The Altered Scale is kind of broken

[wolflen]

love this thread !

Christian your take on music history is much appreciated

Bobby Stern lessons refer to many concepts of jazz greats of the past..and incorporate them into his lessons which are very hip

and can be used in modern applications..I use them that way..the MM being one of my harmonic/melodic staples

I often use the 6 and sometime the 7th chord as a dom9 approach rather than a m7b5..as this opens up a gateway to other harmonic ideas

also use the built in augmented chord in the MM as this scale has three minor and three major chords as well as the six aug chords in its scale..not bad for just six notes

[Christian Miller]

I think most really fine players have transcribed quite a bit. Some even obsessively.

But, there are some great players who will admit, perhaps only privately, that they actually haven't transcribed very much.

Hmmm. Ok so transcribe is one of those daft words that means different things to different people. Some people think it has to mean writing down whole solos.

In practice I think most if not all pros have done ear learning of some kind. I can’t see how you could function as a jazz musician without it.

[rpjazzguitar]

I'm always impressed when people have personally studied jazz history, by listening and transcribing (loosely defined) a lot of material.

I am reminded that, not so long ago, this wasn't so easy.

Before Napster, you could hear music live, on the radio or on record. Starting in the 50's you could make tape recordings. Home disc-cutting existed, but was rare.

Albums weren't so cheap. I didn't know anybody who had very many.

The idea of having chronologically and artistically organized source material available for study didn't even occur to people.

In fact, even if you had the money, which most people didn't, where could you find the records?

I am reminded of a story told to me by an octagenarian former inmate. There were musicians in prison. Together, once a week, they would be able to listen to jazz radio. They would assign each one of the group a task, one listens to the bass line, another to the drums, a third to the piano, a fourth for the lyric/melody and so forth. They'd have the one chance to try to hear everything and piece it together afterwards.

That's more extreme than for most, but it used to be more like that than the way it is now, where you can instantly hear anything you can think of. And, nowadays there's a much wider range of recorded musical styles. Back then, most of the available music was by artists with a record contract, or live shows, and you weren't likely to hear much else. To the credit of some, some atypical music did get recorded.

[Christian Miller]

I'm always impressed when people have personally studied jazz history, by listening and transcribing (loosely defined) a lot of material.

I am reminded that, not so long ago, this wasn't so easy.

Before Napster, you could hear music live, on the radio or on record. Starting in the 50's you could make tape recordings. Home disc-cutting existed, but was rare.

Albums weren't so cheap. I didn't know anybody who had very many.

The idea of having chronologically and artistically organized source material available for study didn't even occur to people.

Yeah for example, I get the impression that Smokin on the Half Note was one of the few jazz guitar records a young Pat Metheny owned. He said he wore out the grooves on that one and it sounds like it basically was the one he learned to play from.

Id go further and say even if it were possible, people wouldn’t have been interested because I’m not sure that many of them are even today. Most musicians just want to play music. I certainly feel jazz practice was more rooted in the present day back then, Wynton’s influence may have changed things more recently, but even so….

I don’t think having a historical context for the development of jazz harmony is that useful for simply playing jazz - it just happens to interest me. info on that sort of thing is actually quite hard to track down so it doesn’t seem to me that most musicians are particularly interested in how people learned to play jazz in 1948 or whatever.

To learn to play. I think for that you just need to focus on the music you like.

Tech has facilitated my nerdy interests though!

Bruce Forman said that the lack of total accuracy possible when transcribing with old school audio tech helped people develop their own styles; evolution by mutation. Now many people really focus on perfection with software like Transcribe.

In fact, even if you had the money, which most people didn't, where could you find the records?

I am reminded of a story told to me by an octagenarian former inmate. There were musicians in prison. Together, once a week, they would be able to listen to jazz radio. They would assign each one of the group a task, one listens to the bass line, another to the drums, a third to the piano, a fourth for the lyric/melody and so forth. They'd have the one chance to try to hear everything and piece it together afterwards.

That's more extreme than for most, but it used to be more like that than the way it is now, where you can instantly hear anything you can think of. And, nowadays there's a much wider range of recorded musical styles. Back then, most of the available music was by artists with a record contract, or live shows, and you weren't likely to hear much else. To the credit of some, some atypical music did get recorded.

OTOH lots of people from the swing and bop era - even early era - were alive and active. You might have gigged with them. You get first hand aural history. That’s a huge thing the community loses when someone like Barry passes.

