Chord scale theory is the opposite of...

[rpjazzguitar]

[QUOTE=christianm77;826057]

I don’t understand what that means. What do you mean by ‘organisation’?

I don't understand it either.

[Stevebol]

Bones in ice cream?

[Jonah]

About application...

It reminded an experience I had some years ago...
Those days I knew classical harmony quite well but I did not know almost anything about jazz harmonic and improvizational approaches...
So I just tried to figure out something from what I knew and mostly by ear...
I also did not play much rock guitar solos... so I did know about these common blues/rock guitaristic pentatonics and scales things too...

Occasionally I played a line over B-7 chord as II in ii-v-i chenges...
The line was a-c-e-g upward and then over E7 downward f#-d

I liked the sound but I could not understand why it worked. It was straight ascending A-7 arp over B-7 chord. I could not explain for myself the background of it... the tonal center was A major... what the h.. A minor 7 has got to do with that?

Of course I heard blue note sound too... but still.

Later I knew about minor pentatonic scale... ok but it did not explain much too... as I studied more jazz using extentions alterations scales... and tools to apply it like superimposed triads etc. I forgot about that lick...

And one day I played something like that again and it reminded me that situation... and I was surprised how much more logical and clear a it seems to me now...
and first things I thought was B Phrigian e scale that is used over ii chord....
I did not really analyze it just heard/saw it ..

And what is important that I still clearly saw that it was also A-7 arp... I also heard the ii-v-i functional movement in A major... I heard blue note sound... I heard anticipation of b13 (for following E7 chord)... and that B Phrygian is iii of G major... etc.
but this B Phrygian thing was in some way covering all that - including it all in... at least from point of view of melodic outline through given harmony...
I do not mention other potential things like using B locrian (that can give you other key centers too etc.) or B Locrian with natural2 that opens melodic minor etc. etc

And I do not sit down with overanalyzing it... it just pops up...

What I am trying to say is that scales often give good clarity of the things behind.. especially in relation to improvization.

And another point that is important to me..
in theory there are always some general basic statements (in that case it is a scale and functional ii-v-i) and tool of practical applications of it... (like playing A- arp, playing b9, playing blue note, playing passing chromatic note (if you move it like C#-C-B)...)

And I think both things are important...
but if you think only of A-7 arp over B-7 this will be all you can play here, if you think only chromatic note you will hardly play an arp, if you think of it as of b13 anticipatio - so you hear like B-7 - E7 are all E7.. which is also fine.. but you will hardly exploit B-7 chord)...
Of course there's a chance that you may succefully combine ait or use only one tool with great taste and musicality...

But when I know that scale thing, fucntional relations and all these applications (and more) you can do whatever you feel you want... play approach note... arps.. descending or ascenfing lines... anticipations or suspensions... blues or not...

it's like you're in open sea and chooses immidiately where you want to navigate and know how to do it...

[Robertkoa]

One thing that's very fun to play around with is the very basic first step - what young children learning music would have learned, simple formulae for harmonising a bass note.



Regola dell'ottava

This comes from figured bass, but once internalised, it's pretty easy to apply this to different bass lines and come up with stuff that sounds stylistically late 17th/18th century without having to micromanage counterpoint, voice leading or functional harmony.

Anyone who has spent time hacking through baroque classical guitar repertoire will find these shapes and movements familiar right away. Take Weiss's Passacaglia in D, for instance.

The main use of this today is in allowing keyboardists and lutenists to harmonise bass lines without any figures (modern editions have figured bass, because modern classical musicians don't necessarily know these rules.)

The thing I like about this is that it emphasises (like the Barry Harris approach) - doing rather then theorising. Creating sentences in an existing language. The progressions you generate would all be familiar to Piston, but you are not thinking about root movement or chord functions at all. That stuff would have been as unfamiliar to Mozart etc as talking about the Superlocrian with Charlie Parker.

Anyway, I digress. But I see a parallel to many things in jazz education.

Anyway I better shut up or Jonah will appear and spend several hours telling me I don't know WTF I'm talking about in an extremely learned way :-)

Exactly- 'creating Sentences in existing Language'.

Also Kriesberg saying that Language CAN Trump Theory...

This ties into what I call Melodic Cadences which can FORCE the listener to' hear' your Entire Previous Phrase in a certain Harmonic or Chordal Region -
SOLELY because of the Ending Notes.

