The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
Reply to Thread Bookmark Thread
Page 2 of 4 FirstFirst 1234 LastLast
Posts 26 to 50 of 83
  1. #26

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by marvinvv
    again wtf is a major dominant? targets dont mean anything what is a major dominant?
    Dominant (music) - Wikipedia

  2.  

    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #27

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by marvinvv
    again wtf is a major dominant? targets dont mean anything what is a major dominant?
    Sorry, I DO probably need to explain this.

    The dominant of a given major or minor key. Mainstream jazz theory doesn't really have good terminology for this distinction, on account of it being not fit for purpose, so I borrow it from classical theory.

    Major dominant = Major key dominant - C13
    Minor dominant = Minor key dominant - C7b13b9(#9)

    Not that minor key dominant is NOT the same as a fully altered dominant, as anyone who has spent time transcribing jazz from 1920-1960 will be aware.

    Altered dominants in major key began as parallel major/minor modal interchange sometime in the 18th century IIRC.

  4. #28

    User Info Menu

    -- Most common dominant sounds (in voicings etc) --

    So what I've observed empirically in the music I look at:

    So there's six categories of dominants that I tend to see most frequently, four of which can be put on an axis from light to dark:
    1. 'Lydian dominant' (important minor. minor up a fifth)
    2. Major dominant
    3. Minor dominant (which might include melodic minor V chords like C9b13, see Bach and swing era jazz)
    4. 'True' altered dominant (tritone's minor, minor up a semitone) - has the b5.


    And two of which are neither light nor dark but sort of both

    1. 7#5 - whole tone. Most common in 1930s/40s music
    2. 13b9 (often diminished scale, sometimes 'harmonic major') - very common in late 50s/early 60s music.


    All of these are pretty interchangeable, although the Lydian dominant is most common in 'non functioning dominants' (for instance aug6th chords, IV7 and II7s - of which Take the A Train is a good example.) It's common to get a darker dominant before a cadential move into another chord.

    -- Common melodic superpositions --

    When it comes to linear improvisation, there's also superpositions like the venerable minor on dominant sounds which are often misspelled as #9s:

    Warne Marsh's Dominant II sound, which is like a bVII sub melodic minor on V7, or F melodic minor on G7, for example - so that would give you a C13b9(b10) sound. Charlie Christian uses this, which might be where the Tristano school got it from as they were big CC fans.

    And the superimposed minor pentatonic sound, for instance that some of the soloists select on All Blues, where we have the minor pentatonic played on the '7#9' (see above) - D minor pentatonic on D7#9; any rock guitar player knows about his of course...

    And of course the superimposed altered sound - major dominant tritone substitute (Db Mixolydian on G7 for instance)

    Modern players such as Chris Potter etc are also likely to use superpositions. Dave Liebman's harmonic approach is based on this idea.

    -- A bit more CST bashing ----


    • Mandatory major 3rds on dominants is really far too Oktoberfest for jazz. (Although to be fair to the Germans, even Brahms got a bit sick of them.)
    • But all the CST dominant scales have to have major 3rds in because it isn't neat & tidy for the dweebs otherwise.
    • OTOH Improvisers of up to the 60s aren't always thinking of tertial upper structures. In fact I would say that superposition is the rule, pre CST. Some of the superpositions look like upper structures, but might not have been conceptualised this way.
    • Furthermore - unless you can locate a clear chord voicing, rather than thinking of the notes of melody relating to the chord of the moment, it makes more sense to think of them as a thing unto themselves - such as a triad, pentatonic scale etc - with some sort of independence to the underlying chord.
    • I'd question the value of looking at these things too much in terms of chord extensions, because that's when it gets messy.
    • CST describes ‘…the direct interrelation between chords and scales which do not have independent functions but represent “two sides of one coin”…’ according to Nettles and Graf, so the logical conclusion is that melodic pitch choices aren't governed by CST.
    • They later cop out in Nettles & Graf where they say that not all notes can be understood vertically because they have obviously listened to some actual jazz records. So that's ceding the last point. OK, whatever, serves you right trying to make a unifying theory haha. Don't pick a positivist fight if you aren't going to win it by the positivist rules.
    • And this indicates that really CST should be taken as a resource to play around with certainly not a tool of analysis. One of
    • P R A X I S


