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Mark's books are designed for people who already play jazz, they are not meant as a beginners intro to jazz. I think that is what you are not realizing is that it is not intended to be complete.Mark told me this numerous times when I worked on the text and argued with him how it was being organized and explained.
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06-19-2020 04:51 PM
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Originally Posted by rintincop
Levine's approach to teaching jazz theory is actually very old fashioned from a teaching point of view. It is very aesthetically oriented - this sounds good, this doesn't sound good. 'Don't do this it's lazy' he actually says at one point. That's pretty old fashioned! You young whippersnapper, play your VI7alt chord like a good contemporary jazz pianist.
I've heard Chord Scale Theory mostly critiqued from the left, where it has a political aspect (TBF most music edu academics are left wing). Usually by critical theorists and cultural studies people. I could post some quotes if you like, but I'll spare you if not lol.
The JTB to me, is a technocratic exercise. The REALLY interesting thing is that Levine seems aware of this but can't fight it, or won't. There's a sort of disavowal going on in the text which is really interesting; 'this is a theory book not a truth book' that kind of thing. He's aware, because he's a great musician, that what he's doing is going to received a certain way. The Jazz Theory Book.
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Originally Posted by rintincop
Bear in mind, as a young jazz hungry kid in the 1990s, this was the first jazz theory book I saw, and as you know it is a beautiful thing on an aesthetic level, well typeset, well written, inviting, just lovely. I didn't want any of the other ones. They weren't the definite article, and they all looked like dodgy things pirated on a Xerox machine with spelling mistakes and grainy photos.
Even today, Forward Motion is one of my favourite books, but compared to the JTB as a product it's just amateurish. All the Sher stuff is really top quality.
Not that that's a bad thing at all.
Please don't take this personally. I understand Mark is probably a fantastic bloke, and musically on a level I could never hope to attain. I don't mean anything against him, and I don't want to seem like I am attacking your friend.
It's not Mark's fault. These forces are outside of everyone's control. But it's happened.
I actually think it's the natural flow of things. Things become an orthodoxy, and then the next waves shakes that up and so on. We need a good book though, one which is fit for the purpose the JTB is frequently used for. (I really like Randy Vincent's book, though that's guitar specific.)
It just shows how much head and shoulders that book towered above the other ones. I think even today it cuts a dash. And a lot of beginning jazz players are drawn to it.Last edited by christianm77; 06-19-2020 at 05:30 PM.
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Some background.
Mark's book is like a collection of how he personally thinks when he plays jazz piano. It is as if each chapter is one of his private piano lessons.
Mark was the most in-demand jazz piano teachers in The bay Area in the 1980's. He has never beeninterested in teaching the basics or beginning concepts. Mark was inspired to share what he personally thinks about when he plays jazz piano, much of what he learned from studying with Herb Polomroy, Barry Harris and then later from studying Herbie Hancock, Freddie Hubbard, and Joe Henderson.His second book was titled "The Jazz Theory Book", a title his publisher promoted. This title does perhaps suggests a complete survey. But that was not Mark's intention. His publisher even had to insist that Mark add a Chapter 1 that covered intervals, triads, and inversions. And chapters on Blues and Rhythm Changes. Mark had never intended to cover such basics. Mark assumes that were other books for getting basics, such as major scales and triads, harmonic progressions, voice leading, resolutions, etc. Being more complete was a point of conflict between Mark and his publisher. The second book was an attempt to capitalize on the success of the first book, imo. To sell it to a broader set of musicians beyond the pianists.
Each chapter that Mark wrote mirrored his private jazz lessons. He simply decided to publish what he was teaching in private lessons. The title was "The Jazz Piano Book" by Mark Levine. It did not claim to be a complete method or and "intro to". It was a collection of essays (chapters, lessons) written by Mark Levine.
