The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #251

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    I like Berkman. The stuff that needs to be in there is in there.

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    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #252

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    Quote Originally Posted by lawson-stone
    Well thank you for that. I would add that "Jungle" teachers prefer the inductive method: like "hard immersion" in language studies. "Zoo" teachers prefer the deductive method--traditional grammar and vocabulary drilling in language learning. Of course, we need both to be competent.

    I tend to be a jungle guy, but then I get scared and run to the zoo.
    i think a bit of zoo can help, but I do think the jungle has to be the primary driver of learning.

    otherwise you get this thing where people feel they have to learn all the theory before they attempt to play with other people, and end up never doing it.

    but I’ve always been quite a hands-on oriented learner, probably to a fault

  4. #253
    Hi,

    I'm not a guitarist, but while studying Mark's book on piano, I lost access to a real piano, and started writing all the figures in Finale, so I could hear them.

    I got a few chapters in, and realized there might be others in my same boat, and began posting them on YouTube. Lots of likes. Started adding tablature, just using Finale's defaults.

    I stayed within US Copyright Law requirements, but there were some folks who just didn't like the idea, so I took the videos down.

    Well, re-reading the book, Mark says to find a pianist, if you can't handle the chords, and, well, YouTube is that "pianist". So, in that spirit, I'm re-posting them, and would welcome comments from the string community. My YouTube channel is Riff Raft Music (NOT the rapper, and you have to tell YouTube, riff raft with a "t". Every time.) Riff Raft (sic) Music.

    I would also say, if you are pretty quick at tablature with a notation program like Finale, it's very rewarding, intrinsically, to put these videos online. I make every effort not to compromise the book's salability, so there will be virtually nothing usable from the book unless a person has purchased it.

  5. #254

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    Very difficult to find your channel; why not post a direct link?

  6. #255

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    I promise not to spam messages saying how much I hate the Levine theory book haha.

    Well, I don’t HATE it. It is a fact of jazz education life.

    As it’s such a standard text, maybe it would be for me good to revisit, go chapter to chapter and thoroughly examine and critique it where I feel necessary, and rather than being negative suggest other avenues to look into.

    There’s also probs loads of good stuff I’ve forgotten about.
    The "scale over everything" approach is not my bag, but the musical examples make the book worthwhile, even if I wouldn't analyze them the same way...

  7. #256

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    Since I last posted on this thread I have decided I like chapter 23

  8. #257

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    My criticism of the book is that its "evidence based" approach might give a novice reader a rather misleading picture of reality.
    Here is what I mean.

    Chord X:
    You have two scale choices over the chord X. The gamma scale and the alfa scale. Check out Joe Henderson's beautiful line in fig xx where he played the gamma scale.


    I get it but how about all the other times when a great player (including Joe Henderson) played something else over that very chord X. Like exactly what percentage of the time the lines played over that chord can be definitively established as either gamma or alfa scales? Can someone write a similar book and make a case for a different scale choice over the same chord by picking different examples from transcriptions? For example can you write a book making a case for using the natural 7 or the 4th on a strong beat over dominants by showing real life examples from the legends? Of course you could.
    Last edited by Tal_175; 12-13-2023 at 05:16 PM.

  9. #258

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    The book is working backwards from a strict CST approach. Nothing wrong with that, but it's just one approach.

  10. #259

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    There is also an "explainability bias" in education in most subjects. If the 99.9% of the subject is very difficult and messy to explain but the remaining 0.1% can be explained neatly with a very compelling and logical theory, that 0.1% will take up the 80% of the educational material in that area.

  11. #260

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    Yeah it’s scientism really. Lot of it about in music edu and theory.

    Music theory is not held to the anything like same standard as a scientific theory but is often referred to as if it has the same authority.

    tbf I do think Levine makes this subjectivity clear in how foreword, but the tone of the book tends to be rather authoritative. Perhaps inevitable with a text of this nature.

    if they’d called it the ‘jazz sourcebook’ or something a lot of that would disappear.

    There’s still a million issues I could take large and small with assertions made in this book, though. The book is at its best when he is suggesting specific things to try, and ties itself in knots or oversimplifies things when it’s trying to teach general principles or attempting to tie things together neatly.

    I feel in the arts it is usually better to teach specific cases than general principles. Barry taught that way mostly, and Levine was of course a student of Barry’s too. I wouldn’t be surprised if his teaching followed that model.

