Theory vs. playing by ear

[Chris236]

And?

No bickering here, just waxing about the inseparable connection between theory and hearing as opposed to either/or as in the thread title. Some gems in there, help yourself.

[pamosmusic]

Ironically, and as opposed to a chord scale approach, I find that helping people get really proficient with triads then ‘filling in the blanks’ with what sounds ‘right’ using their ears often leads people to the “correct” chord scale in an organic way without the stress of having to worry about it in the moment. It takes lots practice but is much more in line with how Beboppers learned to play no doubt.

I mean ... yes to all this.

Which is why I found the super immutable standard for how a person should hear to be a little off-putting.

It's possible that we're hearing the same thing in that cadence and that I'm just contextualizing it differently. I don't hear that C major at rest––it's moving to the G that comes a few bars down the line. Like you say, the labels and the theory are ex post facto to the way we hear. The label is useful insofar as it describes what's going on in the music.

My classical theory professor probably would've put a red x on the paper if I'd called a one-measure V/IV going to a IV chord a proper modulation. That's not to say that jazz and classical music work the same way. But they don't have to for the point to be the same. The way harmony works and the way people hear it is context dependent and not immutable.

(Berklee text, notwithstanding)

(Speaking of which, we should probably have a word with the editors who titled all that classical stuff. Reductive s.o.b.s)

[Bobby Timmons]

Your teacher thought Autumn Leaves was a major key tune? Red flag.

He's a great, an endorser of Hammond. A bit of an unsung hero tho, as a master traditional player in the modern age without the fame of Joey Defrancesco or Larry Goldings.

[Christian Miller]

I used to think that type of thing was a temporary modulation.

over time I came to realise that it doesn’t behave like a modulation.

The reason is there’s specific routes back from the IV that real modulations don’t use. Two classics in jazz are the IVm/bVII7 and the #IVo7. Both progressions are extremely common in the home key.

It makes sense to view these as digressions in the main key as much as II7 V7. They are grouped into a category of ‘stuff that goes on in the home key.’

In the same way secondary dominants were essentially built into common practice harmony. There’s little music ‘in a key’ that doesn’t feature tonicisations of various chords. Otoh a modulation is clearly signposted. Vocal standards emerge from this language and follow these rules.

In terms of playing jazz, the distinction may be more academic- you can precede IV with a ii V for instance and play it as if it’s a modulation. In fact most of us probably would.

However from a practice point of view it makes sense to understand the first bars of just friends as an elongated ‘IV n back’ - a situation that comes up a lot.

Aa far as hearing IV as a separate key area in this case, I can actually hear it both ways.

[Christian Miller]

I mean ... yes to all this.

Which is why I found the super immutable standard for how a person should hear to be a little off-putting.

It's possible that we're hearing the same thing in that cadence and that I'm just contextualizing it differently. I don't hear that C major at rest––it's moving to the G that comes a few bars down the line. Like you say, the labels and the theory are ex post facto to the way we hear. The label is useful insofar as it describes what's going on in the music.

My classical theory professor probably would've put a red x on the paper if I'd called a one-measure V/IV going to a IV chord a proper modulation. That's not to say that jazz and classical music work the same way. But they don't have to for the point to be the same. The way harmony works and the way people hear it is context dependent and not immutable.

(Berklee text, notwithstanding)

(Speaking of which, we should probably have a word with the editors who titled all that classical stuff. Reductive s.o.b.s)

Reductive - yes?!

to put my ‘historical improv nerd’ hat on, the whole idea of key and functional harmony is questionable for the very type of music - Bach and Mozart etc - that we think of as the most key based and functional!

Composers of the baroque and classical era viewed music through the lenses of hexachordal solfeggio and counterpoint.

Hexachordal solfege has the interesting property of building scales we would today view as one unit from separate hexachord. Semitones were always indicated by mi fa for example. (Hence the famous Bach saying ‘fa mi, mi fa is all there is in music’) A form of modulation is built into the foundations.

They did not know what V/IV chord was - that language had not yet been invented …

Is that music analysable using that langauge? Yes (to some extent.)

otoh of course jazz grew up on the functional age. I’d go out on a limb though and say many of the musical objects found in jazz standard find their roots in the c18.

One good example is a specific contrapuntal module that is sometimes called the Fonte which bop musicians play all the time without thinking of it as such (we’d call it a 6-2-5-1 but the b9s originate in the latter c18 and you can hear them in Mozart etc.)

