The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #1

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    I thought Schenkerian analysis wasn't so big in music theory education, that his stuff was somewhat esoteric. He analyzed counterpoint, tonal gravity resolutions, and talked about layers or "foreground, middle ground and background." I thought music theory in regards to 17th and 18th century classical music was developed before Schenker came along.
    Last edited by rintincop; 09-11-2020 at 03:38 AM.

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    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #2

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    Well people like Schenker - even Reimann with his theory of functional harmony, enter into the picture very late. It’s a rationalisation of what went before, not the system Mozart etc used to compose (or improvise.)

    If you are interested in getting an idea of how 18th century composers may have thought about harmony etc I would recommend Robert O Gjerdigen’s Music in the Gallant Style.

    Whats interesting is while we are used to theory in jazz being ‘doing’ oriented, much theory in classical is more geared towards ‘appreciation.’ Gjerdingen suggests that historical accounts imply 18th century musicians had a more practical approach to music theory that would be more familiar feeling to us jazzers, and has attempted to reconstruct this from old harmony treatises and exercises. It’s fun stuff to play with anyway!

  4. #3

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    FWIW as I understand it Schenker is widely taught in the US but not nearly so popular elsewhere

  5. #4

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    He is the target of radical musicologists who want to decolonise the subject. Norman Lebrecht has been covering the ongoing:

    It started with a lecture by the inflammatory Philip Ewell, a New York campaigner for ‘decolonising’ the music curriculum. Ewell gave a talk titled ‘Music Theory’s White Racial Frame‘ at the Society for Music Theory (SMT) Annual Meeting in November 2019 and debate has exploded since then with 100 pages of responses to Ewell’s lecture in the Journal of Schenkerian Studies.

    Ewell’s accusation of racism was met with an accusation of anti-semitism by Professor Timothy Jackson of the University of North Texas, which lead to hounding.

    And so it goes.

  6. #5

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    What I remember about Schenker class from music school so long ago is:

    1. Western European tonal music boils down to Mi Re Do
    2. I marked up scores until they were no longer legible
    3. The German language is cumbersome


    8-)

  7. #6

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    It’s the frame for Henry Martin’s new book,Charlie Parker, Composer

  8. #7

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    I mentioned Schenker to the missus (after watching the Neely video about Ewell's ideas) and she said 'oh is he the three blind mice guy?'

    Probably the most exciting thing to happen in music theory for ages... Oooooh controversy.

    I'll get the popcorn.

    Reading Ewell's stuff now. I have thoughts.
    Last edited by christianm77; 09-09-2020 at 06:34 PM.

  9. #8

  10. #9

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    It's only a big deal in the US. Much of theory taught in the US ultimately stems from Schenker. In France, the approach is much more practical (not many talk about Schenker here). You realize tons of figured basses and melodies on paper and at the keyboard. My teacher can improvise chorales in the style of Bach and can, almost instantly, create harmonically and contrapuntally sophisticated realizations over practically any bass or melody. As Christian pointed out, the training is much more akin to how jazz musicians approach things. You start to see the common "voicings" used over basses and melodies and can plug them in instantly. No need to check for parallel 5ths and 8vs because you eventually internalize all the "correct" pathways to and from any chord. It's about learning the language until it's a reflex.

  11. #10
    I keep hearing Schekner analysis is big in the US. I don’t know that to be true, I think it’s perhaps a big exaggeration. Where’s the evidence? I majored in music theory in the California State University system in the 1980’s and Schekner analysis was not included.

  12. #11

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    I remember getting into Layered Analysis back in 70's. Which was created from Schenker-type of analysis, use of prolongation technique, discrete background lines and Layers.

    I mean the point of analysis is to make something simpler... so that certain relationships are easy to see without losing the original Reference. Schenker-type analysis begins with simplification of whatever we're making an analysis of. All the standard melodic terms and their simplification resulting with function of resulting notes, with their structural hierarchies and the background lines..... you end up with the concept of the "Ursatz". His 3 types of ending musical figures... meaning the overall structure or fundamental shape. They are recognizable by their interval of decent to the Tonic in the top line. 1st type descends a 3rd, the 2nd descends a 5th and the 3rd descends an octave.

    Yada Yada... a bunch of simple rules that result with a contrapuntal short phrase of notation. Useful for analysis of contrapuntal music....

