Embraceable You - second chord in progression

[pamosmusic]

Time to revisit your book obviously, TBH I have not looked into it for a while

On the other hand it was not necessary as things start to come out and be applied naturally after years of practicing sixth/seventh diminished scales for hours.

I have this problem too sometimes. Where I buy a book and then realize that my brain is so big I don’t need it after all.

[pamosmusic]

Wow this thread has really become a lightning rod for my sarcasm today.

Apologies to the innocent bystanders.

[Boss Man Zwiebelsohn]

I have this problem too sometimes. Where I buy a book and then realize that my brain is so big I don’t need it after all.

My brain is big and quick but I thought it was clear that I learned the sixth/seventh and diminished scales from Alan's book (and from Chris Parks channel, too, I discovered both in late 2019) and then practiced them for years.

[pamosmusic]

My brain is big and quick but I thought it was clear that I learned the sixth/seventh and diminished scales from Alan's book (and from Chris Parks channel, too, I discovered both in late 2019) and then practiced them for years.

It was. I'm just being difficult.

I feel I should note here that Alan's book is of course, excellent. My brain is not special in anyway, so I'm on like ... page seven or something after about four months.

[Boss Man Zwiebelsohn]

It was. I'm just being difficult.

I feel I should note here that Alan's book is of course, excellent. My brain is not special in anyway, so I'm on like ... page seven or something after about four months.

But it seems like you were working on a lot of different things at the same time so if at least something sticks in your brain 1.5 pages per month is OK

My big advantage was that I had already started to work on drop 2 inversions 35 years ago by working through Werner Pöhlert's (in its original form now out-of-print) book "Grundlagenharmonik" ("Basic Harmony" in English). So it was "simply" a matter of repeating them systematically and connecting them with their leading note diminished. I also knew (via Pöhlert again) that a major sixth has the same notes as minor seventh and that a minor sixth is a half-diminished and also a rootless dominant ninth etc. which helped a lot of course in understanding Barry Harris.

But it still took me about five years to engrain it halfway into my body and mind.

"Basic Harmony" would make a nice addition to your collection BTW, it is only 569 pages so it would take you only 31 years and 8 month to work through it completely at your speed.

[wolflen]

...raise any note in a diminished chord and it evolves into a minor 6 chord

C Eb Gb A

so

C E Gb/F# A - Ami6 / D9 / Ab7#5b9 (NR) / Gbmi7b5...and if you ask Ted Greene or Ben Monder there are several other ways to go

Its not that the diminished scale and all the chords you can find in it aren't confusing enough-you can also alter the dim chord
and find an additional 4,5,6 perhaps more chords to just make you head explode...

Thanks Barry

[Boss Man Zwiebelsohn]

...raise any note in a diminished chord and it evolves into a minor 6 chord

C Eb Gb A

so

C E Gb/F# A - Ami6 / D9 / Ab7#5b9 (NR) / Gbmi7b5...and if you ask Ted Greene or Ben Monder there are several other ways to go

Its not that the diminished scale and all the chords you can find in it aren't confusing enough-you can also alter the dim chord
and find an additional 4,5,6 perhaps more chords to just make you head explode...

Thanks Barry

The key is to apply it.

Take this II-V-I example in Bb:

On the II chord play 8-x-8-8-8-x (Cm7), then on the V go from 8-x-7-8-7-x (Co = rootless F7/b9) to 7-x-7-8-6-x (F7/b5 with the b5 in the bass)*) to Bb6: 6-x-5-7-6.

Or connect the I6/3 via bIIIo chromatically with the IIm7 (= IV6) which was the starting point of this thread.

Or connect the I6 with its "sixth on the fifth" (V6 = IIIm7 = rootless Imaj7/9) via diminished as described by Alan in his book (this one I remember haha).

Or like in my first example but the other way round resolve the b5 of a dominant 7/b5 chord to the 5th but catch a new tension note in form of the b9

etc. etc.

*) Hey all you CST people out there, what would you play on a V movement like that?

[Christian Miller]

There's a lot of ways to play V-I. Depends on what I'm hearing. There's a lot of well known tricks be it 'I went to the Guildhall' (Cry me a River in the US), or the thing where you move the IIm7b5 chord up in minor thirds.

