-
Originally Posted by Chris236
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.
-
09-14-2023 11:11 AM
-
Can we still be friends, fellas? Just friends, of course.
-
Originally Posted by Chris236
-
Originally Posted by pamosmusic
-
The great Johnny Smith weighs in on this: .
-
Originally Posted by Rsilver
you can say you don’t believe the Earth is round, yet still traverse its circumference.
-
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.
-
Originally Posted by Rsilver
-
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...
-
don’t get me started.
-
But Johnny Smith wasn't playing modal music...
-
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.
-
Originally Posted by ragman1
-
Originally Posted by ragman1
-
Originally Posted by kris
-
Originally Posted by Chris236
-
Originally Posted by Chris236
-
Originally Posted by Tal_175
-
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.
-
Of all the jazz terms I hate, ‘tensions’ is the worst. They aren’t tensions!
Anyway, as you were.
-
Originally Posted by Christian Miller
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?
-
Originally Posted by 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…
-
Originally Posted by Tal_175
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.
-
Originally Posted by Christian Miller
I usually use “color notes,” but I can’t say I’m all that bothered by “tensions.”
HeadRush?
Today, 11:54 AM in Guitar, Amps & Gizmos