abm6- Ebmaj
and
maj to min works well too
Ab maj6 - Abm6 - Ebmaj
the '4 min' sound is pretty much the same thing as the 'back door' progression - Db7 - Eb maj7
part of the point is that this is readily digestible stuff - appealing to practically oriented working musicians (in a very non-academic musical culture)
-
i think its a commitment to expressing all the harmony in terms of the 'circle' that leads to the forgetting of this 'min 6' approach
-
Originally Posted by Groyniad
The "up a minor third" move is called The Parker Cycle in some academic (and not so academic) circles because it was so common in the recorded work of Charlie Parker. Originally Posted by Groyniad
-
Originally Posted by Groyniad
Yep - It's all about the minor6. Charlie Christian taught me that in no uncertain terms... Originally Posted by Nate Miller
-
Many swing era standards have the progression IIm7 IVm6...
I usually think of it IV6 IVm6 myself or similar. Again, see Charlie christian and lester young...Last edited by christianm77; 01-29-2016 at 04:53 PM.
-
Those interested, and not familiar with this theory, in seeing this laid out in the fretboard should seriously woodshed on Alan Kingstone's Barry Harris Method for Guitar.
-
I remember hearing Barry Harris talk about how the first chord of Stella in the real Book is AFU. Its supposed to be a Bbmin6
-
Bb dim 7 with a major 7 on top (i.e., in the melody) when you're playing Stella in Bb. (This was Barry's assertion. You can find the video on YouTube.) Originally Posted by Nate Miller
-
Peter Bernstein thinks of the opening chord as C# diminished 7th - same notes but a different function. The biii dim7 acts as a chromatic passing chord to the following ii-V in Bb: C#dim7 - Cm7 - F7.
-
That's way I'd probably view it... Originally Posted by PMB
-
One thing that often gets overlooked in real book versions of tunes is what's happening in the bass. That F/C in bar 13 helps bring out the melodic suspension. Talking bass movement, I also like the subs that Sheryl Bailey once posted for bars 9-12: | G-7(#5) F-11 | E-7b5 A7 | D-11 C-11 | Bb-7 Eb9 |.
Last edited by PMB; 01-30-2016 at 03:17 AM.
-
I'm all about the m7b5, but don't understand why you would wanna see it as Dm6 as opposed to Bm7b5. If I see it ll in terms of the m7b5 I get the table below. Before looking at it, please considr that the notes in brackets ( ) are the added notes from the #7 against Dm6, whilst the notes in brackets <> are the notes I like to add as well, or instead. Originally Posted by Groyniad
Bm7b5 (raised 9th) -,,, b.…(c#)…d……<e>…….f…..a… - (b5) against G7 .………..…<13> .….. *( from D MM)
Dm7b5 (raised 9th) -,,, d...( e )…f……<g>…..Ab…c… - (13) and b9 against G7 …<root>…....* (from F MM)
Fm7b5 (raised 9th) -,,, f...( g )..Ab..<Bb>..Cb…Eb… - (root!), b9 and #5 / b13 …<#9>……..* (from Ab MM)
So sure, thinking of Dm6(#7) correlates it to D MM, but as I don't think of the MM derivation with these pitch collections, what is the benefit of thinking m6 over m7b5? Am I missing something?
Also, as regards the added notes in brackets ( ), apart from the b5 against ex 1, the 13th and the root in ex 2 and 3 aren't really adding much, so why bother with the m6#7 for those examples? Do you like the sound of them? Personally, I like the sound of the added notes in brackets <>, but more so for the way they sound along with the other notes. It creates a kind of pentatonic that is a strong sound.Last edited by princeplanet; 01-30-2016 at 02:11 PM.
-
Well it doesn't really make any difference on the grand scheme of things. You could transcribe all the stuff I have and use that interpretation and it would work fine as m7b5 and m6 are the same thing seen from different angles.I'm all about the m7b5, but don't understand why you would wanna see it as Dm6 as opposed to Bm7b5. If I see it ll in terms of the m7b5 I get the table below. Before looking at it, please considr that the notes in brackets ( ) are the added notes from the #7 against Dm6, whilst the notes in brackets <> are the notes I like to add as well, or instead.
I would say in favour of looking at it from the m6 direction (at least from the teaching perspective):
1) This is as far as we understand, the historical way that this chord was looked at. Dizzy Gillespie for example regarded the half diminished chord as a minor 6th with the 6th in the bass. This is also the way Barry Harris teaches it. That might seem a little awkward but we do know it was the way they thought back then. It also has two further advantages:
2) A minor 6 is an easier entity to handle than a half dim chord IMO - to me, it's much easier to have a minor triad and add a major 6th to it than to take a diminished triad and add a minor seventh to it.