    Personally.... most of the time, theory, analysis etc... really isn't just about the actual result. It's more of becoming aware of different approaches and concepts for seeing, hearing, composing and performing Music. The vid someone posted that got this thread going, by Adam, (guy drives me crazy), anyway.... useless for performing jazz. Kind of like putting on green shirt with a red tie and then forgetting to ware your pants before you perform or practice.

    pro jazz BSer

  13. #12

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    Quote Originally Posted by powersurge
    It's only a big deal in the US. Much of theory taught in the US ultimately stems from Schenker. In France, the approach is much more practical (not many talk about Schenker here). You realize tons of figured basses and melodies on paper and at the keyboard. My teacher can improvise chorales in the style of Bach and can, almost instantly, create harmonically and contrapuntally sophisticated realizations over practically any bass or melody. As Christian pointed out, the training is much more akin to how jazz musicians approach things. You start to see the common "voicings" used over basses and melodies and can plug them in instantly. No need to check for parallel 5ths and 8vs because you eventually internalize all the "correct" pathways to and from any chord. It's about learning the language until it's a reflex.
    That's jolly interesting. Gjerdingen mentions that the Paris conservatoire was a holdout for that type of teaching? It was old school even late on - Debussy entered the conservatoire at 12 IIRC. More like an apprenticeship than higher education.

    I just played around a little with Gjerdingen's stuff and was pleased even with my limited piano skills how I could easily come out with convincing classical voice leading. It's just like harmonising a standard with block chords or something, becomes something you just do automatically without thinking about the theory once that pattern or pathway is internalised. I suppose that allows the composer/improvisor to focus on melody and form and subordinate all the voice leading stuff to intuition and motor memory while developing and directing the music at a higher level.

    No wonder they could write so fast! As Gjerdingen puts it the professional composers of the 18th century could compose music as fast as we could copy it.

    Good on guitar too. And then you look at a formally simple piece like the Weiss Passacaglia or something and you go - oh - that's all the chord shapes I just practiced for the rule of the octave broken up in a million ways. I should teach that stuff to my classical grade students.

  14. #13
    A Partimento (from the Italian: partimento, plural partimenti) is a sketch (often a bass line), written out on a single staff, whose main purpose is to be a guide for the improvisation ("realization") of a composition at the keyboard.
    Attached Images Attached Images I thought Schenkerian analysis was rather esoteric in theory-rule-octave-1-jpg 

  15. #14

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    That's the sort of thing, although there are quite a few consecutives in the voice leading for the rule of the octave (did you write this out or get it online?) I've struggled a bit with that.

    The original exercise tend to favour oblique motion as much as possible between the bass and the treble which makes it easier.

  16. #15

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    Quote Originally Posted by rintincop
    I keep hearing Schekner analysis is big in the US. I don’t know that to be true, I think it’s perhaps a big exaggeration. Where’s the evidence? I majored in music theory in the California State University system in the 1980’s and Schekner analysis was not included.
    It was still gaining traction at that time. The evidence is practically in every current music theory curriculum in the states... very few schools call it a I6/4 anymore, it's a cadential 6/4 (V6/4). Where does that come from? Schenker. The way counterpoint is currently taught is also based off Schenker. The most common books used are by Carl Schachter, a student of Schenker himself. Harmonic prolongation? Schenker. Schenker dominates the music theory field in the US, more so than anywhere else (yes, even more than Germany, where his theories aren't actually well received). I graduated in 2017 and you couldn't avoid it, especially as a comp/theory major.
    Last edited by powersurge; 09-10-2020 at 04:24 AM.

  17. #16

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    I just played around a little with Gjerdingen's stuff and was pleased even with my limited piano skills how I could easily come out with convincing classical voice leading. It's just like harmonising a standard with block chords or something, becomes something you just do automatically without thinking about the theory once that pattern or pathway is internalised. I suppose that allows the composer/improvisor to focus on melody and form and subordinate all the voice leading stuff to intuition and motor memory while developing and directing the music at a higher level.

    No wonder they could write so fast! As Gjerdingen puts it the professional composers of the 18th century could compose music as fast as we could copy it.
    Exactly, even the non-harmonic tones get codified to some extent. For example, the 9th and 7th over a iv chord is a very common double appoggiatura. Once these are internalized, you learn to immediately add interesting contrapuntal lines to your realizations. Yup, these guys write as fast as they can physically do so!