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Originally Posted by rintincop
As I say, Mark's commentary seems in tension with the presentation of the book. He seems acutely aware that it could be taken in the wrong way; 'this is not the jazz truth book.' That's the thing that strikes me most rereading it actually.
Look, jazz education has changed. It was reasonable to expect someone in a previous generation to get a good sense of traditional changes playing, lifting lines off records, getting lessons with a great local player etc before they ran into this more modal chord/scale oriented material. Now it's the first thing people encounter. In fact, they'll now encounter it on the web first.
Young musicians often seem afraid to be musicians in a weird way, they want to study modes so that they need never risk a wrong note, not so that they will have more colours to play with. This may be especially true of guitarists actually as more modal forms of music such as instrumental fusion and metal often act as a feeder into jazz. Chord scale type theory gives them some new cool theory thing to be interested in. They end up thinking that this is jazz.
In actual fact, it sounds like Mark followed a historical progression in his learning... I think that's a really good idea for any student personally, but it can be hard to persuade a young musician to do this.
The chord scale prescriptions of the JTB and other sources have created a new orthodox style. I expect to hear IV melodic minor on a III7 chord and so on. So it doesn't feel 'new' just - standard. Old school stuff sometimes feels fresher. That's what a few decades will do...The post modal period of jazz since 1959 is now the longest period of jazz by far (60 years. Jazz hadn't even existed that long when Miles recorded Kind of Blue.)
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My only gripe with Mark's book is his prescription for the scales over minor ii V i such as
| E-7b5 A7b9 | D- |
He'll say:
| play G melodic minor, play Bb melodic minor | play D melodic minor |
It's great for block chords on a ballad, and like Barry Harris does, but melodically it's not practical at medium or up tempos for horn-like blowing. I very much dislike it in that usage.
For horn-like line blowing I love the Barry Harris scale prescription for | E-7b5 A7b9 | D- |
He'll say,
| play C7 from Bb down to C# | play D-6 dim scale to the 6th | That's a great prescription, right out of the bebop toolbox.
My teaching is based on the Barry Harris method. But do read Levine for voicings, block chords, re-harmonization, sequences, melodic minor, modes, etc.Last edited by rintincop; 06-20-2020 at 12:14 AM.
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Personally it was counter productive. As a new improvisor I went through a lot of the examples and it made playing jazz seem many more times as complicated as I see it now.
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I don't recommend Mark's books for those who have not done previous jazz training and study. Most readers of his books need a pretty good grasp of music theory and harmony ahead of time to follow his material.
Hey broturtle, I hope we have not turned you off. I am ready to field any questions your study group might have. I have pretty thoroughly applied all of Mark's systems to most standard tunes over the past three decades. He has some marvelous tweaks of the block chord movements.
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Originally Posted by rintincop
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Well OP, 13/35 posts from the same guy - you should by now know how your discussion group will pan out.
I'd be more interested in a study group on Hal Crook's How to Improvise, or The Advancing Guitarist by Mick Goodrick. Never managed to stay with either and some of my friends swear by them.
Now, maybe I should look.
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Originally Posted by Hugo Gainly
As far as this study group goes, I've given up. I'm not discouraged though! I am in fact going to be going through this book. Just not as slowly. I wanted to give everyone a chance to stay on the same page and discuss things week by week. But now I'm just going to go through, learn the concepts, and add it to the information I already know. The reason Levine's book is so interesting to me, though, is because I learned jazz by listening to piano. I was in a church band with a guy who played piano and was really great at improvising. He would literally improvise over every song we played. That and the piano was always my favorite part of any jazz song I listened to. I learned how to play the guitar not like a piano, but with the piano because I was listening to the piano part as I was playing and improvising. It really taught me to communicate in music. So Levine's book is definitely a book i'm going to go through, and The Advancing Guitarist is really a book you should consider! It's not a total beginner book, but I wouldn't really call it a method book either. It has some great information that no guitarist would be disappointed in spending time applying.
