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Yeah I'm looking at a cross section of Doo Wop and Soul stuff now for a band I do, and there is a lot of:
I VIm IV V (the '50s progression) obviously in '50s stuff, which then gets broken up into little cells:
I VIm I VIm quite a lot in Soul stuff
You also get I I7 IV IVm on some of those tunes, but I'm hearing a slide away from functional harmony of the Standards by this point.
Doo Wop was invented by jazz musicians, incidentally....
Soul has a lot of blues scale influenced harmony too - bIII, bVII, and so on
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04-04-2017 12:50 PM
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Yes...the I- vi- ii- V Doo Wop thing was before my time and is less ' Urban' than most Motown, Stax, and later 60's R&B ...for me ..tunes like I Heard it Through the Grapevine...and some of Spencer Davis Group etc. and others made the DooWop sound like Choir Boys..
Then we got the same Raw Emotion from Stevie Wonder later but with the sophistication of Tin Pan Alley but fully raw emotion and much stronger Grooves .
' Tin Pan Alley' - the' Tin' part was they were scared of the Kick Drum, Tribal Beats and deep bass - haha.
I think one of the reasons we have not heard more Harmonically Expanded R&B which Stevie was so great at ( including more Classical Sounding stuff like All Is Fair In Love - which some consider a * Standard - right ?) is...
It's not easy...lol.
Soul Music or R&B was never about interesting or expanded Chord Voicings though especially not on Guitar ...so I don't have much in common with old school stuff at all which is not what I aspire to anyway -I like modern R&B with very Modern Guitar Voicings - which does not currently exist- a plus.
An interesting difference between most "Rock ,Pop, "
Tunes and Jazz Tunes on Guitar is on Rock and Pop we have the specific Chord Voicings becoming part of the Song rather than the more fluid but less identifiable 'comping' in Jazz..except Metheny breaks this sometimes with identifiable Voicings as part of the Tune.Last edited by Robertkoa; 06-12-2017 at 02:32 AM.
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Well neither was jazz for it's first 30 or so years. I still don't really hear jazz that way, at least not the jazz I really feel - the voicings are just an aspect of the whole thing really.
Originally Posted by Robertkoa
But then in R&B as with earlier jazz, the guitars job is to play rhythm, which is a different thing to comping interactively.
Interestingly, I would say this is also true in Brazilian music, Pat Metheny's compositions and Gypsy Jazz. In GJ everyone basically plays the same voicings for songs. For example, you cannot play Manoir de Mes Reves withoutAn interesting difference between most "Rock ,Pop, "
Tunes and Jazz Tunes on Guitar is on Rock and Pop we have the specific Chord Voicings becoming part of the Song rather than the more fluid but less identifiable 'comping' in Jazz..
7 x 6 7 8 x
Any music based around the guitar moves towards guitar specific voicings, even jazz. I've written stuff like that too (although not all my music is like this.)
Jazz was based on reinterpretation of earlier pop music which i general was written on the piano and performed in arrangements by ensembles.
There's a lot of vocal music that doesn't work instrumentally, sure. I strive for a song like quality in my own writing.I think trying to write Non Vocal Music is generally more difficult than writing for Voice because you don't have an ' identifiable "Hook " ' like with Voice.
Harder to identify when you have a strong Melody with Instrumental Music.
Yeah, I see that as a modern standard. I like to play that one.'James' by Pat Metheny is great because it is as strong as a Vocal Tune IMO - very rare.
Bear in mind that the jazz of this era was written and performed by musicians who also played R&B. Including Wayne Shorter, Cannonball etc.'Night Train '...'Watermelon Man'...'Take Five' same thing and ' Mercy Mercy...' those ALL sound like R&B to me except 'James'.
In fact the influence of jazz literate musicians on the pop of this era is incalculable, which is funny because so few of these songs have ended up as standards. But then I don't think jazz musicians are actually very good at writing jazz standards.
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Interesting observation about Jazz Musicians not being good at writing
Standards with exceptions of course.
And there were guys like King Curtis with one foot in Jazz and one in R&B.
The really distinctive Chord Voicings are the ones where the Audience
knows the Song just from those few trademark opening Chord Rhythms
...or Melodic Voicings etc.
Like Beethoven's Fifth Symphony...
Or' Start Me Up ' by the Rolling Stones[ These two are not usually found as comparisons -but a Hook is a Hook ]
James Taylor's Intro to Fire and Rain
Or that cool driving Guitar Figure
Rosenwinkel uses on 'Minor Blues'.
That is a very infectious little Guitar Part that really opens up that
Tune for me..and makes it unique.
Less of this generally in Jazz Guitar than Pop or Rock..
I am surprised he came up with that because he seems more the 'obscure
' esoteric ' type Musician.
Very clever Guitarist - I bet Audiences love that tune
'Live' and clap when they hear the opening Riff .Last edited by Robertkoa; 04-04-2017 at 09:30 PM.
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Hooks, right?
Zhivago is good too for this.
That's why Miles had a pop/rock following too IMO
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Seen a lot of comments recently similar to the idea that one doesn't PLAY, or one doesn't LIKE drop voicings. This is probably very confusing to those unfamiliar with the terminology.
I think it would be more accurate to say that you don't APPROACH studying chords by strict classes of voicing - all at once - or something similar. It's a CONCEPT and APPROACH, versus not playing ANY DROP CHORDS. We all play drop chords. If you say that you don't play drop two or three or drop two and four chord voicings, you simply don't know that you're playing with them.
Maybe you don't play every inversion or study them as a class, but that's a different way of talking about it. Again, it would be more helpful on an educational forum or sub forum to say something a little more precise, like "I don't worry with what type of "drop" chord it is. I just play voicings which work/voice lead/ satisfy me etc. etc. ".
It means the same thing but is less confusing.
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Yeh.. Drop 2 and Drop 3 are incorporated in many chord patterns in jazz methods.. so they often becoem kind of routine..Seen a lot of comments recently similar to the idea that one doesn't PLAY, or one doesn't LIKE drop voicings. This is probably very confusing to those unfamiliar with the terminology.
I think it would be more accurate to say that you don't APPROACH studying chords by strict classes of voicing - all at once - or something similar. It's a CONCEPT and APPROACH, versus not playing ANY DROP CHORDS. We all play drop chords. If you say that you don't play drop two or three or drop two and four chord voicings, you simply don't know that you're playing with them.
Maybe you don't play every inversion or study them as a class, but that's a different way of talking about it. Again, it would be more helpful on an educational forum or sub forum to say something a little more precise, like "I don't worry with what type of "drop" chord it is. I just play voicings which work/voice lead/ satisfy me etc. etc. ".
It means the same thing but is less confusing.
set of shapes.. block chords
When you begin to see and hear voice-leading behind shapes.. this way you - in a sense - realease these Drop voicing and begin to use them again from different perspective...
by the way adding Drop 2/4 and Drop 2/3 was partly the way to release Drop 2 and Drop 3 from their traditional use
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