    IMO mining music for ideas and principles as he does in the book is perfectly legitimate. It’s what I tend to do and probably most people. Judging from what he writes at the beginning of the book I think that’s what he would want of the reader rather than to passively accept the information.
    Last edited by Christian Miller; 12-13-2023 at 06:37 PM.

  12. #261

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    What I appreciate about a teacher is a coherent view, fully and clearly expressed.

    I already know that there's more than one way to create music.

    What I want the teacher to do is show me their way.

    Levine more than meets that standard.

    The one time I heard him live, I thought he was playing a lot of theory, which is not a compliment. Later, I heard him on a Latin Tinge record and I thought he sounded terrific.

  13. #262

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    Sorely tempted to link to another Ethan Iverson rant, but I will resist.

    that man does like to get on a high horse. And I’m saying that haha.

    People should enjoy music, and if the Levine book helps them with that, that’s wonderful. I picked up a couple of things from it, which as much as I can say for any books on my shelf.

  14. #263

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    It would be interesting to transcribe one of Levine's solos an see what percentage of the time his lines over the chords correspond to the scales suggested in the book. The question is, does that percentage matter? It might be a relevant factor to help put things in context.

  15. #264

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    For me, what I appreciate about a teacher is the ability to give me helpful targeted feedback and actionable suggestions on how to improve at the thing I’m trying to do.

    (that’s a tall order for a textbook.)

  16. #265

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    Quote Originally Posted by Christian Miller
    For me, what I appreciate about a teacher is the ability to give me helpful targeted feedback and actionable suggestions on how to improve at the thing I’m trying to do.

    (that’s a tall order for a textbook.)
    This is an interesting statement.

    I've learned a lot from multiple teachers. Only one began by asking me what I wanted to learn. What I said, back then, was that I wanted to be able to take a better solo on Georgia On My Mind. The teacher responded by saying something like "Well, I didn't learn how to solo on Georgia from focusing on Georgia". And, instead, he followed up on what he thought I needed to learn about jazz.

    At the time, that would have filled up a book entitled, "What To Know About Jazz". Mark Levine later wrote that book and called it Jazz Theory. It's what Mark thought the reader needed to learn about jazz.

    And most of my other teachers did the same thing. They taught what they thought was foundational in their own approach to playing jazz. Hard to say whether the word "targeted" applies. Warren Nunes,for example, had a general approach to jazz. The lessons were loose (your individual lesson was in a room filled with players and it looked an awful lot like a group lesson). He had certain topics he thought were important and they would come up in the context of tunes. More targeted feedback -- well, I recall him getting annoyed and telling me my comping for him was making him nervous. Not a joke. It was too choppy. But more often it felt like, whatever your current status, you could benefit from more or less the same thing as everybody else.

    Not a complaint. Every approach had its points.

  17. #266

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    Lacking further info I would not assume that the JTB reflects the totality of Levine’s teaching - like what he would have done with students at different levels and so on. Even if it represents the totality of his explicit or technical knowledge, that’s just one element of the teaching practice.

    For illustration I know someone who had a lesson with Aebersold and got pulled up for playing too much out of the correct chord scales. Similarly I can recommend two books that cover all the Barry Harris material for guitar but it’s not the same thing as going to one of his workshops.

    Anyway it’s the case that there is nothing in the JTB that sounds bad - it all sounds great when applied by a musician who can already play a bit. (ok some of it might be a bit overused by now but it’s not the author’s fault.)

    Its clear to me from my own learning where Levine’s knowledge expertise lies and where it doesn’t and that’s fine (although it may not be clear to all). Every book is written by a human being* and no one knows it all. This is actually true of the syllabuses of jazz colleges too - the Julliard and Berklee syllabuses for example reflecting what James Chirillo and Mick Goodrick thought important, and differ accordingly.

    There are some teachers we can identify with a method or approach. Barry Harris is an obvious one. (Otoh I feel CST is so omnipresent now it can be considered a lingua Franca.) in contrast there are teachers who just teach - I think Peter Bernstein is an example. Hugely respected and beloved as a teacher I’d be hard pressed to identify a Peter system (other than - respect the song).

    for those teachers who do have a system, I feel that’s kind of their business, to organise their knowledge. I don’t feel it’s something learners need to get too involved with, at least not at first. It can form a framework that can inform and guide the teacher but can stay firmly in the background. Dave Cliff for example basically teaches from the Tristano school (he came up playing with Peter Ind, Konitz, Marsh etc) but he doesn’t go on about it.

