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Now I'm not about to say I have anything figured out, but one thing I've used sometimes and felt I was getting at least apiece of the MM stuff is to start with, say, a ii-V-I, say D- G7 C. I also already know about tritone subs, so over the V/G7 I think Db. Then I find either the Db7 arpeggio, or the Db Major Pentatonic scale seems to offer something a little more hip than my usual "white bread" stuff over G7.
A Db Pentatonic scale is Db Eb F Ab Bb, which is the b5, #5, b9 and #9 relative to G7.
But somehow I never thought of this as using "melodic minor" but simply as a sleazy way to find a package of altered tones over G7.
I still make pretty lame use of that device, but that kind of thing seems easier to me than spinning the root wheel, sliding back a step, and playing a shape I still haven't been able to get comfortable with.
I'm not lazy, but somethings remind me of chess. Yes I can learn the moves, intellectually understand the game, but in all my life I've lost almost every chess game I ever played. Even setting the computer to make random moves, I LOSE. That's pretty bad...
So some problems I face and realize they're chess, and I try to find another way around the issue.
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05-31-2016 07:46 PM
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I would consider those components for understanding aspects of a music theory just as column orders may be considered components for understanding aspects an architectural theory. They aren't theories in and of themselves, but you can use them to define the theories behind a composition.
Originally Posted by dingusmingus
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I've exchanged email with Bruce Forman in the past and I know he was friends with Joe Pass and played with Joe many times. I emailed Bruce about this thread and he replied and said I could say it was Bruce I talked to just to quote him accurately. So to do that below is Bruce's reply to me.
In all my time hanging with Joe, he never spoke about theory, other than how chords relate to tunes or reharmonizations he dug. He obviously heard it and knew it though. If I had to guess I would say is he is in the group: learning by playing/hearing/gigging, he was quite good at a very young age...
Everything everyone does is 'based' on or relates to theory! Whether you learned it by hearing it, someone explaining it to you or a book doesn't really matter if you end up being able to HEAR it. I think all those people arguing about it should learn some more tunes and play more, much better use of their time...hope that helps, Bruce
PS> You can use my name if you want...just be accurate...and tell them all about GuitarWank podcast too?
Bruce Forman
So there's the view of someone who spent time with Joe Pass.
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Learn some more tunes and play more. Bruce Forman
What a novel idea, Mr. Forman.
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Nah boss it's whole tone on chord II7+11 :-) At least that's what Duke liked to play. Originally Posted by pkirk
Actually I've been having a bit of a listening party to period recordings of solo lines on just that chord, and it seems that during the bop and swing eras musicians rarely stressed the 7 of MM (#11 of the dom7) over that chord. They would play a minor or m6 up a fifth from the root of the chord, but rarely stress the min(maj7) sound.
In terms of the melody of A Train the G# resolves up to an A in the next bar so Strayhorn was probably thinking of it in melodic terms. Modern jazzers would take that as a 7#11 in totality, of course, and play MM, which gives you more of a post bop sound? (to my ears)
More listening required....
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Originally Posted by lawson-stone
solo - sonny rollins playing you don't know what love is on saxophone colossus (i think)
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In terms of chord-shapes, if I play a traditional C9 chord in the first position, the identical shape (minus the C note on the 5th string) is also the Gmin6. Are you saying that these guys would play lines over C9 assuming harmonically the Gmin6? Originally Posted by christianm77
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Originally Posted by NoReply
I think this sums it up: "Everything one does is 'based' on or relates to theory!" Thanks to Bruce Forman for chiming in here (via NoReply).
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Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
Actually, I'm not sure I agree with that quote...I think all the other stuff Bruce said is more important.
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i did huge amounts of practice for 3 years which was based on my attempts to work out what the hell they were all doing
(i.e. on my attempts to work out what a song was - what a chord progression was - how you have to play over a given chord to make it sound the way you want etc.)
lots of 'arpeggios' and lots of 'scales' and lots of 'transcribed' solos etc.
and then i played a lot for a long time with players who knew the repertoire very very well.
i find it hard to believe that there could be a way to learn how to 'hear it' - in bruce forman's wise words - without actually playing it again and again and again and again with people who can already 'hear it'
you have to play the tunes so often that its kind of inevitable that you start to 'hear it' !