Now simple Chacago Bluesers who know 0 Theory
instinctively Play the Language ..they MUST still use Melodic Cadences..meaning they' know ' that they MUST change Notes when the IV Chord Comes- AND they know that some notes can be' held over'.

CST is not specific enough.

A more interesting example that sounds like Jazz or BeBop and here is a Musical Sentence Ending with a Strong Melodic Cadence.

An. A ii half diminished Arp played as A -Eb -G - C

then Bb- B- G Resolving to a G7 ..

You can Play ANY NOTES in Rhythm up to 4 or maybe more - no matter HOW outside they are - and it will all Flow smoothly to the G7 with that ending.
And of course more related Notes can allow a longer
Sentence ending with that Melodic Cadence.

Now change the Part AFTER the ii minor 7 b5 Arp and the destination Chord can be a Major 7 ( actually can work as is but alteration makes it stronger)
And slight Ateration last two notes ( omit Major 3rd )
to the G minor 7.

What happens is the strong Cadence at end acts like a Tonal Funnel focusing the entire previous line into the G 7.

This can be really dramatic when you rip a Pentatonic and end on three different minor triads and it sounds like 3 different Keys JUST changing the ending.

'What's your Point , Robert ?'

Well I never have a point ...lol.

No wait I do have one...the point is that Scales are NOT specific enough to do this ...they are Bulk unorganized unfocused Material ...now you can play bulk unorganized Material and get it to spund focused with Melodic Cadences ..

Now IF someone uses Scales really well like pitch collections or instinctively adds cadences or targets well...that's different .
Above my Conceptual Level ( no sarcasm ).

[christianm77]

Theory is only valuable to musician in so much as it relates to and facilitates the performance of music, and the construction of musical language.

Everything else is for the academy.

[christianm77]

BTW the term melodic cadence is great, it kind of feels like how I approach things much of the time.

[Robertkoa]

Theory is only valuable to musician in so much as it relates to and facilitates the performance of music, and the construction of musical language.

Everything else is for the academy.

Well ..easy for * you to say ..lol I am really benefitting a lot from my unofficial Jazz Education on this Forum..
Theory which I am still deficient in is definitely giving me more options ...and oddly let's me play with less thinking and just hear more or more clearly ..

Including where I can personally benefit from Basic CST ( just common sense stuff that you Guys learned long ago ) and where to stop ..Guys who can do the Math while Playing etc. * Or have fun (! ) with
Complex Scale Relationships.

More Power to you ..

[rpjazzguitar]

I thought I posted this before, but I can't find it ...

Looking at a transcription, I noticed this.

5/4 time around 120bpm.

3 beats of E7alt, 2 beats of A7alt.

A triplet on each beat.

Each triplet a triad.

1st,, 3rd and 5th beats are descending lines, other two are broken, meaning the middle note is played last.

Cmaj triad
F#m triad
Ebmaj triad
Am triad
D7 triad (the chord in the next bar is D7sus - he hits the D on the one of the next bar).

C G E (next, up a 4th), A C# F# (next down a minor third), Eb Bb G (next, up a 4th), C E A (down a minor third) F# C A (up a 4th to D)

So, we have triplets which relate to the underlying chords in different ways.

Each triplet is a simple triad and the first note of each triad relates in an apparently organized way to the last note of the triad before. In fact, the first of these triplets begins a minor third below the last note in the previous bar. Either a 4th up or a b3 down.

The triplets alternate in melodic contour -- descending, broken, descending, broken, descending.

If you think about these notes in groups of 4, they spell Am7, Ebm7, Am7 and D7.

The downbeats only spell a descending Cdim.

This is one bar of Chico Pinheiro's Tempestade, as transcribed by Danny Green, a great pianist/composer/ bandleader in the San Diego area -- who has posted the transcription on his website. This is bar 13.

I don't know how someone arrives at a line like this. Assuming there is a harmonic analysis that makes it somehow obvious, there is then the melodic contour of the triplets, the alternating intervals between triplets, and the fact that the harmonic overlay also can be considered in groups of 4 notes, even though the rhythm is played in triplets. And, finally, the idea that the downbeats spell a diminished chord.

[christianm77]

OK:

Cmaj triad C E G
F#m triad F# A C#
Ebmaj triad Eb G Bb
Am triad A C E

Because I've been doing this for a while - that screams at a glance - half whole scale:

C Db Eb E F# G A Bb

Major and Minor triads with minor third and tritone relations - belong to this scale. This is something I first worked out almost 20 years ago and I am primed to look out for... Experience, I guess.