    That's quite dry, so here's a comedy interlude:

    Secondary dominant extensions / available notes-screenshot-2020-06-08-10-19-14-jpg

    So, anyway, the real world situation is all quite complicated when you write it down. But it does show how the theory books simplify things down. Again, you sort of have to use the ears, because real music isn't as orderly as Mark Levine's carefully selected examples. And ML represents AFAIK a simplification of CST, in fact.

    Whether or not ML's simplified approach has value is a question of pedagogy, not musical analysis.

    TL;DR - it's too complicated, use your flipping lugholes m8, it's not rocket surgery.
    Last edited by christianm77; 06-08-2020 at 05:23 AM.

  5. #29
    Quote Originally Posted by marvinvv
    again wtf is a major dominant? targets dont mean anything what is a major dominant?
    Targets do mean something for classification, conceptionalization purposes. Minor target implies minor tonality (could be temporary) hence minor key dominant (altered notes). Major target, major tonality major key dominant (vanilla). This is in a pure, textbook sense, doesn't mean they are always used this way.
    Last edited by Tal_175; 06-08-2020 at 06:21 AM.

  6. #30

    User Info Menu

    I tend to listen to what the head melody may have to say.

    Example: All of Me.

    The melody on measure 6 relates to VI7b9 -> full modulation to generic minor target Xm.

    The melody on measure 28 relates to VI9 -> minor target is a II specifically, "diatonic" dominant used.

    I listen to the melody a lot, so much so that I don't really practise over backing tracks, but over recordings' heads. That gives me the full picture I want to ingrain.

  7. #31

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    'True' altered dominant (tritone's minor, minor up a semitone) - has the b5.
    Why have you written "has the b5" instead of "has the #5"? To me, the latter would be more defining, as the "lydian b7" approach also has the b5 sound (as #4 of course).

    Great post, BTW :-)

  8. #32

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by alez
    Why have you written "has the b5" instead of "has the #5"? To me, the latter would be more defining, as the "lydian b7" approach also has the b5 sound (as #4 of course).

    Great post, BTW :-)
    No I mean b5.

    Combining b5 with the other extensions (b13, b9 or #9) gives you 'true altered'

    #5 is found in the minor scale, for instance A7#5 is diatonic to Dm.

    You could also view it as a diminished chord. In the early 60's I thing #11 and b5 chords were basically viewed as the same type thing, and handled with a dominant diminished scale. At least from the stuff I've listened to and you can see this from the way they write chord charts out (Wayne, Trane etc)

    So maybe by your logic the altered scale isn't really a thing. I'd kind of be open to that. It's kind of conflation of several different things - diminished, whole tone, tritone sub, general chromatic voice leading.

  9. #33

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by alez
    I tend to listen to what the head melody may have to say.

    Example: All of Me.

    The melody on measure 6 relates to VI7b9 -> full modulation to generic minor target Xm.

    The melody on measure 28 relates to VI9 -> minor target is a II specifically, "diatonic" dominant used.

    I listen to the melody a lot, so much so that I don't really practise over backing tracks, but over recordings' heads. That gives me the full picture I want to ingrain.
    Listen to the scat chorus:



    The harmonic choices are interesting, because they are not always the obvious ones based on the melody. The fact that a singer is doing this show that people really did hear it this way.

  10. #34

    User Info Menu

    Nice one, Christian. Nice two, in fact. Thanks for the great insight.