    There is a bit of a popular misconception that teaching basically consists of the exchange of information. In fact many of the most important functions of a teacher of the arts have nothing to do with this.

    A lot is learned that is nowhere on the syllabus. Some things on the experiential level, just by hearing the way a teacher plays something and imitating the feeling. Being pulled up for something (like time, or phrasing, or comping) in a lesson - even without remedial advice - can focus the students awareness. Mentorship is extremely important and has little to do with conventional pedagogy. Going back further traditional apprenticeship models (like the ones everyone bemoans dying out in jazz) seem to involve very little explicit information exchange, almost entirely experiential learning and any advice given is laconic or aphoristic in nature (as Hal Galper notes.)

    As I see it, when you go for a lesson, you are also effectively hiring someone’s ear. This is a big deal because learning to listen is at least as huge an area of development as playing an instrument. I for one would much rather spend some time listening to a master’s reflections listening to music, for instance, than talk about some concept. (Yes I’m saying I actually like reaction Youtube videos - when made by a high level musician)

    It does seem that older musicians came up in an experience rich, information poor environment - which might actually mean that they might value technical info MORE. There’s a lot of basic jazz skills that never occurred to them to have a way of teaching because you just picked them up on the gig. In that world finding out info about less easy to hear stuff like how Herbie voiced chords would have a lot of value. I understand this is how Levine got well known as an educator, teaching post-modal harmony in a time where not many people knew about this stuff?

    However now we live in a very information rich world but where musical experiences can be thin on the ground for many. This forum is a case in point. Students have no shortage of info on CST or Barry Harris but lack the experience of doing standards gigs every night.

    (I do also think it is a bit of a US cultural trait to have a marketable system. Not unique to the states tho. I remember when El Sistema was the big thing in UK music edu haha. I have always been a bit of sucker for that stuff.)

    *although I do wonder how long it’s going to be before jazz students are asking chat GPT for advice lol.
    Last edited by Christian Miller; 12-14-2023 at 08:19 AM.

  18. #267

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    I do like Levine's book. Especially the later chapters where it becomes more like a jazz musicians toolbox. I check it out every couple of years (for a few hours) and get something new out of it.

    The purity of the chord-scale approach in the earlier chapters to me is applicable more to the compositional process than the improvisational process. I'm very chord specific in my improvisation approach but respecting every nuance and extension implications of the chord of the moment, and distinguishing between subtle variations of the chords that are even in the same family is not something I've seen in real life solos. Even when it comes to the original composed melodies of jazz standards there isn't one correct harmonization everyone agrees on or sounds the best. But there is some educational value in studying these chords in isolation as long as one doesn't get too dogmatic about them.

  19. #268

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    Quote Originally Posted by Tal_175
    I do like Levine's book. Especially the later chapters where it becomes more like a jazz musicians toolbox. I check it out every couple of years (for a few hours) and get something new out of it.

    The purity of the chord-scale approach in the earlier chapters to me is applicable more to the compositional process than the improvisational process. I'm very chord specific in my improvisation approach but respecting every nuance and extension implications of the chord of the moment, and distinguishing between subtle variations of the chords that are even in the same family is not something I've seen in real life solos. Even when it comes to the original composed melodies of jazz standards there isn't one correct harmonization everyone agrees on or sounds the best. But there is some educational value in studying these chords in isolation as long as one doesn't get too dogmatic about them.
    I mean it really depends on who you are transcribing and what music they are playing. The bop approach is not overly concerned with extensions in that way, for instance Bird doesn’t honour the #11 in the Bb7 on Cherokee; he just plays the dominant.

    Otoh I think the more modern approach is to take account the extensions suggested by the melody into account, a more voicing oriented approach, and I would say that jazz harmony has followed the move from a left/right hand split in Bud style bop playing that goes back to stride even (left hand playing shells, right hand playing solo lines that may even clash harmonically) to a more integrated two hand approach where the melody lines and chord are integrated. (AFAIK Herbie is often credited with this change in approach.)

    I think studying too much chord scale stuff too early gets people hung up on ‘clams’ and ‘avoid notes’ while a background in more traditional chord subs starts you off on the strong notes. This is true even of the chord scale sounds… There are few more effective ways to evoke an altered scale sound than simply playing the tritone triad for instance.