[Christian Miller]

That said, Steve Smith seems to be a drumming historian

I wonder if he’s free for a £200 swing dance gig hahahaha

(Notice the low boy sock cymbal - pre hi hat. No large cymbals either - they didn’t exist back then or were very very expensive. It changes the feel so much. It’s funny how fast it all evolved and now the modern jazz kit played by the Marcus Gilmores, Ari Hoenigs and Mark Guilianas is essentially unchanged since the 50s…. The configuration of every jazz club house kit… )

Being a ‘scholar of the instrument’ is a bit of a thing with many drummers I know

[Bop Head]

love this thread !

Christian your take on music history is much appreciated

Bobby Stern lessons refer to many concepts of jazz greats of the past..and incorporate them into his lessons which are very hip

and can be used in modern applications..I use them that way..the MM being one of my harmonic/melodic staples

I often use the 6 and sometime the 7th chord as a dom9 approach rather than a m7b5..as this opens up a gateway to other harmonic ideas

also use the built in augmented chord in the MM as this scale has three minor and three major chords as well as the six aug chords in its scale..not bad for just six notes

A little off-topic: I just looked up Bobby Stern and realized that I had come across him here in a conversation with Henry Robinett regarding the scene of studio musicians in Munich in the 80ies. Now I just found out that he is the brother of pop singer Jennifer Rush (real name Heidi Stern). Small world ...

[Litterick]

No large cymbals either - they didn’t exist back then or were very very expensive. It changes the feel so much. It’s funny how fast it all evolved and now the modern jazz kit played by the Marcus Gilmores, Ari Hoenigs and Mark Guilianas is essentially unchanged since the 50s…. The configuration of every jazz club house kit… )

Being a ‘scholar of the instrument’ is a bit of a thing with many drummers I know

Large cymbals were available: orchestras and marching bands used them. I doubt they were particularly expensive. But they were too loud for small combos. It was Dave Tough who introduced large cymbals to the jazz kit, and who made the ride cymbal the principal instrument. He also tuned his drums to definite pitches, another innovation. Tough joined Woody Herman's first band (The Band That Plays The Blues) on its formation in 1936, with what we would recognise as a modern kit, unlike that Leedy Windmill set of the same year.

[Christian Miller]

Large cymbals were available: orchestras and marching bands used them. I doubt they were particularly expensive. But they were too loud for small combos. It was Dave Tough who introduced large cymbals to the jazz kit, and who made the ride cymbal the principal instrument. He also tuned his drums to definite pitches, another innovation. Tough joined Woody Herman's first band (The Band That Plays The Blues) on its formation in 1936, with what we would recognise as a modern kit, unlike that Leedy Windmill set of the same year.

Thanks for that interesting info! I've not heard Dave Tough's name brought up in this discussion; the name usually given is Kenny Clarke of course, but Clarke was still playing in a prewar style in the early 40s. (He recorded with Sidney Bechet among others.)

I always understood that it was Zildjian who drove the move to larger sustaining purpose built 'ride' cymbals and worked with kit drummers on this and that the manufacturing technology developed in the later 1930s to facilitate this, but I don't really have a source for this (it's just what I've read in various places.)

I would suggest that the orchestral/marching band crash cymbal is a very different beast to the sustaining ride cymbal. The former wouldn't have had much use as a time keeping instrument I would expect.

OTOH the ride cymbal wouldn't have come about if drummers hadn't already been playing time - 'riding' - on cymbals, often china cymbals and later on the hi hat (which was the reason that the hi hat evolved from the sock cymbal). In fact Steve Smith does a bit of the old school stuff on the china cymbal in the second video, using the other hand to control the cymbal. Gene Krupa recalled that Zutty Singleton was already playing this way in the late 20s IIRC. Several people have suggested that the limitations of early recording tech often affected drummers more than anyone, so early recordings don't really reflect what they were doing at that time.

And as soon as the cymbals became widespread everyone started using them - even the old cats.

Re: the acoustic rhythm section, you are absolutely right, a large loud cymbal such as a modern ride is the number one thing that renders the acoustic rhythm guitar essentially surplus to requirements. It just washes everything out in that frequency range. Non-specialist jazz drummers default to keeping time on the ride, so you end up amplifying.

I expect to be likely that there's a number of factors that converged to make the ride cymbal the principal time keeping instrument in the later 40s, including changes in rhythm section style, the rise of the electric guitar, developments in manufacturing technology so on. See also the decline of social dancing in post war jazz which had many complex causes etc.

Probably a PhD in it, if someone hasn't done one already...

[Lionelsax]

The forum has only themselves to blame for this video. I take no responsibility whatsoever.

I do think it touches on a couple of topics that have popped up here from time to time

Well, for harmonization, the minor harmonic is there.
Melodic is melodic.
About the altered scale, the bass, if you play root and fifth, the fifth is perfect not augmented even if you don't play it (perfect fifth) with the altered scale on a melody.
Nobody will blame you, I liked your video and enjoyed what you played and said.
For me the concept of this altered scale is too squared.

