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I’m not trying to be a jerk, but I think it’s worth considering that you came into this with some really strong opinions, harshly expressed. And the way you expressed them kind of demonstrated that you didn’t really have a super firm grasp on the concepts in play.
For example, you mentioned that Barry Harris just added an eighth “passing note” into a scale. My superficial understanding of the sixth diminished scales tells me that they are very much NOT passing notes, and are absolutely meant to be harmonized as scale tones. They are actually the notes that make the harmonized chords *sixth chords* and *diminished chords*
Also you’re asking people to provide you with examples of these ideas in practice, but Barry Harris is not just some university professor with no experience. A student sent me a recording of Dexter Gordon doing Blue Bossa the other day. On piano? One, Barry Harris. He’s the real deal. He got the ideas from deep study of his bebop forebears, and he put them into practice with Dexter Gordon, among numerous others.
Im not talking out of the side of my mouth when I say that Gb can work over a G7. I’ve played five gazillion times and for the first four gazillion, it didn’t work. It took time.
So before you come in and say that ideas don’t work and that facts are facts, it’s worth reading what other people say with a somewhat more open mind.
Do with that what you will.Last edited by pamosmusic; 07-14-2023 at 12:29 PM.
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07-14-2023 11:45 AM
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Hence no clashes. Ab over G7 is just a b9 and an acceptable colour note.
Originally Posted by AllanAllen
The point of it all was to sub the various dominants (most of them have two whole bars each in All Of Me ) with other dominant chords based on a diminished chord. In other words, take G diminished whose notes are G Bb Db E. The theory is you can sub any of those dominants for any of the others, i.e. G7, Bb7, Db7, E7.
The OP said that bop players freely played and swapped their related Mixolydian scales. So G7 would be C major, Bb7 would be Eb major, Db would be Gb major, and E7 would be A major:
So I said nonsense and demonstrated it. And if you try it you'll soon find out what it sounds like :-)There's a "family" of four dominants (E7 G7 Bb7 Db7) that occur naturally in the diminished (scale). Bop players would interchange (substitute) among the four related dominant (Mixolydian) scales freely.
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You too, panos :-)
(I didn't say the Gb note couldn't work over G7, I said the Gb major scale (mixolydian of Db7) didn't. It doesn't, and nor do any of the others)
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I played a Gb major scale on every single G7 on that video. Originally Posted by ragman1
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But, if anyone's interested, what you can do, and I use it myself a lot of the time, is use the ii of the particular dominant and then move that up in m3rds. That works.
So over G7 you can play Dm, Fm, Abm and/or Bm. All melodic minor scales. Each one has a particular flavour. The Dm is the standard sub and is nearest to the G7 sound. The Fm sounds like a G7b9 or G13b9, and the Abm is the usual scale for G7 altered.
The B melodic minor is the least used because, apart from both diatonic and altered notes, it contains the dreaded GB/F#. Now, that you can use judiciously and it's what a few of the others here have been talking about.
Normally I'd use the Abm for the altered sound when the G7 resolves to its I (C major or minor). I use the others for dominants that don't resolve to their I's.
For example, take the first 8 of All Of Me:
CM7 - % - E7 - %
A7 - % - Dm - %
E7 doesn't resolve to A major or minor so you could use Bm or Dm. As there are two bars you could play both.
The A7 does resolve to its i, Dm, so you could play Em or Gm and then Bbm for A7alt going to Dm.
So you're playing:
CM7 - % - Bm - Dm
Em - Bbm - Dm - %
Which sounds like
CM7 - % - E9 - E7b9
A9 - A7alt - Dm - %
This is what they're really talking about here. At least, I think so. And it's not new, of course, not in the slightest.
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Disclaimer: Of course, this is a formula and all formulas are limited. It's far better to know the tune so well that you just flow and play it through, hopefully with some feeling.
This version uses no scales, no formulas, no tricks. It's just based on the chords and the melody. Remembering that the dominant before a minor needs a b9 sound helps. It's supposed to sound wistful, by the way.
Last edited by ragman1; 07-16-2023 at 06:46 AM.
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In that case, why the great struggle with it? If it had been C major you'd have just done it, no problem, right? So, if your Gb scale works so well, why all the manipulation before you even got it sounding reasonable? Originally Posted by pamosmusic
You were trying to make a silk purse out of a pig's ear. Not worth the effort.
