The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #26

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    Quote Originally Posted by ragman1
    Well... if solos sounded like melodies they wouldn't be solos and vice versa.

    Melodies are sparser, solos are denser.

    Solos wouldn't stand up as melodies by themselves.

    Melodies are statements, solos are fillers.

    If solos sounded like melodies they wouldn't be solos and vice versa.

    Can't think of anything else
    My view of soloing is the complete opposite of yours rag !

    (Which is totally OK, vive la difference)

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  3. #27

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    What am I missing? When I play a solo, I'm improvising a melody.

  4. #28

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    Quote Originally Posted by cosmic gumbo
    What am I missing? When I play a solo, I'm improvising a melody.
    Right, but typically in a more elaborate fashion than the head.

  5. #29

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    Quote Originally Posted by GTRMan
    Right, but typically in a more elaborate fashion than the head.
    And it's still a melody...and often it's less elaborate than the head in some ways. There's a whole school of thought that less is more.

  6. #30

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    Less is more? How could that possibly be?

  7. #31

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    Quote Originally Posted by cosmic gumbo
    And it's still a melody...and often it's less elaborate than the head in some ways. There's a whole school of thought that less is more.
    Interesting, do you have an example? Would love to see/hear

  8. #32

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    Quote Originally Posted by GTRMan
    Interesting, do you have an example? Would love to see/hear
    Listen to enough jazz and you'll hear plenty of examples. I'd never generalize that head/melody=simple and solo=elaborate, complex. Lots of players' solo styles just don't go much beyond trying to invent a nice melody.

    Some bebop heads are so complex that the solos might be simpler.

    I think the original discussion may lend itself more to songs from the GAS, so yes, maybe why doesn't a solo in a Cole Porter tune sound as polished as the melody?

    Maybe I'm missing the point completely. The great melodic players like Desmond, Getz, Chet, Kenny Wheeler, Harrell, and many more seem to be more interested in making great melodies.

  9. #33

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    According to Bill Evans, Jazz is not a style, but a way of making music in real time.

    Our solos should strive to be melody lines (if you desire as I do to be a melodic player). This means that there is no difference between a good melody and a solo.

    The problem is that when the melody was composed it was NOT done in real time, so it has a self-organization and logic to it that comes from being shaped over long times and perfected. A solos has to be done in real time, so it is not as perfected as a melody.

    But again, the goal should be that a good solo sounds as good as a composition and is a great melody. You have to be able to compose in real time then. Most of us don't do that so well, so that is why the solo sounds different.


    Another way to look at this is that melody is horizontal. It flows in time and over time makes a logical statement at every time scale.

    Many soloists think vertically (what chord now, what chord next) which creates a vertical sound to the melody rather than a horizontal sound.

    The art of jazz is to do both - horizontal and vertical equally well.

    Since this takes a liftime of practice, a lot of what we hear is, well, still reaching.

  10. #34

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    Yes I know all about lyrical soloists and what not. Pres, Dexter, Desmond, Chet, Wes, Jim Hall etc. Thought about Bird heads too.

    Still can't agree about sameness though. Oh well.

  11. #35

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    Quote Originally Posted by jazzereh
    Maybe I'm not quite understanding ragman1 [and others above] but solos can be, and do become, a melody. Yes, there's lots of solos that are very complicated musically and stand on their own but if you were to listen to solos by, say, Gerry Mulligan, a lyrical player, there are sections that you could take and use as a melody. No?
    Certainly. During lockdown the two artists I've listened to the most are Wayne Shorter and Charlie Parker. Shorter often hits a catchy riff in his solos and will repeat it, play with it once or twice (I often wish he'd stick with it for a few more bars than he does). Charlie Parker much less so, much more restless, but I have spotted the head from 'Cool Blues' cropping up in at least two of his solos in other tunes.

