The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #1

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    So mathematician Ian Stewart and biologist Jack Cohen came up with this term ‘lies to children’ - useful but ultimately inaccurate factoids we teach in grade school level education. This is not necessarily a bad thing - the real truth often muddies the waters because it’s too complicated and the simplification serves in the short term, but sometimes these simplified ideas outlive their usefulness. Anyway here’s some physics examples
    - the planets go around the sun
    - atoms are like little solar systems with electrons orbiting the nucleus
    - the period of a pendulum is given by this simple equation

    Here are some examples from jazz/music edu. Mark Levine’s ‘myths’ chapter in the jazz theory book is in the same spirit. Some may be more factoids or misconceptions than edu ‘lies’, but interested to hear your examples/thoughts.

    - don’t double the root
    - harmonic minor isn’t used much in jazz
    - the fourth is an avoid note on dominant
    - the thirteenth is an avoid note on minor seventh
    - bebop is about the upper extensions/pre war jazz players didn’t use extensions
    - improvisers always make everything up from scratch

    I’ll leave it at that for now….

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  3. #2

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    Quote Originally Posted by Christian Miller
    useful but ultimately inaccurate factoids we teach in grade school level education .... Anyway here’s some physics examples
    - the planets go around the sun
    Oh, so it's the other way around after all? Whew, that's really a relief ... can I also stop being an atheist now so I can fit in again on the AGF?

    I suppose the music examples you give will be useful and acceptable also (if not more so) for "adult children" too?

    This kind of lies and kids ... it can work out all kinds of ways. It appears I was shocked and unwilling to accept that Sinterklaas (St. Nicholas, a priori the "original" Santaclaus) didn't really exist and that the presents he left us instead came from my parents. I think my sister had figured that out by herself well before she was told. I had much less problems with "more reasonable" lies (i.e. inaccuracies or incomplete representations).

  4. #3

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    Quote Originally Posted by RJVB
    Oh, so it's the other way around after all? Whew, that's really a relief ... can I also stop being an atheist now so I can fit in again on the AGF?
    In Newtonian terms the solar system revolves around the common gravitational barycentre which happens to be within the sun. So the colloquial understanding makes sense. However this is not true for all stellar or planet/moon systems; for example it’s not true of Alpha Centauri A/B binary system (Proxima’s influence is negligible here) or the Pluto/Charon system, where the barycentre is outside both celestial bodies.

    In our case, the Sun ‘wobbles’ slightly mostly due to Jupiters influence. This may seem pedantic and the sort wanky thing you might say to be clever because in the specific case of ‘how a solar system is laid out’ it’s like splitting hairs, but in the general case of ‘how gravity works’ it’s simply not true.

    in Newtonian physics there is a tacit assumption that some reference frames are more valid than others, and there must be some absolute universal reference frame. Early on we assume the Sun is the centre, then as our understanding of the universe developed in the c18 and c19 presumably ‘god’. This was a bit of intellectual credence in fact for a theist cosmology.

    Einstein sorted this out. So from the perspective of general relativity, you can reconstruct the physics from any reference frame. It may be more convenient to solve the equations from the perspective of the Sun (or the barycentre) but from the standpoint of GR all reference frames (including non-inertial ones) are equally valid and choosing one or the other is a matter of convenience. It’s there in the words ‘general relativity.’

    I suppose the music examples you give will be useful and acceptable also (if not more so) for "adult children" too?
    some I like, some I don’t. Some I think are benign and some I think are problematic long term.
    Last edited by Christian Miller; 10-22-2022 at 07:59 AM.

  5. #4

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    So the planets circle the sun for convenience.

  6. #5

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    Quote Originally Posted by Litterick
    So the planets circle the sun for convenience.
    It's a familial thing: You've got a source of heat and direction. Why would you want to leave?

  7. #6

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    I've also started to notice these jazz myths.

    The center of gravity happens to be in the sun because it has the majority of the mass of the solar system like anyone would expect. But the whole system has more complexity to it like you said. Been looking at Mars and Venus at night.

