Theory vs. playing by ear

[pamosmusic]

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.

One might be forgiven for arriving at that conclusion, though, with the way it was being talked about.

And yeah … with All of Me. What we’re at now is a semantic difference between “tonicize” and “modulate.” Which is honestly probably a difference in vocabulary and not much else. Or a difference in degree rather than in kind.

Like in just that normal I VI ii V in C, on the A7 you’d still be more likely to grab for notes coming from D minor (Bb rather than B). Not set in stone, but that’d be a pretty standard choice. But it’s not a modulation. I would apply the same terminology to something a bit bigger but that still is easy to contextualize in the normal key. The process for how I’m hearing and settling on those extensions and color notes is still exactly what you described in All of Me. I was just taught to save the word “modulate” for a more complete move to a new key.

I think we’re in six-of-one territory here.

(Half dozen of the other.)

Anyway. What you’re saying is much clearer to me now, I think.

[Chris236]

Can we still be friends, fellas? Just friends, of course.

[pamosmusic]

Can we still be friends, fellas? Just friends, of course.

I’m not sure I’m ready yet. This has been a really tough experience for me. But I hope the door will still be open when I am.

[Chris236]

I’m not sure I’m ready yet. This has been a really tough experience for me. But I hope the door will still be open when I am.

hah!

[Rsilver]

The great Johnny Smith weighs in on this:

.

[Chris236]

The great Johnny Smith weighs in on this:

.

you can say you don’t believe the Earth is round, yet still traverse its circumference.

[Rsilver]

He doesn’t say that he doesn’t believe in the existence of modes. He says he doesn’t think they lead to good improvisation.

[Chris236]

He doesn’t say that he doesn’t believe in the existence of modes. He says he doesn’t think they lead to good improvisation.

A peripheral understanding of them can definitely help, but I agree – thinking of any kind while improvising brakes connection with the moment and the music.

[mr. beaumont]

I'd say for about 75% of jazz you really don't need modes.

Also, 95% of statistics are made up.

But like...a mode is really just a 13th chord arpeggio...

[Chris236]

don’t get me started.

[ragman1]

But Johnny Smith wasn't playing modal music...

[Tal_175]

You can teach harmony, you can teach counterpoint, you can write books on reharmonization, or romantic era tonality etc. but you can't teach melody. Melody is a product of personal creativity.

I took some courses in a jazz program but I don't have a jazz degree. My understanding is that the point of modes and chord-scales in college curriculum is to teach students their instruments. Once they know how to get around their instruments what they do with all those notes is up to them.

I mean, yeah there is chord tones, guide tones, triads, licks etc. But none of these constitute a recipe for a good solo. They are more like the starting motor of a car engine. You still need an engine.

[kris]

But Johnny Smith wasn't playing modal music...

I have some "modal jazz" guitars for sale.

[Chris236]

But Johnny Smith wasn't playing modal music...

sure he was, the modality just usually revolved around Ionian or Aeolian.

[ragman1]

I have some "modal jazz" guitars for sale.

Oh, you're back. Nice holiday?

[ragman1]

sure he was, the modality just usually revolved around Ionian or Aeolian.

Precisely.

[Christian Miller]

Can we still be friends, fellas? Just friends, of course.

We loved, we laughed, we cried, and in the end, jazz died…

[Christian Miller]

You can teach harmony, you can teach counterpoint, you can write books on reharmonization, or romantic era tonality etc. but you can't teach melody. Melody is a product of personal creativity.

Luckily you can steal those, and then embellish them….

[pamosmusic]

I think the modes thing with a lot of old school guys is kind of similar to the term transcribe. Where it has specific connotations that they don’t feel apply to what they do, but the really broad general sense is a little more widely relevant even if people don’t like the word.

Like in most functional jazz, the modes are a way of organizing groups of tension notes and stuff; maybe thinking about the center of gravity for a certain chord. Hopefully folks are still playing the changes and that sort of thing when they’re talking about modes.

Im guessing Johnny Smith also has a particular collection of tension notes he thinks go well on bars 5-6 of All of Me, even if he doesn’t go in on the terminology.

[Christian Miller]

Of all the jazz terms I hate, ‘tensions’ is the worst. They aren’t tensions!

Anyway, as you were.

[rpjazzguitar]

Of all the jazz terms I hate, ‘tensions’ is the worst. They aren’t tensions!

Anyway, as you were.

I thought it came down to chord tones, consonant extensions (like extending G7 to G13) and "other", aka tensions, because they're less consonant.

In my idiosyncratic thought process I think of chord tones, consonant extensions, spicy extensions and "be afraid" notes. For want of better terms.

So, G7, G13, Galt and then playing F# against G7.

Against a major tonic, I'd include the b7, b2 as "be afraid".

Not that you can't make fear sound good. Wes could. Maybe I could on a sunny day in the future.

How do you organize it?

[Tal_175]

Of all the jazz terms I hate, ‘tensions’ is the worst. They aren’t tensions!

Anyway, as you were.

They get taken from the related diminished which is a source of ongoing tension.

[Christian Miller]

I think it was just that jazzers saw the term ‘extensions’ and started saying ‘tensions’ because it sounded hipper.

I think that was the extent of the thought process.

The whole point of the extensions is that they aren’t necessarily tense. Most/many are colour tones.

Not all extensions are colour tones and these get labelled fairly or unfairly ‘avoid notes’. These should really be the ones that are called tensions. But they are incredibly unhelpfully and misleadingly called avoid notes which is just bad psychology haha.

(Jordan taught me that CST is sort of upside down anyway.)

C on a Cmajor7 chord on the other hand. That’s a tension. A D, F# or even a D# on the same chord? Colour.

That said it all varies. People are happy to regard m7b6 as a sound in its own right (Kurt Rosenwinkel charts are full of this one…) so, it’s all on a sliding scale…

[Christian Miller]

They get taken from the related diminished which is a source of ongoing tension.

Barry had a complicated relationship with intervals beyond the octave. His way of thinking about stuff is so different it can be a bit difficult to line up with other stuff.

otoh his concept of what we would call extensions could come from chord subs - six on fifth, important minor, tritone’s minor, brothers and sisters and so as well as what he could find in the scale.

I don’t get the impression he was dogmatic about viewing the borrowed notes as tense necessarily. It was up to your ears to an extent.

[pamosmusic]

Of all the jazz terms I hate, ‘tensions’ is the worst. They aren’t tensions!

Anyway, as you were.

Wow. But there are so many dumb jazz terms!

I usually use “color notes,” but I can’t say I’m all that bothered by “tensions.”