The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #1

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    Gjerdingen lays it down


    I'm not mad a theory... but maybe be I should be haha!!

    Seriously, I think Gjerdingen may overstate the case but the point about pseudoscience is well made.

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  3. #2

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    Have universities fallen that much further down the shitter in 25 years? They were mostly garbage when I attended.

    To me theory is memorizing your major scales and chord construction and things like 4 part harmony (oh yuck). I'm probably off base. I hate theories. Like groping around in the dark looking for toilet paper.

    When I took music appreciation, the class was filled with students who thought it was gonna be some easy credits. The teacher was green and was getting walked on. The teacher put that to rest real quick. You were actually going to have to listen to jazz and blues and offer commentary to pass the course. Needless to say I like listening and got an A. In theory, yeah I didn't make it past the four part harmony.

    On a more practical note that dude needs to quit talking about useless crap and finish out his attic.

  4. #3

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    I wonder what he thinks about the role of harmony education for composers and arrangers.

    Playing in a small jazz combo or performing improvised solo jazz arrangements requires a very different training approach than performing in an orchestra. A concept that's nothing more than a textbook knowledge for an orchestral musician can be the bread and butter for an arranger.

  5. #4

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    Jimmy Bruno is very mad at theory (warning, not suitable for work):



    I too was a bit surprised about him debunking overtones being the basis for chord tones.
    Last edited by CliffR; 02-08-2023 at 10:42 AM.

  6. #5

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    His argument is essentially that academic harmony is a gross generalization devoid of its ability to form any kind of practical framework in the real world.
    And he demonstrates this by making gross generalizations about harmony devoid of any kind of practical examples to the contrary.
    I love this guy. He's got a good theory.

    And that is his theory.

  7. #6

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    Knowledge advances slowly.

    If you studied geology in the 1930s you would have learned about miogeosynclines and eugeosynclines and how the presence of basins filling with sediment somehow led to the creation of mountain ranges. Then, in WWII, as a side result of hunting submarines, somebody noticed that there were stripes of strong and weak magnetism paralleling mountain ranges on the sea floor (see, e.g., "Vine and Matthews"). That led, eventually, to the theory of plate tectonics as a driving force in our planet's physical structure.

    My point is, like geology and geophysics, music theory is descriptive, not prescriptive. Music theory tells you what has been observed to work in the past, with the best explanation of mechanism that the observer can come up with. It's not necessarily correct and "true", but might be more true than what was thought previously. It certainly doesn't tell you what you're allowed to do and what you're not allowed to do - although you would be forgiven for thinking that when you take an exam. It just tells you what has been observed to work in the past.

    It seems to me that Dr. Mustache in the video was commenting more on the state of music pedagogy today than on music theory itself. A student has to start somewhere, and education can consist of starting with relatively simplified concepts and potentially progressing to more complicated (and possibly, closer to accurate) concepts as knowledge and understanding grow. The elucidation of what's true takes time, and the path forward is often uneven.

  8. #7

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    Well, without a thorough knowledge of how to write advanced Harmony, who's gonna write our film scores?

    (Oh, that's right, we have AI for that now...)

  9. #8

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    Talking about music is like tik-tocking about first person shooter video games. Or something.

  10. #9

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    Every stable chord is 1 3 5 or 1 3 6 and everything else is a dissonance or something that has to move towards a stable chord
    Is this a non-psuedoscience premise?

    I prefer this: Consonance/Dissonance is a continuum and perception is both an individual and cultural opinion which may evolve over time or not.

  11. #10

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    It doesn't seem like he is mad at theory. He is mad at one form of theory but in love with another.

  12. #11

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    I wish I knew more about university level music curriculum. I am a private lesson, group lesson, figure it out on your own type. Much more of the latter than the two former.

    I don't know if there are any apt comparisons with my education and career in the field of architecture, but most of what I hear described about music theory seems to be about the techtonics or science of musical constructs. We would call that topic something architectural science. Architectural theory would be more about the position of architecture within the culture that it was either derived or applied. In that way architectural history is very relevant to architectural theory and vice versa.

  13. #12

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    Theory is language not science - the rules of common practice counterpoint or bebop are like grammar. Most BS in theory can more or less be traced to treating it like a science. The model for 18th century practice was rhetoric, not the Fourier series

  14. #13

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    Tension/release mechanics are also defined by stylistic conventions:

  15. #14

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    NB: I think his statements are about the classical music world, not jazz. In fact I think he would be the first person to point to jazz as a good model to emulate within classical - and that the 18th century musicians had more in common with jazz musicians than they do with modern classical music PhD's. (Robert Levin and John Mortensen make the same argument.)

    But what I take from his writings (and I've read both his books, they are really excellent) is that we should be practical in our teaching of music and focus on the construction of music rather the analysis of music for its own sake. This is something I think can be interfered with by the very nature of institutionalised Liberal arts education. Conservatoires are confused in the aim between being trade schools and higher education institutions.