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From a cursory listen, sounds like there's some melodic minory goodness in there.... Originally Posted by Groyniad
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Couldn't agree more. To me, putting the understanding of theory ahead of actually playing music is sort of like not wanting to use the gym until you’re in shape. Originally Posted by NoReply
from Wikipedia: "Analysis paralysis or paralysis by analysis is the state of over-analyzing (or over-thinking) a situation so that a decision or action is never taken, in effect paralyzing the outcome."
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to say everything in music is based on - or relates to - theory is just to say that everything in music (harmony, melody rhythm) can be described verbally (or using other conventional notation systems etc.)
theory is what you get when you say what the harmony (melody/rhythm) is rather than just playing it again.
often its by learning how to say what is going on that players find a way to learn how to join in with what is going on
other types of players just have to hear more of what goes on and they will e.g. start singing along (so with very little talking about what is going on) - and then playing along....
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best thing i ever did - by miles - was leave a parker cd in my car for 2 years and sing along to it every time i was in the car. quite quickly - as long as the cd was playing - i could sing pretty much everything he was playing
that's not learning how to play music - its just 'playing' music. and i've never played it so well in any other context (shiiit). if i don't try to use an instrument - and if i get bird to play it in my ear often enough - i end up being able to sing just the sort of amazing stuff he plays!
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Originally Posted by PaulD
btw - hamlet is about this problem (though hamlet is not trying to learn how to play jazz)
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I hear you, but my point still stands. The same idea works on tons of tunes (isfahan, girl from ipanema, green dolphin street, etc), i.e. whenever you have a II7 followed by a II V. Originally Posted by christianm77
I don't like thinking "this scale over this chord" so much as "this sound over this progression". But when presented with an improv idea, it never becomes "my own" until I figure out ways to use it *in making music* at which point it becomes a sound, not a formula.
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and that gm6 is typically a melodic minor sound (with sharped 7) which makes C9 into C9flat5 Originally Posted by lawson-stone
that's an important sound
there's a whole approach to harmony that is based on manipulations of the m6 sound
e.g. altered dom. sounds can be played by building a m6 (mm) a semi-tone above the root of the dom. chord - so A flat m6 instead of G7 in C. And also on the fourth - so Fm6 instead of G7 in C. the first gives you the 'flat 5' or 'tritone' substitution - the second gives you the 'back door' sub.
it seems to me these sounds are VERY friendly - i.e. easy to use.
i set it out in a post with the title 'surely this is how they must have thought about it' or something like that - quite recent...
c77 is always going on about it too
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I've thought some more about this. I think what most of us mean my theory is simply "naming." There is playing music, and there is naming what you play. Originally Posted by dingusmingus
For people with strong ears, the name is not all that helpful. They can just deal directly with the sound.
For those of us with weaker ears (I'm working on it!), the naming is helpful to help remember and apply a concept. Eventually, the sound gets in your ears and fingers and you don't need that name, unless you want to discuss the concept with someone.
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This is the sort of approach Barry Harris teaches. I've been working on it for about a month on a couple tunes. Interestingly, Barry seems to use these ideas for chords, but different set of ideas for single note stuff. Anyway, really cool stuff. Alan Kingstone's book is an ideal entry way to the harmony aspect Originally Posted by Groyniad
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You can know and understand all the theory etc... and still suck, have no feel, no time...
If you don't have the skills together on your instrument.... it really doesn't matter how much you know or how great your ears are.
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I think I have a different concept of what theory is than most.
Most seem to think "theory" means "rules telling you what to play in each context."
I prefer the meaning of "theory" used in some science and research.
Theory is a "model" that explains the past, allows us to predict future outcomes, and generate new hypotheses we can test against new data.