    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    So maybe by your logic the altered scale isn't really a thing. I'd kind of be open to that. It's kind of conflation of several different things - diminished, whole tone, tritone sub, general chromatic voice leading.
    I don't really have a logic at all, ha ha! I just try to understand the way you guys look at different things, it's inspiring and thought provoking and I really like that. Plus, of course, I learn a great deal from it.

  11. #35

    User Info Menu

    Oh, thanks for that recording by Vaughan, it's absolutely fantastic.

  12. #36

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by alez
    Oh, thanks for that recording by Vaughan, it's absolutely fantastic.
    yeah, isn’t it?

    also - no piano on the scat. Talk about going out on a limb as a singer...

  13. #37
    Something surprises me about Mark Levine's "The Jazz Theory" book is the lack of Harmonic Minor scale modes for secondary dominant applications.

    The harmonic minor scale doesn't come up until the "Loose Ends" chapter at the very end of the book. He doesn't discourage from playing the scale and he acknowledges that it's a got a uniquely beautiful sound, but he says it's a scale that's rarely used in it's entirety because it's got at least one "avoid note" no matter what chord it's played over.

    First of all what does he mean: Let's take V7/VI in C. The chord is E7 setting up for A min. G becomes G# to turn Emin into E7. This is basically A harmonic minor or E7b9b13.

    Now lets also add the #9 to this scale as it's often done. From the A harmonic minor perspective we are putting the minor 7 (G) back and create an 8 note scale, E7b9#9b13.

    We got 2 "avoid notes" against E7. The 4th (A) and the 5th (B). They are avoid notes because of the b9 intervals they create with the 3rd and b13th.

    Altered scale solves this problem. For example E altered scale amounts to replacing the notes A and B with a Bb (b5). Suddenly you get a 7 note scale without any "avoid" notes.

    So why am I surprised?

    When scales are played in their entirety as 8th note runs, avoid notes do not bother me as they become passing notes depending on how they are played. You can manipulate this further with articulation or by adding half notes. Check out Donna Lee head for what amounts to harmonic minor modes played over pretty much every dominant chord (yes they probably weren't thinking Phryigian dominant but that's not the point). This is also exactly what you get when you play Barry Harris style lines where the tonic scale is played into the third of the secondary dominant.

    What do you think?
    Last edited by Tal_175; 06-26-2020 at 08:32 AM.

  14. #38

    User Info Menu

    Yes. That’s another example of a ‘lol wut?’ moment from the book. There’s loads of them.

    Again it comes back to the central problem of seeing all scales as chords. That article of faith actually seems more important to him than the actual notes in tunes he has played a thousand times, or solos he transcribed... although sometimes he’ll backtrack from a sweeping statement because he realises it isn’t actually true. It’s quite strange to read. Why make the statement to start off with?

    It’s not very complicated; Sometimes scales are realisations of extended voicings and have no avoid notes. sometimes the avoid notes create a pleasing tension in the melody. Most lines have at least some passing tones in them.

    (Theres actually only two avoid notes I hear as non negotiable most of the time - 4 on maj7, b6 min. There are no avoid notes on dominants.)

    Levine is really in the woods about this avoid note stuff. He isn’t consistent at all.

  15. #39

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    (Theres actually only two avoid notes I hear as non negotiable most of the time - 4 on maj7, b6 min. There are no avoid notes on dominants.)

    I think Blue Bossa measure 11 and Stella by Starlight measure 9 use 4 over maj7 in a way that you would consider "forbidden". I'm sure you know a hundred more songs that do it... my repertoire is tiny. But I don't really get this avoid note thing.

  16. #40

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by alez
    I think Blue Bossa measure 11 and Stella by Starlight measure 9 use 4 over maj7 in a way that you would consider "forbidden". I'm sure you know a hundred more songs that do it... my repertoire is tiny. But I don't really get this avoid note thing.
    TBF Levine uses Stella as an example of how that note can be used expressively

  17. #41

    User Info Menu

    Avoid notes: So there are notes that can add colour to a static (non resolving) chord ‘colour notes’. There are also notes that will be at odds with it ‘clash notes’. There is a bit of science behind this that I wont go into.