I like what Berkleeoids would call the V13susb9 (Dorian b9) sound a lot. Minor a step down. You can do the minor third trick on the II chord then, which is something you also see in standards changes like Sweet Sue and Avalon.

If you play basic melodic minor/altered stuff on V7 you may miss the 7b5 which is a shame. I think you have to kind of focus on that sound in isolation, or at least I did.

One of my favourite moves which I think of as Monkian is

G-11 G7b5 C

The parallel major seconds are cool

Monk favoured whole tone for dominant sounds. Trane diminished. Altered scale I feel is more of a 'modern default' choice, in someways less interesting. But it can still sound cool if you focus on the b5 and less the more diatonic/minor b9 and b13. In fact that's a potential issue with treating it as a melodic minor mode or minor sub.

I also use
G13b9 C a LOT in major keys. You can fold that out into the C major-6 dim or the dominant-diminished scale (whole-half). The later is often me taking a pattern through minor thirds like the basic b*tch I am. G13b9 also belongs to Ab min 6-dim as Howard Rees notes.

[Christian Miller]

"Basic Harmony" would make a nice addition to your collection BTW, it is only 569 pages so it would take you only 31 years and 8 month to work through it completely at your speed.

Or we could go and listen to some music instead.

I can't remember the last time I looked at a theory book, other than to see if I agreed with it.

[Boss Man Zwiebelsohn]

Or we could go and listen to some music instead.

I can't remember the last time I looked at a theory book, other than to see if I agreed with it.

Actually take a look into the book yourself -- I posted a link to a PDF of the long out-of-print English edition. It is a very practical book containing thousands of practical examples for all instruments including tabs and chord grips for guitar and bass and chord grips for keyboard instruments. The theoretical part is illustrated by tons of diagrams in a way I have seen nowhere else.

I listen to music all the time BTW. Or I play.

[Christian Miller]

Actually take a look into the book yourself -- I posted a link to a PDF of the long out-of-print English edition. It is a very practical book containing thousands of practical examples for all instruments including tabs and chord grips for guitar and bass and chord grips for keyboard instruments. The theoretical part is illustrated by tons of diagrams in a way I have seen nowhere else.

No thank you I'm good haha.

In general, I would say the number one issue with adult jazz students (including myself) is we vastly over estimate the amount of stuff we can internalise. I would say I've come to term with it through bitter experience lol.

That's a problem with books, because it's easy to put a lot of info in a book. It can also give you the false impression that by reading and understanding the info in a book this info will come out in your playing on a gig. Sounds dumb and obvious, but it is such an easy mistake to make.

Take lists of chord voicings in tab or diagrams for instance. I realised mercifully early on that I could stare at chord boxes all day for the various inversions of drop 2 and 3 chords, but if I really wanted to internalise them and the fretboard, I would need to work it out on the fretboard. This started off as a painfully slow process, but ten years on, I think I'm not bad at it. I can churn through all the voicings of a given chord or a Mick Goodrick cycle and while not all of it is 'in my playing' I don't need to look at charts to know how to put a scale or chord on the neck. That said I do need to practice it a lot to get it under my fingers 'at the speed of jazz' yada yada.

(Because of this simple ideas can represent a lot of possibilities.)

(Obviously there are guitarists tricks which it is fun to learn and there's nothing wrong with chord boxes.)

[Christian Miller]

Also the music itself can be incredibly information rich. If you want a textbook on altered V - I cadences, just properly take apart Hot House, for example. There's so much there.

[Boss Man Zwiebelsohn]

Also the music itself can be incredibly information rich. If you want a textbook on altered V - I cadences, just properly take apart Hot House, for example. There's so much there.

And learn What Is This Thing Called Love before.

EDIT: Including lyrics of course

[grahambop]

After working with Alan Kingstone’s book for some time, I was doing some chord melody stuff and one of the tunes I tackled was Embraceable You. I found lots of applications for the 6th/dim stuff in that tune, it just sort of arranged itself.

[Christian Miller]

And learn What Is This Thing Called Love before.

EDIT: Including lyrics of course

I mean it's an obvious jam session tune, so it will be one you'll learn quite early on.

Although you would't need to know Hot House was a contract on WITCL to get something out of it, and actually the chords are a little bit different.

[ragman1]

FIVE pages!