  8. #7

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    Quote Originally Posted by Christian Miller
    So mathematician Ian Stewart and biologist Jack Cohen came up with this term ‘lies to children’ - useful but ultimately inaccurate factoids we teach in grade school level education. This is not necessarily a bad thing - the real truth often muddies the waters because it’s too complicated and the simplification serves in the short term, but sometimes these simplified ideas outlive their usefulness.
    What they "came up with" is itself an instance of itself - a simplifying pretense that "the real truth" is known, but purposely withheld (rather than an honest admission that "the real truth" has always been unknown, is still unknown, and may ultimately be unknowable).

  9. #8

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    Quote Originally Posted by Jimmy Smith
    The center of gravity happens to be in the sun because it has the majority of the mass of the solar system like anyone would expect. But the whole system has more complexity to it like you said. Been looking at Mars and Venus at night.
    Every time I stop and look up at night, the wonders of knowledge and causality amaze me. The thought that the sun, if it were the size of a golf ball would have enough pull to pull a speck of dust 300 feet away circling for billions of years. I never learned the sheer scale of the solar system, or the galactic system in school. It's still unfathomable.

  10. #9

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    Quote Originally Posted by Litterick
    So the planets circle the sun for convenience.
    pretty much. For physics involving things on and going around planet earth, we locate the frame of reference at the centre of the earth and ignore its orbital motion around the sun (whoops the orbital motion around the common barywotsit haha). Similarly we ignore the suns orbital motion relative to the centre of the galaxy, and the galaxy’s motion relative to the Andromeda galaxy, or whatever.

    Physics has always done this. The difference is now we know that all reference frames are transferable into each other without needing an absolute reference frame.

    for Einstein it made no less sense to ask ‘when does the station stop at the train?’

    From a mathematical point of view, the problem of planetary orbits in both Newtonian and Einsteinian physics is simpler when considered from a heliocentric perspective than the geocentric one as the maths will be way simpler, and the planets will follow simpler paths* rather than the complicated wiggles we see from earth. However, both are equally valid reference frames from the perspective of Einsteinian relativity. you place your coordinates system and reference frame where convenient for the problem, but no reference frame has a greater claim to being absolute than any other, something that wasn’t the case for the theories of c19 physics (cf Michelson-Morley, speed of light and the luminiferous ether.)

    I think relativity is quite hard to get conceptually. But there’s some weird shit as well involved in all of this. Mach’s principle for instance is a good one, the extreme case of the sort of thing I’ve been talking about.

    *there’s also the thing that early heliocentric (Copernican) cosmology didn’t quite get it right. The clincher was when Kepler worked out planetary orbits were elliptical thus getting rid of those pesky epicycles that plagued both Ptolemaic and Copernican cosmologies with their circular orbits. History vindicates Galileo but it wasn’t quite a scientific slam dunk at the time. Stellar parallax (or rather the lack of at that time measurable parallax) was another problem for Copernican cosmology that was only solved much later (the stars are flipping far away); it wasn’t at this stage any simpler than the heliocentric model and in some ways Galileo’s critics were not entirely ignoring the evidence. The scientific slam dunk really took Kepler.

    so yeah, the school history I was taught about this is yet another example of ‘lies to children.’
    Last edited by Christian Miller; 10-22-2022 at 11:29 AM.

  11. #10

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    Given all of that verbiage, it’s easy to see why the ‘lie’ or perhaps more fairly the ‘reasonable educational simplification ’ is used.

    But the converse is that a basic educational (school) background doesn’t mean that you actually understand a subject that you are not a specialist in.
    Last edited by Christian Miller; 10-22-2022 at 11:27 AM.

  12. #11

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    ^^This is the thing most people seem to have a problem understanding, in every area.

  13. #12

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    Quote Originally Posted by Jimmy blue note
    Every time I stop and look up at night, the wonders of knowledge and causality amaze me. The thought that the sun, if it were the size of a golf ball would have enough pull to pull a speck of dust 300 feet away circling for billions of years. I never learned the sheer scale of the solar system, or the galactic system in school. It's still unfathomable.
    It amazes me too. I like looking at the planets because you can kind of sense the distance. They aren't unfathomably out there like the stars yet they're still quite distant. During the day you think of the stuff right in front of you that troubles you. At night you look up and see all that wonder.