D7 triad (what is a D7 triad? do you mean F# dim? i.e. F# A C? Confused....)

[rpjazzguitar]

Thanks. I didn't notice that.

I called the last one a D7 because it's F# C A and then lands on D. F#dim has an Eb. That D is on beat one of the following measure.

[christianm77]

Thanks. I didn't notice that.

I called the last one a D7 because it's F# C A and then lands on D. F#dim has an Eb. That D is on beat one of the following measure.

F#dim7 has an Eb, not F#dim which is a dim triad.

This chord can be thought of functionally as an incomplete Dom 7 chord, but no-one would call a F# A C a D7 triad... I don't think

Triads and chord notation (as I understand them) - basic four triads:

C is C maj - C E G
Cm or C- is C minor - C Eb G
Cdim or Co is C diminished - C Eb Gb
C+ is C augmented - C E G#

Jazz musicians (including Barry) do use dim as a shorthand for the dim7 chord, so the confusion is understandable.

Sounds like the C 1/2 - W thing resolves to the note D. TBH I'd have to see the chart.

[rpjazzguitar]

F#dim7 has an Eb, not F#dim which is a dim triad.

This chord can be thought of functionally as an incomplete Dom 7 chord, but no-one would call a F# A C a D7 triad... I don't think

Triads and chord notation (as I understand them) - basic four triads:

C is C maj - C E G
Cm or C- is C minor - C Eb G
Cdim or Co is C diminished - C Eb Gb
C+ is C augmented - C E G#

Jazz musicians (including Barry) do use dim as a shorthand for the dim7 chord, so the confusion is understandable.

Sounds like the C 1/2 - W thing resolves to the note D. TBH I'd have to see the chart.

Well, this is a good example of theory helping. Your point suggests that Chico has worked out the triads contained in HW pretty thoroughly and can play them, at speed.

Interesting though, at least to me, that he's playing the same diminished scale against both Ealt and Aalt.


C Db Eb E F# G A Bb. Against E7alt, there is a major 7 on a dominant also an 11. The notes not included are D F G# and B, which spell a rootless E7b9. And, he plays that Eb against the Ealt in beat 3. Against A7alt, at least it contains A7#11b9#9 (and natural 13).

So it looks like, in a way, he's anticipating the Dsus with some fancy side slipping.

[rpjazzguitar]

Here's the transcription:

http://dannygreen.net/wp-content/upl...o-Pinheiro.pdf

Here's a live performance of the tune. The version transcribed is probably the album version, which is not this one:

[rpjazzguitar]

I don't know of a video of the solo that Danny Green transcribed.

There are several versions of Tempestade on youtube. A couple by Chico and some covers. He wrote the tune.

[Robertkoa]

I like Chico's Rhythmic Comping and the Voicings ..

Kinda High Energy ....

[christianm77]

Well, this is a good example of theory helping. Your point suggests that Chico has worked out the triads contained in HW pretty thoroughly and can play them, at speed.

Interesting though, at least to me, that he's playing the same diminished scale against both Ealt and Aalt.


C Db Eb E F# G A Bb. Against E7alt, there is a major 7 on a dominant also an 11. The notes not included are D F G# and B, which spell a rootless E7b9. And, he plays that Eb against the Ealt in beat 3. Against A7alt, at least it contains A7#11b9#9 (and natural 13).

So it looks like, in a way, he's anticipating the Dsus with some fancy side slipping.

Yeah it seems to relate more to the A7 going into D

[christianm77]

I think triads through the diminished scale is quite a common trope in modern jazz guitar.

The really obvious one is major triad pair in tritones. Everyone uses that.

[christianm77]

Thanks for the links. Music related time is at a premium atm, due to tiny baby, but I’ll try and take a good look and listen later.

Btw I’ve pretty much learned his tune Triades. It’s not the easiest!

[rpjazzguitar]

Thanks for the links. Music related time is at a premium atm, due to tiny baby, but I’ll try and take a good look and listen later.

Btw I’ve pretty much learned his tune Triades. It’s not the easiest!

I've also learned Triades. And, I agree, it's not easy, particularly to play it really cleanly.

The most remarkable thing about it is that he plays it with a pick. It's hard enough (for me) finger style, but picking it? Wow.

The part where it goes up to the high G and then goes to a kind of turnaround still eludes me. It's tricky to play cleanly and the line in the turnaround doesn't lay particularly well, at least for the way I'm fingering it.

