The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #1

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    Some nerdy stuff I've been working on. There's more, I'm afraid. But this'll do for now. Let me know any thoughts if you can be bothered
    Classical schemata (counterpoint skeletons) in jazz - what I've been working on-schemata_for_jazz-png-4-jpgClassical schemata (counterpoint skeletons) in jazz - what I've been working on-schemata_for_jazz-png-5-jpgClassical schemata (counterpoint skeletons) in jazz - what I've been working on-schemata_for_jazz-png-6-jpg!

    Anyway, for those who don't know (from Wikipedia)
    Galant Schemata, as described by Robert Gjerdingen in Music in the Galant Style, are "stock musical phrases" in Galant music. The concept of a musical schema is based on schema theory in psychology. Each schema has discernible internal characteristics—such as voice leading, number of events, and relative metric strength and weakness of such events—as well as normative placements in the musical structure as a whole. According to Gjerdingen, the usage of these schemata in a conventional, seamless sequence is "a hallmark of the galant style" and a consequence of the partimento pedagogical tradition of Neapolitan conservatories.[1]

    The really interesting thing is how many of Gjerdingen's selfsame Galant schemata pop up in jazz an popular music (the Romanesca/Pachelbel progression is an obvious example that's even attained meme-hood). So, there's a way to adapt this thinking to jazz improvisation and pedagogy.

    This is a similar concept to Jerry Coker's Hearin' the Changes and Conrad Cork's Harmony LEGO Bricks with differences; those guys both focussed on chord progressions. I’m more interested in melody and counterpoint here. With each of these chord progressions one can identify heavily used melodic skeletons that go with them. These are frequently - but not always - similar to the guide tones concept in jazz education.

    However, while 7ths and 3rds are a great choice in many common jazz situations, they are not always the best choice. Furthermore - and similar contrapuntal ideas can can actually manifest as what often appear to be superficial very different chord progressions depending on inversion, embellishment and the addition of other voices. this results in connections that can be missed by using chord notation as a basis for analysis.

    My feeling is that schemata theory can allow us to identify more of these melodic skeletons. In a sense, I want to unify the old ways of playing off the melody with the more common modern approach of playing from the chords. This counterpoint approach perhaps offers a third option and a different way of considering familiar materials.
    Last edited by Christian Miller; 02-03-2023 at 02:18 PM.

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    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #2

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    Very cool. Just starting to teach, 6pm, so will read properly this evening.

    Great to see this post Christian

    Edit: just had a quick read through. Very interesting Christian.
    I guess that there are certain things that sound good and these are the anchors that melody and harmony is based upon.
    Even the diatonic stuff from the almanacs would use these anchors. Guide tones, schemata guides.
    It's easy to write something using these guides but it could get formulatic.
    I'd be very interested in applying this stuff to not only standards but my own material as well though I'm deep into a writing phrase atm.
    Incidentally a student bought in two examples of a scale wise descending line. One was an aria and the other was Study Op 60 No 7 by Carcassi.
    I must pull out the partimento books again. Haven't looked at them since the end of last summer when I fell into the almanacs.
    Last edited by Liarspoker; 02-03-2023 at 05:10 PM.

  4. #3

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    Your knowledge and continued study of music history is impressive Christian.

    I like the sparseness of these approaches.

    Alan

  5. #4

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    Quote Originally Posted by A. Kingstone
    Your knowledge and continued study of music history is impressive Christian.

    I like the sparseness of these approaches.

    Alan
    Thanks Alan! I think I’ve just really obsessed over two or three voices… two gives a lot and it’s amazing how much movement you get with three. I remember Barry saying something like that once…

  6. #5

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    Quote Originally Posted by Liarspoker
    Very cool. Just starting to teach, 6pm, so will read properly this evening.