Personally, the second chord in 'Embraceable You' doesn't bother me at all. It's very nice, lovely sense of movement. Using the bIIIo is a standard move for that time. So that's sorted.

As far as I can see it's a variation on 1-6-2-5 which the melody fully supports, it just sounds more interesting. Saying it's an A7b9/Bb to me is nonsense. Extensions go above the octave and in any case A7b9 to Am7 is musical hogwash :-)

[lawson-stone]

Yes but did Barry go to a better or worse music school than us?

Hey I have a Ph.D. from Yale... uh... in Near Eastern Languages and cultures... okay, not relevant...
I just like to brag about having gone to Yale. Long as we're touting schools... and that was about as relevant to my bandstand chops as some people's music school seems to have been.

[pamosmusic]

After working with Alan Kingstone’s book for some time, I was doing some chord melody stuff and one of the tunes I tackled was Embraceable You. I found lots of applications for the 6th/dim stuff in that tune, it just sort of arranged itself.

Yeah I decided to take a break from the really focused work in it for a while and just use it in chord melody stuff for a little bit. Got through I think all of Beautiful Love last night without really deviating from the orthodoxy much. As it happens it also sounds lovely.

[pamosmusic]

No thank you I'm good haha.

In general, I would say the number one issue with adult jazz students (including myself) is we vastly over estimate the amount of stuff we can internalise. I would say I've come to term with it through bitter experience lol.

That's a problem with books, because it's easy to put a lot of info in a book. It can also give you the false impression that by reading and understanding the info in a book this info will come out in your playing on a gig. Sounds dumb and obvious, but it is such an easy mistake to make.

Take lists of chord voicings in tab or diagrams for instance. I realised mercifully early on that I could stare at chord boxes all day for the various inversions of drop 2 and 3 chords, but if I really wanted to internalise them and the fretboard, I would need to work it out on the fretboard. This started off as a painfully slow process, but ten years on, I think I'm not bad at it. I can churn through all the voicings of a given chord or a Mick Goodrick cycle and while not all of it is 'in my playing' I don't need to look at charts to know how to put a scale or chord on the neck. That said I do need to practice it a lot to get it under my fingers 'at the speed of jazz' yada yada.

(Because of this simple ideas can represent a lot of possibilities.)

(Obviously there are guitarists tricks which it is fun to learn and there's nothing wrong with chord boxes.)

I find that the books I get the most out of these days are more beginner things. The really good ones can pose very different ways of organizing and teaching and practicing that are super useful without introducing a single musical concept I don’t “already know.”

Randy Vincent comes to mind.

Alans book is an oddball in that respect because there’s tons of new info to me but it’s also all very basic and doesn’t have to be hard to play so it lends itself more than others to just sitting on the same concept for a while.

Another thing I like to do is watch the My Music Masterclass two-minute teaser videos and take notes.

[A. Kingstone]

oddball

[pamosmusic]

oddball

you love it

[Boss Man Zwiebelsohn]

FIVE pages!

Personally, the second chord in 'Embraceable You' doesn't bother me at all. It's very nice, lovely sense of movement. Using the bIIIo is a standard move for that time. So that's sorted.

As far as I can see it's a variation on 1-6-2-5 which the melody fully supports, it just sounds more interesting. Saying it's an A7b9/Bb to me is nonsense. Extensions go above the octave and in any case A7b9 to Am7 is musical hogwash :-)

Time for some Ragman example recordings.

[Boss Man Zwiebelsohn]

I find that the books I get the most out of these days are more beginner things. The really good ones can pose very different ways of organizing and teaching and practicing that are super useful without introducing a single musical concept I don’t “already know.”

Randy Vincent comes to mind.

Alans book is an oddball in that respect because there’s tons of new info to me but it’s also all very basic and doesn’t have to be hard to play so it lends itself more than others to just sitting on the same concept for a while.

Another thing I like to do is watch the My Music Masterclass two-minute teaser videos and take notes.

I cannot stop to advertise "Basic Harmony" haha. It is aimed at beginners also. The first musical examples are children and folk songs.

Like those teaser videos also. Always something to pick up.

[supersoul]

Time for some Ragman example recordings.

When are we going to get to hear Bophead example recordings?

[pamosmusic]

when are we going to get to hear bophead example recordings?

devastating