As with Crook's book, i've heard some great things about it. I'll check that book out next! Lucky for me, I learn a lot by reading and digesting the information just as much as I do listening to records. If you do decide to pick up The Advancing Guitarist, let me know! I'd love to go back through it. We don't have to make a study group or anything, but it'd be fun to discuss every once in a while.
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Originally Posted by djg
never liked the levine books. just friends starting on the I chord? no way, jose.
For one thing, it makes functional progressions harder to understand and classify.
On gigs it’s a potential train wreck teaching students to think of that as a I chord, because there’s two common keys for Just Friends, so Bb for one person could be F for another. You end up learning to clarify starting chord as well.Last edited by christianm77; 06-20-2020 at 07:21 AM.
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Originally Posted by rintincop
You could of course just play Bb melodic minor D melodic minor.
i do that quite a lot actually. Just ignore the Em7b5 chord.
Barry uses the tritone (Eb ‘mixolydian’) tritones minor (Bb minor 6-dim) a lot here, so similar if not exactly the same.
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Originally Posted by Hugo Gainly
I have a physical copy at last. I think each chapter could represent a lot of practice time as they are really open ended, so I think it would be super inspiring to see what people come up with.
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Hi broturtel
I do have both actually. I worked my way through The Advancing Guitarist but didn't feel I got much from it. Apart from the skating rink way of thinking though which is great. When I first learned about the relationship between chords and scales I described it as being in 'She' or some Ryder Haggard movie - you're punting a boat about under a mountain with shafts of light helping you navigate (obvs. pitch darkness would ruin the film - and then emerging into the light with all these islands and seas of possibilities in front.
With Hal Crook I just didn't have the endurance to do what he suggested hour after hour. I thought 'two years?!' Nah. Obviously could have done the book several times since I had it
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Thomas Regelski has this term I really like ‘methodolatory’
a lot of jazz books are like ‘do just this for 10 years.’ In fact most musicians I know have just pilfered what they find useful and move on.
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pilfered what they find useful and move on.
I did enjoy both Khan books - Pentatonic Khancepts and Chordkhancepts.
Jazz Guitar Structures by Green was enjoyable but after a while it became one of those books that do the equivalent of showing various melodic minor exercises, say, in all 13 keys. Not too bad though.
ps. Isn't it more correctly 'jazz books be like'?
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Originally Posted by christianm77
Theodor Adorno's writings on jazz remain at best a puzzle, and to many an acute embarrassment. To jazz historians they merely contain 'some of the stupidest pages ever written about jazz' (Hobsbawm 1993, p. 300) and are generally dismissed without further comment.
Discuss.
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Originally Posted by Litterick
Adorno hated jazz of course; however this paper is actually quite interesting, if this is your sort of thing. It’s a little deeper than just talking about CST and he makes some really good general points, not least how critical pedagogy/theory types get completely the wrong end of the stick when it comes to the music. I like Louth, he gets jazz.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/...08.2012.657163
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Originally Posted by Hugo Gainly
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The thing with the Levine book is it doesn't have a front page in black letters saying "this book is definitely not for beginners, in fact, you could have a successful career in jazz and not understand 95% of this, and if you can't already play a nice line or a nice chord voicing or play a gig, this book is probably not for you". Instead it's just called "THE Jazz Theory Book".
I worked through half of it on the piano and it was like a year later I figured out how a minor ii-V worked. I'm sure it was covered in there somewhere but it seems to be layered in layers of complexity. It was like 4 years ago, I can't really remember much about it other than it was needlessly complicated.
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I think they’d done that they’d have sold even more copies haha.
‘ooooh advanced secret knowledge, gimme!’ Some 18 year old dweeb, probably me
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Originally Posted by christianm77Originally Posted by christianm77
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Originally Posted by rahsaan
i wanted to be good
but I wasn’t :-(
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Originally Posted by christianm77
Transcriber wanted
Today, 04:35 PM in Improvisation