    Great to see this post Christian

    Edit: just had a quick read through. Very interesting Christian.
    I guess that there are certain things that sound good and these are the anchors that melody and harmony is based upon.
    Even the diatonic stuff from the almanacs would use these anchors. Guide tones, schemata guides.
    It's easy to write something using these guides but it could get formulatic.
    I'd be very interested in applying this stuff to not only standards but my own material as well though I'm deep into a writing phrase atm.
    Incidentally a student bought in two examples of a scale wise descending line. One was an aria and the other was Study Op 60 No 7 by Carcassi.
    I must pull out the partimento books again. Haven't looked at them since the end of last summer when I fell into the almanacs.
    Yeah. I mean I think that basic fact - this stuff sounds good so gets used whether people think about it or not - is key. Schemata theory is really Gjerdingen’s creation afaik. There’s no extant text from the era aside from Riepel discussing them; and none afaik saying this is the way they learned. Instead the communication of these figures was always implicit. In the same way as we might not suppose Noel Gallagher actually cares what a Stepwise Romanesca any more than Parker had to know what a Hermaphrodite Fonte was. But the same was probably true of, say, Mozart. They are the abc’s of music. We may think we are free to do whatever we want and sing the blues if we wish but we gravitate to the implicit grammar of music.

    (btw my favourite example of a stepwise Romanesca is the chorus of Mamma Mia. Classic.)

    there’s a few questions here
    1) is this more than stamp collecting? Does it serve a purpose beyond the cutesy? Or is this information best learned implicitly through musical exposure. (‘the same question as harmony with Lego bricks.’)
    2) the 18th century is notable for its high level of stylistic conformity. Really it’s about the artful development of a very limited set of conventional materials. I kind of think this is true of post Parker bebop as well. But that’s not the be all and end all of musical expression. It is satisfying though.

    I feel giving people melodic skeletons to improvise on might work really well for learning players though. Certainly compared to what people do at the moment with beginners which is give them theory and expect them to work it out.

  7. #6

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    I think that currently I prefer Galant Schemata over partimento.

    The schemata's are easier for my walnut sized brain to understand plus the Mortensen book gives easy, clear direction to provide instant music that sounds good.

    For example a few minutes of fiddling this morning produced this Romanesca/Prinner sequence.

    https://youtube.com/shorts/-kWBK2Ewwpw?feature=share
    Last edited by Liarspoker; 04-10-2023 at 07:30 AM. Reason: Spelling

  8. #7

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    Quote Originally Posted by Liarspoker
    I think that currently I prefer Galant Schemata over partimento.

    The schemata's are easier for my walnut sized brain to understand plus the Mortensen book gives easy, clear direction to provide instant music that sounds good.

    For example a few minutes of fiddling this morning produced this Romanesca/Prinner sequence.

    https://youtube.com/shorts/-kWBK2Ewwpw?feature=share
    Although I get the sense that schemata just provide shortcuts, and there appears to be a proliferation of schema, so knowing a dozen might be good, but what about 100? - the list grows as more get identified. For Jazz, where the bass does not predetermine the upper voices a few schema probably sufficient, but I doubt you could write credible 18th century music just using RG's list as a cookbook. I imagine that a real master like Bach could easily generate all the possibilities from a given bass just from the contrapuntal rules

  9. #8

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    The subject is quite complicated and messy. Key in my opinion is the fact that Schemata appear to be widely used by people who never heard the term upto the present day. Gjerdigen et al have extrapolated the idea from Reipel’s treatise which I’m not sure is typical of the pedagogy of the era. And yet I hesitate to call them simply a shortcut…

    What value do they have? I have found Schemata useful for realising partmenti. I know that is not in fact how they were taught (but moti de bassi were taught after solfeggio in early years). I think Schemata are pretty great for improvisation. Michael Koch seems to use them a lot, for example, and I’d like to be able to a tenth of what he can. But you can start with a few simple moves - Ro up or down to the fifth, cadence, cycle of fifths etc. so my process is not so much, what did the historical Big Names do so much as what do I see contemporary classical/historic improvisers doing? As we are not, obviously learning solfeggio etc from six and may wish to have some fun with this.

    Otoh the more moves you learn the better you get, and Bach knew all the moves and then some. But then as Mortensen is keen to point out, not everyone in the c18 even was up to Bachs level (very few or maybe noone.) And of course, on guitar our options are much more limited (basic partimento is pretty easy on piano actually) There’s probably more attainable models.

    Otoh I find it interesting and unexpected that some of these relationships are preserved in jazz, especially in head melodies and standards rep…. I think there might be something in it….
    Last edited by Christian Miller; 04-10-2023 at 01:51 PM.

  10. #9

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    Hi Christian,

    this seems quite interesting, although for me it was initially difficult to understand since I don't have much of a classical background. Much of the terminology is unfamiliar (i.e. partmenti, Gallant Style, Lament Bass, fonte, Hermaphrodite Fonte, etc). I don't even really know what figured bass is, either!

