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Victor Wooten suggests that the most important scale for improvisation is chromatic. As we all know, there are only 12 pitches (ignoring octaves) and each pitch is within a semitone of on of the 7 scale tones for whatever key you happen to be in. If you know the sound of each pitch of the chromatic scale against any chord and you’ve got a good rhythm, and other elements of musicianship you should be able to start off with a random note and come up with a compelling melody.
Of course, as a funk-oriented bassist he’s after something a little different than the rich harmonies of Ted Greene or Bill Evans. But I find it freeing to feel that all 12 pitches are available to me at any time when I’m soloing.
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07-21-2019 01:26 AM
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Originally Posted by KirkP
The 12 chromatic pitches are sung against a key center, a progression, or an entire tune (while always being cognizant of the key of the tune).
I practice singing this way, and I practice hearing pitches and dyads this way (I'm working up to triads since I LOVE triads)
That's my huge secret to soloing as well. If I think chord changes or read changes, I get all types of conflabberghausted. But if I hear how everything, the melody, the harmony, and the note that I play "pull" on the tonal center of the tune--I'm golden.
You know what seldom gets any air time in most of the theory circles? The theory of rhythm, phrasing, and rhythmic cadence. The theory of the drum. Maybe it's better that way. Or maybe I'm not part of the right "theory" circles? Paradiddles, hear I come (get it? "hear")
That, and if I'm not totally intimated when I play with high school freshmen that play better than I ever could-- Kirk knows exactly what I mean!
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I don't know about the ' great ' players , but I was lucky enough to study and play with some professional jazzers who learned their craft before the sixties and the ' academicisation ' of jazz music .
One thing I will say about them is that they could all read well . They had traditional musical educations so they learned ' common practice ' harmony and theory . I think they all understood jazz improvisation as a specific style or flavour of playing rather than a separate musical system . They all had somewhat idiosyncratic , non-systematic ways of explaining how they approached improvising but they all sounded ' authentic ' - and they all learned stuff from the classic records - that was the only way of learning .
I was at a workshop with Alan Barnes once , we were playing ' Tin Tin Deo '
The A section has some fairly fruity chords and someone asked him " what scales should I use for each of these chords " ?
He said " o , I just play a minor pentatonic over the whole thing "
Is that theory or is that praxis ?
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Tin Tin Deo, now there's a tune I wanna play!
I haven't heard it in a while.
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Originally Posted by Pycroft
As dear departed Duncan Lamont put it - use fair means, or foul. Play dirty.
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Bach new his theory and his intervals/scales but he probably wouldn't call a Neopolitan 6 chord (bII6) as such. He and others throughout history were taught music by imitating what they had heard and then developing their own ideas after that. Trying to teach structured and then have a student apply them is not only backwards but counterproductive as the listener doesn't care about if the music is theoretically sound
A fascinating subject , perhaps a bit off topic .
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o , and another thing about the old school jazzers - they all served apprenticeships in dance bands - learning to blend timbre and rhythm with the rest of the band to create a whole greater than the sum of it's parts to get people dancing - now there's a dying art .
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Originally Posted by Pycroft
Rameau I think was fairly irrelevant to professional musicians, but I think there was an idea that his theory would be like Newton's law of gravity for music... Apples have always fallen down, but this is why, sort of thing. I think Bach wouldn't have been interested in the why so much as the how, but I might be wrong. (Which is a philosophical distinction between the craft of composition and improvisation and music theory proper.)
Not sure if that's what you meant, but to me the music of the spheres was fundamentally a pre-enlightenment concept. Newton (AFAIK) basically killed it... Kepler was a big fan, but essentially one of the last astronomers and natural philosophers to subscribe to the concept (again, as far as I know.)
So ideology... maybe, but I feel this word is a little inadequate. When you are a musician working in the environment of the church and the court, with a huge amount of very specific social mores, some of which are articulated in music, that's a very different environment to what we are used to. Any restrictions we have in our music now are basically those we choose. This is a profoundly different situation to what it was in 17-18th century...
But 15th century bebop? Well it was fashionable in late 14th century Avignon to write the weirdest music you could.
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Interesting segway into 15th century Baroq-o-bop.
Who remembers that album that Artie Shaw did with harpsichord? That was an interesting timbre in a jazz quintet.
Back to the OP...
I've been talking with my mentor and I noticed two things:
1. It is a lot harder to play with rhythms that are clean and concise than I initially thought, especially with single line playing.
2. It is a lot harder to play basic material that clearly outlines the changes than I initially thought. My mentor listened to a recent solo I sent him from a local jam and he said I need to work on melodic and harmonic clarity. He also says that I really know my theory... See the disconnect? I tend to get excited by color tones, tension, and the ilk. My ear gravitates towards these sounds as well. BUT, I've noticed that I need to get better at playing "basic" material.
Two things separate the amateurs:
1. Impeccable time. Whether they play on the beat, pushing the beat, or behind--the time is ALWAYS rock solid.
2. The ability to make "basic material" sound incredibly exciting.
Here's my CST rant Part Deux:
CST gets many guitar players obsessed with color tones and extensions (yes Chris'77, you said it first ). My mentor always emphasizes the triad, with a the 7th as a subsidiary. Right now, I have to revisit the rudiments. I've heard time and time again that most professional players are always finding ways to revisit and perfect their rudiments. A C7#11 doesn't mean shiz if you don't know how to approach the basic chord within the harmony that it exists within.
Ah, there's the next tidbit that will get me in trouble round these parts. Even if you think of harmony as vertical--as Peter Mazza might--you have to square away a part of your mind to the study of how progressions work. That is, how each chord ultimately leads to some sort of resolution (whether it's chromatic ii-V's, back doors, tritones, etc.--I have this all on my mind because the next tune I'm working on with my mentor is... Stablemates! Yikes, but exciting!)Last edited by Irez87; 07-21-2019 at 11:12 PM.
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