[Christian Miller]

So what does Wayne shorter play on the first E7alt chord in ESP?

TIL he starts the solo with the B major scale.

In the parlance of Reddit - is he stupid?

[Lionelsax]

So what does Wayne shorter play on the first E7alt chord in ESP?

TIL he starts the solo with the B major scale.

In the parlance of Reddit - is he stupid?

No, an altered chord are tensions that are usually resolved on a major, minor, dominant chord that follows the cycle of fifths.
Nothing to do with the melody, you don't have to play something that stands with the altered scale.
In fact it's the less useful mode I know but everyone has to know how it works.
And finally figure out it's useless.
Same thing with diminished chords, they sound interesting when you don't play a diminished scale.
Is it so interesting repeating notes that already are in the chords ?

[Christian Miller]

No, an altered chord are tensions that are usually resolved on a major, minor, dominant chord that follows the cycle of fifths.
Nothing to do with the melody, you don't have to play something that stands with the altered scale.
In fact it's the less useful mode I know but everyone has to know how it works.
And finally figure out it's useless.
Same thing with diminished chords, they sound interesting when you don't play a diminished scale.
Is it so interesting repeating notes that already are in the chords ?

https://amp.knowyourmeme.com/editori...meme-explained

I take from this that I need to stop worrying what I play on altered dominant chords. The B major sounds as good as any ‘correct’ altered dominant type scale.

See also Trane on limehouse blues.

[Lionelsax]

https://amp.knowyourmeme.com/editori...meme-explained

I take from this that I need to stop worrying what I play on altered dominant chords. The B major sounds as good as any ‘correct’ altered dominant type scale.

See also Trane on limehouse blues.

You play and they play, you don't have to talk about what they and you play, others are made to talk about things they don't play. Let them talk.
They they they they... Them them them...
Pfff....

[Lionelsax]

You play and they play, you don't have to talk about what they and you play, others are made to talk about things they don't play. Let them talk.
They they they they... Them them them...
Pfff....

OK ! Let me go to bed ! I'm not there !

[rpjazzguitar]

Thinking about D mel min.

C#alt, is often played on guitar as x4345x. R 3 b7 #9. You may also have the b13, making it, say, x43455.

That's a G13 -- except for the spicy note, the C#. It makes a vanilla sounding G13 into the Jimi Hendrix chord, more or less.

So, it seems like the spice works fine, if I understand the idea, even for the alt chord.

Aside: James Bond has a chord (mel minor, too), so does Jimi. Does anybody else have a chord named after them?

[Lionelsax]

[BigDaddyLoveHandles]

Aside: James Bond has a chord (mel minor, too), so does Jimi. Does anybody else have a chord named after them?

The Steely Dan (or Mu) chord -- major triad add 2. Hmmm... is Steely Dan a them?

[Christian Miller]

OK ! Let me go to bed ! I'm not there !

Eh?

[Christian Miller]

The Steely Dan (or Mu) chord -- major triad add 2. Hmmm... is Steely Dan a them?

- The Tristan chord (don’t ask)
- The Petroushka chord (two major triads separated by a tritone)
both are named after characters rather than their composers - but then so is the James Bond chord so….

- The carole king dominant (V7sus)
- The Genesis chord (major on a root a fifth below eg G/C)
- The smashing pumpkins chord (10th a major third above a root)

[Christian Miller]

Speaking of bond and melodic minor

b6 on major is of course - the SPACE NOTE. Seriously.

[wolflen]

[QUOTE=BigDaddyLoveHandles;Hmmm... is Steely Dan a them?[/QUOTE]

to be true to its name..its an "it"..

Always like to see reactions when some find out what the band is named after

[Bop Head]

to be true to its name..its an "it"..

Always like to see reactions when some find out what the band is named after

Just looked it up LOL

[pamosmusic]

You play and they play, you don't have to talk about what they and you play, others are made to talk about things they don't play. Let them talk.
They they they they... Them them them...
Pfff....

I think my favorite recurring character of the Jazz Guitar Forum is the “You all talk too much, you should play more!” guy.

I mean ……… it’s a Jazz Guitar ….. Forum?

[Christian Miller]

I think my favorite recurring character of the Jazz Guitar Forum is the “You all talk too much, you should play more!” guy.

I mean ……… it’s a Jazz Guitar ….. Forum?

well it’s better than being told you should play less

[Peter C]

Well, let's look at it this way: over a post-jam session beer, the musings and anecdotes of musicians who actually played would tend to be considered a lot more relevant and worthy of consideration than those of someone who had not participated. Play (your *ss off) first, opine all you want later. Know what I'm saying?