    Fair enough, my background is mostly American music in its many forms (rock, jazz, soul, r&b), and once I played through the jazz examples it made sense to me. So I wonder if there is a way for you to explain this approach in a way that doesn't require a strong background in classical theory.

    It could be something as simple as changing the order of the presentation (i.e. start with the example of Alone Together and then explain how it is just like this thing in classical music that is called a ____ and then slowly drop in the classical terms as they apply). That way it would ease us non-classical folks in, because I think your core idea is a cool one.

  11. #10

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    Quote Originally Posted by supersoul
    Hi Christian,

    this seems quite interesting, although for me it was initially difficult to understand since I don't have much of a classical background. Much of the terminology is unfamiliar (i.e. partmenti, Gallant Style, Lament Bass, fonte, Hermaphrodite Fonte, etc). I don't even really know what figured bass is, either!
    TBH most classical musicians would struggle with that too... these terms are not widely understood outside partimento/classical improv circles and that's a few hundred people worldwide AFAIK.

    Fair enough, my background is mostly American music in its many forms (rock, jazz, soul, r&b), and once I played through the jazz examples it made sense to me. So I wonder if there is a way for you to explain this approach in a way that doesn't require a strong background in classical theory.
    As I say I wouldn't feel bad or poorly informed for not completely understanding this stuff. It's quite niche.

    It could be something as simple as changing the order of the presentation (i.e. start with the example of Alone Together and then explain how it is just like this thing in classical music that is called a ____ and then slowly drop in the classical terms as they apply). That way it would ease us non-classical folks in, because I think your core idea is a cool one.
    Thanks for the suggestion. And yes, this is not in any sense yet a useful educational end product. It has a Venn diagram of about five people worldwide probably. A couple on this forum though?

    I actually think this is going to be a large undertaking - possibly a PhD's worth lol. I am semi-writing a book not quite sure if anyone will actually want to read, so thanks for the expression of interest. The stuff I've posted here is pretty much just the notation I've done so far without much in the way of explanation, so it's really no wonder its confusing. That's going to be a lot of the hard work if I go further with this - I have to introduce this way of looking at music as well as showing its applicability to jazz and its practical value... which needs thinking about. Chord symbols, tab etc too. I also feel I need to road test it with students and so on if it is to have value beyond just theoretical nerding out. So a lot.

    BTW people sometimes assume I'm formally trained in classical theory - I'm not... I'm just a mahoooosive nerd haha.

  12. #11

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    TBH if I was going to turn this into a thing, I might be tempted to detach it a bit from classical music altogether and focus on jazz repertoire with maybe the odd reference to Bach. Maybe change the names of the schemata to something more immediately relatable... A 'Parker 6-2-5-1' instead of a Fonte, a 'chromatic descent bass' instead of a Lamento etc....

  13. #12

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    Supersoul - have a look at John Mortensen's book The Pianist's Guide to Historic Improvisation.

    The book provides a nice overview of almost everything discussed above.

    Even though it's geared towards pianists us mere guitarists get a lot out of it too.

    It's a non scholarly book and gets you on the road super quick

  14. #13

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    Quote Originally Posted by Christian Miller
    TBH if I was going to turn this into a thing, I might be tempted to detach it a bit from classical music altogether and focus on jazz repertoire with maybe the odd reference to Bach. Maybe change the names of the schemata to something more immediately relatable... A 'Parker 6-2-5-1' instead of a Fonte, a 'chromatic descent bass' instead of a Lamento etc....
    It definitely depends on who your audience is. I just wanted to give my perspective and how I experienced what you posted above.

  15. #14

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    Quote Originally Posted by Liarspoker
    Supersoul - have a look at John Mortensen's book The Pianist's Guide to Historic Improvisation.

    The book provides a nice overview of almost everything discussed above.

    Even though it's geared towards pianists us mere guitarists get a lot out of it too.

    It's a non scholarly book and gets you on the road super quick
    thanks for the suggestion!

  16. #15

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    Quote Originally Posted by supersoul
    It definitely depends on who your audience is. I just wanted to give my perspective and how I experienced what you posted above.
    Yeah tbh I’m not 100 that there’s even an audience haha