With most things on record, if you can figure out how the passage was fingered (or how the guitar was re-tuned, or some trick), usually it turns out to be easier than it might seem at first. I've always figured that most players don't want a high wire act in the recording studio or on stage -- so they play stuff that they can execute reliably -- which means there is likely a smooth way to do it and it isn't near-impossible for someone with decent, but not necessarily spectacular, chops.

That's not true with Chico's stuff. He has the chops to execute things that most can't do -- and he will articulate every single note cleanly.

[Vladan]

Here's the transcription:

http://dannygreen.net/wp-content/upl...o-Pinheiro.pdf

Here's a live performance of the tune. The version transcribed is probably the album version, which is not this one:

Transcribed solo you can hear in recording of that song on this page: chico-pinheiro , IMO, that is not E7alt at that place.

[rpjazzguitar]

I followed that link to the site. I didn't find an mp3 of the solo that Danny Green transcribed.

If you found the mp3 of the transcribed solo, can you provide a link?

Thanks.

BTW, for anybody that likes the tune, Chico has his own chart available for free d/l on his website. Go to Music and scroll down.

[Vladan]

Just scroll down that page and you will find player for one (print screen attached).

And BTW, transcription on the site is the same one you posted before, which is not by author, but by some piano player, Green Danny.
Notations are just below players. It is virtually impossible to get to notation without noticing players?!
Ah, there-s another notation, let's seee ... it also says E7alt, but why .... it's beyond me ...

[christianm77]

I've also learned Triades. And, I agree, it's not easy, particularly to play it really cleanly.

The most remarkable thing about it is that he plays it with a pick. It's hard enough (for me) finger style, but picking it? Wow.

I pick it. It's double down up cross picking watching his right hand.

The part where it goes up to the high G and then goes to a kind of turnaround still eludes me. It's tricky to play cleanly and the line in the turnaround doesn't lay particularly well, at least for the way I'm fingering it.

With most things on record, if you can figure out how the passage was fingered (or how the guitar was re-tuned, or some trick), usually it turns out to be easier than it might seem at first. I've always figured that most players don't want a high wire act in the recording studio or on stage -- so they play stuff that they can execute reliably -- which means there is likely a smooth way to do it and it isn't near-impossible for someone with decent, but not necessarily spectacular, chops.

That's not true with Chico's stuff. He has the chops to execute things that most can't do -- and he will articulate every single note cleanly.

I'll try and do a vid this week.

Re: Chops.

[rpjazzguitar]

Just scroll down that page and you will find player for one (print screen attached).

And BTW, transcription on the site is the same one you posted before, which is not by author, but by some piano player, Green Danny.
Notations are just below players. It is virtually impossible to get to notation without noticing players?!
Ah, there-s another notation, let's seee ... it also says E7alt, but why .... it's beyond me ...

I couldn't get that link to work, but in other performances it sounds like an Edominant with alterations to me.

Danny Green, btw, is a San Diego based pianist who has several albums out, all excellent. He's a terrific composer/pianist and leads a very tight trio playing his music. He has a recognizable personal style in his composition and improvisation. I think two of his albums won San Diego Jazz Album of the Year (at least one did, but I think two). He has recorded with Chico. He gigs regularly in the San Diego area and has toured.

[Jonah]

In the Songs section there was a question about Good Morning Heartache from pingu... I put there my ideas on it...
and it was about scale thing... might be interesting because to me it's exactly about scales as compositional element that has its character and meaning and is being used in that way for musical purposes


I thought about one thing more... since it was coverning a certain song... I watched Peter Bernstein's Facebook this Saturaday (as some of you too I believe) - and it was great...
One thing I noticed that Peter speaks so much aboyut the things that I tried to speak about too in this form - about form analysis, about the meaning of musical means, about cultural references in music that work in composition too...
These are 'whys' we choose (or we chould choose) this of that solutions... not because this arp or fits that chord.
but it seems that when we approach these topics on the forum very few people really want to dig into it (I tried to approach a few songs from this pov but it did not seem to attract any interes)... mostly they want to know how to play over this chord (the best is how to connect it with next one), or how what rythmic variations are there..

Actually analysing composition of original for to me is the most interesting tutorial thing... I always keep saying - somehow we hear that here it is a climax, or here it is some deviation form teh main idea or hear it's abrupstion and then ressurection and so on... maybe uncociously but this is how music works (even the most primitive pop song - not only symphony.. only sumphony can tell you more about life as art maybe - a good one)... and it works good in integrity that's what the good work with the form is..
So it teaches improvization best of all....