    You won’t find that in most jazz theories, but Adam Neely did a decent job of explaining it recently.

    But for the purposes of playing everyday music the scales that don’t have avoid notes in the Levine book for instance will do fine. Just take the dominant stuff with a pinch of salt when it comes to resolving chords like secondary doms.

    So you can find for instance, 7 note modes that have only colour notes.
    maj7 —> lydian
    m7 —> dorian
    m(maj7)—>Mel min
    and so on

    (you can go further than this to multiple octave scales- there’s no reason to stop at 7 notes. See Collier, Warne marsh and others)

    that’s it really. The only thing that is vaguely confusing is that a mixture of colour and clash notes are found over many of the chords found within diatonic major and minor keys. A lot of the options are diatonic for stuff like bebop.

    for some reason many text books seem incapable of explaining this in a clear way.
    Last edited by christianm77; 06-26-2020 at 10:50 AM.

  18. #42

    User Info Menu

    TBF Levine uses Stella as an example of how that note can be used expressively
    Insteresting I noticed the same thing happens twice, not measure 9 only like I said, also measure 13 in the very same way.

    Both tunes (Blue Bossa too) caught my attention as 4 is used as land tone... it doesn't get any more "forbidden" than that use, does it? Blue Bossa emphasizes it by using it again on beat 1 the following measure, so it's a double landing.

    Avoid notes: So there are notes that can add colour to a static (non resolving) chord ‘colour notes’. There are also notes that will be at odds with it ‘clash notes’. There is a bit of science behind this that I wont go into.
    Thanks. Your post is pretty much the way I've seen it explained here and there before. The thing is, in practical terms, using F over C in the key of C has its limitations (essentially a passing tone), BUT using F# over C in the key of C has its limitations too (just because its so outside). So in the end by replacing F with F# you don't really gain an straightforward to use tone.

  19. #43

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by alez
    Insteresting I noticed the same thing happens twice, not measure 9 only like I said, also measure 13 in the very same way.

    Both tunes (Blue Bossa too) caught my attention as 4 is used as land tone... it doesn't get any more "forbidden" than that use, does it? Blue Bossa emphasizes it by using it again on beat 1 the following measure, so it's a double landing.
    OK, so Stella is not a jazz composition per se, but rather a song that has ended up in the jazz repertoire. Actually originally, it was rather in the style of late romantic music, in common with most Hollywood scores of the time.

    If you look at the chart you are going to see that many bars start with what classical theorists call a non-chord tone (that is a note that isn't any of the obvious chord tone - 1 3 5 on a major or minor, or 1 3 5 b7 on a dominant, say) that then resolves downward by step. So your example in bar 13 (Bb on F) resolves next beat, but in the case of the bridge, those dissonances take much longer to resolve. The Eb on G7 doesn't resolve till the last beat, for instance.

    So normally, we have dissonances on the weak stress, consonances on the strong stress (for example the first beat); and what Stella does is reverses this and really milks it for a yearning, passionate effect. Think Rachmaninoff... (Later on the harmony becomes more 'mid century' - jazz influenced as the rhythm guitar and harmonica comes in.)


    In classical theory these are called appoggiaturas or 'leaning notes'; here's more info.
    Appoggiatura - Wikipedia

    In baroque music you can add these dissonances in as a bit of spice.... but you have to be careful, because over use is generally considered a bit gross.

    Now in jazz, the function of these leaning dissonances has always been somewhat relaxed. You can do them if you want, but Louis Armstrong felt no reason to resolve a major seventh to a root, for instance. Over the years they have been reinterpreted as upper extensions, and eventually chord symbols. The conventions of chord symbols probably played their part as well, by freezing or reifying those passing dissonances as named chords we could actually talk about.