3) The minor 6 is a good framework for the melodic minor and dorian scales. On the other hand if you use half diminished you are dealing with the locrian or locrian sharp 2 which is a less obvious scale. Also if you use the minor 6 you can use other common flavours of minor chord pretty easily - minmaj7, minadd9 etc. How many variations of m7b5 are well known?
YMMV. In practice, I kind of unite the m7b5 and m6 in my mind... I do the same with 6 and m7.
-
the great benefit is that the m6 and maj 6 sounds generate 8 note diminished chord scales - which play a big role in the songbook. Originally Posted by princeplanet
this is the harmonic system commonly (and rightly) associated with barry harris.
-
@ christian and groyniad, yeah makes sense, especially if I thought in MM more than I care to. I mean, I use altered 5ths and 9ths often, but don't really conceive them as coming from a scale as such. When I "fill" in between altered chord tones, sometimes they're notes from MM, sometimes not (ie, chromatic).
But can I re ask pt 2 of my question above, which is- do you guys think the #7(along with m6) is very important with all 3 incarnations in the OP? Like I said, the first one gives us the b5 against V, but the others just the 13th and root...
-
That ivm6 is also a iim7b5 Originally Posted by christianm77
so its even simpler iim7 --iim7b5
and the shorthand for a ii-V is iim7--iim6
-
Yeah, and the short hand for iim7 - iim6 is just iim6 Originally Posted by NSJ
But getting back to the OP, how important to you guys is the #7 against that iim6 ??
-
Depends what day of the week it is really. At the moment everything is ii dorian/V mixolydian (with the bVII mixolydian - I stuff for minor ii-V's) with me because that's the stuff I am exploring at the moment. Kind of a traditional bop sound, I guess. I tend to practice one thing for a while. Originally Posted by princeplanet
Yeah, and the short hand for iim7 - iim6 is just iim6
But getting back to the OP, how important to you guys is the #7 against that iim6 ??
In the 'family of four' conception, you think of V7 viim7b5 iim7 VImaj7, so you aren't thinking of iim6 here, because everything is stacks of thirds.
Go back 6 months and I was obsessed with playing the melodic minor in thirds over everything.
It might all change in 6 months. Next step is probably to take what I've worked on in the major key modes and adapt it for the melodic minor by changing a note.Last edited by christianm77; 02-04-2016 at 07:09 AM.
-
Do you mean IV maj7 instead of VI maj7 ? Also, when you say VII mixo for minor, do you mean against both the iim7b5 as well as the Vb9 ? Originally Posted by christianm77
-
This is a "lydian dominant" sound on the G7, and would be most often used when resolving to F#m or (a little less often) A major; not C major. Originally Posted by Groyniad
G altered, which does resolve (most often) to Cm or C major. Originally Posted by Groyniad
You've now lost the critical major 3rd of the G7, replacing it with the 11th (C). So it makes a "Gsusb9" (G7sus4b9) sound. Occasionally used resolving to C - not as big with beboppers as the altered sound AFAIK, but cool. Originally Posted by Groyniad
7#11, really. "b5" implies there is no 5th in the chord or scale, while there is C# and D in this case. Originally Posted by Groyniad
My guess is they didn't think in "melodic minor" at all - at least not in its modes, as in most modern (post-bop, post-modal) teaching. Originally Posted by Groyniad
I suspect they thought (beyond melody and rhythm, that is) in chord tones and passing chromatics. The altered scale, eg, provides a maximum number of half-step moves to chord tones on the following tonic - and you can argue that it derives from the tritone substitute, the bII7 chord.
Here's my hypothesis for their thinking process. (Remember the tradition then was embellishment of the melody, and working from chord tones. The bebop players' advanced that thinking into upper extensions of chords, alterations and chromatic approaches, rather than scales per se. Aside from rhythm, obviously, which was Dizzy's main interest.)
1. Dm7-G7-Cmaj7. C major scale right through. Too vanilla - how can we make that hotter, edgier, bluesier?
2. The bass could simply flatten the 5th of G to get a chromatic move down. G7b5 is really the same thing as Db7b5. But say we keep the G in the chord, as well as the Ab of Db7? (That sounds OK if we put the G above the Ab, as a #11.)
Dm7-Db7-Cmaj7. Nice. Melodically/harmonically, we keep the B and F leading tones, and add more: Db-C of course; and Ab-G (which can also go up to A, the 6th of C). We can also add the 9th of Db (Eb), which can likewise be resolved in either direction, to the 3rd or 9th of Cmaj7. Even the 13th of Db (Bb) can resolve up or down a half-step.