  16. #15

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    I BLAME HEGEL! Negate that negation! Oh wait.

    “In the German university, it’s hard (to teach) when on the other side of the hallway, Hegel is teaching. You want something that has theorems and you want to disprove things and you want to mark a paper. You want to check-off something and say, ‘no this is NOT the 3rd inversion of the III chord!’. This is something that people have been doing in classrooms for 150 years. So it creates its own reality, but it’s not very real with respect to actual music. “

    Compare and contrast with Indian classical music (Hindustani or Carnatic), a 20 year endeavor where nothing is really written down and where one starts out as a humble chaiwallah learning and starting out fetching mundane things first things in the morning for Pandit Sahib.

  17. #16

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    Quote Originally Posted by NSJ
    I BLAME HEGEL! Negate that negation! Oh wait.

    “In the German university, it’s hard (to teach) when on the other side of the hallway, Hegel is teaching. You want something that has theorems and you want to disprove things and you want to mark a paper. You want to check-off something and say, ‘no this is NOT the 3rd inversion of the III chord!’. This is something that people have been doing in classrooms for 150 years. So it creates its own reality, but it’s not very real with respect to actual music. “

    Compare and contrast with Indian classical music (Hindustani or Carnatic), a 20 year endeavor where nothing is really written down and where one starts out as a humble chaiwallah learning and starting out fetching mundane things first things in the morning for Pandit Sahib.
    One of my students offered to do the hoovering the other week.

  18. #17

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    Quote Originally Posted by Tal_175
    Tension/release mechanics are also defined by stylistic conventions:
    I don’t mean to funny but I wonder if that guy could actually write a song? Maybe; maybe not.

    That channel classic example of ‘theory as music appreciation’ which is something totally different to the construction of music (whither improvised or composed.’

  19. #18

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    Quote Originally Posted by dconeill
    Knowledge advances slowly.

    If you studied geology in the 1930s you would have learned about miogeosynclines and eugeosynclines and how the presence of basins filling with sediment somehow led to the creation of mountain ranges. Then, in WWII, as a side result of hunting submarines, somebody noticed that there were stripes of strong and weak magnetism paralleling mountain ranges on the sea floor (see, e.g., "Vine and Matthews"). That led, eventually, to the theory of plate tectonics as a driving force in our planet's physical structure.

    My point is, like geology and geophysics, music theory is descriptive, not prescriptive. Music theory tells you what has been observed to work in the past, with the best explanation of mechanism that the observer can come up with. It's not necessarily correct and "true", but might be more true than what was thought previously. It certainly doesn't tell you what you're allowed to do and what you're not allowed to do - although you would be forgiven for thinking that when you take an exam. It just tells you what has been observed to work in the past.

    It seems to me that Dr. Mustache in the video was commenting more on the state of music pedagogy today than on music theory itself. A student has to start somewhere, and education can consist of starting with relatively simplified concepts and potentially progressing to more complicated (and possibly, closer to accurate) concepts as knowledge and understanding grow. The elucidation of what's true takes time, and the path forward is often uneven.
    Yeah - he’s kind of selling something. But his books are worth checking out.

    The comparison with geology IMO is not a good one. The people who were best at writing 18th century music for instance were manisfestly Bach, Mozart, Handel, Haydn etc. it’s not like the state of the art has moved on in terms of writing stuff like that. That’s not the be all and end all, but I can’t see learning later theories on that music would supersede what those guys actually studied provided you are chiefly interested in writing or improvising in that specific idiom. Otoh those writing contemporary music might find that stuff utterly irrelevant.

    Theory (as applied to composition and improv, not academic analysis which is separate) actually changes to reflect musical style - that’s why chord scales etc were taught at 1970s Berklee to reflect the present situation of that era. Style marches on - but not ‘science’; because of course music theory is not a science and is not subject to the mechanisms of the scientific method. Gjerdingen is spot on with this (he’s not the only one to say it.)

    That said, most of the good historical style classical improvisers I’m in touch with use a mix of theoretical approaches. It isn’t all figured bass, they say V-I and so on.

    It’s not about concepts; it’s about doing. Jazz musicians are good at applying concepts because it’s what we are used to doing. In this sense we don’t really deal in music theory as Gjerdingen describes it.
    Last edited by Christian Miller; 02-08-2023 at 03:20 PM.

  20. #19

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    “Generillisimo, we have not found that Morton Feldman fella. Will this do???”
    Attached Images Attached Images Why you should be mad at theory-56d3f685-6d2f-4609-8e80-20fa47bbd652-jpeg 

  21. #20

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    You should absolutely not be mad at theory because the vast proportion of musicians are dependent on it to play competently lol. Further, it improves your music when you apply it well.

    However, university or bad education programs in general teaching theory that isn't applied well is counterproductive. I had that experience at my college. Education has improved significantly by this decade though, especially with youtube.