    Also chord scale theory is kind of presented upside down. Interested parties can check out this vid for my thoughts on that

  20. #269

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    Quote Originally Posted by Tal_175
    I do like Levine's book. Especially the later chapters where it becomes more like a jazz musicians toolbox. I check it out every couple of years (for a few hours) and get something new out of it.

    The purity of the chord-scale approach in the earlier chapters to me is applicable more to the compositional process than the improvisational process. I'm very chord specific in my improvisation approach but respecting every nuance and extension implications of the chord of the moment, and distinguishing between subtle variations of the chords that are even in the same family is not something I've seen in real life solos. Even when it comes to the original composed melodies of jazz standards there isn't one correct harmonization everyone agrees on or sounds the best. But there is some educational value in studying these chords in isolation as long as one doesn't get too dogmatic about them.
    Yeah Pete Bernstein is into this kind of specificity. Jordan, by extension, is pretty detailed in this way. But that feels like an unusual level of fidelity. Though folks probably tend to be more faithful to jazz standards than to songs from the American songbook

  21. #270

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    Let me put it this way, there is vertical logic and horizontal logic to lines. By vertical logic I mean conformance of the notes in a given bar to the harmonic implications of the chord of the moment. The horizontal logic is really the actual art of solo, the phrasing and melodic construction (perhaps "logic" is the wrong word, lol). Uncompromising vertical logic is something I've not seen in actual solos especially in faster harmonic rhythms (at least a chord per bar or two).

    Momentary clashes of a couple of notes in a horizontal idea with the chord doesn't break listeners connection with the music. In fact, it may add a welcome spice. Note I'm not saying complete disregard of the harmony. I mean non-slavish conformance to the chord-scale implications.

    Are there examples of records where the full vertical fidelity (with all the harmonic implications) is consistently observed through the solos? I would love to check them out.
    Last edited by Tal_175; 12-14-2023 at 07:32 PM.

  22. #271

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    Quote Originally Posted by Tal_175
    Let me put it this way, there is vertical logic and horizontal logic to lines. By vertical logic I mean conformance of the notes in a given bar to the harmonic implications of the chord fo the moment. The horizontal logic is really the actual art of solo, the phrasing and melodic construction (perhaps "logic" is the wrong word, lol). Uncompromising vertical logic is something I've not seen in actual solos especially in faster harmonic rhythms (at least a chord per bar or two).

    Momentary clashes of a couple of notes in a horizontal idea with the chord doesn't break listeners connection with the music. In fact, it may add a welcome spice. Note I'm not saying complete disregard of the harmony. I mean non-slavish conformance to the chord-scale implications.

    Are there examples of records where the full vertical fidelity (with all the harmonic implications) is consistently observed through the solos? I would love to check them out.
    Nice. Yeah. I had a professor who referred to it as horizontal and vertical gravity like that.

  23. #272

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    Quote Originally Posted by pamosmusic
    Yeah Pete Bernstein is into this kind of specificity. Jordan, by extension, is pretty detailed in this way. But that feels like an unusual level of fidelity. Though folks probably tend to be more faithful to jazz standards than to songs from the American songbook
    Jazz composers write differently to songbook composers too. The details of Ellington, Strayhorn or monks harmony, let alone Herbie or Wayne require a different sensibility I think.

  24. #273

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    Quote Originally Posted by Tal_175
    Let me put it this way, there is vertical logic and horizontal logic to lines. By vertical logic I mean conformance of the notes in a given bar to the harmonic implications of the chord fo the moment. The horizontal logic is really the actual art of solo, the phrasing and melodic construction (perhaps "logic" is the wrong word, lol). Uncompromising vertical logic is something I've not seen in actual solos especially in faster harmonic rhythms (at least a chord per bar or two).
    Yes. Even in Tranes Giant Steps solo, chords are sometimes omitted. And with respect this solo is really not my favourite of Tranes work. And then there’s something like Wayne’s solo on ESP which I’ve just transcribed which has some vertical elements but a lot of which is super horizontal.

    Momentary clashes of a couple of notes in a horizontal idea with the chord doesn't break listeners connection with the music. In fact, it may add a welcome spice. Note I'm not saying complete disregard of the harmony. I mean non-slavish conformance to the chord-scale implications.

    Are there examples of records where the full vertical fidelity (with all the harmonic implications) is consistently observed through the solos? I would love to check them out.
    Not sure! I’ll have a think. Some players are definitely more vertically minded than others however.