By "explaining the past" we could say in music, that's listening to Bird, or Diz, or Joe Pass, or Barney Kessell and trying to work out the connections and whether there are any principles that explain lots of the details. In this sense theory is a kind of "reduction" of a vast range of phenomena to a smaller, more general set of observations or claims.
By "predicting the future" a good theory/model should simply prompt us to come to new players and account for a lot of what they do by what we incorporated into our model.
By "Generating new hypotheses" I'm thinking we can at least anticipate lines and melodic ideas that will work and be appealing in new contexts (i.e. tunes).
Of course, every good theory is falsifiable: later data can prove it wrong, too limiting, whatever.
So for me, music theory simply means I try to glean what I can from the playing of masters, I try to organize that into some kind of coherent model or frame of reference, and I use it to try out ideas in new situations.
Obviously, this has been done by many people much smarter than me, and they've written books describing what they've learned.
A theory, however, should never force one to ignore data. It should not limit our understanding, but be a platform for understanding more.
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Playing comes first. It doesn't help to know something if you can't play it. (Unless you're taking a test on the knowledge rather than attempting to perform the music.) Originally Posted by Reg
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Sounds to me like you shouldn't bother with trying to grok how to use the MM scale a half step up from the dominant in question and just use the devices you already know for arriving at the same notes. And stick to checkers. Originally Posted by lawson-stone
John
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Hhm, I don't think "theory" (as in "music theory") means either of those things. "Music theory" treats the "theoretical" elements of music, melody, harmony, rhythm, tone, form, tempo, and dynamics. In short, it could be called 'the language of music.' Or, 'a formal way to describe what happens in a piece of music.' Originally Posted by lawson-stone
It is not 'rules telling you what to play in each context'.
It is not an attempt to predict what musicians will play in the future.
It gives one the notes of a major scale, shows how to harmonize them in triads and then in four-note chords (C Maj 7, D minor 7, and so on), and how to do the same for other scales. It shows how different chords (C and Em) may have the same function (tonic) and how one chord may be substituted for another. How to count out beats. How to transpose. The cycle. Things like that. It can be taken to a lofty level but all of these simple things are part of music theory. A child can understand them. Again, one can take one's study to more advanced levels but this is no less a part of music theory. "See Spot run" is a simple sentence but it is reading English nonetheless.
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I wasn't using the word "predict" in that sense, but rather in the way that as we look over a piece of music, noting the chord changes and such, we start thinking of how we'd solo, what might be fun to try, what might work or might not, what notes or chords we need to "nail" etc. Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
Prediction in this sense isn't "knowing what will happen in the future" but simply being able reasonsably to anticipate possible outcomes.
I also cited those views as ways I've heard people talk. Some people really do refer to theory almost as a set of rules about what to do.
My view is best captured in the ponderous word "heuristic." A good band-stand oriented music theory helps us know what might be initially a fruitful path to try.
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06-01-2016, 12:53 PM #125destinytot GuestI've had trouble with the numbers for years, but I've found stopgaps and managed to learn some nice melodic-minor lines - based on melodic-minor modes. Originally Posted by lawson-stone
I've just realised that I can name those modes if I actually need to, and that there are three melodic-minor modes which I use (or perhaps 'overuse', as much out of habit as by design/conscious choice) and whose sound I not only 'hear' but also 'like'.
I like melodic-minor sounds for the 'colour' they add to chords - mostly (altered) dominant, Mi(Ma7) or Maj7#5 sounds.
For me, 'liking' can make a virtuous cycle of what might otherwise be a vicious one (a kind of mocking deluge of numbers and abstractions). I get hungry for more of the good stuff.
With regard to colour, I find it helpful to think - and hear - 'chord tone/extension//alteration' rather than count 'scale' (though there are instances where I've resolved to do the latter in order to make the former possible).
Those sounds are probably easier for me to demonstrate than to describe.
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Chunking, does it work for Jazz improv?
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