A7b9 Dm G7b9 C

(Is that a modulation come to think of it? I would say no.)

Grant Green often outlines what Bach might have known as a soprano clausula, and so on.

So in this sense all of this nerdy c18 Bs actually does show up in jazz. It makes sense to think of key as something a bit grey and mutable rather than binary - it’s an inheritance of the deep past of western music.

as for how improvisers treat these objects - that’s a different story.

[Christian Miller]

Anyway the point I was originally trying to make is that it is possible to be a very good jazz musican and still think Just Friends is in Bb (or C) from the first chord. Probably because in practice we often solo through it as if it’s a modulation even though technically (or in my opinion normatively), it’s not, so in practical terms as Jeff implies, the discussion isn’t really that important.

often the older generation of musicians especially may not have a formal theory background.

Calling the key that way is a good way to avoid train wrecks on the gig… I actually do it for Autumn Leaves even ‘Gm first chord Cm7.’

[pamosmusic]

To me it seems like analyzing a route with the destination in mind.

If I’m going down Main Street, it might make a difference whether I’m stopping at the end of the block, turning around and coming back, or whether I’m leaving town and heading for the airport or something. It doesn’t mean the layout of the street is different but it helps to know where I’m going.

Giant Steps is an interesting one. The tune has its starting and ending spots but doesn’t really favor one key center over another and the form is written to have that sort of cyclical thing going on. But in something like Coltrane’s But Not For Me, where the matrix is replacing a kind of normal diatonic cycle, it might be useful to think of it in that context. Even if the matrix in isolation sounds the same as the matrix in any other context.

I don’t know. I can’t play it for sh** either way, so I guess it’s all the same to me anyway.

[Christian Miller]

To me it seems like analyzing a route with the destination in mind.

If I’m going down Main Street, it might make a difference whether I’m stopping at the end of the block, turning around and coming back, or whether I’m leaving town and heading for the airport or something. It doesn’t mean the layout of the street is different but it helps to know where I’m going.

Giant Steps is an interesting one. The tune has its starting and ending spots but doesn’t really favor one key center over another and the form is written to have that sort of cyclical thing going on. But in something like Coltrane’s But Not For Me, where the matrix is replacing a kind of normal diatonic cycle, it might be useful to think of it in that context. Even if the matrix in isolation sounds the same as the matrix in any other context.

Sure, in the same way as 26-2 is in F, and actually the cycle gets tweaked a bit to be more functional.

Outside of Trane matrix there are for instance many tunes that move to the III major also (how about you, tangerine, if I were a bell, I love you etc). I would probably tend to say this is more a modulation than a move to IV but in practice these changes often happen so fleetingly it’s hard to pin down. Majorisation?

[pamosmusic]

Sure, in the same way as 26-2 is in F, and actually the cycle gets tweaked a bit to be more functional.

Outside of Trane matrix there are for instance many tunes that move to the III major also (how about you, tangerine, if I were a bell, I love you etc). I would probably tend to say this is more a modulation than a move to IV but in practice these changes often happen so fleetingly it’s hard to pin down. Majorisation?

Yeah I’m also more likely to call those brief modulations. Certainly likely that it’s because they’re more obvious to a casual listen — but those moves are also a little less common than moves around closely related chords. Harder to distinguish a modulation to a close key from just regular bouncing around in the normal tonal center.

Theres also something to the fact that we’re still calling it “a move to the III” … even if we’re hearing and treating it like a modulation, it’s still relative to whatever that home base is. You could totally call it a “ii-V to A major” or something, but it wouldn’t distinguish one relationship from the other. Out of context, the changes to the bridge in Sophisticated Lady, Sentimental Mood, and Prelude to a Kiss are functionally about the same, but they all have different relationships to the A section. So that seems relevant.

Though with those latter three, I’d probably put a “Db:” (or G or E etc) at the top of the B section and give them the Roman numerals i that context or whatever.

Anyway … the theory seems like it would be helpful in helping hear those broader relationships. You can’t really distinguish them in two measures, so the wider context can I guess direct the attention to the bigger picture.

[pamosmusic]

I’m pretty up front about my ear lagging behind my brain so the theory is a tool for training my ear. I am but mortal (and but a passable guitar player).

Anyway … more than one way to write the theory because there’s more than one way to hear a passage.