    All that is, except the 4th, which still has to resolve, probably because it does not feature in the overtones of a basic major chord (while the other notes of the major, and for that matter the lydian and lydian augmented scales do)

    Because of this, I often think that the 4th on tonic major (I6 or Imaj7 say) remans the only unambiguously dissonant note in the major key in jazz; I doubt anyone would disagree. This also relates to the topic of the fact that jazz musicians often don't like to play the leading tone (the 7th) in lines on V7, but that's a separate, though related topic.

    Levine for his part, gets it right here IMO. He never says we shouldn't use the 4th but says instead it is a 'handle with care note.' I would have framed it more as 'the 4th is a powerful resource to create tension and emotion.' (I find Levine to be a bit of a schoolmarm in his teaching style haha.) No-one milked its expressive potential more than Mozart. Or for that matter Radiohead. If you know the song Fake Plastic Trees - just think 'and it weeeeeeaaaaars me out.'

    Blue Bossa use a similar appogiatura effect.

    Thanks. Your post is pretty much the way I've seen it explained here and there before. The thing is, in practical terms, using F over C in the key of C has its limitations (essentially a passing tone), BUT using F# over C in the key of C has its limitations too (just because its so outside). So in the end by replacing F with F# you don't really gain an straightforward to use tone.
    Yeah. Straightahead jazz is broadly speaking pretty diatonic to whatever key centre it is currently focussed on, except when players are deliberately using a bit of 'seasoning' (such as a tritone sub, whole tone scale etc). The #4/#11 as a result can sound disruptive and inappropriate very often, except as an end chord (where it was very popular during the 50s.)

    Even in non functional music, I often find myself avoiding the #4 sound as a bit distasteful to my ears, and I observe the same in solos that I study. This is another example where I think vanilla chord scale theory really lacks the specificity and detail that musicians seem exercise consciously or unconsciously when improvising. Between 'avoid note' and 'chord tone' note is a whole spectrum of taste and nuance...
    Last edited by christianm77; 06-29-2020 at 05:39 AM.

  20. #44

    User Info Menu

    There are many things in that tune that really confuse me. I find it counterintuitive. In the past, I was so frustrated that I made a list with all the things I found odd. Here it is:

    1) Land tones: Odd choices. Even long notes. Sometimes even dominant chord altered tones.
    1.1) 4 over major land tone: !.

    2) Harmony. Looks random, sounds strange. Looks like any chord can follow or be followed by any other chord.

    3) The melody of the tune ends in 5, which is odd.

    4) Harmonic rhythm. Lack of. Some bars have 2 chords, some chords last 2 bars.

    5) Melodic rhythm. Counterintuitive. Phrasing over tonic chords, leading to long notes over dominants.

    So your explanation is enlightening and valuable. I'm going to learn a lot by taking my time to go through it.

    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    OK, so Stella is not a jazz composition per se, but rather a song that has ended up in the jazz repertoire. Actually originally, it was rather in the style of late romantic music, in common with most Hollywood scores of the time.
    But I thought that's true for most of the tunes in the Great American Songbook, many (most?) of which have become jazz standards.

  21. #45

    User Info Menu

    Yea... nice Tal175... Sounds good. The one big different of how I hear and see music. Jazz right, Is that there are always all these Macro and Micro possibilities going on. And results actually need to be weighed in real time, or context. I don't get locked into exact examples... because jazz is usually Live and the setting, context, players history etc... can have different results when performing.

    Most pros... have an approach or way of hearing and playing that they like.... I do and it reflects in my style(s) of playing and composing etc... Like I posted on my 1st post on this forum.... get your technical skills together 1st, because all the other details don't happen unless you do. And I also said Jazz is traditional functional melodic and harmonic BS... Blues, modal and MM. aspects. (I've always put rhythmic things in the technique skills).
    1)Technical skills
    2)Performance skills

    I'm pretty simple, and much of how I play is simple.... But I have technical skills, which helps me not to always look for new answers. I rarely get caught in the trees... LOL

  22. #46

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by alez
    There are many things in that tune that really confuse me. I find it counterintuitive. In the past, I was so frustrated that I made a list with all the things I found odd. Here it is:

    1) Land tones: Odd choices. Even long notes. Sometimes even dominant chord altered tones.
    1.1) 4 over major land tone: !.