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Actually, I didn't ask for a 2-5-1 in C, I said do All Of Me. That's got lots of dominants, not just the G7.
You know, the ear can become accustomed to almost anything. Over the G7 in a 2-5-1 the dom V can take a great deal of outside stuff. We know that. But try it on All Of Me over all the dominants.
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Ragman is just Ragman. He’s been having this same basic discussion for over a decade. Originally Posted by pamosmusic
BTW I very much enjoyed every Gb, but you did tend to make them sound like F#s
Theres a difference between Barry’s improv material which features the added note rules and the harmony stuff which teaches the 6-dim scales you are thinking of.For example, you mentioned that Barry Harris just added an eighth “passing note” into a scale. My superficial understanding of the sixth diminished scales tells me that they are very much NOT passing notes, and are absolutely meant to be harmonized as scale tones. They are actually the notes that make the harmonized chords *sixth chords* and *diminished chords*
He actually taught them in entirely separate classes. The added notes on scales don’t have a harmonic function unlike the b6 in the maj6-dim scale for instance.
Which is one reason we don’t talk about ‘bebop scales’ in Barry Harris’s approach. Mainstream jazz books (eg Levine) conflate the two things.
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Im not going to do that. Originally Posted by ragman1
You're not going to believe me, but you are in a situation, where you don’t know what you don’t know.
You think people (Christian, myself, others) are saying that you don’t understand the theory. I’m not saying that at all. I think you do understand the theory. Your misunderstanding is actually more fundamental.
I think you’re misunderstanding what a jazz musician means when they say they’re going to “use” a scale.
It seems like you think they mean they’ll play a scale in mostly stepwise fashion, in mostly ascending or descending order, for several notes in a row.
By that definition, a C major scale would be suspect over a C major chord. Because that’s not how this music works.
What a jazz musician means when they say they are going to use a scale is that they are going to actually *use* the scale to come up with interesting language. Will there be arpeggiated chords? yes. Will there be bebop chromaticism? yes. Will there be side-slipping now and again? yes.
I guess, given my idiotic guitar face, you can be forgiven for thinking I was struggling with what I was playing, but I wasn’t. When you say I am “struggling “make a scale work, you’re misunderstanding what I was doing.
For example, might also have noticed that I absolutely used a C major scale over the D minor, and the C major. I was just using the same language that I was using over the G7, and that’s what Christian has been saying this whole time. It’s not Making a Silk Purse Out of a Sows Ear; it’s using the vocabulary that I have accumulated over many years of playing music.
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Well, I revived the thread to help my playing. You hijacked it for this anti Barry Harris thing about the minutia of details that I don't care to fully digest. So I guess we're stuck here having two different conversations at the same time. But at least I had a nice jam with your backing track. Originally Posted by ragman1
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Look, believe it or not, I'm not angry (!) and I'm certainly not trying to fight with anyone. I only see what's before me. I wasn't looking at your wonderful face, I was listening carefully to the music. Also, I had in mind everything you said before about trying to get that scale to sound right. And there was quite a lot of that!
So the only question was: did it sound good? Well, yes and no. I like interesting jazzy sounds so I didn't mind. My ear adjusted very quickly to what you were doing and, as a matter of fact, I enjoyed it. But there's no doubt there was an element of searching for notes. Basically because, im my opinion, it wasn't really working. Because it was, basically, the wrong set of notes for the chord.
So, like I say, try it over a chorus of All Of Me. On all the dominants, not just the final one. That's really been the basis of the whole discussion here, hasn't it?
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TouchéRagman is just Ragman. He’s been having this same basic discussion for over a decade.
BTW I very much enjoyed every Gb, but you did tend to make them sound like F#s
Resolving up to that G is certainly easier, but I am working on Jordans stuff lately to get my flexibility up with those pesky resolutions.
I guess I know what I don’t know.
Good point. My point was that he didn’t just “add a note to a scale.” There’s a sophisticated harmonic concept that depends on the particular added note (in the case of those sixth diminished scales), and loads of other improvisation thing unrelated to scales at all.Theres a difference between Barry’s improv material which features the added note rules and the harmony stuff which teaches the 6-dim scales you are thinking of.
But again … I’m a Barry Harris novice. I probably “don’t know what I don’t know.”Last edited by pamosmusic; 07-14-2023 at 02:08 PM.
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You know, if we take all this to its logical conclusion we may as well give up learning the guitar and studying music and just play anything over anything. And call it 'jazz'.