I had a classical student (with perfect pitch) tell me that a certain passage in a Giuliani etude was a C major 7 chord. I told him he wasn’t wrong but that it would be better or more accurate to call it an inverted A minor with a suspension against the root. He was like “does it matter?” And I was like … you’d play it differently so yep.

I guess that’s the rub here. Some of these things you’d play differently depending on what you call them. Some of them you wouldn’t. Some of them could be played differently or not.

[Chris236]

Reductive - yes?!

to put my ‘historical improv nerd’ hat on, the whole idea of key and functional harmony is questionable for the very type of music - Bach and Mozart etc - that we think of as the most key based and functional!

Composers of the baroque and classical era viewed music through the lenses of hexachordal solfeggio and counterpoint.

Hexachordal solfege has the interesting property of building scales we would today view as one unit from separate hexachord. Semitones were always indicated by mi fa for example. (Hence the famous Bach saying ‘fa mi, mi fa is all there is in music’) A form of modulation is built into the foundations.

They did not know what V/IV chord was - that language had not yet been invented …

Is that music analysable using that langauge? Yes (to some extent.)

otoh of course jazz grew up on the functional age. I’d go out on a limb though and say many of the musical objects found in jazz standard find their roots in the c18.

One good example is a specific contrapuntal module that is sometimes called the Fonte which bop musicians play all the time without thinking of it as such (we’d call it a 6-2-5-1 but the b9s originate in the latter c18 and you can hear them in Mozart etc.)

A7b9 Dm G7b9 C

(Is that a modulation come to think of it? I would say no.)

Grant Green often outlines what Bach might have known as a soprano clausula, and so on.

So in this sense all of this nerdy c18 Bs actually does show up in jazz. It makes sense to think of key as something a bit grey and mutable rather than binary - it’s an inheritance of the deep past of western music.

as for how improvisers treat these objects - that’s a different story.

ICmaj7 A7l D-7 G7I

is Imaj7 V7/ii-7 l ii-7 V7 ……obviously no modulation there (or ‘6’ chord).

none of this is ‘grey’ to my ears. Each secondary dominant has a gravity that it (usually) abides by creating a most fundamental set of notes (or chord scale) that one can get privy to with practice. Mixo b13 for v/ii, mixo, b9 b13 for v/iii,vi and straight mixo for everything else(save the vii chord). If this is news to you, dig in, it’s pretty interesting - take any notes from the secondary dom that don’t fit into the parent key and amend the parent key to accommodate. You’ll get the answers above…that trick works for sub doms too and is more akin to how our ears perceive those subtle familial adaptations as opposed to a key change I believe. Interesting stuff but common sense when it comes down to it.

***All 12 notes are available 100% of the time for those who know how to use them but what I’m referring to is the most fundamental set of notes on a chord in context (which ironically is a likely prerequisite to using all 12 notes effectively).

Back to ‘Just Friends’. I’ll agree that the modulation might be subtle for some but here’s an experiment you might conduct if interested - play through the form, go back to the top, then vacillate between cmaj7 and G7. Now do the same but this time vacillate between cmaj7 and Gmaj7. Which sounds more ‘correct’ to you after the Db7 at the bottom of the form?

And finally, if a V7 —> lmaj7 cadence doesn’t establish a new key center to your ears, how do you hear a tune like Giant Steps? Lydian over all the ‘l’ chords? Possible I guess but the gravity that lives within that most fundamental progression is enough for most to instantaneously refocus their ears to the new 1 chord. Even those folks I mentioned who hear Lydian a little more fundamentally than Ionian.

[Chris236]

I’m pretty up front about my ear lagging behind my brain so the theory is a tool for training my ear. I am but mortal (and but a passable guitar player).

Anyway … more than one way to write the theory because there’s more than one way to hear a passage.

I had a classical student (with perfect pitch) tell me that a certain passage in a Giuliani etude was a C major 7 chord. I told him he wasn’t wrong but that it would be better or more accurate to call it an inverted A minor with a suspension against the root. He was like “does it matter?” And I was like … you’d play it differently so yep.

I guess that’s the rub here. Some of these things you’d play differently depending on what you call them. Some of them you wouldn’t. Some of them could be played differently or not.

There’s definitely more than one way to ‘treat’ ANY chord, but that’s not really what I’m referring to either. You can frame a chord in a different manner (like say playing Lydian over the 1 chord) but that doesn’t change it’s actual function in the key - your just implying a relationship to a different family…which can be hip and fun.

The way chords function in a song has to be based on how they sound….not what might be easiest to think about.