  14. #13

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    Quote Originally Posted by Jimmy Smith
    It amazes me too. I like looking at the planets because you can kind of sense the distance. They aren't unfathomably out there like the stars yet they're still quite distant. During the day you think of the stuff right in front of you that troubles you. At night you look up and see all that wonder.
    well I don’t know about you but I find the scale of the solar system pretty hard to fathom.

  15. #14

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    Quote Originally Posted by Christian Miller
    G.......... ‘reasonable educational simplification ’ .............
    I never liked the expression lie_to_children and have always preferred the one you chose, they are simplifications, but in my opinion they are indispensable for the learning process.

    Your jazz examples, on the other hand, are not all such simplifications. I have therefore rearranged them. In my opinion, the first three examples are really such simplifications. They can really help a less experienced improviser, who usually does not yet have the necessary musical ear, to avoid dissonances that he cannot master yet.

    The second group are simply false assertions, probably out of ignorance, which I would simply call BS if someone said them to my face.

    - don’t double the root
    - the fourth is an avoid note on dominant
    - the thirteenth is an avoid note on minor seventh

    - harmonic minor isn’t used much in jazz
    - bebop is about the upper extensions/pre war jazz players didn’t use extensions
    - improvisers always make everything up from scratch

  16. #15

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    Quote Originally Posted by Christian Miller
    well I don’t know about you but I find the scale of the solar system pretty hard to fathom.
    Today I'd like to get to know a completely different kind of scale:



    Suddenly I'm humbled.

  17. #16

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    Quote Originally Posted by Jimmy blue note
    Today I'd like to get to know a completely different kind of scale:



    Suddenly I'm humbled.
    thats a great video, saw it a while back. Does your head in haha

  18. #17

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    Quote Originally Posted by Christian Miller
    well I don’t know about you but I find the scale of the solar system pretty hard to fathom.
    Yeah but if you look at Mars and Venus with the naked eye, you can sense their distance. You can see how they're just objects like anything else.

  19. #18

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    Quote Originally Posted by DonEsteban
    I never liked the expression lie_to_children and have always preferred the one you chose, they are simplifications, but in my opinion they are indispensable for the learning process.

    Your jazz examples, on the other hand, are not all such simplifications. I have therefore rearranged them. In my opinion, the first three examples are really such simplifications. They can really help a less experienced improviser, who usually does not yet have the necessary musical ear, to avoid dissonances that he cannot master yet.

    The second group are simply false assertions, probably out of ignorance, which I would simply call BS if someone said them to my face.

    - don’t double the root
    - the fourth is an avoid note on dominant
    - the thirteenth is an avoid note on minor seventh

    - harmonic minor isn’t used much in jazz
    - bebop is about the upper extensions/pre war jazz players didn’t use extensions
    - improvisers always make everything up from scratch
    While that’s a reasonable distinction to make, I don’t think any of these are particularly useful tbh

    I get where the first three are coming from somewhere but I think there’s much better ways they could be framed

  20. #19

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    BTW. As a six-year-old, I could already read quite well, and as luck would have it, my family lived next door to the public library. So I spent countless rainy days there in the children's non-fiction section and read my way through everything I could get.

    In my attempt to understand the world, I finally came to the conclusion that everything living was made of cells, everything non-living of atoms.

    I also decided that gasoline and diesel engines couldn't actually work because I couldn't imagine the pistons and valves moving at such breakneck speeds.

    The Bohr atomic model, on the other hand, I found very plausible. Quantum physics did not take place in children's books at that time (yet?).

    Unfortunately, I had no adult who was willing to discuss my findings with me. Which almost cost me my life one or two times for example when I wanted to try "measurements" on a power outlet with my bare hands. As you can see, I survived... :-)

  21. #20

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    Improvisors play what they already practiced nothing really new too much if at all most days. That is not a lie just an observation.