    2) Harmony. Looks random, sounds strange. Looks like any chord can follow or be followed by any other chord.

    3) The melody of the tune ends in 5, which is odd.

    4) Harmonic rhythm. Lack of. Some bars have 2 chords, some chords last 2 bars.

    5) Melodic rhythm. Counterintuitive. Phrasing over tonic chords, leading to long notes over dominants.

    So your explanation is enlightening and valuable. I'm going to learn a lot by taking my time to go through it.



    But I thought that's true for most of the tunes in the Great American Songbook, many (most?) of which have become jazz standards.
    the harmony of Stella is not so strange when you look at the original changes and when you have looked at a lot of standards. It does have funny features like starting a diminished chord and having a highly varied AABA structure

    but it does seem mysterious at first.

  23. #47

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    the harmony of Stella is not so strange when you look at the original changes and when you have looked at a lot of standards. It does have funny features like starting a diminished chord and having a highly varied AABA structure

    but it does seem mysterious at first.
    I didn't do real homework on that one I had to play it in a band with no time to prepare it. I think it's too advanced for me to learn just now, so I'm not going to work on it, just come back to it in a few years' time when I have looked at a lot of standards, like you just said. Then I'll transcribe the changes, not just pick them from whatever book, and learn its sound.

    BTW the Real Book chart starts Eø A7 in the key of Bb. I heard a story that the original diminished and other features have been replaced by II-V. I guess now there are many recordings with the original changes and many others with these newer ones.

  24. #48

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by alez
    I didn't do real homework on that one I had to play it in a band with no time to prepare it. I think it's too advanced for me to learn just now, so I'm not going to work on it, just come back to it in a few years' time when I have looked at a lot of standards, like you just said. Then I'll transcribe the changes, not just pick them from whatever book, and learn its sound.

    BTW the Real Book chart starts Eø A7 in the key of Bb. I heard a story that the original diminished and other features have been replaced by II-V. I guess now there are many recordings with the original changes and many others with these newer ones.
    I think most jazz musicians play Em7b5 A7 if you listen to recorded versions. But you can take the sub Dbo7 —> Em7b5 A7 to the bank....

  25. #49

    User Info Menu

    Although vis a vis the other thread maybe that should be C#o7 haha

    heres a video I did

  26. #50

    User Info Menu

    alez, when you hear stuff in a tune that sounds peculiar or just doesn't grab you, it is perfectly allowed to explore, change things, etc. Stella to me is a great tune, but on the guitar there is just such a strong urge to push chord melody, but the song is almost too lush for that. I try get it out of my system up front in the first couple of measures.

    I like to begin Stella with a Bb note [x x x x 11 x]
    sliding into Dbdimb6 aka Dbm6#5 [9 x 8 9 10 x]
    and then play lightly re-harmonized melody chords
    G13/F [x 8 9 9 8 x]
    A13/G [x 10 11 11 10 x]
    GbM7b5 [x 9 10 10 11 x]
    into the Cm11 [8 x 8 8 6 x]
    Then I try to move away from chord melody.

    I also tend to not like certain two-fives in some songs, and Stella has one of those. So a little further along I like to replace the perfunctory Bbm7 -> Eb(9) after the D7sus4 [x 5 7 5 8 x] with some sneaked in melody notes G F E D sliding that D up to F (fret 7 to 10 on the third string) into the mysterious and wonderful Dbaug6 [9 x 8 10 10 x].

    There are some other changes I usually make in Stella and I change stuff in most other standards. Don't give up on Stella, just take your time and see if you can discover or invent ways to "fix" the parts that sound quirky to you. Even better if you find multiple versions of "fixes" to play around with.