My own hearing continues to evolve…things that seemed colorless and abstract to me when I was younger are common place nowadays. It’s a process…for me kinda like the dog sleeping on the nail. lol

[pamosmusic]

Each secondary dominant has a gravity that it (usually) abides by creating a most fundamental set of notes (or chord scale) that one can get privy to with practice. Mixo b13 for v/ii, mixo, b9 b13 for v/iii,vi and straight mixo for everything else(save the vii chord). If this is news to you, dig in, it’s pretty interesting - take any notes from the secondary dom that don’t fit into the parent key and amend the parent key to accommodate. You’ll get the answers above…that trick works for sub doms too and is more akin to how our ears perceive those subtle familial adaptations as opposed to a key change I believe. Interesting stuff but common sense when it comes down to it.

This certainly isn’t news. And it would be a case for considering the prevailing key when you’re looking at those secondary dominants. I guess you’d say that the prevailing key might be the IV chord for a measure and you evaluate any secondary dominants accordingly. Which i think would be true, but I’m there’s still a wider context to the song. And it’s also true of other things … the tonicization of minor chords in lots of standards like A7 to Dm in All of Me where that Dm takes on more of a tonic minor quality. Just altering the notes of C major won’t quite get you to the Bb up top. I guess you could try to come up with ironclad rules for that too, but sometimes that’s the way the tune works and sometimes it doesn’t. It seems useful to think of that as a common device in major key songbook standards, rather than as a totally separate modulation for two measures.

Back to ‘Just Friends’. I’ll agree that the modulation might be subtle for some but here’s an experiment you might conduct if interested - play through the form, go back to the top, then vacillate between cmaj7 and G7. Now do the same but this time vacillate between cmaj7 and Gmaj7. Which sounds more ‘correct’ to you after the Db7 at the bottom of the form?

Fair point. But considering it in context also makes it recognizable in tunes like Remember too, which uses kind of a similar thing. Particularly in the bridge.

And finally, if a V7 —> lmaj7 cadence doesn’t establish a new key center to your ears, how do you hear a tune like Giant Steps? Lydian over all the ‘l’ chords? Possible I guess but the gravity that lives within that most fundamental progression is enough for most to instantaneously refocus their ears to the new 1 chord. Even those folks I mentioned who hear Lydian a little more fundamentally than Ionian.

How does Giant Steps sound to me?

It sounds like the door slamming behind me on my way out of the session as fast as possible.

[pamosmusic]

There’s definitely more than one way to ‘treat’ ANY chord, but that’s not really what I’m referring to either. You can frame a chord in a different manner (like say playing Lydian over the 1 chord) but that doesn’t change it’s actual function in the key - your just implying a relationship to a different family…which can be hip and fun.

The way chords function in a song has to be based on how they sound….not what might be easiest to think about.

My own hearing continues to evolve…things that seemed colorless and abstract to me when I was younger are common place nowadays. It’s a process…for me kinda like the dog sleeping on the nail. lol

Yeah this all makes sense.

It seems like there is a lot more subtlety in what you’re saying here. I appreciate your taking the time to elaborate.

[supersoul]

One way I hear the A section of Just Friends is (in the key of F, btw) is as a series of tonalities descending chromatically. So BbMaj, Bbmin, Amin (substitute for Fmajor), Abmin.

With the Bbmajor, I'm anticipating it moving to Bbminor. I'm hearing a major chord that will sort of deflate into a minor (Don't know what that cadence is called, but it's an effective one. It's like the bottom falling out of your feelings).

That whole tune is about being unsettled, and the chord changes reflect that. The lyrics are great!

Just friends, lovers no more
Just friends but not like before
To think of what we've been
And not to kiss again

Seems like pretending
It isn't the ending
Two friends drifting apart
Two friends but one broken heart

We loved, we laughed, we cried
Then suddenly love died
The story ends and we're just friends

We loved, we laughed and we cried
Then suddenly love died
The story ends and we're just friends

[Christian Miller]

I’m pretty up front about my ear lagging behind my brain so the theory is a tool for training my ear. I am but mortal (and but a passable guitar player).

Anyway … more than one way to write the theory because there’s more than one way to hear a passage.

I had a classical student (with perfect pitch) tell me that a certain passage in a Giuliani etude was a C major 7 chord. I told him he wasn’t wrong but that it would be better or more accurate to call it an inverted A minor with a suspension against the root. He was like “does it matter?” And I was like … you’d play it differently so yep.