And if anyone complains, why, poor them, they just don't understand!
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I will take this criticism to heart and work tirelessly to win your approval.So the only question was: did it sound good? Well, yes and no. I like interesting jazzy sounds so I didn't mind. My ear adjusted very quickly to what you were doing and, as a matter of fact, I enjoyed it. But there's no doubt there was an element of searching for notes. Basically because, im my opinion, it wasn't really working. Because it was, basically, the wrong set of notes for the chord.
Again, thank you but I’ll pass. People don’t actually owe you a demonstration of a concept that you don’t have a handle on. If you’re content with your understanding of how it works, that’s okay. But telling other people that they’re factually incorrect with theirs, is a bit weird.So, like I say, try it over a chorus of All Of Me. On all the dominants, not just the final one. That's really been the basis of the whole discussion here, hasn't it?
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Ive said it before in a (surprisingly similar) discussion we had of the back door ii-V, but … actually yes. You can play anything over anything. But you better not give up studying, because the weirder it is, the stronger the language needs to be. Originally Posted by ragman1
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I’ll also note that you have a habit of demanding demonstrations of things then either complaining that a person didn’t sound musical (because they were demonstrating something repeatedly) or that they sounded musical, but didn’t adhere strictly enough to your rules.
So a bit of a jazz Goldilocks thing going on.
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And sorry for my role in this. Originally Posted by AllanAllen
I guess I also got in a good jam with my backing track.
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no true jazzman fallacy Originally Posted by pamosmusic
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It is possible to leave the note by leap, but in this case it usually ends up sounding like part of voicing and that voice resolves up a semitone… Originally Posted by pamosmusic
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In a way it helps. I actually didn’t care for the video you did. It’s not pretty, and I like pretty, so I learned not to lean into all the dominant substituting. Originally Posted by pamosmusic
I hope I’m right in assuming you have thick enough skin for that. If it makes you feel better, I don’t like Charlie Christians solo on Stardust either.
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Unfortunately, I do not. Originally Posted by AllanAllen
Just kidding. And I guess I’d agree. Not pretty, exactly, though it probably could be. The idea though is tension, of varying degrees and different kinds. So that video was two minutes of tension—the same degree and same kind. So yeah. It’s one dimensional.
But I wouldn’t say you should avoid it. Wes can certainly play a tritone sub over a ballad and make it beautiful. So the sound is there, when it’s used judiciously.
EDIT — also note that that was not “dominant substituting” … it was specifically the tritone away and specifically playing a gazillion Maj7s over the dominant chord. So that is a tense sound, and risky application. It does work, but also not necessarily pretty.
I draw this distinction, because the m3 substituting leaves you with other options too—a m3 down, which is an unusual and cool sound; and the m3 up, which is super pretty. It’s in Stella by Starlight and Time After Time, which I don’t think it could be if it weren’t very very pretty indeed.
Anyway … thats all to say that I wouldn’t abandon the pursuit because you don’t like *my* playing, while applying one of those several options in the most out-there way I could. Even if I like the way it sounds, you could throw a rock at YouTube and hit several dozen players who would do it better. And you will find better ways that suit your ear.Last edited by pamosmusic; 07-14-2023 at 05:58 PM.
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This is my 2 chorus solo.To tell the truth, I don't use the B.Harris theory.
I'm using basic theory and my hearing...:
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What I like about this solo is that you can feel that Kenny Barron plays from the melody which always "shines through" a little (for lack of a better verb ATM) and I mean that beyond the literally quoted phrases. Originally Posted by kris
What I do not like about transcription videos like that is that they take a solo out of context, even the closing theme is faded out here. So if you want to see how the whole tune developed you have to look for a link in the video description (which at least exists in this case).
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This is training material and I don't know what context you mean. Originally Posted by Bop Head
Do you mean the whole tune?
Most often, the person who trancribes has the entire song.
Nevertheless, it is still a brilliant teaching material.
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Yes, I mean the whole tune like I had written. In videos like this a solo comes out of nowhere. I imagine a young player who has not listened to much jazz yet and wants to learn. Shouldn't he learn how a good solos develops out of what comes before? What I have described as "the melody shining through", how should he recognize that without knowing how Kenny Barron interprets the melody (and i am shure BTW that KB plays the melody with the lyrics in mind)? Originally Posted by kris
There's too aspects, one is "micro" and one is "macro". Only working on the "micro" aspect results in a bunch of licks over a row of chords ...
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