And most of those notes work as cool chromatic transitions from chord tones on the Dm7.
(Of course, the Eb and Bb notes would already be familiar in a "C key" context, from both the C minor key and C blues.)
3. How about we use all those notes anyway, even when the chord is G7 (bass plays G)? That's OK, as long as the chord player leaves out the D. G-B-F are shared with both chords. The other 4 notes (b5, #5, b9, #9) still allow that set of chromatic moves.
Of course, it could have gone the other way: altering notes on the G7 as far as possible (while keeping R-3-7), to give those half-step resolutions. And then realising that the new notes formed a Db13 chord (if the bass plays Db), with the G being #11.
It would probably be a theorist coming along later (or a very theoretically minded player) who realised: "hey, those notes match a mode of Ab melodic minor! That means I can use all kinds of chord arpeggios (or licks) from that scale, because they'll give better sounds than just running the scale; and I can still come out of it via half-step on to the tonic."
...
The issue discussed above - min6 v m7b5 - is a quite different one, as I see it. The chords are identical in function when the min6 is the minor key iv, making m7b5 the ii chord. The difference is merely the choice of bass note, as mentioned. Gm6 and Em7b5 alike will go to A7 and then Dm.
(In pop and rock music, the old "iv = m6" tradition persists, and m7b5 chords are very rare.)
It's when the min6 is the tonic chord that it's no longer equivalent to m7b5. At least, the choice of bass note obviously makes more of a difference. If the key is G minor, then Em7b5 is not interchangeable with Gm6. (Putting the 6th in the bass upsets the stable function of the tonic, turning it into a different chord.)
However, the possible maj7 on Gm (assuming a traditional melodic minor harmonisation of the tonic) does point up the possibility of a consonant major 9th on Em7b5, in place of the dissonant b9 F that's diatonic when it's in D minor. That's interesting - but makes the use of Em9b5 in D minor problematic (in theory), seeing as F is the defining tonal 3rd.
Not a huge problem maybe, seeing as we might well use A13b9, or the A HW dim scale, in key of D minor, both of which contain F#.
But using it in key of D major is sweet:
Em9b5 - A13b9 - D6
...
IOW, my guess was the thinking process begins with melody; then chord tones; then alterations or extensions on the chord to provide more interesting melodic moves (chromatic voice-leading).
The realisation that these practices could be reduced to "scales" would come later, as an easily formalised system of teaching.
E.g., the so-called "bebop scales" are only normal scales with a useful chromatic passing note added - useful, that is, for voice-leading and chord tone purposes.Last edited by JonR; 02-04-2016 at 12:39 PM.
-
Correct. Obviously I was just testing. :-) Originally Posted by princeplanet
bVII mixolydian (it's the bloody dominant scale, not some stupid pseudo-greek nonsense) going to a I chord (major, dominant or minor, up to you.)
bVII dominant goes over iim7b5
Then we raise the 1 of the scale up a half step and do that over the V7b9. Super boppy. (Except you don't even have to that if you can't be arsed. You could just play keep the 1 as it is. Parker often did.)
So minor ii-V and minor plagal and backdoor are the same thing.
It get's really fruity when you appreciate that you can play that over any ii-V-I.
You can melodic minor that stuff of course - in this case we would use bVII7#11 or IV mm. That stuff has a bit more of post bop vibe, depending on the exact modes and usages. The IV melodic minor over V7b9 is actually rather pre-war.Last edited by christianm77; 02-04-2016 at 02:29 PM.
-
This came up in another recent thread. I think of it in far simpler terms: Take any 2-5-1 material and play it over the 2-5-1 in the relative min key. The only note that's "wrong" as you say is the missing raised third against the V in min key. Interesting that you notice Bird often plays the min 3rd (#9??) against V7b9 in a minor key, because I find that sometimes I often like the sound of it- although admittedly I started doing it out of laziness! (not bothering to alter the 3rd). Originally Posted by christianm77
BTW, in reference to your other thread, here we have just described another of those little secrets I wished I'd been shown when I was younger. These "light bulb" moments should be gathered and stored in a sticky at the top of this forum if we're concerned about people coming to learn from this site. If we don't do this (and we probably won't), then we are indeed guilty of withholding secrets!
Either that, or just guide them to your own posts history, I reckon your posts are the best bang for buck on this site, kudos!
Reply With Quote
Julian Lage Trio - Sat 27th April - Marciac,...
Today, 03:57 PM in The Players