The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #1

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    Some interesting books out there on 12 tone theory, if you want to get away or add to the traditional approaches.

    "Post Tonal Theory" and "12 tone Tonality"

    Joh Mehegan improv books also.

    available in "For Sale" section.
    Last edited by jazzimprov; 02-05-2022 at 03:34 PM.

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    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #2

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    as there is not really a universal style, I find books on the music of individual composers more helpful. Rather than trying to reduce disparate styles down to common factors, its good to study how one composer uses this material. Schiff's book on Elliott Carter or Antokoletz's book on Bartok are two great ones to start with (although Bartok is not 12-tone, he used pitch class sets in conjunction with modal material).
    Last edited by BWV; 02-08-2022 at 04:50 PM.

  4. #3

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    Anyone know much about what Stephan Wolpe was teaching the likes of Gil Evans and George Russell?

  5. #4

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    Quote Originally Posted by Christian Miller
    Anyone know much about what Stephan Wolpe was teaching the likes of Gil Evans and George Russell?
    know a little about Wolpe he wrote non-dogmatic 12-tone row based stuff, kind of like late Stravinsky, throwing in exotic scales here and there


  6. #5

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    Quote Originally Posted by BWV
    know a little about Wolpe he wrote non-dogmatic 12-tone row based stuff, kind of like late Stravinsky, throwing in exotic scales here and there
    this approach has influenced Robert Fripp..as well as Zappa and other "progressive rock" composers..it is a mainstay in "free form" jazz and
    what some call contemporary improvisitation

    I experiment with it often..Joe Diorio and Ted Green have suggested its use in their teachings as a way to go beyond fixed patterns in your improvisational efforts

  7. #6

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    Quote Originally Posted by Christian Miller
    Anyone know much about what Stephan Wolpe was teaching the likes of Gil Evans and George Russell?

    Austin Clarkson:

    During the later 1940s he composed numerous studies that are collected as Music for Any Instruments. One of them bears the title Displaced Spaces, Shocks, Negations, A New Sort of Relationship in Space, Pattern, Tempo, Diversity of Actions, Interreactions and Intensities. This sets the agenda for replacing traditional thematic space with a constellatory, abstractionist space in which nonfigurative shapes, masses, and planes of sound move freely and independently. To achieve this objective, Wolpe developed the techniques of spatial proportions and organic modes. To demonstrate these techniques, he composed Seven Pieces for Three Pianos, which he dedicated to his friend, the composer Edgard Varèse.

    Many jazz musicians came to Wolpe to learn how to compose concert music—among them Eddie Sauter, George Russell, and Tony Scott. As a result, his ideas circulated in the New York jazz community, when Gil Evans and Miles Davis were exploring new paths. John Carisi, whose Israel is on the pathbreaking recording Birth of the Cool, gives Wolpe credit for helping with the piece. In turn, Wolpe modeled the scoring of his Quartet for Trumpet, Tenor Saxophone, Percussion and Piano on Carisi’s Counterpoise no. 1.

    ...

    During the 1950s Wolpe wrote a series of lectures in which he discusses music in the imaginative and constructive manner of the Bauhaus masters. He proposes that the theory of music should be concerned with fantasy as much as with technique, because the material is as much a product of the creative imagination as it is of the rational intellect.

    Wolpe's lecture, Any Bunch of Notes, is available on JSTOR.

  8. #7

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    Quote Originally Posted by BWV
    know a little about Wolpe he wrote non-dogmatic 12-tone row based stuff, kind of like late Stravinsky, throwing in exotic scales here and there

    I enjoyed this. You can't half tell he was a student of Webern, and as with Webern I can sort of tell what's going on. Very delicate use of instrumentation.

    Late Stravinsky is pretty awesome.

  9. #8

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    it seems jazz players would apply even Forex indices just 'to get out of the box a bit..'

  10. #9

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    I like the box. It’s cozy. It’s not much but it’s mine.

  11. #10

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    I find it funny that to a generation of composition students 12-tone technique is very much The Box, while to jazzers it’s a chance to escape their Box.

    Escape from one Box to another, adventures may happen en route I suppose.

  12. #11

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    George Garzone is brilliant with this stuff..!

  13. #12

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    People pay to hear this racket?


  14. #13

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    These four players in the band are amazing, top current NYC musicians. I studied with Garzone for a while, played in his student ensemble also. I used to go see The Fringe, his free jazz band, they had a weekly gig in Boston for decades! Might sound like chaos to most people (i never got into free jazz either), but Garzone and everyone in the band could hear everything, whatever cycle, chords, mode, ryhthm, etc, any of them introduced. Telepathic interplay. And his concept is very intriguing, if someone is into post Coltrane improv..

  15. #14

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    I love composers like Ferneyhough, Carter or Boulez, but find most free jazz boring

  16. #15

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    Hadn’t serialism pretty much run its course in contemporary music by 1960?

  17. #16

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    I was find it odd that people seem to think jazz is in any way harmonically innovative; most of the current players are still adapting early to mid 20th century harmonic techniques, Messiaen etc. it’s good stuff, but it’s not ‘out there’ in the way that early Ligeti is.

    Serial technique I suppose killed harmony. Which is ironic cos Schoenberg wrote the book on it haha.

    In the end everyone went back to modal clusters and drones and things. The modern lingua Franca comes out Part, Reich etc… I’ve not heard that much that’s arrestingly new out of New Music for a long time but I’m sure there is stuff.

  18. #17

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    Quote Originally Posted by Alter
    These four players in the band are amazing, top current NYC musicians. I studied with Garzone for a while, played in his student ensemble also. I used to go see The Fringe, his free jazz band, they had a weekly gig in Boston for decades! Might sound like chaos to most people (i never got into free jazz either), but Garzone and everyone in the band could hear everything, whatever cycle, chords, mode, ryhthm, etc, any of them introduced. Telepathic interplay. And his concept is very intriguing, if someone is into post Coltrane improv..
    Who always impressed me with their “free” play is the band Oregon. You could tell that they had some aspects worked out, and others left to the moment, but it wasn’t possible to tell where the line between those two was. They really listened and played “in sync”.

  19. #18

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    Quote Originally Posted by cmajor9
    Who always impressed me with their “free” play is the band Oregon. You could tell that they had some aspects worked out, and others left to the moment, but it wasn’t possible to tell where the line between those two was. They really listened and played “in sync”.
    I like Oregon. They always stay the right side of New Age; I think it helps that they are all really good and really eclectic musicians who are very wide ranging.