    If you apply theory incorrectly it isn't theory's fault. Come on now.

  22. #21

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    Quote Originally Posted by BWV
    Theory is language not science - the rules of common practice counterpoint or bebop are like grammar. Most BS in theory can more or less be traced to treating it like a science. The model for 18th century practice was rhetoric, not the Fourier series
    Gjerdingen puts the historical blame on JP Rameau. Rameau, already a feted composer, was IIRC interested in systematising how music ‘worked’ (‘progressions of fundamental bass’) and hailed as the Newton of music for his efforts.

    The thing is, he came up with something so fundamental to modern practical music education that most people would find it odd that anyone would have had to come up with it - that is, the idea of chord roots as distinct from the bass.

    As jazz players we use chord roots as a basic part of our practical education, and the Roman numeral system is of great practical use in practical popular music making. The Nashville system is an oviovus example.

    So,that’s a good case for the defence. What it does not seem to have done is affected the education of professional musicians of the C18 much. Its influence was perhaps later on.

    In the same way I remember reading a paper that pointed out that after the advent of functional harmonic theory (late c19) composers started writing II V I and IV V I even more than before, replacing some older less ‘functional’ progressions. (Although my knowledge of this kind of stops there.) I think something like this has happened with the ‘avoid notes’ and tritone subs leading to major 7ths on dominants in jazz.

    So, new theory influences style.

  23. #22

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    Quote Originally Posted by Jimmy Smith
    You should absolutely not be mad at theory because the vast proportion of musicians are dependent on it to play competently lol. Further, it improves your music when you apply it well.

    However, university or bad education programs in general teaching theory that isn't applied well is counterproductive. I had that experience at my college. Education has improved significantly by this decade though, especially with youtube.

    If you apply theory incorrectly it isn't theory's fault. Come on now.
    not all music theory is intended to be applied in that way tbf

    In general, the problem for the higher education system is that you can’t actually teach someone to play, improvise or compose in three or four years, and accreditation of courses is based on academic criteria appropriate for liberal arts institutions, not the requirements of the professional trade. You can’t award academic degrees without a sufficiently rigorous academic syllabus, obviously. (I remember talking about this with my supervisor at Trinity, quite interesting.)

    (As Jimmy blue note put it, Berklee used to be a *finishing* school for already excellent young musicians looking to enter the profession.)

    So…..

    As a comparison look at when Debussy entered the Paris conservatoire and how long he was there for.
    Last edited by Christian Miller; 02-08-2023 at 04:29 PM.

  24. #23

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    That video struck me as mostly hyperbole and BS. There are plenty of "academic" music programs that offer useful training in the practical application of harmony. There probably is too much academization of what is more properly seen as a craft tradition, but to say that that's all there is strikes me way off.
    Last edited by John A.; 02-08-2023 at 06:16 PM.

  25. #24

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    Quote Originally Posted by CliffR
    Jimmy Bruno is very mad at theory (warning, not suitable for work):



    I too was a bit surprised about him debunking overtones being the basis for chord tones.
    yeah the overtones thing is pseudoscience. I remember reading some good back and forths from some eminent 20th composers. It basically depended on whether you were in team tonality or not. If I remember right, Paul Hindemith put this forward as an explanation of tonality as being rooted in physics (and Schoenberg iirc, interestingly) but (I’ll look up the names) others debunked the idea effectively.

    Comparative musicology and related fields in the past few decades have apparently evolved a lot and shown that psychoacoustic perception of intervals, dissonance and consonance etc is highly dependent on culture. We wouldn’t expect this to be the case if musical perception was grounded in physics such as the overtone sequence.

    none of which is to say the acoustic overtone sequence isn’t used in music. For instance the overtone notes are used in many musical cultures and it is useful to bear in mind for spacing chords and so on.

    The overtone sequence indeed contains the just major third (5:4) and perfect fifth (3:2); but there also many intervals like the minor third (6:5) and perfect fourths (4:3) that don’t appear in the overtone sequence and yet are just as frequently used in Western music. (The memetastic ‘negative harmony’ concept is an attempt to explain this btw.)

    As a basis for tonality, it is at the least highly questionable.
    Last edited by Christian Miller; 02-08-2023 at 06:06 PM.

  26. #25

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    Quote Originally Posted by Christian Miller
    I don’t mean to funny but I wonder if that guy could actually write a song? Maybe; maybe not.

    That channel classic example of ‘theory as music appreciation’ which is something totally different to the construction of music (whither improvised or composed.’
    Yeah, I think it's mostly irrelevant whether one thinks the channel is for appreciation or for composition. The reason I posted it is turns out when people listen to rock, back door dominant is just as effective as the standard V-I resolution. This is something I find intuitive. The harmonic conventions are established by repetition rather than implicit psychoacoustic rules. Gradually listeners come to expect certain musical events. The composer can play around with these expectations.