  22. #21

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    Quote Originally Posted by Christian Miller
    While that’s a reasonable distinction to make, I don’t think any of these are particularly useful tbh

    I get where the first three are coming from somewhere but I think there’s much better ways they could be framed

    Well, as a jazz beginner, for example, I had a strange habit of regularly ending a phrase in major on the "four," which always sounded awful. It helped me a lot when an instructor at a jazz workshop simply forbade me to use the four on major7 and dominant chords.

    Later, it all fell into place when I started to hear better. So I'm not sure I agree with you.

  23. #22

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    Quote Originally Posted by Jimmy Smith
    Yeah but if you look at Mars and Venus with the naked eye, you can sense their distance. You can see how they're just objects like anything else.
    i wouldn’t make that claim myself. I mean I sort of know what you mean - this may be a function of the fact that they don’t twinkle.

    You can look at them through a telescope and see the disks. But then as toylike as they appear in the eyepiece, you are of course looking at planets that are thousands of km (or miles) across. Comparable to the size of the world. i mean we might go that far on a plane, but do we have any real idea of what distance that is?

    compare that to the distance of the planets which are in the order of hundreds of thousands of kilometres. Which is unfathomable really. In practice travelling there would mean months in a tin can in microgravity being zapped by solar radiation which is also pretty hard to fathom psychologically and physiologically.

  24. #23

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    That's what I like to think about. No I can't gauge the distance like if I were throwing a baseball, but I can still sense the magnitude.

  25. #24

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    Quote Originally Posted by DonEsteban
    Well, as a jazz beginner, for example, I had a strange habit of regularly ending a phrase in major on the "four," which always sounded awful. It helped me a lot when an instructor at a jazz workshop simply forbade me to use the four on major7 and dominant chords.

    Later, it all fell into place when I started to hear better. So I'm not sure I agree with you.
    I think the problem is more that they give you a scale to improvise on on day one. Tbh this is a by product of getting people to improvise early on before they’ve assimilated any jazz language. I’m not saying it’s wrong to do that necessarily - it’s good to get people improvising- but it has its own problems associated with it.

    it is very interesting that you knew it sounded bad but it helped to hear a teacher say it was wrong.

    Anyway, if you spend a bit of time learning the chord tones of course, then using the 4th or any other dissonant note becomes straightforward. Extend or substitute the chord and you become familiar with the extensions.

    But - that’s a separate issue. The fourth on the dominant chord is nothing like as dissonant as it is on the major seventh. Try it. Likewise for a 13 on a m7.

    And then you look at the melody for a tune like Recorda Me and it’s got 13th all over m7s.

    The reason why they make this distinction is because of the way they teach the ii V. They are right to identify the importance of those two notes - the the C on a Dm7 chord and the B on the G7 driving the progression. The idea is the the ‘B on Dm7 gives away the dominant’, which is true. The B does make Dm sound like a G dominant chord in that specific context.

    but to talk about these being avoid notes is not the most helpful way of doing this imo. First of all it makes you imprisoned by the exact written changes and gives you something else to think about while you could instead be developing the ability to hear and express harmony in your line. Second, telling people to avoid doing things is bad education psychology. This is the number one thing they tell you not to do when teaching children and I don’t think teaching adults is really that different.

    instead, it’s imho better to say ‘these are the sensitive notes of the ii V, the C gives the floating sound of the Dm7 chord, while the B gives the active sound of the dominant. Practice using them to give direction to your ii V lines’ or something. Exactly the same info, just differently presented.
    Last edited by Christian Miller; 10-22-2022 at 02:33 PM.

  26. #25

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    Quote Originally Posted by Christian Miller
    I think the problem is more that they give you a scale to improvise on on day one. Tbh this is a by product of getting people to improvise early on before they’ve assimilated any jazz language. I’m not saying it’s wrong to do that necessarily .... snip....

    You hit the nail on the head, that was exactly the problem. I was pretty quick at learning these scales, and already I was thinking how well I could improvise now - or better, should be able to, because I couldn't, it just didn't sound good.

    For example, I could play the altered scale after a short time, but until I finally learned to make music with it, years passed.

    So I agree with you 100%!