    To give a few other responses to the original question:
    Often the solo is being played by someone other than the composer! Stating the obvious here - so it's bound to be different, reflecting a different person's ideas about music.
    Improvisation, by its very nature, is going to take you to different places to the melody and to an extent its inherent value is perceived in terms of how it does this.
    In some contexts e.g. early bebop there was a competitive nature to soloing ('cutting') and issuing a challenge - to other players, to listeners. By no means unique to jazz.
    Last edited by Matt Milton; 08-11-2020 at 05:57 AM.

  12. #36

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    it is a very good question and I second most of what Christian says here.

    I think it is important to ask ouselves from time to time 'why do we hear it this or that way?'

    I also think it is much related to the topic of 'what we hear as improvized and what we hear as pre-composed'

    Even maybe it is more correct to put it this way? Rather than using very ambiguous notions of 'melody' and 'solo'?
    After all some The Beatles' solo have all the qualities of a melody.
    And some standard melodies may sound like solos.

    (not what the player thinks/wants/intends but what we (even if we are players) as listeners percieve this way.

    I guess this more what the OP meant? and this is what causes some misunderstanding in the thread?
    Solo can be a melody, improvization can be a solo, pre-composed music may sound like improvization...

    On the other hand we are all reasonable people and probably understand the convention unless we want to be provocative? I think i got what the OP meant..



    In general there are some qualities that we associate with the idea of 'melody' (I keep the word of the OP): it should have more or less clear structure, be recognizeable (catchy) and so and so on.
    Also it is associated with compositional talent/skills.

    but not to repeat others I would say that it should be something like a Person, i.d. integral and complete

    'Solo' also has particular spirit: it should have (at least a little) improvizational charater (feel of sponaneousness) even if it is totally pre-composed (there are lots of compsitions that sound like improvizations, even deliberately composed that way).
    Solo also is rather associated with perfomer's skills and gift.


    But again I would use a comparison: 'solo' it is more like a Mood of the Person, it does not have that integrity and universality - much more momentary.

  13. #37

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    A solo isn't supposed to be a melody; that's the whole point.

  14. #38

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    Melody is meant to be easily rememberable and singable, that's all

    No flurry of notes, very few wide leaps (may be an octave as in a few famous tunes), some repetitions help the remembering, but rarely a big lot (some blues excepted)

    Paul Desmond's solos are very like that, I remember his take five solo since I was a teen ager ...

  15. #39

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    It would depend. A solo is just one instrument preforming. and most melodies are more than one Instrument. Can a melody be done with just one instrument yes. But a solo is just one instrument being played.

  16. #40

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    So, I think this isn't just a jazz thing. This appears in some classical music where there is a progression from simple to more complex, with the beginning of the piece often characterized as the melody usually with a recapitulation.

    Basically, what I think is going on here is that contrast is important and the distinction you hear between melody and solo is one form of contrast.

    This is less common in vocal music because the voice is less capable of articulating complex musical phrases.

    Now this doesn't mean that such an approach is mandatory, but it is fairly common in jazz.

    For me, Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk are two soloists who often eschew complexity to create solos that are closer to "melodies".

    That said, I generally love the contrast between solos and melodies.

  17. #41

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    Hey!

    When comparing melody&impro to people talking.
    Melody would be like well prepared speech. Impro would be more like going to a party and see whats gonna happen.
    And the point is, the party people can have all sorts of moments there. I mean, the value of improvisation is not.. uh.. there is not too much point to say which method of making music is any better than the other. At all.
    Good time at a party is more about how people click with each other

  18. #42

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    Most of the melodies in the GASB come from Broadway musicals (or even opera in the case of the songs from Porgy and Bess). In context, these melodies are simple motifs within longer pieces full of development, orchestration, etc.. In jazz, they serve the same role, except that improvisation typically takes the place of the kind of compositional development you hear in the theater.

    A lot of the theatrical arrangements take things at least as far away from the original melody in terms of complexity and density as what jazz musicians do. So, really, jazz soloing s not such a foreign thing to these songs as it might seem.

    John