  18. #17

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    Sanguinetti’s the Art of Partimento has loads of great voice leading formulae

  19. #18

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    What interesting is the extent 18th century composers thought only in figured bass. CPE Bach, for example, was a vocal opponent of Rameau's new theory that gave chords the functional names we use today. Most composers of the time would have thought of inversions as different chords, using their figured bass names. Certainly Bach never thought in terms of ii-V7-I, they all had just thoroughly internalized this pedagogy and later theorists created common practice terminology to codify their results

    Thus in organizing the chords of thorough bass, Bach follows an older principle. Chords, regardless of their origin, are grouped according to the definitive interval that they contain. For example, all chords that contain sevenths are treated successively. They are the chord of the seventh, the seven-six, the seven-four, and the seven-four-two chords. Although only the first of these is a chord in the Rameau sense, all are chords in Bach’s sense. Each of them must be recognised from its signature and played instantaneously. The student’s task was to locate at the keyboard the definitive interval and then to bring under his fingers the various accompanying intervals. Identification of the root, real or supposed, did not aid him in his direct gauging of intervals above a given bass tone. Morever, in thorough bass some chords were closely associated, even though their roots were not identical. For example, above certain bass tones the six-three and six-four-three chords were regarded as interchangeable. Knowledge of the fact that these chords had different roots would have deterred rather than aided the student.
    The greatest difficulty with the older system was caused by the great increase in the number and variety of chords that made their appearance in the course of the eighteenth century…..Bach has twenty, but includes many others as subtypes, chromatic variants, and alternates. It was this unwieldy bulk of chords that aided the spread of Rameau’s system, but it is not pointless to note that the theory gained unquestioned acceptance only after the period of the basso continuo had passed. Bach’s method, the one he inherited from his father, was the only effective introduction to the musical practices of his time.

    CPE Bach’s alternative to Rameau’s theory of the Fundamental Bass | Theory of Music
    Last edited by BWV; 09-10-2020 at 12:33 PM.

  20. #19

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    Was Heinrich Schenker a German Nationalist, and if yes why are his musical theories being taught in America? I don’t get it.

  21. #20

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    Quote Originally Posted by 2bornot2bop
    Was Heinrich Schenker a German Nationalist, and if yes why are his musical theories being taught in America? I don’t get it.
    For the same reason we played Wagner I guess.

  22. #21

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    Quote Originally Posted by BWV
    What interesting is the extent 18th century composers thought only in figured bass. CPE Bach, for example, was a vocal opponent of Rameau's new theory that gave chords the functional names we use today. Most composers of the time would have thought of inversions as different chords, using their figured bass names. Certainly Bach never thought in terms of ii-V7-I, they all had just thoroughly internalized this pedagogy and later theorists created common practice terminology to codify their results




    CPE Bach’s alternative to Rameau’s theory of the Fundamental Bass | Theory of Music
    You're a friggin gold mine today

    Actually you know what - I think I glanced at that book years ago. I was struck by the 'skeleton fugues' he had with the voices entering in written out in full, and then the rest of it as a figured bass line, partimento style. I remember thinking - 'oh maybe this is how his dad did it?'; maybe not. I don't know how much CPE was influenzas red by JS. Sound like rebellious kids TBH. ('Dad, why are you writing that old fart's music? Check out this new opera!')

  23. #22

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    Except to complicate things, Schenker was a Jew whose wife perished in the Holocaust (Schenker died in 1930), so a German musical nationalist like Schoenberg perhaps

  24. #23

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    I too thought of Schoenberg, who I think was basically a monarchist civic nationalist and in his case a convert to Catholicism IIRC.

    It obviously wasn't apparent to Schenker as a conservative anti-Marxist civic nationalist the existential threat the Nazi's posed.

    Sorry to be obvious, but there's the Niemoller poem, of course, which seems relevant.

    First they came for the Communists
    And I did not speak out
    Because I was not a Communist

    Then they came for the Socialists
    And I did not speak out
    Because I was not a Socialist

    Then they came for the trade unionists
    And I did not speak out
    Because I was not a trade unionist

    Then they came for the Jews
    And I did not speak out
    Because I was not a Jew

    Then they came for me
    And there was no one left
    To speak out for me

    Note for Americans - this is the version from Holocaust Memorial Day Trust in the UK. You may be more familiar with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum version, which omits the first stanza for some reason.

  25. #24

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    I too thought of Schoenberg, who I think was basically a monarchist civic nationalist and in his case a convert to Catholicism IIRC.
    Schoenberg returned to Judaism later in life, 1930s I think

  26. #25

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    It’s a shame Schenker’s wife died in the holocaust. But much of the world held racist, superiority beliefs, during the time. So if that’s the case is it a surprise that Schenker would suddenly come under scrutiny today, especially given the political climate? We don’t live in the past, but people desire accountability for being classified as ‘less than.’