Probably not. that’s c19 Austrian/German music theory derived from Rameau’s ideas of fundamental bass. (Assuming this chord turned up on degree IV in a cadence from what you are saying?)

Despite being active in Vienna, Guliani was a Neapolitan/Italian school/partimento guy (like a lot of those guys Carcassi etc) so strict figured bass and old school theory well into c19 (even Verdi was trained this way which is why the academy were such dicks to him - southern/northern Italian politics also plays into this lol). Everything from the bass - so cmaj7 is not so far from how he would have written it and thought about it. There wasn’t a concept of bass/theoretical root so much in that school, although they were aware of JP Rameau’s work obv. There’s some PhD theses I could hook you up with if you really want haha.

I guess that’s the rub here. Some of these things you’d play differently depending on what you call them. Some of them you wouldn’t. Some of them could be played differently or not.

sure, but as always ‘the words of a dead man are modified in the guts of the living’ (nice pretentious quote again haha)

[pamosmusic]

There’s some PhD theses I could hook you up with if you really want.

Why must you insist on being this way?

WHY

[Chris236]

This certainly isn’t news. And it would be a case for considering the prevailing key when you’re looking at those secondary dominants. I guess you’d say that the prevailing key might be the IV chord for a measure and you evaluate any secondary dominants accordingly. Which i think would be true, but I’m there’s still a wider context to the song. And it’s also true of other things … the tonicization of minor chords in lots of standards like A7 to Dm in All of Me where that Dm takes on more of a tonic minor quality. Just altering the notes of C major won’t quite get you to the Bb up top. I guess you could try to come up with ironclad rules for that too, but sometimes that’s the way the tune works and sometimes it doesn’t. It seems useful to think of that as a common device in major key songbook standards, rather than as a totally separate modulation for two measures.



Fair point. But considering it in context also makes it recognizable in tunes like Remember too, which uses kind of a similar thing. Particularly in the bridge.



How does Giant Steps sound to me?

It sounds like the door slamming behind me on my way out of the session as fast as possible.

hah, those tunes are easy to play by ‘ear’ with time.

the b9 is available on any Dom7 of course, (as are all 11 other notes). Didn’t I say that ? Some are easier to work with than others

in ‘All of Me’ you have and extended dominant pattern - one dom7 resolving down a 5th to another until landing somewhere - in this case D- as the new ‘1’ chord. Plug that formula in and you end up with mixo b9, b13….exactly like I said. It works, and this takes the mask off of seemingly arbitrary chord scale assignments for those who have accepted them at face value but never understood why. Of course this is contingent on one being able to discern (sonically!) when a modulation has occurred.

you are mistaken if you believe what I’m laying down are ironclad rules. Just a reflection on some of the nature of harmony. Enjoy if you like or not…all just so much verbiage until you hear/feel it, to be sure.

[Chris236]

It’s been fun, guys. Back to the grind stone.

[Christian Miller]

Why must you insist on being this way?

WHY

There really is neither explanation or excuse

[Christian Miller]

Why must you insist on being this way?

WHY

although if you are looking for something to read, this is quite interesting
Just a moment...

[mr. beaumont]

All this talk of Just Friends makes me want to listen to the definitive version:

[Christian Miller]

@Chris I think my view of key is more global/structural and includes sub keys, and a sort of relaxed boundary between what is and isn’t a key change.

whereas you take the not unreasonable view of ‘if it sounds like a temporary modulation it definitely is’. If I am to be honest, that is pretty much how I handle changes on a granular level. I do play that move into Cmaj7 as if it’s a key change, so fair enough. But the move to G via Cm is at the same time typical of a IV chord.

It can be both, I guess?

Synthesis, anyone??

[Christian Miller]

I think I’ve been found guilty of Music Theory.

I’ve not just let everyone here down, I’ve let myself down.

[Chris236]

Tl;dr I think my view of key is more global/structural and includes sub keys, and a sort of relaxed boundary between what is and isn’t a key change.

whereas you take the not unreasonable view of ‘if it sounds like a temporary modulation it definitely is’

it’s all good, man.

I enjoy talking about harmony - 30 years ago, as an 18 y/o I tested out of all the core harmony and ear training curriculum at Berklee without having much of a clue what to do with any of it at first. Slowly realizing the sonic reality of it as a player was revolutionary and felt like an ‘enlightenment’ at the time. Hah.

Good stuff,

Chris